Technological gaps

Narrator's post:

Likewise, by the start of 1942, Japan and Germany had seemingly the advantage in far superior technology than either the US, UK or USSR. Japan’s campaign in Southeast Asia had been decisively influenced by the Zero fighter. In the hands of skilled pilots mostly blooded in the China campaign, it was certainly more than a match for any counterpart the Allies could deploy. As Tom Wade pointed out in his blog entry, Japan had command of the sky as she invaded Singapore, and this command owed much to the contributions of the Zero fighter in these early stages of the war. Japan put her possession of a modern naval fleet to good use, crippling the US naval presence in Pearl Harbor with the destruction of many capital ships such as the battleship Arizona, and destroying all Allied naval opposition, notably the Prince of Wales and the Repulse off the Malayan coast, and so monopolizing command of the seas of Southeast Asia. In Germany, in terms of tank models the Wehrmacht and the Allies had seemingly compatible models; the Char B-1 heavy tank of France and the Matilda tanks of the British able to compete against the Panzers. The real advantage Nazi Germany possessed was that the Luffwaffe was able to effectively support the Panzer divisions in attacks, first against Poland and then invading France. Planes such as the Junkers were able to quickly dive-bomb opposition to facilitate the advance of the Panzers, while the ME fighters provided close protection. The Allies could never hope to stand against the effective application and combination of these tactics, honed for years in earlier conflicts such as the Spanish Civil War.