 WW2 affected virtually every corner of the globe. In the six years between 1939
and 1945, some 50 million people lost their lives, and very few who survived were not affected.
It was the costliest and most widespread conflict the world has ever seen.
It was fought on land, sea and in the air with weapons which had first been used in the
Great War of 1914-18. Ironically, an even greater
conflict was to emerge from the burning embers of
that "war to end all wars", and with it huge advances in weapons technology. The countries involved in
World War 2 now had the means and the capability
to fight each other in a more efficient - and more deadly - manner.
Yet only Great Britain, her Empire allies and Germany were involved during the whole period (and, of course, Japan and China since 1937).
For other nations the conflict was of a shorter duration.
The USA and Japan, for example, were at war
from December 1941 to August 1945 (and the USA
was simultaneously at war with Germany, until
Hitler's defeat in May 1945).
The situation was so complicated, the skeins of
alliance and enmity so intertwined that it would take
a very large chart indeed to describe them. Only one
factor was more straightforward and common to all
the countries involved: the nature of the weapons
that the men (and sometimes women) used to fight
their way to victory - or defeat.
There were differences in detail, of course: the
German Panzerkampfwagen V Panther tank was a
very different vehicle from the American M4
Sherman, the Russian T-34, or the British Cromwell.
But essentially they were all much the same -
armoured vehicles mounting powerful guns running
on tracks.
The small arms with which the various
combatant nations equipped their armies were very
different in detail too, but essentially they were all
devices for launching projectiles at high speed.
In short, many would simply say that guns are guns,
bombs are bombs, aircraft are aircraft, and so on.
But
there is certainly more to it than that, for the capacity
to win or lose a war actually rested on these weapons'
qualities, just as much as it did on the fighting skills of
those who employed them and on the strategic sense
of those who directed them in their use. |
