Fighting Power: German and U.S. Army Performance, 1939-1945

Rating:
Summary: What makes an army win?
Review: Martin van Creveld's "Fighting Power" is an in-depth comparison of the United States and German armies during World War II. He looks at such factors as national character, doctrine, command principles, organization, administration, maintenance, leadership, and more and how the two forces compare. The author concludes his work with overall reflection of what work and what did not and how this might effect future military forces.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent reference material on quality versus quantity
Review: This is a pretty expensive book but its well worth reading and owning if you are a serious student of World War II. To a serious student, its a well known fact that the quality of the German army was much higher then our's. We had quantity in terms of material while they had quality in terms of men. Much of this had a lot to do with difference of training, troop assignments and relationship between each other. The author explained this in a clearest way, why the Germans were able to maintained that quality in the mist of defeats while Americans were not able to catch up even while we were winning. I think what will amazed any reader is how well the German military actually took care of their troops - in terms of support and morale. Fighting against the Hollywood image mode, the author make it clear that the German army was actually bit more caring then the American army in the way they treated their soldiers. How the Germans maintained their esprit de corps will be an eye-opening reading experience, even for American WWII veteran who may wished that they were also treated as such. Author compared the two armies putting out the pros and cons of their methods. But book clearly show that the best army always don't win the war and quality of troops, never how high, cannot win victories if everything were stack against them. There is a lesson to be learned here even today as our highly trained and high tech army cannot secured a defeated nation. This book belonged in every World War II reader's library and it should be reread every couple of years. Don't let the price scare you.