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Politics : To be a Liberal,you have to believe that..... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hoa Hao who wrote (4647)	10/27/1999 6:31:00 PM
From: Henry Volquardsen	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 6418

HH, agreed, the question of whether it retarded growth is indeed important. My take on that is that if it did it was not meaningful. At the end of the war the Germans were not suffering a significant shortage of aircraft or tanks. What they were suffering was a significant shortage of trained personnel. So even if they had been able to produce more aircraft they didn't have trained pilots to fly them. You make a good point about the number of 88s to defend against the bombing offensive. But the same can be said about the expenditure of resources by the British and Americans. We spend a tremendous amount of resources on the air campaign. If those same resources had been used for armoured divisions and fighter bombers could the ground war have progressed more quickly. After the breakout from Normandy Patton had to stop at one point so fuel could be diverted to Montgomery. If he had the material to continue and the Germans hadn't had the time to regroup, the European land war might have ended in the fall of '44. I'm not as directly familiar with the situation vs Japan. But it is my impression that at the end of the war, despite the bombing, they still had plenty of aircraft for kamikaze missions. What they didn't have, much like Germany, was trained pilots. But Japan was still producing sufficient weaponry to continue the war. FWIW this has been a very interesting discussion on all parts. My original post was the result of an opinion that has been percolating in the back of my mind for a while. I appreciate all the thoughtful responses. Henry