I agree with Hawkeye. Especially later in the war from 1942/1943 the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine had to replace trained and battle hardened soldiers and crews with young and unexperienced replacements. And the veterans were not granted breaks because the Wehrmacht couldn't afford to not use them at the frontlines. Luftwaffe losses in the BoB in 1940, Kriegsmarine losses during the Norway campaign and the later Battle of the Atlantic and ground troop losses during Barbarossa in 1941 couldn't be replaced at the same quality level.Hawkeye wrote: ↑Mon Jan 24, 2022 11:35 amForgive me for being so blunt on this, but Hastings is buying into and circulating a myth. As Ocelot said, fighting on equal terms generally didn't occur. I doubt anyone at OKW sat there, picked equal terms and then had it out. That said, the Germans did, obviously, enjoy great success earlier in the war.
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But even before the Wehrmacht had lost several engagements. Even in Poland everything didn't went as smooth as one might think. And in 1940 during the Battle of France during the initial river crossings some operations caused significant losses on the Wehrmacht. The Luftwaffe lost plenty of planes during Poland and France as well, which could be barely replaced, because the airplane (especially the fighter) production was still low at this time.
Anyhow the Wehrmacht performed quite well, especially in the time from 1939 to 1941 and even throughout most of 1942. But for me that shows, how bad the Allies performed on a strategic level in the first years of the war. But drawing from the huge ressources in men, material and ground, they could afford this. If the Wehrmacht had wasted their ressources like this and if Germany had made similar strategic mistakes, WW2 would have been lost by 1940 for them.
My conclusion:
Germany and the Wehrmacht did, from a military viewpoint, a lot of things very right, while the Allies learned their lessons the hard way. But from 1942 on the Allied forces got better and better and in 1943/1944 they were an even match in terms of equipment and experience. Additionally to this they had now the numbers and the ressources. So the war was lost for the Axis when Germany failed to take the Caucasus and Egypt and the Japanese lost at Midway. From this point on it was only buying time in spending the conquests the Axis had made and prolonging the suffering for all nations.