Was Italy that weak in RL?

[Col.Klink]

People have a skewed sense of WW2 because so many people died and Hitler conquered so much of Europe.

In reality that was such a stroke of luck and taking advantage of circumstances and the other parties not being prepared. Basically once round 1 ended the Allies stomped all over the axis powers.

Italy was never a threat to any major power.UK had to gets its bearings but once they did Italy had no chance and needed the Germans to bail them out.

it wasn’t their fault as soldiers though. There is lots of evidence that their soldiers performed well under Rommel with competent command and good supplies. But without the Germans they had bad leadership, poor supplies and importantly, this was not a war that Italians were excited about.

(Edit: scratch this i just learned I read the numbers wrong. The british army was one million in 1939. 2.9 by 1945. It blows a hole in my argument but that doeent mean the situation or operation compass isn't worth pondering)

Italy fielded between 2.5 million to 3 million men. The uk armed only about 1 million... with extensive help from the USA. Those numbers should give us perspective.

Italy was literally trying to arm and supply three times as many men without even access to the energy resources that the uk had. So its easy to say that italy was a joke because the standard of quality of their army was so poor, but thats because they tried to arm too many people. Imagine if they instead fielded an army more the size of the uk. It would be at the very least 3 times as well supplied.

I say at the very least because the sheer bloated nature of the italian army caused massive attrition and equipment losses. Ironically trying to arm too many men actually meant that each man cost more to arm in terms of industrial capacity than he normally would...

And we really really need to consider in our comparisons how much the usa helped the ul arm itself. Early on the uk couldn't buy many weapons sure but what about trucks? Then as congress finally authorized arms shipments complicated expensive equipment started showing up. Aircraft and tanks particularly. So the uk could focus heavily on small arms whole getting a serious mechanized boost from the usa. Italy just didn't have that.

Take operation compass as an example, the British going on the offensive against Italian forces in North Africa. The italians had twice the aircraft, twice the tanks (and the brits were dealing with just their shifty tanks so there was no tech advantage there.) They had 10 times the artillery and 5 times the men. On paper the italian force was utterly overwhelming. If italy was a "glorified minor" how did it produce so many tanks, artillery and aircraft all on its own? This narrative of Italy being a glorified minor really starts to come apart there.

The problem came in that italy was trying to field 150,000 men instead of the british 36,000. It was obviously easier for the british to ship enough supplies AND motorize their smaller force. That italian tank advantage didnt come into play because they tried to mass poorly equipped infantry in the desert. Think of hoi4 where if you overwelm the supply situation your tanks become useless hunks of metal and that's exactly what happened. The smaller british force mopped the floor with Italy because of it. Imagine if Italy had focused on a smaller higher quality army?

Italy was indeed weak. Mussolini to boost the number of division reduce the size of division, so the total number is skewed. Italy has a descent navy but the British was breaking codes, so there was never any surprises. Italian A/c was not as bad as someone alluded to either. the MC 200, 202, and 205 while armaments was underwhelming was a surprisingly tough adversary. Very maneuverable. In fact, II,/JG 77 actually flew the Mc 205 for a short time.


On a side note, I am not a big fan of the new look forward (it has been awhile since I have been on the forum). The Avatars are now dwarfed by all of the postbit information. Looks weird. The color is more pleasing. though

I can get where one might assume that the binary division structure is mussolini trying to bloat his military numbers but that isnt the case at all. Binary divisions are clever its just italy tried to field too many men and therefore couldn't exploit it.

think in hoi4 game terns, which more is a representative of divisions speed. Their actual kph speed or their organization? 2 20w divisions have twice the organization a 1 40w. That makes sense because the 2 divisions literally have twice the command staff for the same number of men. And we know that if your division org reaches zero it can't attack or defend. So no organization no movement. So highly organized units potentially are faster because they don't have to stop and recover after every combat action.

hoi4 skews our perspective however, because of how divisions attack, ie as individuals not as a team smaller divisions are a disadvantage but irl they work as a team. So irl what italy did was try to put fewer men under each commanding officer and command staff allowing them to organize quicker. Such a unit can get new orders out quicker, adapt to situations quicker and just even plain get moving quicker. If your trying to create an adaptive flexible army smaller divisions are the way to go. The problem was that italy tried to put too many men on the field so all the trucks were needed just to supply the bloated army and none left over to motorize it.. so it didn't matter that italy could react faster bc it moved so much slower.

In the case of operation compass its supply situation was so overwhelmed the italian army couldn't move at all. It was paralyzed by its sheer moronic size.

It's far more complicated. For one, Italy did license BF109 engine for its designs. It didn't need to license BF109 itself, because it's designs were actually better, which isn't a huge shock, considering BF109 was like 5-7 years old at that point, and was in production chiefly due to it's low cost, and a Germany failing to create a replacement fighter model with inline engine (Eventually, FW190D and TA-152)
Similarly, Japan did license BF109 engine, but made their own aircraft around it.

Italy just failed with logistics everywhere, which I would assume had mostly to do with internal politics in armed forces, and probably money and experience of previous was, where everyone was sitting next to a railroad for years.

In Greece, Italian army was out-mobilised by Greeks and had a rough time facing numerically supervisor forces, from national it was invading. One would assume they should have prepared better.

I love conversations like this because I learn so much new! I didnt know japan licensed German Air engines!

But yeah now that I think about it werent the italian mono plane airframes at least ok? What were their production numbers like? Admittedly they didn't have fuel for the navy much less aircraft...

 

[PikeStance]

I can get where one might assume that the binary division structure is mussolini trying to bloat his military numbers but that isnt the case at all. Binary divisions are clever its just italy tried to field too many men and therefore couldn't exploit it.

think in hoi4 game terns, which more is a representative of divisions speed. Their actual kph speed or their organization? 2 20w divisions have twice the organization a 1 40w. That makes sense because the 2 divisions literally have twice the command staff for the same number of men. And we know that if your division org reaches zero it can't attack or defend. So no organization no movement. So highly organized units potentially are faster because they don't have to stop and recover after every combat action.

hoi4 skews our perspective however, because of how divisions attack, ie as individuals not as a team smaller divisions are a disadvantage but irl they work as a team. So irl what italy did was try to put fewer men under each commanding officer and command staff allowing them to organize quicker. Such a unit can get new orders out quicker, adapt to situations quicker and just even plain get moving quicker. If your trying to create an adaptive flexible army smaller divisions are the way to go. The problem was that italy tried to put too many men on the field so all the trucks were needed just to supply the bloated army and none left over to motorize it.. so it didn't matter that italy could react faster bc it moved so much slower.

In the case of operation compass its supply situation was so overwhelmed the italian army couldn't move at all. It was paralyzed by its sheer moronic size.

I didn't make the assumption that you assume you made.
The number of division was misleading was my only point. Operationally, the Italian were stupid and unimaginative. The AI managing the Italian may actually be an improvement.

 

[Col.Klink]

I didn't make the assumption that you assume you made.
The number of division was misleading was my only point. Operationally, the Italian were stupid and unimaginative. The AI managing the Italian may actually be an improvement.

I actually honestly laughed at the thought that the ai would be an improvement! The ai wouldn't flood so many men in that its army became paralyzed at least and wouldn't try to have more soldiers than it could arm!

 

[justtxyank]

(Edit: scratch this i just learned I read the numbers wrong. The british army was one million in 1939. 2.9 by 1945. It blows a hole in my argument but that doeent mean the situation or operation compass isn't worth pondering)

Italy fielded between 2.5 million to 3 million men. The uk armed only about 1 million... with extensive help from the USA. Those numbers should give us perspective.

Italy was literally trying to arm and supply three times as many men without even access to the energy resources that the uk had. So its easy to say that italy was a joke because the standard of quality of their army was so poor, but thats because they tried to arm too many people. Imagine if they instead fielded an army more the size of the uk. It would be at the very least 3 times as well supplied.

I say at the very least because the sheer bloated nature of the italian army caused massive attrition and equipment losses. Ironically trying to arm too many men actually meant that each man cost more to arm in terms of industrial capacity than he normally would...

And we really really need to consider in our comparisons how much the usa helped the ul arm itself. Early on the uk couldn't buy many weapons sure but what about trucks? Then as congress finally authorized arms shipments complicated expensive equipment started showing up. Aircraft and tanks particularly. So the uk could focus heavily on small arms whole getting a serious mechanized boost from the usa. Italy just didn't have that.

Take operation compass as an example, the British going on the offensive against Italian forces in North Africa. The italians had twice the aircraft, twice the tanks (and the brits were dealing with just their shifty tanks so there was no tech advantage there.) They had 10 times the artillery and 5 times the men. On paper the italian force was utterly overwhelming. If italy was a "glorified minor" how did it produce so many tanks, artillery and aircraft all on its own? This narrative of Italy being a glorified minor really starts to come apart there.

The problem came in that italy was trying to field 150,000 men instead of the british 36,000. It was obviously easier for the british to ship enough supplies AND motorize their smaller force. That italian tank advantage didnt come into play because they tried to mass poorly equipped infantry in the desert. Think of hoi4 where if you overwelm the supply situation your tanks become useless hunks of metal and that's exactly what happened. The smaller british force mopped the floor with Italy because of it. Imagine if Italy had focused on a smaller higher quality army?



I can get where one might assume that the binary division structure is mussolini trying to bloat his military numbers but that isnt the case at all. Binary divisions are clever its just italy tried to field too many men and therefore couldn't exploit it.

think in hoi4 game terns, which more is a representative of divisions speed. Their actual kph speed or their organization? 2 20w divisions have twice the organization a 1 40w. That makes sense because the 2 divisions literally have twice the command staff for the same number of men. And we know that if your division org reaches zero it can't attack or defend. So no organization no movement. So highly organized units potentially are faster because they don't have to stop and recover after every combat action.

hoi4 skews our perspective however, because of how divisions attack, ie as individuals not as a team smaller divisions are a disadvantage but irl they work as a team. So irl what italy did was try to put fewer men under each commanding officer and command staff allowing them to organize quicker. Such a unit can get new orders out quicker, adapt to situations quicker and just even plain get moving quicker. If your trying to create an adaptive flexible army smaller divisions are the way to go. The problem was that italy tried to put too many men on the field so all the trucks were needed just to supply the bloated army and none left over to motorize it.. so it didn't matter that italy could react faster bc it moved so much slower.

In the case of operation compass its supply situation was so overwhelmed the italian army couldn't move at all. It was paralyzed by its sheer moronic size.




I love conversations like this because I learn so much new! I didnt know japan licensed German Air engines!

But yeah now that I think about it werent the italian mono plane airframes at least ok? What were their production numbers like? Admittedly they didn't have fuel for the navy much less aircraft...

I just want to be clear that I wasn't ragging on the Italian soldiers. Like I said, they performed fine when they were under Rommel. The Italians suffered from terrible leadership that didn't understand modern warfare nor logistics. People forget that Italians were a big part of Rommel's success in North Africa. Their troops did fine, but they were far behind technologically.

There is a great book about the war making potential of all of the great powers at the time and Italy was the lowest. They just weren't an industrial power, didn't have oil, didn't have good leadership, etc.

But to your other point, yes, none of the Axis could compete when the USA was in the war. It just became a matter of time.

 

[Col.Klink]

I just want to be clear that I wasn't ragging on the Italian soldiers. Like I said, they performed fine when they were under Rommel. The Italians suffered from terrible leadership that didn't understand modern warfare nor logistics. People forget that Italians were a big part of Rommel's success in North Africa. Their troops did fine, but they were far behind technologically.

There is a great book about the war making potential of all of the great powers at the time and Italy was the lowest. They just weren't an industrial power, didn't have oil, didn't have good leadership, etc.

But to your other point, yes, none of the Axis could compete when the USA was in the war. It just became a matter of time.

One of the best descriptions of the war I've heard was that it was a war of the have nots vs the haves. Japan with no natural resources to speak of conquered manchukuo and Korea to solve that. But the japanese army in the region was largely autonomous and embroiled them in the war in China which caused such a stink that japan had to conquer oil resources too or die. (Seriously the core of china doesn't seem to have much to offer resource wise. If it wasn't suicide I'd go the invade russia route next time I play em.)

Germany ww1 and ww2 wanted eastern European farmland. Then in ww2 they wanted soviet oil to boot. Both Germany and Japan were struggling with the fact that 90% of the oil came from the Americas.

Italy... was just fighting for scraps lol.

As you said Italy really lacked much industry at all. Tbh its probably got more in common with nationalist China where half the arms production is ad hoc small machine shops..... except italy wasnt willing to be that adaptive lol. But italy has hard geography to develop. Easy to defend but hard to develop thus lack of industry.

But tbh that all said, even with the usa in the war I think they could have won. If Germany got the soviet oil in 41 and knocked them out of the war their airforce and army could have defended the continent. The usa struggled to supply an army big enough to slowly defeat what was like 20% of the german army in 1944. Imagine trying to defeat the whole thing?

And imagine if italy focused on a smaller skilled army and took the suez. Sure they wouldn't have been able to pull off an operation like the conquest of russia all on their own but that really isn't the challenge they needed to overcome. Take suez and then Gibraltar (get Franco to let italian troops through Spain on the secret agreement that it would be handed to Spain after the war was over.) Then Italy would just have to defend a few points. The US could hammer and bluster but they couldn't really do much to actually finish the war. So all italy and germany would have to do is wait the usa out till 4-10 years later the exhausted us public forces the government to seek some kind of peace terns.

Thats what makes all this so compelling. Inspite of having line 1/6th the gdp of their enemies the European axis at least could have won.

 

[Leinad965]

Italy was indeed weak. Mussolini to boost the number of division reduce the size of division, so the total number is skewed.

Mussoliny probably read somewhere, that 10w divisons are great for defense

 

[valentin4]

Part of the weakness of Italy was that they sent a lot of equipment to Nationalist Spain (to equip at least 10 divisions) during the civil war and didn't ask them back.

Also the conquest of Ethiopia then the investment in the new colony was an economic drag.

a fun fact : as Italy was diplomatically opposed to Germany (because of german meddling in Austria) at time of the invasion of Ethiopia, Germany supplied weapons to Ethiopia's army.

 

[Turboflex]

Italy hasn't really been worked on so it's not in a great state. And in real life they were like a 2nd rate regional power pretending to be a major first rate power. I think the Italian military told Mussolini that they needed years of re-armament before they would be ready for war. Same thing the German military told Hitler. But crazy dictators don't listen to anyone.

In the game Italy attacks southern France in the Alps and can lose hundreds of thousands of troops there. Whereas in real life, they only attacked when the French lines were broken and the Battle of France was nearly over so they could get a participation trophy and get some spoils. They got a little bit of French territory. But AI Italy puts way too many troops into southern France and attacks too early.

Italy needs bicycles. They need Cruiser submarines. They need historical Operations to model their excellent frogmen special forces. Destroyed a lot of British ships that way. The Italian Civil War needs to be modeled. The extensive German defensive lines in Italy need to be modeled.

Mussolini actually knew how bad shape Italy was in and was reluctant to join Germany. Hitler had to do a full effort sales job on him, years of grooming, to get him on board.

 

[Voigt]

Many things used as an example for Italies incompetence are more decisions of the rulers, the one thing we are supposed to change as players.
How to manage the your army, your logistics your spyeffort.

The one thing the player shouldn't be able to change (easily) its Industrial Base relative compared ro the other powers.

If the production was inefficent without an obvious way to change that, then the player needs to live with that. But the player shouldn't live with the stupid decisions historical leaders did.

 

[George Parr]

But yeah now that I think about it werent the italian mono plane airframes at least ok? What were their production numbers like? Admittedly they didn't have fuel for the navy much less aircraft...

The planes generally lacked firepower until the war was all but lost. They didn't come close to others in that regard until they started to incorporate German 20mm guns as well. Two, later on four, small caliber guns just don't cut it when everyone else either has far more guns, far more powerful ones, or both. Especially when you also lack speed. They also had a lot of trouble getting good engines. Their own ones were quite bad, and they never managed to produce the licensed German ones in the necessary numbers, nor did Germany have the means to supply them with any.

As for production numbers, it looked something like this (though I guess it depends a bit on which source you ask):

C.R.42 Falco: 1780 produced, though only around 1450 for Italy, the rest were exported to smaller nations or produced for Germany
G.50 Freccia: 774, though 100+ of them were training machines
M.C. 200 Saetta: 1153
M.C. 202 Folgore: ~1500
M.C. 205 Veltro: 66 until the split , another ~200 after the split, being used by Germany and the RSI
G.55 Centauro 31 until the split, 274 in total

The last two are the really capable ones. Up to par with what everyone else had to offer, but they obviously weren't around in large numbers, and only were ready for combat operations by summer 1943. The MC 202 was also quite capable but lacking in firepower, while the ones before had little to offer beyond agility.

 

[Harin]

If the production was inefficent without an obvious way to change that, then the player needs to live with that. But the player should live with the stupid decisions historical leaders did.

Did you mean to say, should NOT live with the stupid, or am I getting the wrong idea from your post.

 

[Harin]

The planes generally lacked firepower until the war was all but lost. They didn't come close to others in that regard until they started to incorporate German 20mm guns as well. Two, later on four, small caliber guns just don't cut it when everyone else either has far more guns, far more powerful ones, or both. Especially when you also lack speed. They also had a lot of trouble getting good engines. Their own ones were quite bad, and they never managed to produce the licensed German ones in the necessary numbers, nor did Germany have the means to supply them with any.

As for production numbers, it looked something like this (though I guess it depends a bit on which source you ask):

C.R.42 Falco: 1780 produced, though only around 1450 for Italy, the rest were exported to smaller nations or produced for Germany
G.50 Freccia: 774, though 100+ of them were training machines
M.C. 200 Saetta: 1153
M.C. 202 Folgore: ~1500
M.C. 205 Veltro: 66 until the split , another ~200 after the split, being used by Germany and the RSI
G.55 Centauro 31 until the split, 274 in total

The last two are the really capable ones. Up to par with what everyone else had to offer, but they obviously weren't around in large numbers, and only were ready for combat operations by summer 1943. The MC 202 was also quite capable but lacking in firepower, while the ones before had little to offer beyond agility.

I still have an encyclopedia like tome of WW2 aircraft from my childhood days. To this day I remember how agile some of the Italian designs were, but good grief, two light weight guns? They had to stay on target two or three times longer than most fighter pilots to get a kill. Their under powered engines may have led to weight saving decisions that effected the armament and ammunition carry, but that is me guessing.

Unfortunately for the Italians, even if they received all the German engines they required, they just could not produce the air frames in the numbers they were needed.

 

[Hoi Neuling]

Yep Italy was not so good in Army and Airforce. But in Shipbuildung they were on a same Level like Germany or similar Countrys. So the Answer is yes. Best way to improve their Power is to give them Infantry Weapons, Arty, AA and AT from Germany Production. If that isn´t possible train and upgrade asap that existing Weapons.

On Airforce they refused to use closed and more maneuverable Fighters and similar Planes for a longer Time. So the only way is to upgrade existing and new Airplanes asap too. If you get lucky they will take the Offer from Bf 109ers later on.

Light and medium Tanks can be reinforced with Tank II´s and III´s later on too.

And one more thing: Italy have the same Fuel Problem like Germany and Japan.

That´s all Mainfactors why they are so weak at the Beginning.

 

[Fediuld76]

It's so pathetic in the game that one thinks it was intentionally weaken for the game?

Italy was weak in relation to army leadership mainly. It attacked Greece on October 1940 and was driven back through half way inside Albania within the month.
And all this while it had air superiority let alone better arms than Greece which was fighting with WWI and earlier weapons. The Spring attack of 1941 broke completely what ever was left from it's elite divisions, especially the mountain ones.
Had it not Germany attacked Greece on April 1941 (up to that point Germany was neutral), the Greek offensive could have taken place pushing Italy out of Albania completely. As the British expedition (from Egypt) had just arrived in Athens to bolster the numbers for this operation.

 

[PikeStance]

One of the best descriptions of the war I've heard was that it was a war of the have nots vs the haves. Japan with no natural resources to speak of conquered manchukuo and Korea to solve that. But the japanese army in the region was largely autonomous and embroiled them in the war in China which caused such a stink that japan had to conquer oil resources too or die. (Seriously the core of china doesn't seem to have much to offer resource wise. If it wasn't suicide I'd go the invade russia route next time I play em.)

Germany ww1 and ww2 wanted eastern European farmland. Then in ww2 they wanted soviet oil to boot. Both Germany and Japan were struggling with the fact that 90% of the oil came from the Americas.

Italy... was just fighting for scraps lol.

As you said Italy really lacked much industry at all. Tbh its probably got more in common with nationalist China where half the arms production is ad hoc small machine shops..... except italy wasnt willing to be that adaptive lol. But italy has hard geography to develop. Easy to defend but hard to develop thus lack of industry.

But tbh that all said, even with the usa in the war I think they could have won. If Germany got the soviet oil in 41 and knocked them out of the war their airforce and army could have defended the continent. The usa struggled to supply an army big enough to slowly defeat what was like 20% of the german army in 1944. Imagine trying to defeat the whole thing?

And imagine if italy focused on a smaller skilled army and took the suez. Sure they wouldn't have been able to pull off an operation like the conquest of russia all on their own but that really isn't the challenge they needed to overcome. Take suez and then Gibraltar (get Franco to let italian troops through Spain on the secret agreement that it would be handed to Spain after the war was over.) Then Italy would just have to defend a few points. The US could hammer and bluster but they couldn't really do much to actually finish the war. So all italy and germany would have to do is wait the usa out till 4-10 years later the exhausted us public forces the government to seek some kind of peace terns.

Thats what makes all this so compelling. Inspite of having line 1/6th the gdp of their enemies the European axis at least could have won.

Forget Soviet oil. Hitler self -obsession with attacking the Soviets was huge opportunity missed. Imagine if the Germans had concentrated in Egypt and possibly Cyprus. Taking the Suez would had crippled the British. The British hadn't proven to be up for a real fight either, they retreated out of Norway, France, Greece, and Crete. I seriously doubt the British would have stopped the Germans in Egypt. Moreover consider the possibility of "aiding" pro German Iraqi Gov't. You have your oil and you threaten British oil as well. Turkey may have capitulated and join Germany as well. The British at this point may actually contemplated seeking or accepting peace with Germany.

You could argue that the Soviets would be much stronger, but so would the Germans and without the problem of Britain using up resources.

 

[Col.Klink]

Forget Soviet oil. Hitler self -obsession with attacking the Soviets was huge opportunity missed. Imagine if the Germans had concentrated in Egypt and possibly Cyprus. Taking the Suez would had crippled the British. The British hadn't proven to be up for a real fight either, they retreated out of Norway, France, Greece, and Crete. I seriously doubt the British would have stopped the Germans in Egypt. Moreover consider the possibility of "aiding" pro German Iraqi Gov't. You have your oil and you threaten British oil as well. Turkey may have capitulated and join Germany as well. The British at this point may actually contemplated seeking or accepting peace with Germany.

You could argue that the Soviets would be much stronger, but so would the Germans and without the problem of Britain using up resources.

Some people have brought up the issue of even getting the oil. I also remember hearing that the oil fields weren't really well developed in Iraq at the time anyway... The problem was Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 at the last possible moment that Germany would have the oil reserves to do such a thing but that makes me think.

What if you're right and Germany poured resources into the middle east much sooner to take Egypt and settle with the UK. All they needed was any kind of a peace deal with the UK and the oil would flow again.

 

[Bki]

Forget Soviet oil. Hitler self -obsession with attacking the Soviets was huge opportunity missed. Imagine if the Germans had concentrated in Egypt and possibly Cyprus. Taking the Suez would had crippled the British. The British hadn't proven to be up for a real fight either, they retreated out of Norway, France, Greece, and Crete. I seriously doubt the British would have stopped the Germans in Egypt. Moreover consider the possibility of "aiding" pro German Iraqi Gov't. You have your oil and you threaten British oil as well. Turkey may have capitulated and join Germany as well. The British at this point may actually contemplated seeking or accepting peace with Germany.

You could argue that the Soviets would be much stronger, but so would the Germans and without the problem of Britain using up resources.

Due to the logistical issues in Egypt, it's dubious that a higher commitment there would really have yielded better results.

 

[Liquid Ghost]

This. (numbers below from 1937)

The game designers overpowered the Axis so they'd have a fifty-fifty shot at defeating the Allies and Comintern simultaneously, and depowered France so they're usually little more than a speed-bump.

Ingame, Italy starts with more than double the military factories of France, and more than the UK, which is ridiculous, historically speaking. They also have no army penalties unlike France, Britain or China, while their army performed - on the whole - extremely badly in the war.

What does "warmaking potential" even mean?

 

[Harin]

Due to the logistical issues in Egypt, it's dubious that a higher commitment there would really have yielded better results.

Good point, going that route would require an almost 21st Century view of warfare, that being, show up with everything, including the combat units and your own logistics system. But if they could get their minds wrapped around the idea, they might win the logistics fight, which makes winning the combat fight almost a foregone conclusion.

 

[Gort11]

What does "warmaking potential" even mean?

It's a figure made up from other figures, such as population, national income, steel and coal production, automobile production, level of modernity and automation of factories, managerial practice, worker productivity and so on.