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Doesn't that 1938 number include civilian consumption that was seriously cut back once the war started?

Cut off from where though? They'd still be connected to the rest of Europe and North Africa given that Gibraltar would be shut down from day 1 of their entry. In 1940 the RN was very stretched thin, more so with Gibraltar lost as a base and who knows how many naval vessels lost in the process...

Yes I know, I didn't say otherwise, just that if they stop exporting to Germany they could require much less imports. IIRC most of the country wasn't under rationing either. IIRC it was close to 1 million tons per year. No, but you can ration and replace a substantial part of the grains in...

Yes they did. US supplies enabled Franco to export food and other goods, which is why they throttled imports to him. Ok? They still exported 2/3rds of their pre-war food exports and included much more metals. Again, ok? The Allies bribed Spain to stay neutral while they still continued to...

To the food point Spain was actually exporting a lot of food to Germany until 1944. https://1997-2001.state.gov/regions/eur/rpt_9806_ng_spain.pdf

Got some quotes for us? It has been a while since I read any excerpts from that 2nd book, but from what I remember the naval expansion and talk about fighting the US was the assumption that the US would clash with Germany eventually, not that it was a plan to invade and conquer North America.

Thanks. Not sure I buy that argument. Hypothetically had the US not got involved in Europe in 1940 and let the war peter out by early 1941 then Hitler wouldn't have been in a position to invade the USSR and Britain would have survived just fine, even if somewhat dependent on good relations...

Gotcha, but we're starting to get into PhD thesis length replies! Both. Germany was of course more powerful economically and in terms of organization, which is what the US military and civilian authorities meant, but heavily constrained in Europe by powerful enemies. Japan was basically much...

At this rate Steve I'll never be able to respond to your other posts! He thought that once FDR had war powers he would eventually engineer an incident and declare war anyway, so Hitler gambled on being able to get the first shots in by attacking with the Uboats before the US was prepared to...

Ok, I'll have to reply in shifts because you wrote a lot and I don't have the time/patience to try and do even all of this post in one sitting. Even with said potential Hitler and the Nazi leadership really didn't want to fight the US. This is quite well documented. They wanted to dominate...

For anyone interested in why this POD would be a game changer check out the USSBS oil division report I linked. It has all the numbers you need to see just how even with getting access to the field in Austria in March 1938 would still be a massive game changer in terms of resources saved that...

Remember, the bomber will always get through. You should come up with a list for France, Britain, and the USSR as well since they were all heavily bombed during the war too. Ultimately when the enemy has enough bombers even with the best defenses they will get through and do damage, the...

Ignorant comments like these are exactly why it is so hard to take what you post seriously. Every country built up industry in areas with strategic mineral deposits like coal, which is why the Ruhr, long before WW1, was the confluence of rail lines, river shipping, and industrial build up...

Yeah, you're clearly not getting the point about the 1% improvements. You're also incorrect about steel availability not being a limiting factor; see "Wages of Destruction" about how the British bombing of steel production in the Ruhr in 1943 crippled German armaments production for 6 months...

It was a bunch of 1% improvements that led to the success in that event, taking a last place team and making it first. The point is that minor changes can add up to have massive effects. We've already established that more natural oil means less need for synthetic oil production, which means...

https://hbr.org/2015/10/how-1-performance-improvements-led-to-olympic-gold Sometimes marginal improvement has a big impact.

Its slow at work and I'm here all day, so have too much time to respond. Don't feel obligated to respond today or anything. Did you start to write something here? Agreed. You're right about the polling questions being important, but the question and a tracking polling of public opinion was...

Caveat about my postings: I'm not being a Wehraboo, just pointing out things that are factual about the war which I can support with sources; it just so happens that the German were a lot more dangerous that I think you're allowing for and increasing their resources over OTL means some bad...

The US actually did not. It had maxed out a lot of its resources since its main contribution was production and was in fact also running out of infantry replacements, hence the use of black soldiers as infantry in integrated units after combing them out of other specialties (yes that started in...

In terms of quantity yes, but then as the defender you dont need superior numbers. See BoB and Channel battles 1941-42. As to the engines that is more complicated since the germans invented hollow blades and air cooling. The big issue was pilots accelerating to fast and flaming out engines...