Putting time in reverse we bounce back to the 1940's. Germany had the best technology in the world with Tiger Tanks, stratospheric bombers and airborne infantry. What happened to them? A bunch of guys with primitive weapons but lots of industrial capability beat the sox off of them. Reminds me of another superpower nowadays which has lots of nice toys but very few machine shops, airplane plants and tank farms.
Well I have to quibble here. There can be little doubt that Nazi Germany via the efforts of various tank designers and the aerospace efforts of such men as Messerschmitt (Bf-109, Me 262a) Dr. Kurt Tank (FW-190A & D series), and Werner Von Braun (V-1 and V-2) made some fantastic weapons systems that were in many respects ahead of their time or at least the pinnacle of contemporary design, but they also managed to produce some turkeys such as tanks that were too heavy for the terrain, hard starters in intense cold, and generally fuel inefficient, as well as planes that were more mechanically complicated and less field robust than competing allied designs, not to mention generally less amenable to large scale industrial production.
There is more to weapons systems than gee-whiz technical prowess. The Soviet T-34 was a marvel of an unsophisticated tank that could be built by lesser skilled workers and driven and commanded by kulaks, which was very reliable, worked in cold weather, and could be built in a fraction of the time of a Tiger II tank whilst being capable of 80-90% of the uber-tank's performance. Its "primitiveness" was the byproduct of a great design.
After a rocky start, the English, Americans, and even the Soviets, all threw aircraft into the melee that bettered the best German piston-engined machines (and some were a survivable match for their jets) in most respects. In the ETO, the P-47 C & D, the P-38, the P-51 C & D, various marks of the Spitfire, Typhoon, and Tempest, the Yakolev 3 & 7, later model LaGG's, even the cast-off American P-39, and P-63 which the Soviets essentially gave a new lease on combat effectiveness by lightening them up and using them within their best design parameters, all were the equal or better of any German piston engined aircraft by 1944. While the allied tanks remained largely inferior, the trucks, small arms, and naval craft were never bested by anything of German manufacture. Only the Americans, Soviets, and British pulled off successful four engined bomber efforts. Even the Mosquito, B-25 and B-26 twin-engined bombers were generally better, faster, and tougher than the He-111 and the Ju-88. Allied sonar, radar and cryptography were also generally superior to anything the Nazis ever employed. Heck, it could even be argued that the pre-fab "Liberty Ships" cranked out assembly-line style from shipyards on both American coasts, were really what won the war logistically. The Japanese Navy and the German Kriegsmarine could never keep up with Kaiser's modular cargo ships being made at one or two a day. It's a form of sophistication with a different emphasis.
In the Pacific, the trend is even more dramatic. It is widely acknowledged that at the beginning of hostilities the Japanese Zero, the "Zeke," was the best aircraft in the PTO by far. By 1943 it was not. The F4U Corsair and the F6F Hellcat, "the Ace Maker" both could easily best the Zero in most performance areas, especially when tactics were developed that moved away from playing to the Zero's dogfighting strengths into the tactic called "Boom & Zoom" wherein the American plane's superior level speed, diving speed, and climbing rate, were used to exploit the relative lack of Japanese horsepower and armor. Again, American naval architecture was better, the Army and Marines' small arms were better, and we held significant advantages in armor, logistical vehicles and submarines if not torpedoes.
In a sense you
are correct. The Germans were beaten, especially on the Eastern Front, via the industrial capacity of the Soviet Union and their willingness to suffer casualties. However, you sell all of the allies short on design in areas the Germans were inadequate or simply produced the most complicated machine to get the job done. If you have a weapon that does nearly all of the mission that the opponent's can and it's easier to build in quantity, more reliable, easier to train with, and can by virtue of sheer numbers be in more places at once than can the foe, I'd say that whiz-bang has lost out not to "primitiveness" but a different and just as valid design philosophy that is greater than the sum of its parts.
