Stalingrad remembered.

[Serb]

The conscription age in SU/Russian Federation was/is 18. I doubt you could determinate exact age of soldiers only looking on pictures.

[Serb]

Originally posted by TheStinger


Where the hell do you get that from. the Uk could have made peace in 1940 when it was in real toruble. It didn't so why would it do it later on

Ok, ok...my screw-up. I admit. I should have said 'aproximately at he same time' instead of 'exactly'. Germans and Brits made attempts to sign separate peace treaty since 1944, but Stalin made an ultimatum to Churchill. I pulled it out of Vladimir Karpov's book "Generalissimus' and he pulled it out of Stali-Churchill personal mail.

[ravagon]

Originally posted by Serb
Germans and Brits made attempts to sign separate peace treaty since 1944, but Stalin made an ultimatum to Churchill. I pulled it out of Vladimir Karpov's book "Generalissimus' and he pulled it out of Stali-Churchill personal mail.

The Brits suing for peace in 1944 ?
I've never heard that one before...
Is that an actual fact or just something Stalin was overly concerned over?

[Serb]

Originally posted by David Floyd
Serb,
Perhaps, but thousands were captured or destroyed by the Germans, and many of the rest were overworked.

Really? And surely you can prove this?
Do you know how many factories were evacuated from Ukraine to Ural in 1941? Tens of thousands. I'll give you exact figure if you wish later. So you think Soviets evacuated their industry on magic carpet or something?

OK, but what you are forgetting is that if the Russians had to produce locomotives (not to mention railroad track, which you are also ignoring), they would have been producing that many fewer tanks.

No it is you who do not understand that tanks were priority, because tanks losses/ need for tanks were MUCH, incomparable much greater than losses of locomotives/need for locomotives. To be able to transport something via trains, first you need tanks to protect railroad station were these trains are heading. What's the meaning in logistic if you don't have army to supply?

I understand the 5% figure. What you aren't understanding is that a)that's a very low end estimate, b)much of that percentage, whatever the true percentage is, could not have been domestically produced, at least not of the same quality, and c)if the SU had been forced to produce that stuff, it's corresponding percentage loss of military production (tanks, artillery, whatever) would have been much greater than 5%.

a) It's generous, not low.
b) Such as?
c) Partitialy agreed. The key word here is "corresponding percentage". Are you seriously believe that if Soviets were forced to produce LL stuff by themselves, they would have significient loss in tank production? These 5% would transformed to 7,5% losses or in the most worse case into 10%.

They wouldn't have been able to split production factories in half - ie, part producing tanks, part producing trains.

This claim is funny David, because this is EXACTLY how Soviet industry worked right untill collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Half of the same factory produced tanks, while another half produced bikes, trains, whatever. And in fact the largest factory where Soviet tanks were produced during the WW2 (and the largest manufacturer of Russian tanks today) was the "Uralvagonzavod"- Ural's train plant.

Further, that percentage figure refers to the financial cost of production, not the labor itself, or the amount of raw materials.

I thought this figure refers to the total cost of delivered goods, which include labor and raw material. Are you trying to say that Americans were bad traders?

What you're doing is basically lying with statistics. The contribution of Lend Lease was certainly greater than 5% any way you figure it, but in terms of actual military production, such as tanks, aircraft, etc., Lend Lease allowed the production of more than "5%" more than otherwise would have been produced. Also realize, again, that a good portion of Lend Lease was actually military equipment that was utilized up through the end of the war (the entire 1st Guards Mechanized Corps, in 1945, was equipped entirely with Lend Lease tanks for example) that would have had to have been
otherwise produced.

And? The single Mechanized Corps out of entire Soviet tanks forces (still wounder where you get this, but...) So what, it means that without this single corps Soviets would lost the war?

Oh, I'm not claiming that the US and Britain had any influence on the Battle for Moscow in 1941. The Germans lost because of the weather, not because of US involvement.

Well, well, well David Floyd changed his views. Cool. At least I didn't spend all those hours for nothing. What about this? Remember?
"Lend-Lease war material was insignificant (although at the time of Typhoon the Russians had more US/Brit tanks than Russian ones)."

http://www.apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=49894&perpage=20&pagenumber=6

I think you're confusing this with the Soviet attack on Japan in 1945, and in any case, I'll apply the same argument that you use for that one in reverse - the Soviet Union was begging for help of a military nature (to a much greater degree than the US requests that the SU go to war with Japan).

I was waiting for this. And I admit this. Stalin motives for jumping in war vs. Japan were the same as Allies motives for openning second front in Europe. When the hell you will admit this?

And as to the Soviets driving all the way across Europe and being able to defeat the United States, I think we all know how laughable that is.

Bah...Who was talking about defeat of USA? I said G e r m a n y (not USA) was doomed in 1944. And nothing could stop Soviets on their way to Berlin in 1944.

First of all, I didn't make that argument, second of all, do you at least admit that the Germans would have done significantly BETTER in 1943 with air superiority? Or, barring that, will you admit that air superiority would have had SOME positive impact for the Germans?

I admit. What now?

If you think the Soviet Union could have survived the losses of June-December 1941 again in 1943, and stayed in the war in any significant capacity, you're dreaming.

It is you who dreaming if you think that Wehrmacht could inflict to Red army the damage of June-December 1941 in 1943.

As late as 1944, with under 20% of their fighters in the East, the Luftwaffe could grab local air superiority almost anywhere it wanted.

Bullsh!t. Do you have something to prove it?

The Finns could do the same thing, and both of these in the face of massive theater wide numerical superiority possessed by the Red Air Force. If Germany increased it's fighter strength by 500%, don't you think it would have had a massive impact on the air war?

First you have to prove that 4/5 of Luftwaffe fighter's strenght were on West front.

Really? The British were trying to make peace in 1942, AFTER the US entered the war and AFTER they won the Battle of Britain when they wouldn't make peace when they stood alone after the fall of France? Hehe, good one.

I hope you liked it.

[Serb]

Originally posted by ravagon


The Brits suing for peace in 1944 ?
I've never heard that one before...
Is that an actual fact or just something Stalin was overly concerned over?

Why the hell "The Brits suing for peace "? It was German idea. And Stalin was pretty much concerned about this.

[Serb]

Joseph,
I must apologise. Me and Floyd fight about this topic since very long time and sometimes (quite often, to be honest) we drops to pretty low level.
I have good amount of respect to American soldiers who fought vs. nazism, as well as good amount of gratitude to American help to SU during the war. Lend Lease certanly saved a lot of, perhaps millions of Soviet lives.
However, I will never accept Floyd's "we saved your pity Russian as$es, we won this war" attitude. It's simply beyond me. I am myself being Russian unable to fully imagine a scale of effort a Soviet people, our older generation did to defeat invaders, a scale of horrors they faced during this war. It's simply impossible to expect it from young American generation. We see this war from different angles and we will never agree with each other.

[Fidel]

Originally posted by Joseph
We the US would not have been able to attack Africa in 42. Germany could have sent more troops to Russia.

British fought well but the numbers involved in that operation are just miniscule in comparison with the Eastern Front. After all, it was called Africa Corpse and if you count Vichy French as a formidable fighting force, well then....hehe
This said, nobody is trying to diminish anyone's role in the WW2. The triumph of humanity was a combined effort of all powers and all countless partisans, spies, etc. HOwever, the only argument I do not buy in this whole exchange of views is David's story about Russians on the verge of collapse...

Btw, now that you left 1944 out of your nick, you can add Dzugashvili to it

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by LaRusso


Hey Vetlegion! Hope you are doing fine

As already posted, that scene from the movie is utter crap (even disregarding the fact that the 'ni sagu nazad' order was implemented mostly during the horrible summer of 1942 and that, once in the city, it was not necessary to issue that order anymore). the sillyness of it all reflects in the scene where the soldiers are being slaughtered not for retreating but for having their charge repulsed. nothing like that happened, not even a complete lunatic would expect a 100% success in an infantry charge. that is definitely the stupidest point of the movie (there are some other stupid points too, the whole burlesque with khruschev and stalin's portrait, they were taking a piss out of the movie...)

Yes it did happen, and Hitler was just as crazy as Stalin. During the first few years of the war Stalin even ordered the imprisonment and execution of soldiers who tried to escape back to Soviet lines when their units were overrun and bypassed by the German blitzkrieg. By his command it was automatically assumed that such soldiers were traitors.
Didn't the Soviet Union continue to field "security divisions" right up until its bitter end? The official TO&E of the Soviet Army clearly includes such units. If WWIII had ever broken out in Europe KGB troops would have been behind the lines making certain that the troops of the Red army and its allies continued pressing forward no matter what.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Serb
Joseph,
I must apologise. Me and Floyd fight about this topic since very long time and sometimes (quite often, to be honest) we drops to pretty low level.
I have good amount of respect to American soldiers who fought vs. nazism, as well as good amount of gratitude to American help to SU during the war. Lend Lease certanly saved a lot of, perhaps millions of Soviet lives.
However, I will never accept Floyd's "we saved your pity Russian as$es, we won this war" attitude. It's simply beyond me. I am myself being Russian unable to fully imagine a scale of effort a Soviet people, our older generation did to defeat invaders, a scale of horrors they faced during this war. It's simply impossible to expect it from young American generation. We see this war from different angles and we will never agree with each other.

Hey, what about me! Don't generalize so!
Let's say this: Without the continuing resistance from the Soviet Union the defeat of Nazi Germany would have been nigh unto impossible....without the use of atomic weapons that is. Without American entry into the war it is anyone's guess as to whether or not the Soviet Union would have prevailed over Nazi Germ,any.

[David Floyd]

Really? And surely you can prove this?
Do you know how many factories were evacuated from Ukraine to Ural in 1941? Tens of thousands. I'll give you exact figure if you wish later. So you think Soviets evacuated their industry on magic carpet or something?

No, I think they used trains. What's your point? I've never denied that the Soviets had their own trains, just that they lost thousands of locomotives in Western Russia, as well as thousands of miles of track captures or torn up to prevent capture. They needed Lend Lease to repair this damage so that they could continue to crank out tanks.

No it is you who do not understand that tanks were priority, because tanks losses/ need for tanks were MUCH, incomparable much greater than losses of locomotives/need for locomotives. To be able to transport something via trains, first you need tanks to protect railroad station were these trains are heading. What's the meaning in logistic if you don't have army to supply?

Yes, but obviously without Lend Lease locomotives and track, the SU would have had to produce roughly equivalent amounts on their own. What's the point of having tanks if they have to drive on their own treads from the Urals to the Ukraine?

a) It's generous, not low.

It's the lowest figure I've ever seen reasonably advanced.

b) Such as?

Complex machine tools, to start with.

c) Partitialy agreed. The key word here is "corresponding percentage". Are you seriously believe that if Soviets were forced to produce LL stuff by themselves, they would have significient loss in tank production? These 5% would transformed to 7,5% losses or in the most worse case into 10%.

Where did you get that 10% number from? And even if that number is accurate - and you have no reason to claim that it is - that is still a huge number of tanks.

And that still doesn't take into account the thousands of Lend Lease tanks used by the Russians as light tanks - the Red Army needed light tanks, and if Lend Lease didn't provide them, they would have had to produce their own. Of course, the light tanks sent by Lend Lease were actually superior to the light tanks the Soviets had, and that's why they were used up to the end of the war.

This claim is funny David, because this is EXACTLY how Soviet industry worked right untill collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Interesting. Seems pretty inefficient, though.

Are you trying to say that Americans were bad traders?

I would consider trading billions of dollars of Lend Lease and hundreds of thousands of lives to fight a war that shouldn't have mattered to the US a bad trade.

And? The single Mechanized Corps out of entire Soviet tanks forces (still wounder where you get this, but...) So what, it means that without this single corps Soviets would lost the war?

Certainly not. It means that even at the end of the war, when Soviet tank production was at its height, Lend Lease armored vehicles were still equipping large Soviet formations.

Well, well, well David Floyd changed his views. Cool. At least I didn't spend all those hours for nothing. What about this? Remember?
"Lend-Lease war material was insignificant (although at the time of Typhoon the Russians had more US/Brit tanks than Russian ones)."

I don't recall EVER claiming that US military action or presence in 1941 saved Moscow. I do remember saying that the primary thing that saved Moscow was the weather, and I stand by that.

I was waiting for this. And I admit this. Stalin motives for jumping in war vs. Japan were the same as Allies motives for openning second front in Europe. When the hell you will admit this?

I won't admit this, because it isn't true. The US didn't have the capability to land in Europe until 1944, and especially not if they were fighting in the Pacific and Mediterranean and Atlantic, in Africa and Italy.

I don't understand what you are saying - are you saying that if the SU never attacked Japan, the outcome of the war would have been unchanged, even in terms of timeline (margin of error of maybe a few days)? If that's your claim, I agree - it's obvious.

If you are claiming that the US not entering the war against Germany would have had the same effect as the Soviet Union not entering the war against Japan, that's a ridiculous claim, and I think that should be obvious.

I said G e r m a n y (not USA) was doomed in 1944. And nothing could stop Soviets on their way to Berlin in 1944.

Germany was doomed because of US entry into the war, and landings in Italy, Sicily, and France made possible by the US, as well as massive strategic bombing campaigns made possible by,you guessed it, the US.

I admit. What now?

So you agree that air superiority would have helped the German military on the Eastern Front? Good, we're getting somewhere.

Now, will you admit that if the 80% of the Luftwaffe's fighters in the West could have joined the other 20% in the East, Germany could probably have gained a measure of air superiority?

It is you who dreaming if you think that Wehrmacht could inflict to Red army the damage of June-December 1941 in 1943.

You're the one who brought it up, not me.

Bullsh!t. Do you have something to prove it?

I'm gonna claim common knowledge on that one.

First you have to prove that 4/5 of Luftwaffe fighter's strenght were on West front.

Again, common knowledge.

We see this war from different angles and we will never agree with each other.

That's the problem - you have to separate emotional attachment/nationalism from objective fact.

[Darsnan]

As far as the original question was concerned, why I think the city should remain named "Stalingrad", as it will draw more tourists, thus bringing more cash into the cities coffers - very capitalistic!
Since then, very interesting debate, indeed! Several things I haven't seen discussed here is the significance of the Blechely decrypts which provided the Soviets with vital information about German, and German satelite division strengths. This was very key to the Stalingrad Encirclement (and maintaining that encirclement against Manstein's relief column) IMO, as well as providing the Soviets with key German intentions in '43. Also, Richard Sorge's vital information turned the Battle of Moscow from a defensive struggle for the SU into a full blown offensive, as Sorge's information allowed the transfer of several divisions of trained troops from the Siberian Front to Moscow to launch the counteroffensive.
Regardless, having read Keagan's "The Second World War", as well as having the ten hour Russian WWII video-documentary "Russia's War: Blood upon the Snow", why I cannot help but think that a western democracy would not have survived the onslaught that the SU faced in WWII. For them to have overcome the German war machine, whilst the mauled British and green Americans built up forces on their front (and launched periphery campaigns against Fortress Europe), is truly one of the greatest accomplishments of the 20th Century, IMO. Although all of the Allied Powers should be recognized for their share of standing up to and defeating the Axis, the SU alone can claim that they brought about the downfall of the Axis with their own blood. Indeed, from Stalingrad on, it seemed that the whole Russian attitude was the eschew of tactics in favor of bludgeoning defensive/ counteroffensive engagements (such as Kursk), or simply relying on Enigma decrypts to exploit German weaknesses, as was the case at the crossing of the Dneiper (where over 80% of the SU Award "Hero of the Soviet Union" were won during WWII , so ferocious was this battle!), and the liberation of Kiev! Goebel's himself lamented that "we are bleeding to death in the east!", so successful was this SU doctrine!
Perhaps instead of asking whether the SU won their war against Nazism with (or without) western assistance, a better tact would be to ask if the western allies, put in the same shoes the SU was forced to wear, could have walked those same miles that the SU did in '41, '42, and '43.....

[David Floyd]

Well, I can tell you that without the Soviet Union, the Allies (US+Britain+minor allies) still would have defeated Germany, without a great deal of extra fighting.

[Ned]

Darsnan, well put and true. The Soviet Union cannot be praised enough for its efforts against Hitler. If they had collapsed or made a separate peace, we (the US and the UK) would have had to face Nazi Germany alone. The thought of that is simply apalling.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by David Floyd
Well, I can tell you that without the Soviet Union, the Allies (US+Britain+minor allies) still would have defeated Germany, without a great deal of extra fighting.

Ok, now that is one of the most patently rediculous statements I've ever read. I'll concede that the the allies sans the SU would probably eventually prevail over Germany due to sheer capacity of production (depending on what level you exclude SU - never in the war, fully defeated, etc), but it would have entailled WAY, WAY more fighting.

[Viking Berserk]

[img]What am I saying? I forgot...El Alemein was the turning point in your little corner of the world. Stalingrad...wasn't that a sleepy town in the Ukrain? No no, I recall now...it's in Bosnia!
[/img]

typical american comment? definately!