Russians didn't need Allied help for victory

[michaelmaltby]

I don't wish to dishonor the effort and sacrifice that Lend Lease represented, but it is in everyone's best interests to understand Russia in and out of the Soviet era.

I put it to you that just receiving commitment from Churchill and FDR was a huge psychological victory for Stalin. The mountains of tinned spam, gasoline and octane booster, trucks, mobile workshops, etc. were vital in allowing the Generals and Planners to relax a little and make tanks and planes and burp guns.

But Lend Lease didn't save Moscow in December, 1941, nor Leningrad, nor Stalingrad ..... and if Russians were not able to achieve the level of sacrifice that those battles required, no amount of Lend Lease would have allowed the Soviet Union to prevail.

 

[pbehn]

I don't wish to dishonor the effort and sacrifice that Lend Lease represented, but it is in everyone's best interests to understand Russia in and out of the Soviet era.

I put it to you that just receiving commitment from Churchill and FDR was a huge psychological victory for Stalin. The mountains of tinned spam, gasoline and octane booster, trucks, mobile workshops, etc. were vital in allowing the Generals and Planners to relax a little and make tanks and planes and burp guns.

But Lend Lease didn't save Moscow in December, 1941, nor Leningrad, nor Stalingrad ..... and if Russians were not able to achieve the level of sacrifice that those battles required, no amount of Lend Lease would have allowed the Soviet Union to prevail.

True but Stalin had sacrificed millions with his no retreat policy.

I once worked in Russia and made a visit to Moscow, the office manager was a keen modeller he knew the far end of a fart about which allied tanks were used by the Soviets and why. The information is in Russia as is the internet if they choose to re write history then that is both sad and worrying. But as a previous poster said we are also guilty of the same, mind you it must have been difficult to run speeches by Churchill supporting our brave Soviet comrades when Russias nuclear arsenal had Great Britain on the target list.

 

[Mobius]

nor Stalingrad

Or not. There was a lot of Lend Lease equipment in the Caucasus to slow down the German drive for the oil fields. In late '42 almost 20% of new tanks were LL.

 

[Milosh]

Something I pick up on the inet

tonnaged shipped to the Soviets

Year Totals

Year -- Persian Gulf - Pacific - Atlantic - Black Sea - Arctic > total
1941 -- 360,778 - 13,502 - 193,299 - 153,977 > 721,556 > ~2.4%
1942 -- 2,453,097 - 705,259 - 734,020 - 949,711 - 64,107 > 4,906,194 > ~16.1%
1943 -- 4,794,545 - 1,606,979 - 2,388,577 - 681,043 - 117,946 > 9,589,090 > ~31.5%
1944 -- 6,217,622 - 1,788,864 - 2,848,181 - 1,452,775 - 127,802 > 12,435,245 > ~40.8%
1945 -- 3,673,819 - 44,513 - 2,079,320 - 726,725 - 680,723 > 2,804,556 > 9.2%

Soviet wartime production, http://www.1jma.dk/articles/1jmaarticlesRussiaproduction.htm
lend/lease trucks, http://www.1jma.dk/articles/1jmaarticlelendlease.htm

 

[michaelmaltby]

You can't measure national will by the ton ..... only by blood loss and outcome ... we all know this. LL aid was of great importance to the Soviet cause but it was not inter-changeable with the determination of the Soviet leadership and people to prevail. If you take the time to watch Russian Storm (thread posted under WW2 General) you will note that I am critical of the series for how little credit LL receives .... but ... if you're packaging history for the masses ... you feature your own stuff. We in the west have done the same ... particularly the US.

 

[fastmongrel]

According to Hollywood the US won the war single handed. How many US students who didnt do history know about the contribution of the rest of the Allies to the final victory.

 

[DonL]

Something I pick up on the inet

tonnaged shipped to the Soviets

Year Totals

Year -- Persian Gulf - Pacific - Atlantic - Black Sea - Arctic > total
1941 -- 360,778 - 13,502 - 193,299 - 153,977 > 721,556 > ~2.4%
1942 -- 2,453,097 - 705,259 - 734,020 - 949,711 - 64,107 > 4,906,194 > ~16.1%
1943 -- 4,794,545 - 1,606,979 - 2,388,577 - 681,043 - 117,946 > 9,589,090 > ~31.5%
1944 -- 6,217,622 - 1,788,864 - 2,848,181 - 1,452,775 - 127,802 > 12,435,245 > ~40.8%
1945 -- 3,673,819 - 44,513 - 2,079,320 - 726,725 - 680,723 > 2,804,556 > 9.2%

Soviet wartime production, 1.JmA - World War 2, russian production
lend/lease trucks, Lend Lease trucks in Russia

I have total other numbers then your list!

The first Moscow Protocol was signed in highly embattled situation of the Red Army on 1.10.1941.

The commitments of the Protocol for the period Oct 41 to June 1942, for 9 months (until the required connection protocol):

1,5 Mio. tons wheat and goods for1 Milliarde $,
among them:
1.800 a/c's (Total inventory of the Red Army 1.1.42: roundabout 12.000 a/c's)
2.250 tanks (Total inventory of the Red Army 1.1.42: 7.700)
1.000 AA guns, among them 152 90mm and 756 37mm (Total inventory of the Red Army 1.1.42: : 7.900)
5.000 Jeeps
85.000 trucks (The total production of the SU 1941-45 was 205.000 trucks, thereof 150.000 for the military) (Total inventory of the Red Army all types of vehicles 1.1.42: 318.000)
108.000 field telephones
562.000 miles of field telephone cable
9.000 tons armor plates
30.000 tons explosive Toluol und TNT
15.000 tons chemicals

maximum possible number of machine tools (industrial lathes, milling machines, drilling presses etc.), delivered: 3.253 pieces
1.6 Mio. Pair of military boots (for the mobilization and reorganization of the Red Army)
1 Mio. yards. military fabric
~ 1000 tractors
45.000 tons barbed wire

The agreed goods were delivered almost entirely in the 9 months, minus some war losses during transport.

The SU got 85000 trucks till June-July of 1942 and 1,5 million tons of wheat

Wheat gross harvest of the SU 1940-42:
1940: 36.446 million tons.
1941: 24.298 million tons.
1942: 12.516 million tons.

My sources are Glantz and Alexander Hill (The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, 1941-45)

To my opinion this first part of supplies of lend lease at only 9 month from October 1941 till June 1942 were essential for the reorganistaion of the Red Army and to built the reserves, which first attacked at November 1942 (Stalingrad). Without this supplies to my opinion it would be impossible. Also the delivered wheat was more then 10% of all SU wheat at 1942 and was essential for the food supply of the Army, workers and civilian people.

 

[vinnye]

It is very worrying when any Nation fails to recognize the contributions made by other Nations during WW1 and WW2.
It would be beneficial if every Nation were to educate its citizens without putting the Rose Tinted glasses of Patriotism / Nationalism on!

It has been pointed out in previous posts that Germany was forced to deploy troops to the Atlantic Wall for example. In addition there were significant numbers of troops used in the Netherlands and Norway - which otherwaise could have been diverted to face the Eastern Front. Probably with serious consequences for the Russian Army!

 

[pbehn]

If the Germans didn't suffer any losses in France the BoB North Africa and Italy and (as some in Britain wanted) Britain gave Germany a free hand in continental Europe + no Lease lend from USA then I believe the Soviet Union would have lost'

 

[vikingBerserker]

I very much agree. I also feel if the Germans had come as saviors (or at least with the appearance of such) the Russians would have fallen quicker.

 

[GrauGeist]

I very much agree. I also feel if the Germans had come as saviors (or at least with the appearance of such) the Russians would have fallen quicker.

They greeted the Germans as liberators at first. I've read several accounts where Russian soldiers were surrendering en-masse during the early stages of the invasion, many wanting to join the Wehrmacht.

It wasn't long, however, before Hitler's edicts regarding the Jews, Slavs and POWs became very clear to the people that they were now between the hammer and the anvil...

I honestly believe that had Hitler not extended his hatred and mal-treatment to the occupied lands, Stalin would have seen a capitulation of military and public support.

 

[vikingBerserker]

A-Fricken-Men

 

[parsifal]

Its sad they dont recognize the contributions made by the western alliance to the final victory, but i can understand why. its mostly a matter of scale that blinds them.


For example, during the war, Australia suffered 32000 military casualties give or take. I think the British losses were about 750000 and US casualties about 350000. Very rough.

Soviets lost at least 13million in combat for people under their control. Total casualties for the Russians including german attrocities and exterminations and the like, amounted to nearly 30 million. thats a casualty rate about 25 to 30 times that suffered by the western allies. Stalins murderous attitude to his own people certainly was a factor in that death rate.

In terms of Lend Lease, there is wide diversity of opinion, but we probably contributed about 15% to Soviet war making capability, delivered and ready. The majority of that aid was NOT via the much written about Arctic route, though the Arctic route was the most important path in 1941-3. The most important route overall was via the caucasus, but it was later than Murmansk, and it only became operational as early as it did because the British agreed to the transfer of rolling stock from India, and in 1943 this caused the non-military deaths of nearly 2million people in India, due to the inability to shift grain about the subcontinent. Later US rolling stock was made available and this huge human cost diminished. Nobody ever talks about the costs to Indian society for winning the war though.

Cut em some slack guys. Their losses were far greater than ours, and they did a lot more fighting than we did. We preserved our ways of life because of Russian sacrifice, not the other way round. Not that they cared, or aimed for that, but thats what happened.

 

[Milosh]

Year -- Persian Gulf - Arctic
1941 -- 360,778 - 153,977
1942 -- 2,453,097 - 64,107
1943 -- 4,794,545 - 117,946
1944 -- 6,217,622 - 127,802
1945 -- 3,673,819 - 680,723

 

[parsifal]

mm, I see, it was the persian gulf almost from the beginning. Ill stand corrected on that count

 

[DonL]

Its sad they dont recognize the contributions made by the western alliance to the final victory, but i can understand why. its mostly a matter of scale that blinds them.


For example, during the war, Australia suffered 32000 military casualties give or take. I think the British losses were about 750000 and US casualties about 350000. Very rough.

Soviets lost at least 13million in combat for people under their control. Total casualties for the Russians including german attrocities and exterminations and the like, amounted to nearly 30 million. thats a casualty rate about 25 to 30 times that suffered by the western allies. Stalins murderous attitude to his own people certainly was a factor in that death rate.

In terms of Lend Lease, there is wide diversity of opinion, but we probably contributed about 15% to Soviet war making capability, delivered and ready. The majority of that aid was NOT via the much written about Arctic route, though the Arctic route was the most important path in 1941-3. The most important route overall was via the caucasus, but it was later than Murmansk, and it only became operational as early as it did because the British agreed to the transfer of rolling stock from India, and in 1943 this caused the non-military deaths of nearly 2million people in India, due to the inability to shift grain about the subcontinent. Later US rolling stock was made available and this huge human cost diminished. Nobody ever talks about the costs to Indian society for winning the war though.

Cut em some slack guys. Their losses were far greater than ours, and they did a lot more fighting than we did. We preserved our ways of life because of Russian sacrifice, not the other way round. Not that they cared, or aimed for that, but thats what happened.

I don't know if it is quite dangerous to show too much understanding with such myth claims, which are clearly falsification of history, especially with the political situation at the moment. At the moment the Russians can hardly walk out of sheer testosterone.

Since 5 years I watch a dangerous trend, where certain think tanks of so called "russian historians and politicians" do joint ventures with "certain kinds of german historians", to formulate a total new military historical picture.

The most shocking one to me was, as a so called "german historian" attacked Rüdiger Overmans in the press, that his book "Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg" is supporting fashists myths abouth the WWII. He claimed after official SU sources, which he and his "russian colleagues" examined, that the Wehrmacht lost at least 9-10 Million men in combat with the SU, compare to 7 Million of the SU. Also he dinied the massive losses of the SU at 1941 and claimed this is only german nazi and after war propaganda.

An other so called "expert" out of this think tanks denied that the Wehrmacht had at any part of the war, a tactical advantage over the Red Army. He described the Wehrmacht only as poor to average on a tactical level and the beginning succsess of the Wehrmacht was only to the total suprise of the peaceloving SU.

To my opinion this voices getting louder and much more supported fron Russia a the last 5 years. Referring to the current political situation, this trend is dangerous.

 

[GrauGeist]

...To my opinion this voices getting louder and much more supported fron Russia a the last 5 years. Referring to the current political situation, this trend is dangerous.

I absolutely agree!

 

[pbehn]

dangerous all round, if Russia finds itself in conflict with the west it may find that China needs to "liberate" a few million "Chinese held captive in Russia" And Donl it is said thouse who dont learn the mistakes of history are condemned to repeat them + generals generally prepare for the last war not the next.

 

[razor1uk]

its the reverse of 110 years ago....

 

[Glider]

At the end of the day Russia is a huge country with a comparatively small population that is falling and China has a huge population that is looking for space. There can be little doubt that technology wise China is catching Russia fast and I fear for the future