The Super Summary of World History - Alan Dale Daniel [187]
The US Armed Forces ensured their fighting men received excellent weapons. The Americans quickly designed, tested, and put into production new aircraft that easily out performed aircraft developed before 1940. The M-1 semiautomatic rifle, designed just before the war, was rushed into production, and in months all the soldiers, airmen, and marines of the United States carried this excellent rifle. The M-1 displays the skill of the United States in focusing its efforts on where they would do the most good. The United States and the British developed new methods of anti-submarine warfare, crushing the Nazi’s undersea threat by May of 1943. In the Pacific War, the US Marines militarized a civilian amphibious tracked vehicle (LVT—landing vehicle tracked), for scaling coral reefs. First used at Tarawa, it saved the invasion. Large landings, such as D-Day, required large transports, but the Allies went further developing huge transports capable of unloading directly onto enemy beaches. This was the LST (landing ship tank). This one craft made large amphibious assault less complicated and more successful. It was one of hundreds of Allied innovations focusing on the best use of available resources.
Coupling new industrial innovations with new methods of war greatly facilitated crushing the Axis. As an example, the US Navy invented the “seatrain” concept. With seatrain the US Pacific Fleet resupplied at sea eliminating steaming back to port for supplies and refueling. This idea, and the construction of cargo ships and oilers to realize the concept, allowed the US Fleet to strike suddenly anywhere in the Pacific. Admiral Nimitz rapidly crossed Pacific, stunning the Japanese Navy and ruining its capacity to adapt. It was a major reason for Japan’s defeat by 1945. This again displays the Allied aptitude for focusing resources on ideas yielding remarkable results once implemented.
The Axis failed miserably in the realms of production and focusing the use of resources. In Germany the prime cause was Hitler. His poor decisions in military and industrial matters doomed his nation. One decision was right. He appointed Albert Speer as armaments minister in 1942. Speer displayed outstanding organizational genius. Under his oversight, the Third Reich increased armament production during the height of Allied bomber offensives against its industries. Over thirty months (1942 to 1944) he increased production fourfold. Speer receives little credit for his feat, possibly because his genius prolonged the war; yet, there is no denying he accomplished miracles of production.
For instance, Speer joined, for the first time in the Reich, minds in German universities with the need for faster construction of better submarines. Germany soon developed a superior submarine drive system that pushed the submarine’s underwater speeds beyond their surface speeds.[232] Speer adopted new prefabrication construction methods, significantly decreasing submarine construction time. It all came too late for the Reich. Allied bombing destroyed the new submarines in dry dock. If such submarines had been put to sea one year earlier, the Battle of the Atlantic could have gotten extremely dangerous for the Allies.
Germany brought its war experience to the industrial front on a few occasions. Panther tank development, although flawed, came from hard experience fighting the Soviet T-34 (the best tank of the war). An entirely new weaponry concept, the assault rifle, flowed from exceptional German field research. Their original German assault weapon, Sturmgewehr 44, became the prototype for the famous Russian AK-47.[233] The Sturmgewehr was arguably the best rifle of the war. Once more, the German idea failed to influence the