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Originally Posted by Abraham
I try to make the point that the Allies were building bombers till the very last months of the war, but were hampered by a lack of maritime patrols in 1942 and 1943 and were short of transport/cargo planes during 1944 and 1945.
Just because there was a strong believe in air force circles that bombers could do the job single handed!
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Every country in WW2 had its own failures. But in general, it's inability to use Armour properly (US was perfect example - they built a fast and reliable tank that could not do squat against germans, until the brits put a decent gun into it! - all because they believed tanks were there to make breaches in enemy lines, and not fight other tanks - as result they were often anihilated by superior german 75s and 88s). UK believe in the bomber and never thought bomber needed protection. ONe key area where germans were smarter and successful was when they realized that armor without air support was useless. Amerians and British realized that like in... 44.
Example of perfect waste is the Omaha. British designed a whole bunch of special equipment vehicles that when landing, cleared the shores from mines, and carred personnel, plus carried a gun to quite the germans flaks. Americans and eisenhower thought they knew better and ended up with 'saving private ryan opening scene'. So yes, many blunders there.
IT all came down to countries using a new radical idea of use of tank and bomber and everyone believe in it so badly, that they were taught the hard way. The theories were by Fuller and Doughet (If I got the names right). First would say that tanks would devliver huge punches to the enemy lines overrunning them and striking the soft rear, command posts, etc. It didn't mention that this varies due to terrrain (especially in Normandy, Britaany, etc) and that tanks were not perpetual machines. They needed fuel. WRONG. The second one implied that bomber would always get through. Always. It was so powerful, it would destroy everything. AS we saw it was inaccurate and extremely susseptive to AA fire (when escorts were employed like P51s, it got better). And ALL countries in WW2 adhered to these strattegies, and anyone diverting to traditional stuff was basically scorned (Monty for instance).
Another thing why operations failed was that defeating enemy in mechanised warfare didn't mean complete destruction. The routers always retreated FASTER than attackers. WHy? BEcause they could leave behind slow equipment. Something attackers could not do. France 44 and North Africa are perfect examples, but perhaps best is Russia. Huge army, Hitler advanced so far, but never fully defeated. they just ran away faster. That's a classic piece of WW2 but often ignored. Yet is very significant.