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2 World War II

Forces

Alliances, services and war economies that fought the Second World War -- not a live order of battle.

Educational history. Casualty figures are documented ranges. This is not operational advice, a ranking of nations, or a how-to for weapons or coups.

The Allies won as a coalition of unlike systems: a Soviet land colossus, a US maritime-industrial state, a British imperial network, and Chinese armies that tied down large Japanese forces.

Axis partners never matched that integration. Germany and Japan fought largely separate wars; Italy was a weaker partner that exited in 1943.

Systems

Grand Alliance

US, UK, USSR and China as formal principals, with governments-in-exile and dominions supplying men and bases.

German-Italian-Japanese Axis

A pact system that never created a combined staff comparable to SHAEF or the Soviet Stavka.

War economies

Lend-Lease, Speer's late mobilisation, Soviet relocation, and Japanese inability to protect tankers.

Air and sea control

Battle of the Atlantic, US submarine war, and long-range bombing as campaigns of attrition.

Occupation machines

Reichskommissariats, Japanese military administration, and later Allied military government.

Intelligence nets

Ultra, Magic, partisans and embassy reporting -- historically described, not taught as tradecraft.

Meters

Geographic reach
99
Industrial mobilisation
96
Civilian targeting
94
Coalition cohesion
72
Nuclear threshold
100
Occupation depth
90

Hotspots

1

Eastern Front

The deadliest land theatre: from Barbarossa to Berlin, with Stalingrad and Kursk as named hinges.

2

Western Europe

1940 collapse, 1944-45 liberation campaign, and the Combined Bomber Offensive.

3

Pacific islands

Carrier and amphibious war from Midway to Okinawa, supplied across vast ocean distances.

4

China-Burma-India

A chronically under-resourced Allied theatre that still held large Japanese forces.

5

Atlantic convoy routes

U-boat and escort war that decided whether Britain and the USSR stayed supplied.

Materials

Oil and tankers

Ploiești, the Caucasus, Dutch East Indies fields and US refining -- campaigns followed fuel.

Steel and aluminium

Aircraft and armour production as national accounting, not workshop instruction.

Grain and famine

Collecting armies ate first; Bengal, the Netherlands (Hongerwinter) and Vietnam show civilian hunger as policy and collapse.

Rubber and rare ores

Southeast Asian resources were a Japanese war aim and an Allied blockade target.

Force structure here is historical: Wehrmacht, Red Army, US Army/Navy/USAAF, RAF, IJA/IJN -- not a modern ORBAT.

Women's labour, colonial troops and partisans belong in any honest force picture; the "great power" labels hide who actually marched and welded.

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