“You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”
― Donald Rumsfeld
Yes, but Germany and Japan entered WW-II with the army (and navy) they had, but the war lasted enough that the U.S., the Soviet Union and even Great Britain smothered them in industrial production.
Even with respect to fighter aircraft, there is a Churchill quote I can’t reproduce about not having enough, soon having enough, and later on having more than you need. So even industrial arms production in UK, with the U-boat campaign trying to strangle them, ramped up whereas WW-II arms production in the US increased to staggering levels compared to the Axis countries.
As to historian Victor Davis Hanson’s claim that allied victory was inevitable given the disparity in industrial capacity to have the army you want at a later time, I still think that WW-II was a “close thing”, especially in the early phases where if luck broke differently, the “army (Germany and Japan) had” could have been decisive.
Certainly, the lesson of Vietnam is that overwhelming industrial might is not decisive.
“You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”
― Donald Rumsfeld
Yes, but Germany and Japan entered WW-II with the army (and navy) they had, but the war lasted enough that the U.S., the Soviet Union and even Great Britain smothered them in industrial production.
Even with respect to fighter aircraft, there is a Churchill quote I can’t reproduce about not having enough, soon having enough, and later on having more than you need. So even industrial arms production in UK, with the U-boat campaign trying to strangle them, ramped up whereas WW-II arms production in the US increased to staggering levels compared to the Axis countries.
As to historian Victor Davis Hanson’s claim that allied victory was inevitable given the disparity in industrial capacity to have the army you want at a later time, I still think that WW-II was a “close thing”, especially in the early phases where if luck broke differently, the “army (Germany and Japan) had” could have been decisive.
Certainly, the lesson of Vietnam is that overwhelming industrial might is not decisive.