Shortround6
Major General
There were a lot things against the idea of a 'universal tank', a major one in the late 30s and early 40s was many armies wanted their tanks go over their portable bridge equipment without destroying the portable bridge. Bridging equipment got a lot better (bigger) during the war and a lot more was done after the war.I suspect what was standing in the way of a 'universal' tank, or MBT at the outset of the war was doctrine as well as available guns. Engine-wise they could, had they so wished, been in a pretty decent position.
The quality vs quantity thing showed up in ships. Needing enough "good enough" ships to be where needed vs a super ship that could only be one place.
And back to aircraft, The Germans and the Soviets got trapped a kind of the quantity side. Yes the Germans had jets but the 109 was getting a bit past it.
It didn't carry enough guns to be a good bomber destroyer or if it did it needed "escorts" to keep the allied fighters busy while the more heavily armed bomber busters did their thing.
Needing two aircraft to do one job might not have been the ideal quantity vs quality. Neither was the short range which meant you needed a lot of fighters to defend Germany. It is around 380 miles from Hamburg to Munich so you need a LOT of fighter fields to defend the area. Even 20-30 minutes more endurance might mean you have fewer fighters stationed around Germany.
Soviets were about as bad, since they rarely had to attack large bombers they got away with their standard fighter armament. They didn't like it, near the end of the war with better engines and/or less weight due to more duralumin they started putting in more guns. But in order to get the performance they thought they needed they opted for poor armaments quality (per plane) for good performance quality per plane and made up for it in quantity. The M-106 and M-107 engine project failures limited the Soviet options for better overall quality that would require less quantity.
A lot of times there were a number of factors that resulted in the quantity vs quality decisions and not just a pure price decision.
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