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Comment by WalterBright | Hacker News Reader

Many people think that radar won WW2. The US used radar-guided anti-aircraft guns, which doubled their accuracy (in essence doubling the number of guns). Flak guns used radar proximity fuses in the shells. Ship big guns used radar targeting. And, of course, radar made for long range detection of where the enemy was.

In the Gulf War, when the enemy fired a shell, radar was used to calculate where it was fired from, and that location got a radar-directed shell directly onto it.

Incredibly effective.

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I keep a mental list of things that are claimed to have won WW2. Some of them are radar, cryptography, oil, the atomic bomb, industrial production, economic power, Colossus, the Eastern front, hydroelectric power, air power, and rubber. (I'm sure I'm forgetting lots.) My conclusion is that you can pick just about anything and explain how it won the war.

> I'm sure I'm forgetting lots

Logistics

Antibiotics.

Much higher octane fuel for aircraft.

Proximity fuses vastly increased the effectiveness of anti-aircraft fire and the story of their development is fascinating.

See https://www.historynet.com/proximity-fuze/

They were impressive: a four tube electronic device that could survive being fired from a gun.

Counter artillery is incredible effective. When I was in the army they told us to never be close to artillery firing as it was expected that the location would be determined by radar from the shell and you would expect an answer very quickly.

Note that Ukraine now has gotten new artillery from France that has longer range than apparently anything the Russians have.

Cryptonomicon (a fictional book) basically argues cryptography won the war.

It's not an unreasonable point of view. It certainly played a large role in the victory at Midway, and the defeat of the U-Boot campaign.

This is all very fascinating as a minor theoretical discussion, I'm sure, but we all know that WWII was actually won by Wolverine and Captain America. ;)

Radar won the tactical battlefield. Intelligence won the strategic war.

Industrial capacity won WW2.

90% of the merchant vessels in the world belonged to the British.

The British Empire and the the USA were the 2 largest economies in the world.

Once the USA entered the war the outcome was not in doubt, even if the German army hadn't been given mission impossible vs. the Russians - although if they hadn't then the Russians would have attacked them.

Also access to oil was a big deal. Hitler attacking the Soviet Union was at least partially to secure access to oil.

Radar had the effect of doubling the firepower of the US's guns. It's hard to overstate what an advantage that is.

The best discussion of this I've heared was from a docent at the National Crypologic Museum, located on the NSA grounds. His version was that the war was won by those fighting it, but if it hadn't been for good intelligence, they could have fought just as hard and been less effective.

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