[Southack]

The German loss at Stalingrad was also due in some significant measure to the German High Command botching the math.

They calculated that they could fly in 800 tons per day (food and ammo) to the 3 NAZI-held airfields in the caldron, but the reality was that they were only able to fly in 160 tons per day (this deficit of ammo caused the Wehrmacht’s 6th Army to surrender en masse...).

This was *not* the only fatal math error by the Germans in WW2. The more startling mathematical error was Heisenburg mis-calculating the amount of enriched Uranium required for an atomic bomb.

No such math error was made by the Americans, however (e.g. Manhattan Project). Likewise, the Poles used math to crack at least one German field encryption...and the Brits essentially invented an entirely new form of math (Boolean logic for computerized digital processing) during the war.

The irony here is that the German educational system was rated as superior in math by the global news media of its day.

[LS]

As you probably know from "America's Victories," I actually did a wargame about the Battle of Kursk as it related to air power. The one thing that gave the Soviets the victory there was . . . the U.S./Brit bombing campaign on the west front that absorbed a whopping 30% of all German military resources. If you increase the German air power at Kursk by 30% (not the entire military, which would be the right way to do it, but just the air) you get a German victory.

The point is, in every war there is a tipping point that usually comes when the TRAINED troops are replaced by untrained troops. In the Pacific, it was the "Marianas Turkey Shoot," where the #s were fairly close, but we had veteran pilots and the Japanese had untrained pilots.

The tipping point in Iraq came LONG before the surge---the surge is just the "turkey shoot" part of the campaign.