Germany (along with its allies) had the military capacity to win the second world war

I am always willing to debate a fellow history lover! For my argument I am going to divide it up into three fundamental divisions. These being:D1: Technological FlawsD2: Production FlawsD3: Failures of AlliesKeep note, I will be heavily utilizing John Mosier's Cross of Iron, so it will be my sole source for this round. Anyways, Lets begin! D1: Technological FailuresD1.1. The LuftwaffeIt is often considered that Germany had one of the finest air forces in the world during World War II. This, as I will show, is a lie. German airplanes solely succeed so well because there were so many of them, and that they could take enormous losses and still technically succeed in their mission. There are numerous examples of this. One example is the invasion of the Netherlands. The Germans intended to utilize huge amounts of paratroopers so as to defeat the small Dutch army. While this did succeed eventually, it was not without great cost. Of the 430 Ju-52 Transport Planes deployed over the Netherlands, more than half (280) were destroyed. What makes this fact even more depressing is that the Dutch air force had just 123 aircrafts at the time of the invasion. One more example would be the Battle of Britain. Often times people consider the Battle of Britain as a terrifying example of German might, especially in the air. This is once again the product of propaganda from both the Nazi's and by Churchill. At the time of the original invasion, the Luftwaffe had over 2,800 aircrafts stationed in the Western Theatre. However, by the time the Battle of Britain had been called off, over 1,700 planes had been destroyed. How come? For a number of reasons, but mainly because of the British technological superiority. The RAF (Royal Air Force) had far superior fighters and also had established anti-aircraft defenses while the Germans had failed to do so. In order to counter the British fighters, the Germans would need one as well, however their only long-range fighter, the Me-110, was an absolute failure. Also, in order to escape the anti-aircraft defenses, the Germans decided to bomb at night. All this did was decrease the accuracy of the German bombers and essentially fail to bomb any of their targets. D1.2. PanzerAgain, myth tells us that the German tanks were the most superior tanks in the world and that they absolutely decimated any other tank. This, again, is a lie. The first German tanks, the Mark 1 and Mark 2, were essentially identical tanks. Both tanks had pathetic defensive armor at about 15 millimeters. Both also had puny guns, just 2.0 centimeters, which were inferior to any other type of gun in all of Europe. Also, these tanks were ridiculously heavy despite their other tiny features, which again adds into its inferiority. To make a lighter tank, the Germans produced the Mark 3, which despite its intentions, weighed about the same as the Marks 1 and 2. The Mark 4 finally was a tank that was at all usable in combat. It had much thicker armor and had the largest gun yet, at 7.5 centimeters. However the problem is that the German tanks still were not the best tanks in the world, by far. The Soviet tanks were far superior to the German tanks even back in 1929 when the first T-26 tank was produced. The T-26 had somewhat thicker armor than the Mark 4 and had a massive 45-millimeter gun with incredible range. To make things worse, by the time of Barbarossa the Soviets had improved further upon their tanks when they made the T-34 tanks. These Soviet tanks absolutely decimated the Germans designs in all combat. D2. Production Flaws The primary reason for why the Germans lost was not because of their inferior technology, because we see that the Germans had great success even with the inferior Mark 4 tanks and their outdated air force, but because of their inability to make mass production of military products like the US and the Soviet Union could. For example, in 1940 just 1,460 tanks had been produced, and 3/4 of them had been either the Marks 1,2, or 3. Fortunately for the Wermacht, this number nearly tripled in 1942 to 4,198 tanks yet when we compare the production in Germany to the US or USSR it is a puny figure. In 1943-1944 the US had produced a staggering amount of 40,000 Sherman Tanks, and had shipped, along with Britain, 12,755 tanks to the Soviet Union. In the USSR they had produced nearly 60,000 far superior T-34 tanks in the span of the Barbarossa invasion. One reason for this failure to produce weapons was that the very philosophy of National Socialism contradicted it. Hitler disdained the American capitalism and the Soviet industries and thought that they were unnecessary. In a speech by seasoned Nazi member Otto Ohlendorf he claimed that:"We must view and test every economic structure in terms of whether in allows the full development of the basis characteristics of the German. .. The goods we produce after the war are not so essential; what is essential is that we preserve and develop the substance of our biological values. .. " In essence, Ohlendorf is displaying the Nazi disgust towards capitalism, and by extension, the unwillingness of the Wermacht to evolve to fix their clearly flawed military industry. D3. Failure of AlliesD3.1. ItalyThe primary failure of Italy is quite similar to the German problem: their inability to produce military products. While in the case of Italy, they simply did not have enough supplies to give to their armies, while their production of tanks and planes was fine. This is why the Italians lost the War of North Africa despite their clear numerical advantage. At the start of the war, Italians had 14 divisions (170,000 men) in North Africa, and 280,000 men in Ethiopia (due to the invasion of Ethiopia in 1936). The African campaign originally looked like it was going well, however almost comically the invasion failed because of one reason: Greece. While this may sound absurd, allow me to explain. Hitler had been pressuring Italy and his allies in Eastern Europe (Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Croatia) to invade the Allied Greece. Italy, due to their military superiority, led the invasion. It should have been a fairly easy invasion as the Greeks were literally still equipped with rifles from the beginning of the 20th century. In fact, the invasion was fairly easy, however it came with great cost. The Italians simply did not have the supplies to continue a war on two different fronts, especially two fronts on different continents. The Greek invasion required a huge amount of supplies, supplies that were being pulled out of Africa. As is the case with desert warfare, one cannot succeed without supplies. As the Italians were suddenly devoid of supplies they were ultimately defeated by well supplied British troops. D3.2. JapanJapan is probably the most competent of the Axis powers. They were able to continue a war against the Soviet Union and on practically all of China without much strain. However, the Japanese proved to be a thorn in the Germans side after they foolishly bombed Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor caused the Americans to enter the war, almost overnight. Loyal to his ally, Hitler declared war on the US as well. Hitler assumed that the US could not be much of a threat, as they were an ocean away, but again he was wrong. The US is one of the major reasons why the USSR could fend off the Germans (not because of strategic errors of the German Army). As I showed in D2, the Americans were the best producers of military technology in the world and was incredibly efficient at shipping that technology to their allies, especially the Soviet Union. Had Japan not bombed Pearl Harbor, it is likely that the US never would have entered the war and it is likely that Germany would have defeated the Soviet Union. ConclusionGermany lost WWII for many reasons, however failure to make adequate strategy was not one of them. The inability to produce sufficient tanks and planes greatly hurt the German war campaign, as well as their inability to produce them. Hitler's loyal support of his allies in Italy and Japan also provided great problems as it got his into multiple unnecessary conflicts. Overall, the German war machine was not anywhere near to as superior as we are led to believe, and they would have been unable to win the war either way. Sources[1] . http://books.google.com...