Re: [GZG] [OT] Books (Weber/White/Meier)

On 7/21/08, Richard Bell <rlbell.nsuid@gmail.com> wrote:

> In many ways the issue was never in doubt for WWII.  Once the USA was
> involved, it was merely a matter of expending the resources.

That is some serious 20/20 hindsight.

And also buys into the myth of 'overwhelming economic resources' being
the decisive factor.

I never saw anyone killed with a chunk of GNP.	Theories that take the
fighting out of an analysis of warfare are worthless on the face of
it.

Germany was outfought.	The German armies in the West outnumbered
their opponents for most of the period from June 1944, and some units
(3rd Army, for instance) inflicted more casualties on the Germans than
they had troops on their strength at any time.	In the East, the
Russians never had more than a 2:1 overall numerical superiority taken
across the entire Eastern Front.  They used their resources far better
than the Germans, and out-generalled them in every way.  And they
would have been knocked out of the war long before that mattered if
not for hard fighting in front of Moscow in 1941.  The myth of Russian
hordes (and for that matter, the myth of American hordes) comes from
German autobiographies by generals who wanted to pin defeat on every
factor except better generalship.

Combat is the ultimate argument of nations, economics only sets the
parameters of the combat.  Good fighting overcomes economics
frequently.  Having all the resources in the world is useless without
fighting men capable of turning that into effective combat results.
Look at the American Civil War--until the Federal army could develop
into a capable force under fighting generals who could use it
effectively, all the numbers of bodies and cannons and supplies
couldn't beat Bobbie Lee.

John
-- 
"Thousands of Sarmatians, Thousands of Franks, we've slain them again
and again.  We're looking for thousands of Persians."
--Vita Aureliani

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