WW2 military ratings.

I disagree, I believe Germany did have the strongest army and air force up until about 41. The US had to play catch up but with our industrial might we did so very quickly. The Soviet Union also had a pretty mighty army but in response to Germany.

 

Well, you'd be wrong. The German army in 1939 and 1940 was not that powerful. The main tanks the Germans were using was the Pz I and Pz II which were far outclassed by almost everything. When the Germans invaded France they didn't expect to actually win. It was a gamble.

 

Sorry I had the two confused. You are correct.

 

In 1939 the German Army had 98 divisions available for the invasion of Poland. There is no doubt that Germany had the largest army outside Russia.

 

My Dad said the same thing (RIP). He was in the 75th infantry division as a replacement in the Ardennes offensive aka "Battle of the Bulge." The Germans were overall a superior
fighting force in terms of equipment and training, but the allies overwhelmed them with sheer industrial might and superior logistics. The deuce and a half won the war in his humble opinion.

 

Most of which were at half strength.

 

I don't see how the Germans had better equipment except for maybe their tanks and their GPMG's (and the Panzerfaust, I cannot figure out why the Allies didn't copy it). The M1 was a superior rifle to the K98. We had better SMG's, better HMG's, better half-tracks, better trucks, arguably better artillery, better medical support, better rations, pretty much better everything.

 

Regardless of the "Armchair Generals" so prevalent on this forum...

Without question the German army and air force were the strongest in the World , until 1940 or 1941.

Charles Lindbergh visited pre-war Germany in the 30's and forewarned the events, saying he's never seen a stronger air force...

Germany was preparing for war, for a long time prior to America's involvement.

A discussion on Naval strength is out of my knowledge base, and I'll forgo the comparison of Japan's sea power vs. U.S. sea power to those who may know better, but I will
not back down in my assertion that in the early stages of WW2, Germany was the superior fighting force on the planet...The Russians lost an entire division, 10,000 men in one battle alone....eventually they simply overwhelmed the Germans, not unlike the allies on the Western theater of war in Europe.

 

The German air force was hyper-specialized. They were really, really, really freaking good at intercepting bombers and conducting close air support/tactical bombing.

Beyond that, they were mediocre at best. They had no real strategic bombing or airlift capability to speak of, their air superiority capability was hampered by the fact that their fighters had short legs, and their air assult ability was dependent on not losing any of their very small numbers of transport craft.

 

Or untill the end of the war when the U.S. Navy had more ships over 1,000 tons than the rest of the world's navies combined; actually twice as many as the world's navies combined.

People don't realize that the U.S. actually curbed it's industrial war machine long before the end of the war. More than half of the divisions deployed to France/Germany arrived after 1945. The U.S. was still NOT fully mobilized by the end of the war. This is why the United States was so decisive in World War II. There's no question the Russians did the lionshare of the fighting in the war, but a fully mobilized U.S. was simply too much for the axis. In every single year of the war (1939-1945) the United States produced more than all the economies of the Axis powers combined.

 

Who would be superior to Germany in 1939 at the start of the war?

Overall...not just comparing one type of gear to another...I would still contend they were an elite and motivated fighting force at the onset. Stalin called upon MILLIONS
of reservists to finally defeat them on the Eastern front. As the war progressed, obviously their shortcomings were more apparent...but at the onset, I'd still contend
Germany had the best overall military at that time.

 

The British Air Force was superior to the Germans in strategic bombers, the French in Air Superiority fighters. They were likewise specialized.

The Germans are considered superior at the start of the war because the type of war that they fought played to their hyper-specialization.

 

All one has to do is look at the battle at Mamayev Kurgan within the larger Battle of Stalingard...Mamayev Kurgan is regarded as the most intense, bloodiest conflict per square foot of Earth...ever fought in human history. The Russians won, but at a great cost in human lives. This is how Germany was finally defeated...by massive blood loss.

Caling them "mediocre?"...I think that's a stretch...and believe me, I'm no "fan boy" of the 3rd Reich, I despise their ideology and good riddance to them..but respect is due in terms of
military power and organization within the sphere of a historical analysis of events.

 

In areas where they weren't hyper-specialized, they were mediocre. There were allied bomber raids in 1944 that delivered more tons from strategic bombers than Germany did during entire months of the BoB.

The German success had a lot to due with superior tactics and tactical doctrine. Their logistics were a joke and their organizational doctrine was bad as well.

 

The MP40 was superior to the M1 Thompson.

 

And the MG42 was better than any other machine gun of comparable size.

Note- while it is interesting and amusing to compare equipment side by side, most of the time these differences didn't affect the outcome much.

 

So it got me to thinking- we can argue whether Germany had the best tanks etc but how many of these technically superior weaponries determined a significant part of the war- excluding the A-Bomb?

For instance- we all know about the ME-262- but it didn't have any significant impact on the war- likewise the Tiger 2. Most of the technilogical advantages were by degrees- we can argue whether this carrier was that better than that carrier but were the differences significant enough to change the outcome of a campaign- I can't think of when it really did.

So what were the real game changers- the technological advantages that really made a difference- here are some of my thoughts:
Radar- changed both the air war and the naval war.
Code Breaking machines- changed the outcome of several battles.

But for weaponry- the only thing that jumps out to me is the Long Lance- where that combination of power and range determined the outcome of several battles early in the war.

Feel free to throw out stuff that I completely overlooked - just made me curious.

 

The proximty fuse, akin to radar...but a game changer.

Rocket propelled grenades, tank terrors. A man portable weapon that allowed a single infantryman to be a tank killer..

The Norden bombsight...brought a degree of precision to the "dumb" gravity bomb, long before the notion of the smart GPS or laser guided bombs we see today.

 

the US soldier cant really be considered as they had much less combat experience than everyone else when they entered the war late, they were generally considered a bit wet behind the ears and trigger happy as they hadnt been hardened by combat yet. alright alright Im trolling but its fun and partly true.

 

I think Herkdriver has a point. What you call their hyper-specialization was simply them building a force to match how they intended to fight. You structure your equipment and order of battle based on your overall strategy. The German concentration of aircraft suitable for close air support was an evolutionary step in the use of combat aircraft that provided them a way to support ground operations in a way that I don't think had been used before.

 

I think if you were picking just one, the cryptographers won the war in my opinion. They were force multipliers for the US against the Japanese and for the British against the Germans. I can't help but think that without the knowledge gained from the code breakers the war could have gone on quite a bit longer.

 

in britain we generally say the codebreakers at bletchley park and also radar were the two things that won the war, without radar we would have lost the battle of britain, germany would have invaded, nowhere to stage an invasion of europe from, who knows what would have happened

 

My father-in-law has been to Bletchley Park several times. Apparently they have a little museum there. He picked up a book on the Bletchley Park codebreakers which I borrowed. Fascinating stuff!

 

the Norden is so overplayed. It was inaccurate as hell. Most US bombing was done as carpet bombing. For propaganda reasons they claimed that the Norden could hit a pickle barrel at 15k feet. In reality it was lucky to hit the factory.

 

So not true though. Germany lacked the capability to invade the UK for starters.