that's something I thought about a lot at the end of the anime Zipang. sure, this JMSDF destroyer from the 21st century is now working with the IJN. but it only has so many missiles. the US has effectively infinite war capacity. quantity is a quality all its own.
Like I always love to say: "The Tiger II was the most effective tank ever built, but unfortunately for the Germans it was not as effective as six M4 Shermans."
and they had what, like a hundred tiger 2s?
At any given time, yeah maybe. I'm seeing less than 500 units total produced by the war's end. We kept moving the factories lol. The idea that we built all those tanks AND THEN ALSO shipped them transcontinental, it's just insane. Bonkers-scale logistical accomplishment.
two ships every three days. built. it boggles the mind.
also lol moving the factories. via b17
every so often YouTube recommends me a 'what if one carrier or one abrams tank or one f35 or one marine division was sent back in time to world war 2' the answer always is 'it wins one battle then sits on the ground cause there's no resupply' the two things that might actually shift the war a lot:
a spy plane. those things could take photos so high res they could make out the brand of a cigarette pack from 40,000 feet. a modern infantry molle carrier system. allowing individual soldiers to carry more gear helps sorts out logistics and its easily replicable with 40s materials.
it's also modular so if your medic gets hit you take his gear off his molle and attach it to your molle and redistribute the modules to the rest of your squad.
it's always the future knowledge that's the most game-changing part. @birmo.bsky.social sent an entire fleet back to 1942 and that was still the case