[headquarters]

I believe that most powers in that horrible war fielded some good - and indeed some bad gear.

Doctrine and leadership were often the most difficult obstacle to utilize the technology to a marked advantage.Lack of foresight in the higher echelons and in some cases lack of political will to commit resources to win come to mind. The Germans didnt start to run their aircraft factories around the clock until a couple of years in for example. The last major war still influenced peoples concepts of ho to fight the present one.

The Germans were quick however to capitalize on their armour and use modern doctrine- but for instance - during the invasion of France and the low countries in 1940 the actual number of German tanks were NOT superior to allied tank power. The allies spread their thinly - the Germans concentrated /manouvered theirs as proved a winning tactic in that combat enviroment.

The Italians believed for the longest time that they did not need to upgrade their airpower / fighters to allied standards. They of course - got clobbered by the Allies overall in the sky. They did make a few good things though such as Beretta MP 38s , and the Beretta service pistol. But they still issued most troops with the questionable Mannlicher-Carcano.

The Japanese had fierce troops with what seemed like unswerving loyalty etc. They opted to issue them with semi obsolete bolt action rifles and tried to win the war without upgrading their infantry gear throughout the war

The Brits fielded the Sten Gun - arguably one of the simplest automatic firearms ever made prolific - but they made good use of it through training their lads and employing tactics that were workable.

Its easy to think that the powers that be in those days cooly calculated their moves - but they made decisions in an enviroment of casualties in the hundreds of thousands and in some cases with enemy arial bombardment actually hitting their place of business / seat of governance.

all in all - the shear economical disparity ( especially after the bombing of the industrial base of Germany) made the Axis chances of winning militarily very slim from mid 42. They could of course hope to get a victory because of a US forfeit , but luckily the US saw it through until the end and in a fashion that at the same time showed stalin that his advance had better halt were it did.

just one guys opinion everybody.

In game terms I find the emergency programs of weapon making that the loosing side and indeed the Soviets ( and to some extent the Brits in 1940) had going highly interesting.The making of field expedient armaments would be a valued skill in T2K I imagine. If you could churn out a few scrap metal/plumbing based SMGs to whatever crate of handgun caliber bullets the village has traded for then you could probably have the best horse, the best-washed wench and the least rotten potatos and the only house with a complete roof in the whole village!