What was the most domanting weapon of the war…was it the 88…was it the u-bout…the sherman…panzer…it could be anything but i have to say the all supeiror 88 flak…this weapon could take down tanks, infrintry, planes, and some other stuff
Actually thats quite easy! The most dominating weapon is man himself. They use all the other weapons. 
Besides him I would have to say the airplane then tanks. IMO the airplane played the most major role in WW2. This pales in comparison to man. I dont care how many tank, planes, ships…etc you have they are worthless with out manpower.
i think that the B-29 or maybe another bomber did the most damage and crippled the enemy’s military defenses and industrial power
yeah but the 88 wuld take those planes down with the help of man but if those planes go threw the 88s then the defenders are screwed
I think small arms. Because they were most tactical and numerous.
I find it difficult to compare a submarine with a field piece. One is designed to ambush ships from under the sea, the other for land battle.
Air power in the Pacific was certainly a decisive factor. It was carrier-based aircraft that brought the U.S. into the war on December 7th, American control of the skies that allowed successful amphibious landings, and aircraft that helped bring Japan to its knees.
But throughout it all, it was men with rifles and other infantry weapons who captured land objectives.
During the six-month struggle for Guadalcanal, the great turning point of the war against Japan, a small number of fighter pilots, flying almost daily sorties against superior Japanese air squadrons, made the difference between success and failure.
On the other hand, the Marine artillery regiment helped turn back the two large Japanese land assaults against Henderson Field.
I suppose we could make a case for almost any of the many weapons in use, including the men, as stated above. For example, Tarawa was a squad leader’s fight. As soon as battle was joined, it was the courage and especially the initiative of individual Marine squad leaders that carried the day.
Returning to my first sentence, American submarines played a key role by sinking so many Japanese cargo ships that Japan was ultimately denied access to its oil source in the Dutch Indies.
Is any one factor or weapon dominant? I don’t know.
JT
Radio, followed by mass produced motor lorries.
Radios returned command and control to the battlefield. Prior to WW1, control had been by voice and courier and battles were concentrated in time and space enough for that to work, by and large. In WW1 the battles were too large in both width and depth, as well as too intense for voice control and couriers to work - probably the greatest reason it was such a bloody and protracted conflict. The introduction of manpack radios prior to WW2 returned command & control to the battlefield, and set up the war of movement that was WW2.
Mass produced motor lorries is the other factor introducing a war of movement. The US civil war and to a lesser extent WW1 were railway wars - the campaigns were pretty much entirely dominated by where the railways went, which put a cap on the exploitation of any advance, as well as limiting the peak speed of advance to that of a walking soldier. In WW1 lorries started to be used, but it wasn’t until WW2 that they really started to supplant rail as the main means of shifting logistics. Again, this made wars of movement possible again, as well as removing a major advantage held by the defender (it is massivelty easier to move troops and supplies within your own territory on railways you own than it is to move them across a recent battlefield).
There were very, very few weapons in WW2 that didn’t exist in WW1 in some form or other, without decisive effects. Manportable radios, radar, sonar and atomic weapons are about the only ones I can think of.
Might add to this Liberty ships. Weapons arent much good if you cant get them to the ppl that need them.
From wiki:
Early on, each ship took about 230 days to build (Patrick Henry took 244 days), but the average eventually dropped to 42 days. The record was set by Robert E. Peary, which was launched 4 days and 15 1/2 hours after the keel was laid, although this publicity stunt was not repeated – and in fact much fitting-out and other work remained to be done after the Peary was launched. The ships were made assembly-line style, from prefabricated sections. In 1943, three new Liberty ships were being completed every day.
The thing about radio and motor lorries is that they were decisive for all powers, in all theatres of war. Liberty ships were only decisive for the British, and important for the US and Soviets.
Being British of course I am inherently likely to rate them highly, but objectively I really don’t think they were all that important. The U-boats were effectively beaten before the prewar stock of shipping available to the UK would have been destroyed. The big effect of the Liberty ships was bringing forward the date at which the Allied amphibious counterattack could take place.
Lots of valid comments about what was important and how it was used, but the original question was about the most dominant weapon.
If we get off that into all the other developments, we’ll get down to things like the importance of manufacturing improvements in producing more efficient electric motors that powered a whole lot of things, including various weapons systems.
Maybe this topic should be split so that the weapons are kept separate from other important things?
Not that I think there could ever be an definitive answer to the original question because there’s no way to compare an infantry long arm with a field piece with a bomber with a submarine etc etc etc.
Though one could argue, that neither liberty ships nor radios and trucks are actually weapons. But when it comes to overall importance they would definatly rank high.
Another one in that section could be the first true implementations of combined arms on the tactical doctrine level. As far as actual weapons go, I would split my vote between tanks and single engine combat airplanes (fighters, fighterbombers, ground support) both weapons which finally had matured prior and during ww2.
The airplane and aircraft carrier. The aircraft changed a battle in such a way that the ground forces could not do anything about it and thus can win a war. The aircraft carries, because they can destroy a whole navy with it’s airplanes and can also change the tide of battle. The carrier showed that the battleship is not so powerful as it was always believed to be and that one aircraft carrier can take out a battleship at ease.
Then I would say it must be artillery and tanks. Tanks and artillery proved to be the best support of an attack on the enemy and then air cover comes in the whole thing again.
The Atomic Bombs
Naah. The C-47 skytrain… or the Ju52. Logistics man!
The Atomic bomb was the most awsome dominant weapon of WW-2. Nothing can compare to it. Truman should of sent a half dozen more A-bombs over to Japan and one or 2 to the Emperors palace to end the war more quicker than it lasted.
T-34, definitly. The sheer numbers produced caused the Germans to waste war production on tanks that didn’t suvive that well. Remember, Stalin said: “Quantity has a quality all its own.”
The most domanting weapon of ww2 was the english vocabulary.
The most dominating for me would be the Tiger I tank.
The Atomic bomb would of made minced meat of your Tiger 1 tank. Atomic bomb Rules!
I’m sorry but thats just wrong, if they dropped a Tiger tank instead of the A bomb Japan would obviously sink, there is nothing better than a Tiger, well 2 Tigers:mrgreen:
Artillery. The cause of most casualties on the battlefield in both WW1 and WW2