Who won WWII?

[Montmorency]

How did the USSR continue to maintain and upgrade the large army once LL ended if LL was crucial to its survival as a state?

Equivocation. Obviously Lend-Lease would not have been too important once the war actually ended and the Soviet economy could stabilize. Later extraction from Eastern Europe didn't hurt either.

[ReluctantSamurai]

How did the USSR continue to maintain and upgrade the large army once LL ended if LL was crucial to its survival as a state?

Mainly by squeezing resources, both physical and human, from territories they "inherited" at the wars end. And by being a totalitarian state...wherever Stalin wanted money allocated, it went there. Whatever Stalin wanted produced, got produced. And to hell with other considerations. Without quoting the entire list of resource shortages in the Soviet Union in 1946, here are a few glaring ones that resulted when LL was finally terminated:

[From Harrison's Accounting for War Table 6.7]

Natural Rubber 100%
Molybdenum concentrate 81.3%
Cadmium 66%
Transmission Belts 48.5%
Animal Fats 58%
Lead 40%
Paper 50%
Aircraft fuel 37%

And the list goes on. Some of these shortages would not be made up until well into the 50's. The Soviets paid a heavy price, and not just in casualties but in lost infrastructure and production capacity.

And besides, you confuse the importance of LL to the Soviets surviving the actual armed conflict, with survival in the aftermath. The two are not the same.

[Greyblades]

Yet another case of the US creating its own enemy?

Well, we cant exactly blame the americans for this one considering if the didn't they would have prolonged the existance of another enemy. Damned if they did, damned if they didn't. Say what you want about the soviets, stalin didn't actively start fights with everyone around him.

[HoreTore]

If only it were true. It would have made things a lot easier for the republican cause.

Instead, the monarchists keep blabbering on about the king's refusal to surrender to the invading nazis, as if it actually mattered for the monarchy as a principle.

Frags mixed up Norway and Sweden again.

[Papewaio]

Except with Finland, but otherwise yeah.

Where did the iron curtain end? Which countries did Stalin carve up with Hitler?

Stalin didn't invade more because Hitler double crossed him. Hardly a saint.

[Pannonian]

Where did the iron curtain end? Which countries did Stalin carve up with Hitler?

Stalin didn't invade more because Hitler double crossed him. Hardly a saint.

As far as foreign policy went, Stalin was fairly consistent though. Re-establish the Tsarist borders that had been given up at Brest-Litovsk. Then add a buffer around the USSR, especially at the western end from which 4 invasions had been launched in just over 20 years (German, numerous foreign states in the Civil War, Polish, German again). If Stalin was paranoid about foreign countries looking to invade Russia, he had good reason to be. Churchill understood him, and much as he disliked what he was about, he maintained that Stalin didn't break his promises to him.

[Husar]

Well, we cant exactly blame the americans for this one considering if the didn't they would have prolonged the existance of another enemy. Damned if they did, damned if they didn't. Say what you want about the soviets, stalin didn't actively start fights with everyone around him.

Where did I say that I blame them?

[Greyblades]

Uh... When you said:

while the USA sent lots of stuff to Russia that helped greatly with keeping Stalin in power and enabling the Cold War that followed. Yet another case of the US creating its own enemy?

You probably didnt intend it, but the way you worded it implied you were blaming the USA for stalin. Technically true but as I said it was the best of a load of bad options.

[Fragony]

Frags mixed up Norway and Sweden again.

If you don't know why should I know. Enriched areas's in both Sweden as Norway are a nightmare. A female is less likely to get raped in Africa. Rape capitals of the world, flying colors and a kiss of the teacheres.

[Sarmatian]

Stating facts without interpreting them (or interpreting them incorrectly) and without putting them in a broader context is misleading.

God I always swear that I won't ever make comments on revisionist history topics like this, but there are some glaring mis-understandings about LL here that need some clarification...

First...the "only" 4% contribution to Soviet domestic production is often used in such discussions (usually quoting Soviet sources), and always mis-represented and worse, mis-understood. Most folks who bandy such numbers around show an obvious lack of understanding as to how economies, particularly war economies, work. It is not simply an additive "building block" arrangement where you just count "beans and bullets." When considering LL, one has to consider what this aid allowed the Soviets to do and accomplish when Gosplan (essentially the war-time planning board) sat down at the beginning of each fiscal year to decide how to allocate the budget.

Mark Harrison (an accomplished and world renown economist of the WW 2 Soviet economy) in his book Accounting for War (highly recommended for anyone serious about gaining a true picture of the effects of LL) states:



10% vs 4% doesn't seem like much of a difference, but what it allowed Soviet planners to do was. By mid-1942, the Soviet economy was on the verge of collapse just like happened in WW 1. So many men had been conscripted into the army or into the factories, and so much resources, both stockpiled and current were being fed into the war effort, that the agricultural/rural sector of the Soviet economy was ready to collapse. Out in the countryside, near-starvation was the norm, and the lack of services such as medical treatment, availability of parts for farm machinery, etc, was causing a loss of the will to fight and certain rebellion if not remedied.

And here is the first example. By 1943 - which means that in 1943 it represented 10% at one point, not overall. LL was supplied to Russia from 22.06.1941 to 12.05.1945.

Furthermore, bulk of the total LL aid arrived after the war was decided. Of the total aid, 1% arrived in 1941 and cca. 25% in 1941, so about 75% of LL arrived in 1943-1945.

Also, Soviet industry "suffered" mostly because of relocation problems in 1942.

Lastly, "using Soviet source" is pretty much a given since USA government never released a complete list of what was sent through LL.

Equipment from LL such as tanks, aircraft, trucks, etc, etc, etc, would have little direct impact on such a situation. But......if the Soviets don't have to produce as much, or any, of the items received from LL, then they can devote resources elsewhere and starting in 1943, they did just that. Gross investment in their economy showed a positive number for the first time since the war began, and public outlays (money devoted to non-military areas of the economy) rose dramatically. It's quite possible that Stalin would've been on the receiving end of an October Revolution had things continued the way they were headed....

Without going into an endless diatribe about a complete inventory of what was sent, several items stand out as being crucial.

We are all used to reading the accounts of the Soviet juggernaut rolling across the frozen steppes of the Ukraine and Byelorussia, and finally Operation Bagration pushing the Nazis back into Germany, but how was this accomplished? There are several reasons, none of which are more important than the Soviet will to defeat the Germans, but that might not have been enough.

The first singular item is the GMC "deuce-and-a-half"...tens of thousands of them. Soviets continued to produce their own trucks right up to the end of the war, and certainly could have built enough trucks to satisfy army use. However, in doing so, how many less tanks and other equipment would the Soviet army had to do without? Lots. US trucks were plentiful, ruggedly built, and without them I seriously doubt we would have seen too much Soviet 'blitzkreig' overrunning thousands of sq. kilometers of German-occupied territory in stunningly short amounts of time.

Unfortunately, the freed up industrial capacities couldn't be used for much. Medium and heavy tanks required highly specialized factories and work force. You simply couldn't make a T34 in a truck factory. For the entire war, a grand total of 5 factories in the whole USSR produced T34's, and only 3 of those 5 produced more than 500.

Production of light tanks increased, but light tanks became obsolete very soon into the war and ended up as glorified artillery towers.

The practical value was very small.

Second singular item is canned food, popularly known as Spam. Given that the Soviet agricultural system had taken the largest hit from the war, both in terms of workers and lost productive farmland, having readily available food that the army could consume 'on the march', should not be under-estimated. Even Soviet soldiers had to stop to eat

Third singular item is radios. What contributed greatly to better Soviet tactics concerning armor and aircraft? The fact that 'tankers' could actually talk to each other on the battlefield, or fighter aircraft vectored to areas under threat from the Luftwaffe, cannot be brushed off as simply accumulated experience, although that's certainly a very important factor. It was the widespread availability of radios that allowed Soviet formations to react quicker to German moves, and those formations to operate more cohesively when in combat.

This part, on the other hand, is totally accurate. Food, radios and field telephones were badly needed, and their impact can not be overstated. Unfortunately, just like the rest of LL, they arrived after the decisive battles were already won.

On the whole, it can be safely said that LL just sped up the inevitable and shortened the war, but it was in no way decisive.

Fourth singular item is aluminum. One can add non-ferrous alloys to that. In 1941, Soviet imports of non-ferrous metals amounted to 4.7 million dollars US (corrected in terms of 1940 values from Accounting for War Table J2). In 1942, that amount went to 60.4 million; in 1943 125.3 million; and in 1944 it was 178.8 million dollars....a simply huge increase. Now harkening back to all those sweeping Soviet offensives of 1943-45, another vision we all have seen is the hordes of Il's accompanied by an even bigger horde of Yak 9's dominating the battlefield. So what, right? A tribute to Soviet industrial effort, and ingenuity.

And at the same time, through reverse lend lease, Soviet supplied USA with millions of tones of rare materials USA needed.

So, don't try to save us from "revisionist history" any more, please.

[Montmorency]

millions of tones of rare materials USA needed.

Source please, as the quantity supplied is said to be unknown.

[Sarmatian]

Source please, as the quantity supplied is said to be unknown.

Some quantities are known. More than 300,000 tones of chrome and 32,000 tones of manganese ore, in addition to other materials, like wood and gold.

It's estimated roughly at being about 5-10% worth of LL. Nothing crucial but helped to keep US wartime production at peak efficiency.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Stating facts without interpreting them (or interpreting them incorrectly) and without putting them in a broader context is misleading.

Really? I'm pretty sure my interpretation of how Soviet offensives in 1943-44 would have gone down without LL was a 'broader context'.

which means that in 1943 it represented 10% at one point

And I'm the one interpreting data incorrectly?

[From Accounting for War, Table 6.5]

The % of LL included in budget outlays for the defense commissariat from Jan 1942-Dec 1944:

In 1942 LL accounted for 2.7% of all Soviet budget outlays; in 1943 it was 7.5%; and in 1944 it was 13.2%.

As to the figures you cited----source please.

Furthermore, bulk of the total LL aid arrived after the war was decided.

That's your opinion and you certainly are entitled to it. But exactly when did the conflict on the Eastern Front become "decided"? After Stalingrad? Kursk? Bagration?

You simply couldn't make a T34 in a truck factory

I never said that. What I did say is that LL freed up Soviet resources (and the workers in the factories are considered a resource) to allocate in other critical places other than what they were receiving through LL. And in misreading what I said, you missed the biggest point of all....the Soviet economy was on the verge of collapse by mid-1942 and it was in the agricultural sector where the danger lay. LL allowed Gosplan to begin to allocate funds to the civilian sector in 1943 for the first time since the war began, and thereby avert a possible revolt. Most people who like to toss out LL numbers also fail to realize that of all the total LL (in terms of dollar value), 25 cents of every $ went directly to the Soviet defense effort, and 75 cents went for dual purpose items like communications, food stuffs, tool & die machinery (these can be used to build farm tractors as well as tanks), etc.

Soviet supplied USA with millions of tones of rare materials USA needed.

Some quantities are known. More than 300,000 tones of chrome and 32,000 tones of manganese ore, in addition to other materials, like wood and gold. It's estimated roughly at being about 5-10% worth of LL.

Without a source, this is just blowing smoke in the wind.

[From Table J4 Accounting for War]

Soviet exports to the United States 1941-1944, in millions of $ [and rather than cite the entire list, where the largest single item is classified as Animal Products (inedible)---82% of items sent in 1941; 76% in 1942; 66% in 1943; and 73% in 1944, I'll just use the non-ferrous metals line]

In 1941, non-ferrous exports to the US amounted to 0.6 million $ (in 1937 dollars) or 2% of all exports; in 1942 it was 2.4 million or 9.7%; in 1943 it was 5.7 million or 19%; and in 1944 it was 8 million or 16%.

Total reverse LL amounted to 133.4 million $ US for the years 1941-44. The entire LL value (both US and British) amounted to 10.67 billion from the US and 1.26 billion for the British (converted to US $) for a total of 11.93 billion $ US. Now the last time I checked my math, that is nowhere near "5-10%" of the LL value imported (doing the math gives 1.1%)

[Montmorency]

At any rate, the US apparently sent more trucks and military transport vehicles to the USSR than the USSR actually produced natively:

Wikifor the USSR vs. US trucks/vehicles: 197,100 vs. 2,382,311
America, Hitler and the UN : How the Allies Won World War II and Forged a Peace (Dan Plesch) for the US trucks sent as part of LL: "300,000 Studebakers".

As Samurai and GC have pointed out previously, without this mobility the Soviet Union would have been forced to remain on the defensive, or submit to grueling trench warfare all across the occupied territory - and I'm not even considering logistical inefficiencies from lack of transport...

This source has even more dramatic figures:

Far more critical to the Soviet war effort was the supply of tactical vehicles, primarily from the United States. During the war, the Soviet Union produced only 343,624 cars and lorries due to the heavy commitment of major automobile factories like GAZ to armoured vehicle production. The USA alone provided the Soviets with 501,660 tactical wheeled and tracked vehicles, including 77,972 jeeps, 151,053 1-1/2-ton trucks, and 200,622 2-1/2-ton trucks.

Now some data from Alexander Hill's Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union:

As discussed briefly in Chapter 4 with reference to tanks, when Allied, in particular British, deliveries of key weapons systems for the war as a whole are compared to Soviet production for the same period they can understandably be viewed as being of little significance. However, as shown, during the Battle for Moscow in late 1941 the Soviet resource situation was so dire that relatively small inputs of tanks were of some significance. This situation would continue well into 1942. Tables 8.2 and 8.3 show tanks and aircraft delivered to the Soviet Union for 1941, with Soviet production figures for the same period, as well as force levels as of 22 June 1941, losses for the first six months of the war, and numbers available (including foreign supplies) on 1 January 1942. A steady stream of British-supplied tanks continued to be provided to Soviet units during the spring and summer of 1942. From 10 May 1942 British tanks were being sent to reinforce the Briansk and Kalinin Fronts and South-Western napravlenie, with the South-Western napravlenie to receive 90 Matildas and 70 Valentines during May 1942. 13 According to Suprun, immediately prior to July 1942 and therefore at the end of the First Moscow Protocol period, the Red Army had 13,500 tanks in service, of which 2,200 or 16 per cent were imported, and of which over 50 per cent were British. 14 However, mechanical problems, in part due to Soviet unfamiliarity with this new, foreign equipment, kept in the region of 50 per cent of imported tanks out of service at any one time up to the end of 1942. Soviet sources did, however, note the general relative reliability of Leyland engines of Matildas compared to Soviet models. 15 Whilst by late 1942 Soviet production lessened the significance of British tank supplies, aircraft deliveries, the importance of which arguably exceeded tanks during the First Moscow Protocol period, remained significant into 1943. Soviet combat aircraft production from the end of June 1941 to the end of June 1942 was in the region of the 16,468 aircraft given by Harrison. 16 By the end of June 1942 the UK had delivered 1,323 fighter aircraft, or about 8 per cent of Soviet production from the start of the war. 17 Given that Soviet combat-aircraft losses for this period at best approached domestic supply, and were particularly severe for the first six months of the war, British deliveries alone were of some significance, especially when the particularly high Soviet losses of the first weeks of the war, depleting prewar stocks, are taken into account. As early as 12 October 1941, 126th Fighter Air Regiment of the PVO was operating with Tomahawks, the first Soviet unit to be equipped with this aircraft. 18 PVO use of Allied aircraft during 1941– 45 is indicated in Table 8.4. As with much Western equipment, the process of training, conducted by 27th Reserve Air Regiment that was formed in August 1941 for the task of conversion to Allied aircraft, was hampered by a lack of technical documentation, particularly in Russian. 19 Tomahawks (P-40s) also served in late 1941 in defence of the ‘Doroga zhizni’ or ‘Road of Life’ across the ice of Lake Ladoga to the besieged Leningrad.

Even without 154th Fighter Air Regiment, also equipped with P-40s and also committed to the defence of the ice road, the 20 Tomahawks of 159th Fighter Air Regiment represented, according to the Commander of the VVS for the Leningrad Front (later Marshal) Novikov, almost 14 per cent of the fighter strength of the front as of the end of November (20/143) and more than 11 per cent of the total air strength of the front (20/175) at the end of December 1941. 20

Whilst the number of lorries delivered to the Soviet Union during the First Moscow Protocol was neither as significant relatively or absolutely as it would be during subsequent protocols, 39 even during the First Lend-Lease Protocol period lorries were a scarce resource carefully allocated by the centre, as the appendix on page 181 to the above decree suggests.

And so on. Here are the accompanying tables:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[ReluctantSamurai]

For something a tad bit more to the lighter side of things

http://english.battlefield.ru/dmitriy-loza.html

Granted, this is only one Soviet tankers' impressions and stories, but I've always found this comment.....interesting:

For a long time after the war I sought an answer to one question. If a T-34 started burning, we tried to get as far away from it as possible, even though this was forbidden. The on-board ammunition exploded. For a brief period of time, perhaps six weeks, I fought on a T-34 around Smolensk. The commander of one of our companies was hit in his tank. The crew jumped out of the tank but were unable to run away from it because the Germans were pinning them down with machine gun fire. They lay there in the wheat field as the tank burned and blew up. By evening, when the battle had waned, we went to them. I found the company commander lying on the ground with a large piece of armor sticking out of his head. When a Sherman burned, the main gun ammunition did not explode. Why was this?

So much for the "Ronson" reputation of the Sherman

[Sarmatian]

As to the figures you cited----source please.

Michulec, T-34 Mythical Weapon

Depending on the source some 55000-60000 of T34 were produced (both variants)

1. Factory No.183 (Kharkov, moved to Nizhniy Tagil in 1942)
2. STZ Factory, Stalingrad
3. Factory No. 112, Gorky
4. Factory No. 174, Omsk
5. CzKZ, Czelyabinsk
6. UTZM, Urals

So, it was six factories, actually. Serves me right. It's been ages since I was actively reading about ww2.
Of those six, the first and third produced about 43000

That's your opinion and you certainly are entitled to it. But exactly when did the conflict on the Eastern Front become "decided"? After Stalingrad? Kursk? Bagration?

In my opinion, the war was over when Germany didn't manage to get USSR to surrender by December 1941. Germany simply didn't have the means to fight the war of attrition against USSR. The deciding point is usually taken to be Stalingrad, but Kursk works also, as it was the last large scale German offensive, although the war was pretty much decided by then and it was a part of Soviet plan to get Wehrmacht to blunt itself in Kursk and to start a major offensive immediately afterwards.

I never said that. What I did say is that LL freed up Soviet resources (and the workers in the factories are considered a resource) to allocate in other critical places other than what they were receiving through LL. And in misreading what I said, you missed the biggest point of all....the Soviet economy was on the verge of collapse by mid-1942 and it was in the agricultural sector where the danger lay. LL allowed Gosplan to begin to allocate funds to the civilian sector in 1943 for the first time since the war began, and thereby avert a possible revolt. Most people who like to toss out LL numbers also fail to realize that of all the total LL (in terms of dollar value), 25 cents of every $ went directly to the Soviet defense effort, and 75 cents went for dual purpose items like communications, food stuffs, tool & die machinery (these can be used to build farm tractors as well as tanks), etc.

What all of this really means is that LL helped Soviet war effort, which is true and undisputed. I'm challenging the notion that it was crucial.

Without a source, this is just blowing smoke in the wind.

[From Table J4 Accounting for War]

Soviet exports to the United States 1941-1944, in millions of $ [and rather than cite the entire list, where the largest single item is classified as Animal Products (inedible)---82% of items sent in 1941; 76% in 1942; 66% in 1943; and 73% in 1944, I'll just use the non-ferrous metals line]

In 1941, non-ferrous exports to the US amounted to 0.6 million $ (in 1937 dollars) or 2% of all exports; in 1942 it was 2.4 million or 9.7%; in 1943 it was 5.7 million or 19%; and in 1944 it was 8 million or 16%.

Total reverse LL amounted to 133.4 million $ US for the years 1941-44. The entire LL value (both US and British) amounted to 10.67 billion from the US and 1.26 billion for the British (converted to US $) for a total of 11.93 billion $ US. Now the last time I checked my math, that is nowhere near "5-10%" of the LL value imported (doing the math gives 1.1%)

Estimates vary from about a hundred to seven hundred million $.

At any rate, the US apparently sent more trucks and military transport vehicles to the USSR than the USSR actually produced natively:

Wikifor the USSR vs. US trucks/vehicles: 197,100 vs. 2,382,311
America, Hitler and the UN : How the Allies Won World War II and Forged a Peace (Dan Plesch) for the US trucks sent as part of LL: "300,000 Studebakers".

As Samurai and GC have pointed out previously, without this mobility the Soviet Union would have been forced to remain on the defensive, or submit to grueling trench warfare all across the occupied territory - and I'm not even considering logistical inefficiencies from lack of transport...

And as I pointed out, Soviet truck production decreased as the number of trucks gotten through LL increased. USSR produced several thousand trucks in 1943. In 1941, they produced more than 70,000, but, through LL they got a few thousand in 1941 and about 70,000 in 1943.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Michulec, T-34 Mythical Weapon

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I was not asking for production numbers for the T-34, I was asking the source for the statement in the first quote below:

bulk of the total LL aid arrived after the war was decided. Of the total aid, 1% arrived in 1941 and cca. 25% in 1941, so about 75% of LL arrived in 1943-1945.

Lastly, "using Soviet source" is pretty much a given since USA government never released a complete list of what was sent through LL.

You really think the bureaucrat types handling LL shipments wouldn't keep written reports on this?

http://cdm16040.contentdm.oclc.org/c...8/id/950/rec/1

Literally, a damn near bullet-by-bullet list:

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/ref/LL-Ship/

Germany simply didn't have the means to fight the war of attrition against USSR.

Care to back that up with some substance other than opinion?

I'm challenging the notion that it was crucial.

And so far, you haven't provided a single shred of evidence that it wasn't, other than your opinion and some vague, unreferenced, statistics.....

......like this:

Estimates vary from about a hundred to seven hundred million $.

Again.....source please

Harrison's numbers quoted above, come from a United States Department of Commerce report published in 1945 (United States Department of Commerce (1945) "United States trade with Russia during the war years" vol2, no41) citing the amounts of imports as recorded up to that time. Such reports are rarely, if ever, 'estimates'. The 133.4 million $ figure is correct unless you can find some other official report that states otherwise.

You do realize, don't you, that the Soviets actually levied import tariffs on incoming LL aid (not actual monetary amounts against the US but line items to be included in their yearly fiscal reports) to the tune of 78 billion rubles. Considering that total LL amounted to 63 billion rubles (converting the 11.93 billion number in US dollars into rubles), that adds more than double the value of all the LL delivered and makes it look like part of the Soviet NMP. Pretty neat trick (although I doubt that was the intention at the time) to downplay the actual % of LL as "only" 4%. Harrison took this into account when arriving at his 10% figure, which is probably closer to the truth......

[Xiahou]

Who won WW2?

No silly, it's not about weather the Axis or Allies won... It's about what nation won the war FOR the Allies...

This is what French people thought 1945:
Soviet Union: 57%
United States: 20%
Great Britain: 12%

This is what French people thought 2004:
Soviet Union: 20%
United Nations: 58%
Great Britain: 16%

US propaganda seem to work, no?

They think the United Nations won WWII? Wow, public education in France is in a sorry state.....

[Montmorency]

And as I pointed out, Soviet truck production decreased as the number of trucks gotten through LL increased. USSR produced several thousand trucks in 1943. In 1941, they produced more than 70,000, but, through LL they got a few thousand in 1941 and about 70,000 in 1943.

From what I've read, the opposite is true, and either way the importance of US motor vehicles to the SU, with its handful of automobile factories, remains manifest.

[Beskar]

They think the United Nations won WWII? Wow, public education in France is in a sorry state.....

"United Nations" is code for "United States of America" but they don't want to feel like their own efforts were worthless, so they simply lump all of the 'allies' together.

[Sarmatian]

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I was not asking for production numbers for the T-34, I was asking the source for the statement in the first quote below:

Mostly Krivosheev and Glantz. You also have to account that in a lot of cases, especially 1941-1943, a lot of equipment was sent but not received (u-boats and other problems)

In 1941, Soviet Union produced 139,879 trucks. 8,600 were sent from the US, 1,506 arrived,
Total amount of tanks at the disposal of Red Army was cca 27,000. Sent from US 180, 35 arrived,
Planes - USSR produced about 15,000 of all types. Sent from USA 150, 29 arrived.

1942
USSR tank production 24,719, received through lend lease cca. 3,000
Planes - USSR 25,436 LL cca 2,500
Trucks - USSR 32,409, LL sent 72,000

Important note is where you'll often find Harrison wrong is that he takes into account what was sent and when was it sent. The problem is that not all of it made it on time or made it at all. For example, of about 6,000 planes sent in 1943 (SU produced about 34,000), only about 70% arrived in the year. 500 was lost and rest didn't arrive until following year, and often wasn't deployed until much later. Some of it wasn't deployed ever, simply because it was hugely inferior to Soviet equipment.

Allied equipment didn't have almost any impact in 1941 and 1942.

You really think the bureaucrat types handling LL shipments wouldn't keep written reports on this?

Parts of it were still classified, at until a few years ago when I last made serious effort of looking into it.

Care to back that up with some substance other than opinion?

Well, as it is an opinion about a complex topic, it's hard to back it up properly without a lengthy response which I'm not really in a mood to write. To put it simply, based on industrial capacity, manpower, resource production... Germany simply didn't have the capabilities to win against USSR in a total war. Especially not in way they fought it.

And so far, you haven't provided a single shred of evidence that it wasn't, other than your opinion and some vague, unreferenced, statistics.....

......like this:



Again.....source please

Harrison's numbers quoted above, come from a United States Department of Commerce report published in 1945 (United States Department of Commerce (1945) "United States trade with Russia during the war years" vol2, no41) citing the amounts of imports as recorded up to that time. Such reports are rarely, if ever, 'estimates'. The 133.4 million $ figure is correct unless you can find some other official report that states otherwise.

You do realize, don't you, that the Soviets actually levied import tariffs on incoming LL aid (not actual monetary amounts against the US but line items to be included in their yearly fiscal reports) to the tune of 78 billion rubles. Considering that total LL amounted to 63 billion rubles (converting the 11.93 billion number in US dollars into rubles), that adds more than double the value of all the LL delivered and makes it look like part of the Soviet NMP. Pretty neat trick (although I doubt that was the intention at the time) to downplay the actual % of LL as "only" 4%. Harrison took this into account when arriving at his 10% figure, which is probably closer to the truth......

You still haven't put your figures into a broader context. You wanna push that LL was crucial for Soviet military victories? Fine. Compare what arrived (not what was sent) and when it arrived to the numbers available to the SU, how and when it was used and was it used at all. Just citing figures doesn't really mean anything on it's own.

It's a bit a like saying Company A had revenues of 2,000,000 in 2014. That's great, but what does it mean? Is it good, is it bad? What were its costs? How did it fare last year? How did the competition fare in those years? Did it make any significant investments and so on and so forth. On its own, it doesn't mean anything.

[Fisherking]

I would just say the Allies won and leave it at that so far as the fighting of the war is concerned.

Most of you seem to have overlooked the UK contribution to the war, particularly the war at sea.

Politically the US and Russia did very well. Ideologically fascist principals gained ground within the democracies of the west even during the war.

Victory is more complex than who won a battle where and who took the most ground. It is all interrelated and interdependent.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Parts of it were still classified, at until a few years ago when I last made serious effort of looking into it.

Accounting for War was published in 1996 so those figures were available almost 20 years ago. But...I'll take your comment as an attempt to admit a factual error, and leave it at that

Important note is where you'll often find Harrison wrong is that he takes into account what was sent and when was it sent. The problem is that not all of it made it on time or made it at all.

Missed this comment the first read-through. And it's not the case. Harrison makes an allowance of 27% losses between what was sent and what actually arrived. Damn number geeks think of everything.....

I would just say the Allies won and leave it at that so far as the fighting of the war is concerned.

And as you can see, folks get bored with topics that just throw numbers around, and rightfully so.

Having said that, let's discuss something more fun

The Soviets deserve all of the credit for the German defeats at Moscow in Dec 1941, and again at Stalingrad at the end of 1942. LL impact on those two battles was minimal, at best. So if the Soviets had not received one single dollars worth of LL, they win both battles anyways.

But now it's 1943, and Stavka is sitting in a Kremlin planning room deciding what to do next. Remember now, there are no imports from the US and UK to factor into what will be possible in the coming year. You've already stripped the non-military areas of the budget for the war effort, and you've pretty much exhausted all the pre-war stockpiles of raw materials and other resources. You've got a rural population on the verge of outright rebellion, so asking the "peasant-worker" to put up with further conscription of their grain and their men of military age, and to further put up with a lack of medical attention, a lack of parts for their farm machinery, etc, is dicey at best.

What does your economic plan for the coming year, and that of the next several years, consist of? Be as broad or specific as you like, but I would be most interested in what your objectives for the forth-coming operations in the Ukraine would be.....ie what manpower you felt will be available for raising new formations and providing replacements for existing ones, considering you've had to keep many thousands more potential conscripts in the factories; and what available equipment you can expect to have at your disposal, since there is no material (radios, aluminum, tool and die machinery, food, trucks, aircraft, etc, etc, etc) coming to you from overseas?

[Sarmatian]

Accounting for War was published in 1996 so those figures were available almost 20 years ago. But...I'll take your comment as an attempt to admit a factual error, and leave it at that

Not parts of Accounting for War. Parts of official documentation on the subject.

The Soviets deserve all of the credit for the German defeats at Moscow in Dec 1941, and again at Stalingrad at the end of 1942. LL impact on those two battles was minimal, at best. So if the Soviets had not received one single dollars worth of LL, they win both battles anyways.

I'm glad we agree on that.

[HoreTore]

They think the United Nations won WWII? Wow, public education in France is in a sorry state.....

It's Kadagar's bad translation.

The answer on the poll reads 'Les Etats-Unis', not 'Les Nations Unies'.

[Kadagar_AV]

They think the United Nations won WWII? Wow, public education in France is in a sorry state.....

Brain slip... I of course meant USA. I edited thread start.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Seeing as I’m vacation for a week, I thought I’d revisit this topic a bit more [orgahs everywhere shake their heads and groan]. What the hell, it’ll give you guys something else besides world politics to yak about….

Reading through the discussion, this quote stuck in my mind:

IMHO, Soviet Union would have won the war even without the US... The US only got in on the action when the war was already decided

In other words, despite the loss of thousands of sq. kilometers of some of the Soviet Union’s best lands, despite the loss of millions of its soldiers killed, wounded, missing, or captured, once the Germans were stopped at Moscow in 1941, and Stalingrad in 1942, the war was as good as over.

Then, there’s this statement:

I would say that Germany was "on the cusp of losing" in 1942, heck, that is my sole argument here.

And yet, it took the Soviet Union 2 ½ years from the time of Stalingrad to finally roll the tanks into Berlin, and this is with the full support of the US and Britain via LL, and by the Western Allies starting a second front with the Normandy landings.

So if we take the previous quotes at face value, then if the US and Britain had not sent a single shipment of LL supplies, nor landed on the beaches at Normandy, the Soviet Union would have brought the war to a conclusion, all by itself.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and mine is no better than anyone else’s, but….I believe these statements to be incorrect.

Then there’s this:

Well... Before the US got engaged:
Italy surrendered in Africa...
I think Germany war more or less spent by the time USA got in on the action

The United States “officially” entered the European theatre of operations on 8 Nov 1942 with the landings in North Africa. The Italians didn’t surrender until 8 Sept 1943…..10 months later, and their surrender came in large part because of the 120,000 men they lost in Tunisia. Obviously, the first part of that statement suffers from a bit of a time warp (subtract 20 history points for this snafu). Operation Uranus launched on 19 Nov 1942, and Germany didn’t surrender until 7 May 1945…two and a half years after their defeat at Stalingrad and the Torch landings in N. Africa. Hardly “more or less spent”, I would think.

Several years ago, there was a discussion about attrition warfare on the Eastern Front at the TDI military forum, and one poster stated this:

So the key issue in winning at attritional warfare is to attrite the enemy's capacity to conduct the war. That means that you must inflict a positive ratio of losses over expansion of warmaking capacity. And that the ratio you achieve must be enough more than the ratio you suffer (if BOTH are positive) to make up for any starting imbalance in forces and potential.

In 1943 the Russians were suffering losses in their military at a faster pace than the Germans. And they were suffering losses in their civilian population faster than the Germans. But they were generating military might FASTER than they were losing it. They were building tanks faster than they were losing them, inducting the population into the military faster than they were losing them, and expanding their war economy faster than it was being destroyed.

Because of their population and resource limitations (and declines) it is clear that their pace of expansion of warmaking capacity was not sustainable indefinitely, and in fact they were probably running out of time when 1945 rolled around. But so long as they were building forces faster than they were losing them, and so long as the Germans were losing forces (and/or expanding the commitments of their forces) faster than they were building them, then THAT was a key issue to achieving "victory through attrition".

The emphasis is mine, and the two key areas I’d like to discuss.

First, what allowed the Soviets to generate military might faster than they were losing it (this does not necessarily mean overall numbers, but fighting power)?

The answer lies with the supplies they received through Lend Lease. Certainly the Soviets could manufacture, on their own, many of the items that LL provided. They had the capacity to build their own trucks, and they continued to do so despite LL deliveries. But the GAZ-AA and the ZIS-5 were inferior to American-made trucks both in capacity and durability. And the Soviets would have had to divert a substantial amount of resources away from the manufacture of other military items in order to fill the Red Army’s needs. Suffice it to say, for every item they received in quantity, resources both material and manpower would have had to be taken from some other sector of manufacturing.

Then there are items they simply couldn’t produce at all in quality or quantity, like high-quality fabricated metal products, field telephones, aluminum products, over 500,000 miles of field telephone wire, etc. All of these were force multipliers that allowed Soviet armies to do more than they would have otherwise.

Without LL supplies, Soviet offensives would have had a much slower pace, allowing the Germans more time to recover, and would have been even more costly in terms of manpower than they were. The canned food rations allowed Soviet armies to not have to subsist on a much poorer diet, and just as important, not to have to spend much time foraging “off the land” which probably would have made the already malnourished rural populations even more ticked off.

The second point is also a crucial one….besides the losses on the Eastern Front itself, Germany had commitments on two other fronts, Western Europe and N. Africa/Italy.

German losses in the Tunisian campaign cost them about 40000 casualties, nearly 1700 aircraft, 1300 tanks, and 130,000 at the surrender (another 120,000 Italians surrendered as well).

Losses in the Normandy campaign from 6 June to 30 August were roughly 400,000 men, 2100 aircraft, and 2200 AFV (tanks and assault guns).

Admittedly, the tanks from the Tunisian campaign were mostly dated Mark III/IV’s and of little worth on the Eastern Front, but the personnel and aircraft were not. So all told, Western Allied participation (fronted by US logistics and machinery) cost the Germans 530,000 men, 2500 tanks and assault guns (discounting the outdated models), and 4800 aircraft….enough to nearly outfit an entire army group. And where would these men and equipment be if not lost to the Allies? The Eastern Front, of course. That’s precisely why Stalin was constantly demanding a second front in talks with FDR and Churchill.

The remainder of the post from TDI:

The key point is that attrition of enemy strength and operational success in terms of retention of territory are interrelated as factors in the strategic dilemma. In order to not lose the war, the Germans clearly had to regain a strength relation that was rather dramatically more favourable to them, because all indications are that at the levels prevalent from 1943 onwards, they would be steadily defeated. This could conceivably be done either by inflicting in a short time a very much higher level of losses on the Soviets than the already high levels that they were achieving, or by inflicting a lower level of losses (such as the level they were actually achieving) over a longer period of time. But for the latter to be an option, they could not simultaneously afford to lose the amount of territory they were losing because that would mean the war was over before the Soviet ability to sustain it would be decreased enough to make a big dent in their force levels. While Soviet strength does drop towards the end of the war, it does not drop to levels that significantly changes the strength relation that enabled their continued success. They were winning fast enough, and they were coping well enough with the attrition problem. And the reason why is in itself connected fundamentally to attrition - the reason is the force level superiority they had achieved by the summer of 1943 and which proved too much for the Germans to reduce sufficiently in the time remaining to them.

Remove the force multiplier of LL, add in possibly another entire army group, and what might be the result? What we have is a logistically less capable, and less powerful Red Army facing at least one more army group on the battlefield. With an additional army group, and a less capable Red Army, the Germans might well have been able to inflict higher than historical losses on the Soviets and regain enough "strength relation" to stave off defeat. So the US contribution to Germany’s defeat was just a wee bit more than "propping up the UK", and the outcome is far from clear, IMHO.

[Sarmatian]

You make a hypothesis how western allies were, directly or indirectly, responsible for the defeat of Nazi Germany and then write a half-page post filled with vague generalisations.

Let's turn the tables, shall we? I'm gonna prove now that Soviets were responsible - would western allies be able to land in North Africa, Italy or France if the Red Army had not destroyed 80% of Wehrmacht and 50% of the Luftwaffe?

[Pannonian]

You make a hypothesis how western allies were, directly or indirectly, responsible for the defeat of Nazi Germany and then write a half-page post filled with vague generalisations.

Let's turn the tables, shall we? I'm gonna prove now that Soviets were responsible - would western allies be able to land in North Africa, Italy or France if the Red Army had not destroyed 80% of Wehrmacht and 50% of the Luftwaffe?

The Allies would probably have been able to land in North Africa whatever the Soviets did. Morocco and Algeria were still French territories taking orders from a government that had already fought with the British (actions with French ships, Syria, etc.), and there was at least some token resistance against the Americans (the British didn't land at all, to avoid causing too much offence). Only when the French started going over to the Allies too quickly did the Germans take direct action in Tunisia, and that had to be preceded by taking over Vichy France as well, turning the whole of the French empire against the Axis.

Also, AFAIK it was the Battle of Britain that to that date took out the largest chunk of the Luftwaffe's most experienced pilots, and certainly their fighter pilots. Stuka pilots racked up incredible numbers on the eastern front, but they were only used in the BoB for a short period before being pulled out again, as they were sitting ducks against the state of the art fighters that were involved in the BoB.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I'm gonna prove now that Soviets were responsible

About vague generalizations..........

I was quite clear at the end of my first post on this topic:

If neither the US nor Russia had been involved, short of atomics, many of us would be speaking German right now.

No US involvement in the ETO, either directly or indirectly, a Soviet victory is questionable. No Soviet involvement on the Eastern Front, nothing short of atomics wins for the Western Allies.