>>34101
Production in the 30s wasn't specifically geared towards a drive like that achieved in the Ardennes. Hitler was competing in the arms race on general terms without thinking that he'd have to use this kind of maneuver warfare in the future nor concentrating his resources on mechanized forces and drawing grand strategic conclusions from the speed of such campaigns. When the war came the production priority from the Polish to the French campaigns was ammunition, especially artillery shells. German industry was arming itself from a WWI-style campaign, and that was precisely what the first drafts of the invasion plan were. Manstein came up at the last minute with a very different concept, and though of course it was made possible because there were mechanized forces available and those were fit for a lightning campaign, for the past years production had not been focused on achieving this moment.
Once Manstein was proven right it was a given that operational planning for Barbarossa would follow the same logic. This time, however, arming mechanized forces became the priority of German industry. The ability of blitzkrieg to defeat materially equal enemies and save time was incorporated into grand strategic planning. All of Barbarossa rested on the assumption that the Soviet Union would be vanquished quickly, securing Germany's position in its war with the Western powers and allowing drafted workers to be sent back to their factories and production priority to shift to the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine. Operational, grand strategic and economic planning were joined together and depended on each other, the difference from the preparations for the Battle of France is like day and night.