What was the greatest accomplishment of the allies in WWII that allowed them to win the war?

Question

Tactics? Weapons? Commanding? What allowed the allies to gain the upper hand and carry the war to Germany in your mind?

Answer 1

Economic superiority of the US combined with a lot of courage of Soviet soldiers and even more mistakes by the Germans, that's what.

You can easily look up the statistics. How many bombers did the allies build? How many ships? How many guns? Etc... Put the German numbers next to that and see... Also, the Germans lacked a lot of raw materials (mostly oil, wolfram, iron ore and rubber). Even if the Germans would have been able to capture the Caucasus with all its oil and would have been able to hang on to the industrial regions of Western Russia (Donbass etc.) long enough to make them 'profitable' again, the US would still have had the edge. There were many Germans (Göring and Riibbentrop to name but two) who said on the day that Hitler declared war on the US that it "was the beginning of the end. Now, we're finished."

The Germans were better fighters (the generals as well as the common soldiers) than the Allies, possibly with the exception of the Russians. Even without US support, the Russians would have fought on forever, as guerrillas if need be. But I suppose the Germans would have dominated the country nonetheless. If (and it's a big 'if') the Germans would have dumped (or at least postponed) their racial policy and rather than enslaving / butchering the Russians, would have enlisted them in their 'crusade against Bolchevism' instead, things would have looked very much different because a lot of Russians (and the ethnic minorities from Soviet vassal states such as Ukraine, Central-Asian republics, cossacks, Balts), loathing the communist regime, would have happily joined the Germans instead of fighting them. Big mistake.

In short: the greatest accomplishment of the allies was their economical, logistical and organisational prowess. But the Germans mostly lost the war because of the mistakes they made themselves. I also would like to add that the German war effort was severely hampered by the fact that the 'Reich' wasn't a totalitarian state at all ; each important nazi had its own 'fiefdom' and they spent most of their time fighting each other in order to get more titles, responsabilities etc. So their efforts were splintered and often counterproductive. Also, Hitler himself believed that producing less comsumption goods were bad for morale so Germany kept on producing them in massive quantities until the very end. Finally, Hitler (him again) decided that women should stay at home, rather than going to work. As a result, only relatively few women were sent to a factory whereas the allies had no qualms about that - eventually resulting in emancipation :)

Just my two cents of course.

PS: the atom bomb didn't make much of a difference. It merely shortened the war considerably. Don't forget the Germans had been working on the Bomb much longer than the allies had been but Hitler never gave the project much priority, especially not during the years when it seemed that the German war machine could do without it. Yet another big mistake.

PS 2: of course 'Ultra' (a British project that -using the world's first computers (called 'bombes')- enabled them to dechiper all the German military communications sent through their Enigma coding machine (being 99% of them) throughout the entire war, was a big help as well and it shouldn't be underestimated.

Answer 2

That would have to be America's industrial power which churned out enought tanks, weapons, and supplies to not only supply America's vast army but also England's and in some cases the Soviet Union. For example the Sherman tank was a very weak tank yet the vast numbers they were produced in allowed them to get an upper hand on German tanks which were being produced in low numbers due to America's industry making many bombers and bombs which ravaged Germanies economy. BLANKALAUST thats a bunch of bullkrap, my grandfather didnt fight in Poland's home army so u can spread a bunch of lies, although German troops were much kinder than Russian ones, POland wanted independence and fought Germany but foolishly trusted Russia as an ally

Answer 3

I agree with a number of the previous answers.

The US and its manufacturing was a major contribution, as was Hitler's foolishness in invading the Soviet Union.

Good leadership by a few good officers -- Montgomery in Africa, the US General Joe Stillwell in the China/Burma theatre, the odd British Maj. General Orde Wingate in Burma to name a few.

The battle of the Kokoda track where the Australian militia (conscripts) defeated the much larger Japanese force. This was the first defeat for the Japanese in modern Japanese military history. The Battle of the Bismark Sea, carried out by Australian airmen against a large Japanese fleet sailing for Australia was important. Both were well before Midway and the Coral Sea battle.

Code breaking, both of the German and Japanese codes by the British and US was important, which certainly helped with Midway, the Coral Sea Battle and the Battle of the Bismark Sea.

Answer 4

Simple answer - war materials production... The allies - specifically the USA and Russia simply out produced Germany in all the assets required to win the war.

Answer 5

there were many different ways that helped the allies win first of all on the russian side there was the battle of stalingrad were the russians actually won there first major win against the germans. which manly helped the british attack on the western front and eventually made the germans retreat in to fighting two major battles the invasion on omaha, utah, and normady beaches. and then there was last major battle that crippled the german army almost completely. (cant remember what it was called but i remember that it was known because the allied forces created a bottle-neck like battle field b/ they sourrounded the german forces.) sry i cant remember

Answer 6

I really believe Germany wanted just what they were due, the land they lost in WW1 and they also wanted to have their former friends, why do you think Poland fought for Germany when Germany invaded Poland The poles sure liked Germany better than Russia, and Stalin,to many people have very short memories, Germany was and had very intelligent commanders and dedicated troops, had they not ran out of fuel we may be speaking German today, I have asked many times which way would have been best, we Will never know will we,and our history is so slanted and so many people believe every thing our news media tells them, an the news media is the biggest liar of all,

Answer 7

Code breaking, we broke Magic and the English broke Engima. In the long run we were able to get forces where we needed them in greater numbers. We won the Battle of Midway (the turning point) because we read the Japanese Codes. We assassinated Yamamoto because we know where he would be at a particular time.

Answer 8

Manufacturing.

We could build planes, tanks, etc faster than the axis could take them out. In 1943 during the war Germany produced 5500 Tiger class tanks. Vastly superior to the American Sherman.

But we produced 56,000 that year. Similar stats for planes and ships. We could build a cargo ship in 10 days. They were simply overwhelmed.

Answer 9

Europe- Tactics and Command. D-Day changed everything.

Asia- Weapons. The nuclear bomb ended the war though the Japanese had been pushed all the way back to Japan with commanding and tactics.

Answer 10

Two things I would say, D-Day and being able to beat Rommel in Africa. That made two fronts other than German stupidity of going after Soviet Union in the middle of winter. The Germans forgot what happened to Napoleon.