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No wonder they ran out of fuel

No wonder they ran out of fuel

There is also this, global petroleum production in 1940 in millions of Metric Tons:
Country Crude Oil
USA 182.657 Mt
USSR 29.700 Mt
Venezuela 27.443 Mt
Iran 10.426 Mt
Indonesia 7.939 Mt
Mexico 6.721 Mt
Romania 5.764 Mt
Columbia 3.636 Mt
Iraq 3.438 Mt
Argentina 2.871 Mt
Trinidad 2.844 Mt
Peru 1.776 Mt
Burma 1.088 Mt
Canada 1.082 Mt
Egypt 0.929 Mt
Not only did the Germans not have much oil domestically, but none of their Allies or areas the conquered had much either. Even the Romanian field at Polesti which was so important that it was literally the most well defended air-space in the world and the US lost a lot of planes and aircrew trying to destroy it only produced a small fraction of what the US produced.

Heaviest armor of any WW 2 tank (Tiger 2), 150 mm.

I love the dry British humor. I saw an interview with a British WWII tanker who encountered one of these. He was in a Sherman which was quicker and could train it's gun faster so they got off the first two shots. His explanation was:
"We fired a shot at him and it bounced right off so we fired another shot at him and that one bounced right off too. Then he fired a shot at us and that one didn't bounce right off."

There were so few Tiger 2s out there that a Sherman would very rarely encounter one for real, but the Panther at a distance looks like the Tiger 2, and the Panzer IV looks like a Tiger 1 at a distance.  

The Germans and Russians were in a race to produce ever larger tanks more than the western allies who mostly relied on TDs for tank combat.

The Panther was a pretty good tank, mechanical and fuel issues of course, good main gun.

Good post one of the reasons the P&Ws were so well liked(that I've read) was many were air cooled and could take more hits and make it back than the water cooled birds. The materiel logistics/provisons of this country in WWII were simply unbelievable.I've more than a few times crossed swords with some Brits in YT comment sections about this.They seemingly routinely play lend-lease down when in fact they didn't see a bill for half of the materiel'. I know at the end of the Pacific war many planes were pushed off of aircraft carries by the UK. They were a late arrival in that theatre and got in in long after it was only a matter of time with/with out them. Many planes were sold to the Aussies for pennies on the dollar as the cost of bringing everything back was  superseded the cost of scrap or ability to sell them for a fair exchange.Many Jeeps/trucks were brought back

One of the things that has always fascinated me about WWII is the massive scale of things and how much that increased in just a few years.  

The British Pacific Fleet that you referred to here, at it's height consisted of:

• Six Fleet Carriers
• Six Light Carriers (two converted for maintenance of aircraft)
• Nine Escort Carriers
• Five Battleships (four were the four surviving KGV's, very modern one was a NelRod)
• 15 Cruisers
• A plethora of smaller escorts, transports, oilers, etc

I read once that it was the most powerful non-nuclear fleet that the British ever put to sea and that list is incredibly impressive . . . by early-WWII standards.  In December of 1941 that fleet would have been the world's most powerful surpassing the USN, the IJN and even the RN of that time.  In 1942, 1943, and even in 1944 (at least early in the year) that fleet would have been a massive presence in the Pacific.  

By late 1944 and into 1945 when the war in Europe was winding down to the point that the British could release all of that power from Atlantic duties and send it to the Pacific, the USN had grown to such a gargantuan size that Admiral King didn't actually want it.  He argued that providing logistical support to the Brits (who were unaccustomed to USN underway replenishment practices since they had operated near bases in the Atlantic and Mediterranean) would be more trouble than it was worth.  

The US didn't actually turn down the British Fleet (Nimitz wanted the help and Roosevelt overruled King) but the fact that it was even considered is illustrative of just how large the USN was by that time.  It was so large that 21 Aircraft Carriers joining wasn't really a big deal.  

Give this much to the British:
Their carriers carried less planes because they had armored decks which took up a lot of weight thus limiting the number of planes they could carry but those armored decks were VASTLY better against the late war Kamikaze attacks than the unarmored USN carrier decks.  The USN never actually lost a fleet carrier to a Kamikaze but a number of USN Fleet carriers were so badly damaged by Kamikaze attacks that they had to be taken out of service and sent home for months of repairs.  Several British Carriers were hit by Kamikazes and they were MUCH better able to brush off the damage.  Their armored decks kept the explosions topside thus limiting the damage to personnel and equipment on deck.  

In my experience the Brits are not nearly as averse to giving credit to Lend Lease as the Communists and Communist apologists.  They'll shout at the top of their lungs that "80% of the German Army was on the Eastern Front in 1944" but never acknowledge that:

• Most of the Luftwaffe had been destroyed by RAF and USAAC bombers and their escorts
• Strategic Bombing was a 100% Western Ally undertaking.  The Soviets had a tactical air force but the USSR had nothing comparable to the enormous quantities of Lancasters, Wellingtons, Fortresses, and Liberators that the RAF and USAAC operated daily over the Reich.  
• Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht production generally were massively reduced from what they could have been by the incessant RAF and USAAC raids
• The Soviets used a fair amount of US armaments 
• US Logistical support permitted the sweeping attacks that surrounded so many German Troops on the Eastern Front.  The US shipped a lot of Locomotives to the USSR and a whole lot of USSR supplies were shipped using US Locomotives.  Further, once the supplies got to the railheads most of it was shipped from there in Lend-Lease Studebaker trucks.  It is awfully tough to support an army of hundreds of thousands of men by horse and oxcart.  Studebakers are much heavier and much faster.  Without the Studebakers to keep their rapidly moving troops supplied with food, fuel, ammunition, and everything else the Soviets would have had to make smaller and more deliberate advances which would have resulted in a lot less captured and killed German Troops and given the Germans more time to set up the next defense line, then the next, then the next, etc.  Everybody thinks about the T34's and Katyushas but without Trucks to keep those things fueled and reloaded they are next-to-worthless, most of the trucks that filled that role were Studebakers.  

Gnome N-9 > National Museum of the United States Air Force™ > Display (af.mil)
Gnome N-9 > National Museum of the United States Air Force™ > Display (af.mil)

The Gnome was a rotary type, meaning the engine and propeller were bolted together, and both rotated around a fixed shaft. Air passing over the hot cylinders cooled the spinning engine. Gnome Monosoupape (single valve) engines like the one on display had one valve per cylinder acting as both air inlet and exhaust. Fuel was mixed with air not in a carburetor, but in the hollow central shaft, where the fuel-air mixture entered each cylinder at its base.

Gnome engines were reliable and powerful for their weight, but had certain drawbacks. First, the gyroscopic effect of the heavy, spinning engine made quick left turns easy, but hard right turns were difficult. Second, the motor used a large amount of fuel and lubricating castor oil, and some of the unburned oil was thrown from the spinning engine, making life unpleasant for pilot a few feet behind it. A cowling around the engine directed most of this under the aircraft, but thick, greasy fumes and oil inevitably coated the pilot. Castor oil was used because it burns cleanly, but pilots joked about its well-known laxative effect.

Gnome engines were built with great craftsmanship, and all their parts were finely machined to very close tolerances. The cutaway 165-hp Gnome N-9 on display shows how the design worked. The engine had no throttle so pilots used a "blip switch" on the control stick to adjust power when landing -- turning the engine on and off to maintain the right speed -- though some adjustment was possible by restricting air and fuel flow. Clerget and Bentley rotaries featured a selector switch for using 9, 7, 5 or 3 cylinders to adjust power.

Gnomes powered many aircraft, including Nieuports, Moranes and Sopwiths. Rotary engines, however, fell out of favor after the war. More fuel-efficient in-line and non-rotating radial engines did not have the rotaries' gyroscopic problem, they produced less drag, and their fixed cylinders could be made larger and more powerful than rotating ones. Faster, heavier aircraft with greater range had advanced beyond the rotary's capabilities.

In 1904 Ty Cobb, encouraged by a Royston teammate who had had a failed professional tryout, contacted teams in the newly formed South Atlantic (Sally) League. He received a response from the Augusta (Georgia) Tourists, inviting Cobb to spring training provided the boy pay his own expenses, and offering him a contract for $50 per month, contingent on Cobb making the team. For young Tyrus, this was a dream come true, a chance to play professional baseball. His father tried to talk him out of the decision, but finally relented, telling his son, “You’ve chosen. So be it, son. Go get it out of your system, and let us hear from you.”
Augusta got off to a poor start, and Cobb’s play was uninspiring. In July, however, veteran George Leidy replaced Andy Roth as manager, and took Cobb under his wing. He told young Ty that he was wasting his talent, and schooled him in the finer points of the game. Cobb became the league’s best hitter, and Detroit and other teams began to take notice. The tutelage of Leidy was the turning point in Cobb’s career.