How did the axis even come close to winning WW2?

Question

How did the axis even come close to winning WW2.

how did it take 6 years for a bout 50 countries to defeat about 5.

the USA and USSR were way bigger than Germany and Japan so why did it take so long???.

plus GB had heaps of allies and colonies

Answer 1

Germany and japan were fully committed to war. and while I believe England was also the USSR was broke as well as the us. but I think the main problem is the the U.S. waited much too long before joining in. and GBs many colonies had her stretched pretty thin.

Answer 2

Whilst looking at an occupation map would seem to show that the Axis powers came close to winning WWII, in reality this was mostly a sham. The main reason for this disproportionate land for power trend was the tactics employed by the Allied leaders(or the non USSR leaders anyways). The way they went about defeating Germany, once the USA became involved anyway, was to wear down their supplies, such as oil. The whole of Operation Torch(The African Theatre) was to draw German power away from their comfort zone, and to negate the blitzgrieg tactics used in Europe. (The desert is bad for rushing the enemy; nowhere to hide unless you stop moving) This also helped counter the German tank technological superiority. The downside to this was that it became a little like WWI's attrition; whoever had the most fuel for their tanks won. This meant that the Allied troops had to wait Rommel out, which they successfully did.

Meanwhile, Russia is getting its *** handed to it, right up until Stalingrad. One of the main reasons cited for the start of the Cold War is the delay in Britain and the US opening a second European front, Stalin wanted D-Day to happen in 1942, and he accused his allies of letting Russians take the brunt of Germany's attack.

Once the US and British troops made it into Normandy, however, things got a little quicker. The main reason for the slowing of the Allies liberation was logistics. Nowadays, troops can be given exact marching orders by satellite, and generals can micro-manage down to the individual soldiers if necessary(and technology is working). If you look into the paratrooper's landings, you see that they were a shambles. They still got the job done, but it was slower. Troops had to wait for days before they worked out where they were going, and the failure of Operation Market Garden(that's right, regardless of most people thinking it was the end of the war, Market Garden failed to secure a bridge across the Rhine) slowed them even more.

Answer 3

The Axis had the advantage of many years knowing the war was going to start. Therefore they had years to prep, train and plan.
The US was a big powerful country who in the scheme of things were new to war. Plus the US was fighting a two front war from the beginning. USSR was big and had a lot of people but their economy sucked. There military was even worse at the beginning of the war. Took them years to get their "stuff" together. Germany was within a few miles of completely crushing the USSR.

The aggressor almost always has the advantage. They always know where and when the war is going to start.

Answer 4

The axis navy powers would sink GB bound ships and the japanese invaded many asian colonies so few resources coming from there.

France lost extremely fast thanks to excellent strategy.

Russia killed many experienced officers during the purges leaving only the most loyal or very young commanders. The USSR wasn't exactly an effective war machine until later.

Many of those 50 countries don't not have a huge let alone modern fighting force......

Japanese and Germany engineered machines rocked.....German Tank > "made in america" tank....however that was not always the case.

Answer 5

Its difficult and I’m not an expert but from what my grandfather and a few old GI's I’ve met...they all say if the 101st lost Bastogne then we would of very likely lost the war or it would of been delayed. But with the Atom bomb being developed personally I can’t see us as having lost that war.

Why did it take so long...well Russia like china like they still are today although large is unequipped and un trained.

Plus GB had been fighting like lions alone against Germany for a long time and with the U boat cutting off lines to their colonies the Germans cut that strength off from them. Remember this is before the days of the huge aircraft holding major loads of cargo everything had to be brought by boat and if you can’t do that then you can’t win a war.

In my opinion its all about training that’s why the Americans have such a strong military…I mean yes its equipment but if you don’t know how to shoot a rifle then its like the old sniper saying goes
“if you don’t hit the mother F*(&, he aint dead”.

Answer 6

Germany had a major head start on the war with huge machinery that ran over the enemy and a very large army that was intensely trained for the task of taking over all of Europe. They built bunkers and lots of reinforced places to station artillery. They had a very large airforce to maintain cover for the ground troops.
By the time the US entered the war, the Germans were "dug in". The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor divided our resources into fighting wars on two fronts so we couldn't just concentrate on one at a time. Which is exactly what the Japanese had hoped for. They had estimated we would call for a truce after finding we couldn't fight in both Europe and the Pacific. They didn't count on several of the ships surviving the attacks at Pearl and coming back to wipe their planes out of the sky. They had counted on their planes and aircraft carriers to prevent the US from exerting any influence in the Pacific fighting. They were wrong. They understimated how quickly this vast country could rebuild the ships and planes. We won that war simply because we could build machinery faster than them, and faster than they could destroy it. If Hitler hadn't wasted more than 800,000 troops attacking Russia they would have been waiting for our troops during the attack on Normandy and might have driven the Allies back into the ocean. For sure those extra troops would have made the war drag on for another two or three years longer than it did. Which might have been enough to force the Allies into a truce that would not have been a total surrender by the Axis forces. Thank goodness Hitler was a madman or he might have succeeded in dominating all of Europe in time. God doesn't help madmen stay in power. They rise to power on their own but can't hold it for long.

Answer 7

Germany, during the 30's, built a formidable War Machine. Even before the start of WWII, Hitler had occupied Austria and Czechoslovakia. When WWII started, the German Army was so strong that it had no problem capturing Denmark, Belgium, Holland and France driving the
British Forces into the Sea at Dunkirk. Then it took awhile
for the Allies to get their Act together.

Answer 8

The use of massed armoured divisions with air support nearly brought Russia to its knees in '41. That tactic humbled their old opponent in 4 weeks in France a year earlier. If it were'nt for their loss at Stalingrad, where they gave up on the blitzkrieg tactic, they most likely would've won the war. The Wehrmact never recovered from the loss of the 6th Army. Better tanks, the German 88, the German General Staff, the classic SS Divisions, the elite Wehrmact divisions (notably Grossdeutchland and Panzer Lehr) all contributed to a longer war, but in the end, the lack of oil, allied air superiority, US industrial might, British stubborness and sheer weight of the Red Army was the telling factor of WWII....

Answer 9

The Germans were the first to develope jet aircraft . The german submarines all most controlled the Atlantic ocean . Hitler was stupid to attack russia and declare war on U S A .Japan was stupid to attack Pearl . Before WW2 65%of Americans did not want to be involved in helping our allies . After the attack on Pearl Harbor .The japanese admiral said I am afraid what we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant . The japanese had the advantage at Pearl Harbor but did not resupply and come back and finish the job .

Answer 10

Democrats such as FDR and Neville Chamberlain were in power then. They believed Hitler could be reasoned with and that they could talk him out of this over brandy and cigars. Therefore, they did not bother to build up their military and respond to obvious threats and agrression from Hitler. Germany took advantage of this and used the Allies offers of diplomacy as time to build its armed forces for war while the Allies thought Hitler would back down. Kind of like Clinton and Al Qaeda. The Allies grossly underestimated Hitler and Japan just as the Clinton administration grossly underestimated Bin Laden and Al Qaeda and we paid dearly.

Although military intelligence showed that Japan was arming itself and had invaded China in the thirties, Roosevelt and company chose to turn a blind eye. And then the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and wiped out most of the United States' battleship fleet. Japan could no longer be ignored so we declared war on Japan and Germany declared war on us.