I finished Rick Atkinson's latest book, The Guns At Last Light, and a few parts in the book really stuck out to me. He said Eisenhower had only enough supplies to outfit 10 divisions to cross into Germany. He also said the American army was usually short of essential winter clothes and such. I also remember a part where he stated Third Army only had enough fuel for 3 more days of fighting. Sorry if anything above was inaccurate, but I am just writing down what I remember.
What I'm trying to say that the Allies had times of resource shortage. So how accurate is the idea that the Allies were up to their gills in resources and materiel?
(I'm not asking for comparisons between the Axis and the Allies, but rather, a comparison between the Allies in the minds of most people to how they actually were.)
Lucky you for finishing it already, I just got it yesterday and will read it ASAP.
There is a difference between supplies and the supply line. Supplies are the total amount of stuff available. The supply line concerns getting that stuff to where it needs to go. Immediately after the Normandy landings, the Allies did not have control of any working major port facilities, and had to resort to constructing "artificial" harbors on the beach (Mulberry Harbors), to supply the entire invasion force. When Cherbourg was captured several weeks later, the port facilities were too damaged to be used immediately. In late August, the Mulberry's and Cherbourg were still the origin of supplies for the Allied front, which was moving steadily further away. The fact that all supplies needed to be unloaded at makeshift harbors, and then trucked across miles of French roads, meant that front-line Allied troops in late 1944 did experience some shortages.
A good source for you would be John Ellis' World War II: A Statistical Survey. It goes into the nitty-gritty about how much stuff was produced by the combatants during the war. Some of the figures are quite astounding.
Edit: And seeing that it's now $72 on Amazon, I'm going to keep my copy close. It looks as if Ellis has a Databook that's cheaper but may do the same thing.
If you read Attack and Sink: The Battle Convoy for SC42 by Bernard Edwards you will get some impression of the difficulties in keeping the Atlantic supply routes open.