colorado hirailer posted:I read a quote from a German officer who claimed they had better equipment, but we buried them under an avalanche, a quantity, of cheap and quick to make Sten guns, jeeps, etc.
Highly time frame dependent. Until the Tigers got to N. Africa, the M3/M4 mediums were more than a match for any German tanks there. In the '39 - '40 time frame, the Luftwaffe fighters were quite superior; by late '43, such was no longer the case. The German navy never really had much of a chance: the vaunted Bismark was no match for any US fast (i.e. modern) battleship; their cruisers were temperamental, and their destroyers were both out-numbered and out-moded. In 1945, the Heer was still highly dependent upon horses for transport.
Surely, they had individual success stories, but they not couldn't make enough of them to matter, they tended to be delicate and overly complex mechanically as well as logistically inefficient.
There is an old saying: amateurs study tactics; professionals study logistics. It wasn't the Shermans that won the war in Europe: it was the Liberty ships, the Duece-and-a-halfs, the field telephones, the gas pipelines, the field kitchens and K-rations, the field hospitals, Rosie the Riveter, our RRs, and the fact that we supplied not only our army but also the Allies in both Europe and the Pacific with everything needed in super-abundance while causing our economy to thrive at home.
Not too many people realize that, just over a week after D-Day in Normandy, we invaded Saipan and the Marianas in the Pacific with a yet larger invasion force.
The German officer's comment, while containing shades of accuracy, smacks of the same sour grapes as the Lost Cause to the Confederacy.
