JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
Here's a fine and somewhat misleading representation of the U.S. Congressional war allocation of 1918 for what was then the staggering figure of $18,000,000,000 (or about $387 billion in 2020 according to the BLS), found in the pages of Popular Mechanics for May 1918. To visualize the 18-billion, the editors displayed the amount in terms of something somewhat familiar to most readers. For example, if the appropriation could be laid directly and only into the manufacture of airplanes (and bombs I guess) the editors guessed that the force would lay waste to all of Germany in about two days. Guessing that each aircraft cost about $10,000 in 1918 that would mean there would be an attack force of 1.8 million planes. Granting each a capacity of 500 pounds carriage, their entire force could deliver about 20% of the total tonnage dropped on Germany by the US and UK during WWII for each 1.8 million plane sortie. (I'm guessing at some of the figures but I think that this is about correct.) Given that the "bomber plane" was still in its cradle, this could not have painted a very clear picture of what $18 billion dollars could buy. Further guessing here is that there were fewer than 50,000 aircraft in existence in 1918, so imaging the 1.8 million figure would have been staggering.
Another example from the same article involves envisioning $18,000,000,000 worth of tanks, which in 1918 would cover fielding 2,000,000 of them. This of course is an enormous number, particularly having in mind that about 50,000 U.S. Sherman tanks were constructed between 1942 and 1945, which is about 3.5% of the total talked about in the article, and the largest tank battle in history at Kursk in July and August 1943 involved about 6,000 tanks between German and Soviet forces. Given too that the tank is only a few years on the battlefield at this point there was really no way that a person could visualize 2 million tanks--I suppose no commander in 1945 could have envisioned it, either.
And another example from the same article: using pennies and the Woolworth Building as comparables. The Woolworth structure has found itself in a number of similar articles in the 'teens, though I don't recall seeing it compared to a 1.8 trillion penny mound, as we see below.
I think that the editors were just out and beyond their capacity in trying to visualize war funds in these comparative ways.
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