Importance of American lend-lease to Soviet war effort in WW II?

[Alexander's Horse]

Re: Soviet German War

Originally posted by Horrocks
Good evening,... I'm new to this forum but have found the discussion quite interesting. If I may add a few points I would like to add the following:

Going for Moscow in September 1941 may have ended in a captured and rubbled Moscow or an encircled one. In my humble opinion, however, it probably would have cost Germany the majority of Army Group Centre and the war,... here is why.

Without clearing the Ukraine and bringing up Army Group South and the Rumanians, the southern flank of Army Group Centre would have been exposed from the east bank of the Dnepr all the way to the embattled city of Moscow. To the north, if Panzer Group 3 did move north to aid Army Group North, that flank would be equally exposed from, perhaps, the Valdai Hills through to Moscow. This massive salient could would be threadbare as most available German troops would be sucked into the fight for the capital. The available German strength (9th Army, Panzer Group 3, 4th Army, Panzer Group 2 and 2nd Army) just wasn't enough to hold such a huge front and drive headlong for Moscow.

As such, the Soviet counterattack from the east - northeast (Siberian troops) combining with a thrust from the southwest(!!) could have cut off and destroyed a huge portion of Army Group Centre. With no secured flanks and rear, the "no retreat" order would have meant the possible collapse of the eastern front in 1942. Picture, if you will, a super-Stalingrad pocket in the Vyazma-Rhyzev region west of Moscow, the starving and huddled remnants of Army Group Centre freezing to death, while two hundred miles to the west Russian tanks, not destroyed in the Kiev battles, role on through Smolensk, Orsha, Vitebsk,.... Minsk.

Is this a flight of fantasy or a possibility if Hitler had not turned south in September 1941??? A Russian victory or crippling of Germany long before Lend-Lease begins to have an effect.

This scenario is very unlikely. If you game the defence of moscow against such an attack you cannot afford to leave large forces on the flanks, partly because you don't have any. What forces you have get inexorably drawn into the centre to try and stop the onslaught on Moscow - which you cannot afford to lose. The most likely outcome is German encirclement of Moscow through Tula in the South and Kalingrad/Yaroslavl in the North. The main thing is to stop the German pincers closing behind Moscow. But if you leave too much on the flanks, you lose Moscow through frontal assault. Its very difficult.

All pie in the sky imo I'm afraid Horricks

Guderian, Von Manstein and just about all the major strategists in the Germany army advocated a resumption of the attack on Moscow in 42. Hitler went for the Caucasus because he believed Russia was already beaten and Moscow and Leningrad didn't matter any more. Germany actually didn't need the oil.

[David Floyd]

Sandman,

It's a journal article, not a book. The journal is the 'Journal of Slavic Military Studies', volume 7.

Excuse me. A quote is still a quote

I don't doubt that that is exactly what they did. In Leningrad they ate wallpaper paste. The tonnage of lend-lease food received was trivial (5m tons) compared to that need to sustain the population at even the highest point of German occupation.

There's a difference between the population and the military. The population was in many cases left on its own, as first priority was given to the military. You don't want a military that is eating grass, after all.

If we conservatively assume that there were 300 million shoes or boots in the Soviet Union before the war, then the lend-lease amount of 14 million is placed in a more revealing context.

Considering the fact that a pair of boots probably won't last all that long in a combat environment, and considering the fact that the majority of these millions of boots, shoes, etc., were being worn by the general population, 14 million pairs is a fairly considerable amount.

The same is true for the rail network. The way you present it is as if there was no rail system whatsoever prior to the war. This is of course nonsense, they had thousands of miles of track and thousands of locomotives before the war began.

True, however, many of these locomotives were captured or destroyed in Western Russia in the first months of the campaign. It's not as if these locomotives were sitting in warehouses behind the lines - they were in use, and one of their major uses was in Western Russia, including sending resources to Germany.
Further, if the Soviet Union didn't need all these locomotives, then why do you imagine the US sent them, as opposed to something else?

Wooden planes are still pretty effective in this period: cheap and easy to repair. Britain also employed wooden planes.

Of course they employed some wooden planes. But I don't think you can argue that these planes were as good as ones made out of some form of metal (generally speaking).

Steel, well I'm pretty sure they had enough of that. Maybe not high quality, but it's good enough.

Good enough to build tanks with? Possibly - even probably. The point you're missing, though, is that all of these seemingly "minor" sacrifices are adding up. So far we're up to, sans Lend Lease, a much higher proportion of wooden airplanes, tanks made out of low-grade steel, a serious lack of boots among either the military or civilians, causing even more of that group to freeze to death, further cutting production, and a much higher number of Russians getting little to no food. You can easily argue that any one of these things can be overcome, but it's much tougher to argue that if the Soviet Union was faced with all of those disadvantages, and others, they still would have won.

The Soviet Union invented industrial scale synthetic rubber production, using 'Lebendev's process', and had a respectable output of rubber, between 50,000 and 80,000 tons in 1940. The plants were far away from any fighting, so they were able to give the Soviet Union a constant supply. Although, America eventually produced far more synthetic rubber by the end of the war.

Which was still not likely enough to meet all of Russia's needs.

What's true for Germany is not necessarily true for the Soviet Union.

Agreed, but I think you'll find that throughout history, the country facing the greatest economic disadvantages in wartime usually loses.

Vagabond,

Thus, the question of whether Lend-Lease was crucial for the Soviet victory largely reduces to what happened in 1942 and early 1943, before the battle of Kursk.

For the last goddamn time, the absence of a total Soviet defeat does not necessarily translate to a total Soviet victory.

Ned,

After the battle of Moscow, Germany had no hope, therefore, of defeating the Soviets because they didn't have the strength to take any major objective and could not inflict unacceptable casualties on the Soviets.

Sure they could. What exactly do you think Kharkov was, if not a major German victory? There are numerous other examples as well, but the point is that in 1942 the German Army was still significantly better than the Red Army.

Horrocks,

Without clearing the Ukraine and bringing up Army Group South and the Rumanians, the southern flank of Army Group Centre would have been exposed from the east bank of the Dnepr all the way to the embattled city of Moscow. To the north, if Panzer Group 3 did move north to aid Army Group North, that flank would be equally exposed from, perhaps, the Valdai Hills through to Moscow. This massive salient could would be threadbare as most available German troops would be sucked into the fight for the capital. The available German strength (9th Army, Panzer Group 3, 4th Army, Panzer Group 2 and 2nd Army) just wasn't enough to hold such a huge front and drive headlong for Moscow.

As such, the Soviet counterattack from the east - northeast (Siberian troops) combining with a thrust from the southwest(!!) could have cut off and destroyed a huge portion of Army Group Centre. With no secured flanks and rear, the "no retreat" order would have meant the possible collapse of the eastern front in 1942. Picture, if you will, a super-Stalingrad pocket in the Vyazma-Rhyzev region west of Moscow, the starving and huddled remnants of Army Group Centre freezing to death, while two hundred miles to the west Russian tanks, not destroyed in the Kiev battles, role on through Smolensk, Orsha, Vitebsk,.... Minsk.

You're missing three factors. One, as has already been pointed out, many of these troops would have been drawn towards Moscow - they would not have just sat in reserve and waited for the Germans to take Moscow so they could counterattack.

Second, many of these troops could and would have been held in place by Army Group South. If too many of these troops reoriented themselves, Army Group South could launch limited offensives, and won some significant local victories.

Third, the Red Army of 1941 was simply not capable of that sort of massive coordinated mobile counterattack, in relation to the Germans.

If Germany went for the early Moscow option, the Soviets would have been put in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" type situation.

[Serb]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
I love the way Serb allows his nationalist pride to so easily dismiss historical evidence.

Thank you

[Serb]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Does that make Serb any less sad and ignorant?

**** you.

[Serb]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse




And you should try and have a bit more sensitivity to the feelings of Russian posters. This means something to them - its not just lines on a map like it is for you.

Exactly.

[Serb]

Originally posted by David Floyd
If one gets their feelings hurt by other people saying that their country would have been defeated without foreign assistance, maybe that person shouldn't participate in such discussions.

Why do you think I'm still here?
You posted a lot of your "usaul crap", "special crap" and even some "XXL crap". Unfortunately I'm very busy and can't answer right now. I'll do it at Sunday.

One more thing, If you ever be in Russia, please pay attention to my advise: never, NEVER say such things to Russians. 99% of us have grandfathers and grandmothers who fought in this war, and majority of us have close relatives who died in this war. For you it's lines on map and World War II, for us it Great Patriotic War. We almost don't use WW2 abriviate.

So, if you ever say some of your bs theories to Russians, face to face, they will pull your tongue out of your throat and put it in your ass.
P.S. Esp. aware of drunk Russians. In that case even your kickboxing will not save you.

[Dry]

Originally posted by joseph1944
Lend lease was pass into law March 11, 1941, However my Encyclopedia does not state which month it started to ship material to Europe.

I made some research yesterday and noticed I was wrong on some dates.
The Lend Lease law was initially foreseen for UK and Commonwealth only.
In March 41, this was extended to potentially all states (president decide which ones).
Oct 30th, 41 Roosevelt proposed the deal to Stalin. Nov 4th, Stalin accepted for a first billion $(*).
March 42, the first convoy leave the US, destination Murmansk(arrival date not specified by my encycl.).
During March-May 42, only 2/3 of the material sent reached destination (**).

The total amount of what US sent to different countries was $50 bil.
At the end of the war, only 7.8 bil. were already paid (2.2 mio only by USSR).

So this confirms that at battle for Moscow, there was not a sinlge LLed shovel (although iirc some material was delivered, but not in the LL context).

In early 42, because of urgency, the UK agreed that some material from their share went to USSR.
There was greater tension between allies later. The US accused Stalin not to inform its population of the presence of western material (USSR is fighting alone myth)(***) . And Stalin accusing the US not to fullfill the contract (4.5 mio tons were initially foreseen for jul42-jul43, only 2.1 were delivered); and the UK to steal USSR's shares (some USSR material was disembark in Scotland to be used in operation Torch).

(*) My encycl. was not clear about what amount was really delivered the first year (jul42-jul43). The initial contract was 1 single bil., but it could have been more due to urgency?!?

(**) Let us not forget that whatever few/many material was delivered, US and UK seamen lost their lives in the cold waters of North Atlantic, just to deliver this material.

(***) if this is true, Monkspider, then your teacher is wrong when she speaks about the 'psychological effect' of having a great ally on USSR population.
Maybe Stalin was not wrong in believing that people fight more fiercely if they think they can't rely on anybody but themselves: they fight for survival, period!
And knowing the character of Stalin and what decision he took f.i. at Stalingrad, this version is more believable than the one of your teacher.

[Serb]

Yeah, Monkspider, your teacher is sux.

[Alexander's Horse]

Gotta love those Russians

[DinoDoc]

Serb is still ignorant and sad.

Originally posted by monkspider
So yeah, joining the Soviet Union ended up being pretty good for the countries in Eastern Europe.

I wouldn't say that to many Lithuanians on this board.

[Serb]

DinoDoc is still happy, because brainwashed.
Sure, they allow their SS veterans to have parades, and create monuments dedicated to honor of SS veterans, while treats their Red Army veterans as crap and throw them in jails. Great, just great.

[Serb]

David, DD, especially for you:
Nash otvet Chemberlenu

[Ned]

Here is some interesting raw data on Lend Lease. Apparently, some supplies began reaching Russia as early as Oct. '41, and were used in the Winter campaign. In addition, the Russians acknowledge the contribution of US trucks and jeeps to their mobility. Finally who Soviet tank corps were equiped with American tanks by the end of the war.

http://www.skalman.nu/soviet/ww2-lendlease.htm

The US-USSR Lend Lease Agreement

Details on '41-6/42, and '42-'43

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Serb
Sure, they allow their SS veterans to have parades, and create monuments dedicated to honor of SS veterans, while treats their Red Army veterans as crap and throw them in jails. Great, just great.

That should be taken as an indictment of what you did to them more than anything else.

[Ned]

It remains clear that the Soviets stopped the Germans at Moscow using their own resources. It is also clear that the Winter offensive of '41-'42 was virtually an exclusive Soviet affair.

Just putting Lend Lease asside, there is a clear pattern of offensives on the Eastern front until the 6th Army was lost. The Germans would advance in the summer until they were exhausted. In the meantime, the Soviets would be moving up fresh armies and would take the initiative in the winter until they were exhausted. The Germans would re-equip, concentrate their forces and go on the offensive again during the summer.

This describes a stalemate with neither side able to win, but both sides chewing up men and machines at an enormous rate.