Saint Teresa of Avila, homeboy, I got conclusive evidence of the fact that in1939 Germany was not prepared for the war.
US not ready for War?
- Thread starter Serryah
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The German military was adequately prepared. They did one have major handicap. I'll give you a hint, his initials were A.H. The military is a tool and like any tool it's only as effective as the idiot who wields it. What they weren't prepared for was Hitler going off the rails and invading the Soviet Union and then just months later declaring war on the US. But the military itself in 1939 was highly professional, highly trained, well equipped and well prepared. In fact, up until Hitler decided to invade the Soviet Union both Germany and its military were still in pretty good shape.
But Hitler made so many stupid mistakes I've probably forgotten more of them than I remember. Germany and its military were absolutely prepared for war in 1939. What they weren't prepared for was Hitler's ever-growing insanity. Take his megalomania and add some brain-rotting syphilis and the funky drug concoction his sketchy doctor had him on and no one could be prepared for that. And considering he became a vegan or vegetarian at some point, I rather imagine he also suffered from a Vitamin B12 complex deficiency. Any one of those could cause a person to make sketchy/stupid decisions but add 'em together and holy flurkin shnit there's going to be some pretty fecked up decision making.
Oh, I see now! You're saying that the state of one's military is somehow separable from all the other factors that go into warmaking.
Reminds me of an old cartoon of an economist standing amid a pile of rubble and fallen columns (representing the collapse of civilization) yelling "But the THEORY is STILL SOUND!"
Reminds me of an old cartoon of an economist standing amid a pile of rubble and fallen columns (representing the collapse of civilization) yelling "But the THEORY is STILL SOUND!"
Or I could just pretend that in warfare the quantitative and qualitative states of uniformed forces is separable from infrastructure, command and control, logistics, personnel, and training.
Yeah, sorry for the last response. As far as a European war went, Germany was well prepared. They were the best trained, they were highly motivated, partly because units were formed by street, neighbourhood and city so there were people in each unit that knew each other prior to being in the military. This is a force multiplier known as esprit de corps. They developed revolutionary combat tactics. They had the best air force at the time. Their generals were some of the best in the game and up until shortly after Barbarosa began were allowed to determine their own tactics. Germany had a sizable industrial base, especially in the Ruhr Valley.
By the time Germany invaded France in June 1940 the French army was bigger plus the BEF was there, the French air force was bigger although technically inferior and they had more and better tanks than the Germans. Yet we all know how that went for France.
What Germany wasn't prepared for was taking the war beyond Europe. Yeah, I know Western Russia is in Europe but I'd guess most people don't really see it as a European country. Russia sure doesn't. While blitzkrieg works great in European countries, the concept falls apart when there's miles and miles of nothing on the Ukrainian and Russian steppes. And it really falls apart in the rainy season there. This is when Hitler started to micro-manage even the placement of individual soldiers on the battlefield. And it was just blunder after blunder by Hitler in Russia, and to a lesser extent, Goering, who just made some of Hitler's blunders even worse. Even his generals warned him that going into Russia would result in very long, questionably tenable supply lines, among other problems they had with it. They knew it was a stupid idea but they couldn't tell Hitler that to his face.
Speaking of stupid, what Germany also wasn't prepared for was world domination. Still embroiled in Russia (and already at war with the British Commonwealth) Hitler declared war on the US in December 1941.
So I guess "was Germany prepared for war?" is really two questions. Yes, they were well prepared for war with the rest of Europe. No, they were not prepared to take on the British Empire, Russia and the US at the same time. Nobody would be.