WW2 War-Winning Kit.

[alertken]

Himself a crucial Allied asset (imposing Jointery, heedless of uniform colour) SACEUR Ike's Memoir (Crusade in Europe) gave 5 “pieces of eqpt (we) came to regard as among the most vital (to) success” (in his ETO: doubtless a Macarthur Pacific list would differ). Published in 1948 he disclosed no SIGINT, CBW, EW (and AW was not in his Theater):

* Caterpillar D4/D7 bulldozer,

* Willys MB/Ford GPW jeep,

* GMC Jimmy 2½t truck,

* GMC DUKW landing craft,

* C-47.​

No close-up Tactical Air. No Strategic Air.

What else is not there? I offer:​

* bazooka,

* wooden-hulled (so quick/cheap) PT boats and YMS minesweepers.

​

​

 

[Dilandu]

What else is not there?

USSR and Red Army.

 

[Rule of cool]

Liberty ship? The Colossus code breaking computer?

 

[Justo Miranda]

Nuclear crater in Berlin, nuclear crater in Tokio

Nuclear Bomb Craters on Google Maps | Academo.org - Free, interactive, education.

Satellite imagery of craters formed by nuclear bombs.

academo.org

 

[timmymagic]

Bailey Bridge...

 

[Flying Sorcerer]

Don't forget SPAM!

And penicillin.

 

[Flying Sorcerer]

And synthetic rubber.

 

[Scott Kenny]

morphine and penicillin.

Ludicrous quantities of 100octane gasoline.

And just the US being able to make tens of thousands of EVERYTHING.

===========
As to MacArthur's list, I suspect it'd look very similar.

 

[A Tentative Fleet Plan]

* wooden-hulled (so quick/cheap) PT boats and YMS minesweepers.​

PT Boats were irrelevant in Europe (because they weren't based there in any numbers), and I doubt they had any real strategic effect in the Pacific.

 

[Nik]

The hastily copied 'Jerrycan' ??

Plus, yes, the UK's code-breaking 'Colossus', which often read crucial messages before their intended recipients, and the USN equivalent, which helped win Midway and certainly doomed Yamamoto...

Oh, and honourable mention for USN's torpedoes, when belatedly equipped with fully working trim-control and 'tuned' fuses...

'Better Late than Never': Proximity fuses ? Up-ended the Pacific AA knock-down odds.
Then, when finally deployed in Europe, both culled fanatical infantry attacks and shocked the German command...

 

[pathology_doc]

And just the US being able to make tens of thousands of EVERYTHING.

The upside of being not only an industrial powerhouse but also having that industry be completely immune from enemy bombing.

* Caterpillar D4/D7 bulldozer,

* Willys MB/Ford GPW jeep,

* GMC Jimmy 2½t truck,

* GMC DUKW landing craft,

* C-47.

Logistics wins wars. Lack of logistics results in missed opportunities, leading either to stalemate or to defeat. World War 1 bears this out.

 

[Nick Sumner]

Himself a crucial Allied asset (imposing Jointery, heedless of uniform colour) SACEUR Ike's Memoir (Crusade in Europe) gave 5 “pieces of eqpt (we) came to regard as among the most vital (to) success” (in his ETO: doubtless a Macarthur Pacific list would differ). Published in 1948 he disclosed no SIGINT, CBW, EW (and AW was not in his Theater):

* Caterpillar D4/D7 bulldozer,

* Willys MB/Ford GPW jeep,

* GMC Jimmy 2½t truck,

* GMC DUKW landing craft,

* C-47.​

No close-up Tactical Air. No Strategic Air.

What else is not there? I offer:​

* bazooka,

* wooden-hulled (so quick/cheap) PT boats and YMS minesweepers.

​

Caterpillar
Willys
GMC
Douglas

Ike's shares portfolio?

 

[Archibald]

B-24 Liberator (18 000 build !)
P-51 Mustang

 

[alertken]

Well, exactly. Why, I cry, no hefty Air? Or Big Gun Sea?

I hope...not because he had forgotten Jointery and reverted to narrow Land, but per path doc #11: to give credit to Services of Supply: Praise the Lord and pass the ammo.

 

[timmymagic]

Plus, yes, the UK's code-breaking 'Colossus', which often read crucial messages before their intended recipients, and the USN equivalent, which helped win Midway and certainly doomed Yamamoto...

Colossus arrived fairly late in the war and was specifically targeting German traffic using Lorenz.

The German military traffic on Enigma used manual methods and the electromechanical Bombe.

 

[CJGibson]

 

[tomo pauk]

Problem with some Americans - even the highly-placed people - is/was that they have had a hard time acknowledging that a good deal of war was fought, and many battles were won by non-Americans before the 1942. The DUKWs and C-47s would've been a footnote in the ww2 books if there was no British radar, British Merlin engine, British Spitfires, British Hurricanes etc. to win - or at least to prevent the loss of - the BoB.

Failing to acknowledge what the Soviets had is also a glaring oversight.

Best credit goes to the early 'war winners', and lesser credit goes to the stuff that, well, emerged later.

 

[Avimimus]

Honestly, codebreaking and logistics were significant. I might lean on having a sufficient source of domestic oil as being the most important though... that and a will to carry on the fight. If either England or the Soviet Union had collapsed politically... but neither did, the population held together and kept fighting.

 

[Scott Kenny]

IIRC, Stalin Himself said that it was all the US trucks that saved the Soviet Union.

They made it so that the USSR could concentrate on building tanks.