Prompted by this thread I picked up a copy of this book.
There are many intersting tidbits.
First, Overy doesn't believe in determinism about the war. The allies could have lost. Apparently Stalin seriously considered suing for peace in October 1941 and Hitler thought he would.
There's a good chance Britain and the U.S. would have lost the war of the Atlantic, or won it too late. The Germans had broken the British maritime cypher and could track the convoys pretty well. The Germans also changed their naval code and blacked out Bletchley Park for nearly a year. Two things made the difference - 10 cm radar and excellent guesswork based on signals intelligence. Had those come 6-9 months later the merchant marine might have been too small to feed Britain and permit a build up of the US military in the European theater.
Other tidbits. At the beginning of WWII, France and the UK were out producing Germany in tanks and aircraft. That's due in part to Germany's exhasuting it's gold reserves which limited its ability to import crucial raw materials.
When the Germans launched the invasion of Russia, they deployed 3,350 tanks and 650,000 horses. They never fully mechanized their infantry or supply units.
By the fall of 1941, Germany had under it's control twice the steel production capacity that Russia had left. They had more than Britain even before Poland fell. The puzzle is why Germany got so little out of these spoils. In 1942 Russia was outproducing Germany in tanks and planes despite having less capacity than what was available to Germany. I'll have to read more to see why that happened.
-Blogs
