Just a nitpick, but the article didn't explain how this piece of intel gave them a big strategic advantage, it just explained that they got this piece of intel.
Had to look this up on Wikipedia for a more thorough explanation.
Had to look this up on Wikipedia for a more thorough explanation.
- You may figure it's worth your time to go out of your way to bomb a few extra tank factories, as the payoff will be 5.5x greater than it would if they were making 1400 tanks/month.
- You may save money on R&D. Instead of devoting tons of resources to anti-tank weaponry, your more realistic estimate will lead you to spend money countering more important threads.
- You'll have more realistic estimates of the number and type of German forces at each battle, and thus will be less likely to over (or under) commit your own forces, and also less likely to bring ill-suited weaponry and tech.
- You'll be less likely to avoid or back down from winnable battles you would have previously considered to be un-winnable.
Etc. Fighting a war (or doing anything for that matter) without proper intelligence turns it into a guessing game. It's always to your advantage to know rather than guess :)
The number of Panthers that Germany could field in the west was very much important to the success of the D-day invasions. Had the allies had solid intelligence that Germany had several times greater number Panthers and Tigers, it's entirely possible that they would have done D-day completely differently.
Of course, this is all with hindsight.
For the same reason, I also left out that the Allies used the same mathematical tools to estimate supply lines. If you're seeing a "rate of production" in Berlin of 100 units/mo, and for the same unit type, only 25 units/mo in Paris, that's probably evidence that it's taking a really long time for that unit to get to Paris.