The Eastern Front decided WWII?

Sorry I meant thousands of American trucks (not troops) were used to launch Katyushas.

A red army with 28,000 tanks and planes was swept aside in Barbarossa by 3,600 German tanks and planes, in large part because the Germans destroyed trucks, trains, etc, so the red tanks and planes couldn't fight without fuel and ammo.

German and Soviet armor in the eastern front:
June 1941 3,671 German, 28,800 Soviet, March 1942 1,503 German, 4,690 Soviet, May 1942 3,981 German, 6,190 Soviet, Nov 1942 3,133 German, 4,940 Soviet (the smallest difference during the war). By March 1943 the war was lost: 2,374 German, 7,200 Soviet, the Soviets had air, artillery and troop superiority also.

As you can see in Nov 1942 (Stalingrad) Stalin had nearly the same number of tanks as Hitler (despite Germanyfighting in Africa). Moreover, supplying the few Soviet tanks and battered troops was quite difficult since there were very few trucks, trains and even horses left in the much reduced USSR and Soviet production was very low after hurriedly relocating from the Ukraine and western Russia what was not lost to the Urals.

Just during the last quarter of 1942 (during the battle of Stalingrad), Stalin received 350,000 tons of steel, 250.000 tons of aviation fuel, 60,000 trucks, 11,000 jeeps, 2 million boots, 50,000 tons of explosives, 300 Airacobras, etc, At the same time the Allies disembarked in North Africa, forcing Hitler to relocate troops, tanks and planes from the USSR. The reduced strength of the Luftwaffe in Stalingrad allowed the Soviets to gain air superiority over Stalingrad and to move troops from the eastern side of the Volga and finish off the German army, which could not be supplied by air, because of the Soviet air superiority, the bad weather and the lack of Ju-52s (many of which were also sent to Africa and promptly lost there). [/QUOTE
Wrong figures and wrong arguments ]
 
From Hubert van Tuyll, author of Feeding the Bear:

“In the first 1.5 years the Soviet Union was fighting for survival and would have won without lend lease, but further victories and movement to Europe would be questionable,” he reported.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1385548/posts

His view supports the view of Stalin, Zhukov and even the Germans about the critical importance of the Lend-Lease. I'm not certain, but this man surely deserves respect, since his book is well researched and if I'm not wrong pioneer about the subject.

Anyway, at the time the Lend-Lease started to be provided because the Soviet survival was not certain, and also to split the Allied resources. Claims about the Soviets defeating Hitler without the Lend-Lease are nonsense, even if proved correct, because they only serve to trigger the question "the Soviets would defeat Hitler alone?". If there was no LL to the Soviets, then the British and Americans would pick everything for them and use elsewhere with all the consequences.

I'm inclined to agree with Tuyll, because the Lend-Lease must not be considerated only by how much was received and when. For example, if the Soviets know they would receive 50,000 trucks in a X time, they would simply shut down their truck production of determined plants and produce tanks instead. The Lend-Lease allowed the Soviets to focus in combat equipment and in the fight.
 
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Whether or not American assistance was indispensable to Soviet survival and success on the battlefield, it does seem to have improved Soviet offensive capabilities against the German military after 1942.
 
To be fair, until now there was much fantasy on this discussion, and as the creator of the thread, I will admit this and that was poorly written, without a definite objective at all.

The Soviet Union sustained the brunt of the ground war against Germany, with the US and the UK/Commonwealth as the main players in the air and naval theaters. Those were the facts. What would happen if any of them was not present or not showed the historical determination they did, changes the history logic completely. People can have different opinions and about different Allies, and the individual importance of each one. But certainly, the outcome is what it is, and there's no way to change it. History is not an exact science and people should understand this.

If there's anything really interested to be add here, let's discuss. Otherwise, in sake of the common sense, I would like this thread be locked/deleted. Thank you everyone for the attention.
 
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Whether or not American assistance was indispensable to Soviet survival and success on the battlefield, it does seem to have improved Soviet offensive capabilities against the German military after 1942.

This is precisely the point I was trying to make in my first post about measuring intangibles, we know that all of these things had an effect but there is no way to accurately measure what that effect was.

I don't think there is any doubt about the usefulness of Lend Lease to the Soviet cause but whether or not it was crucial to them remaining in the fight I believe is debatable, I tend to think that L-L gave the Russians a buffer that allowed them to reorganise but was not decisive.
 
Yeah, Monty.

Again, about the term "decisive":

In Defining and Achieving Decisive Victory, Colin Gray defined an operational decisive victory as "a victory which decides the outcome to a campaign, though not necessarily to the war as a whole".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decisive_victory

The Eastern Front decided the outcome of a campaign that was vital for the German survival. But not necessarily to the war as a whole. And in this "not necessarily" that enters the bombing, Lend-Lease, etc.
 
Combat ability is directly related to fuel and explosive tonnage, mobility and air superiority, there is nothing intangible about that. The Germans were extremely vulnerable hawling their cannon and even the scarce fuel for their planes and tanks with horses, for lack of fuel, trucks and air cover.

There is nothing intangible about having no boots to fight, no fuel, ammo, food for yourself or the horses who consume a lot of it to hawl slowly a light load. Like I said, after Barbarossa even horses were scarce in the USSR, because 10 million had been lost. Without American railroad tracks, cars and engines, trucks, fuel, etc, The Soviets have no mobility or logistics.
Like Zhukov mentioned, even the steel was sorely needed, not to mention the aluminum.
Even coal production in the USSR was ridiculous compared to that of Germany or even tiny Britain.
Guesstimated Coal Production (million metric tons):
Axis: Reich 2,420, Japan 185, Italy 17, Hungary 7, Romania 2 Total 2.631
Allies: US 2,150, GB 1,441, USSR 591, Canada 102 Total 4,284 (Note that the huge USSR produced 2.44 times less coal than the UK and 3.6 times less than Germany)

How can you produce steel, power the railroads, etc, without coal.

I would like to see the red air superiority without the American aluminum, high octane fuel and planes and the logistics of Kursk, Bagration etc,without the fuel, gunpowder, shells, tracks, engines and hundreds of thousands of American trucks.

Sokolov is among the few relatively reliable Soviet historians. He was the first to mention that the USSR could not have withstood the German invasion, much less defeat Germany without western help and had the guts to criticize the government from downplaying its importance for decades.
 
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4508901.stm

Apparently, this is a question of personal view...

It has to be a question of personal view because you cant quantify the result of certain aspects.

The round the clock bombing of Germany must have had an effect but how much is an unknown, lets assume that the allies bombed a bit less would the extra guns at the front have made a difference or just depleted ammunition sources quicker causing even more problems for a struggling logistics system?

Lets assume the allies didn't invade Normandy in 1944 would this have allowed Germany to eventually beat back the Russians or would it just have meant that the war dragged on into 1946-47 and beyond with the same result in the end?


The fact is we will never know because we can not repeat the process under different conditions to find out we can only speculate about possible outcomes using different variables.

This does not in any way diminish the efforts of any party participating or the sacrifices made but I think we need to be careful that we do not try and revise history by turning unknowns into facts.
 
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It has to be a question of personal view because you cant quantify the result of certain aspects.

The round the clock bombing of Germany must have had an effect but how much is an unknown, lets assume that the allies bombed a bit less would the extra guns at the front have made a difference or just depleted ammunition sources quicker causing even more problems for a struggling logistics system?

Lets assume the allies didn't invade Normandy in 1944 would this have allowed Germany to eventually beat back the Russians or would it just have meant that the war dragged on into 1946-47 and beyond with the same result in the end?


The fact is we will never know because we can not repeat the process under different conditions to find out we can only speculate about possible outcomes using different variables.

This does not in any way diminish the efforts of any party participating or the sacrifices made but I think we need to be careful that we do not try and revise history by turning unknowns into facts.

The same applies about the Soviets defeating Germany alone. The whole thing of the Soviets defeating Germany alone is sheer impractical to analize. You need to have a hypotetical totally different geopolitical reality to examine, and endless factors on it.

Personally, I view the war as a collective effort of the Allied powers, where each part played a decisive role for the final victory. I make no distinction about Britain's resistance in 1940, to the Soviet resistance, or the American contributions, since if any of them was out, the intangibles woud enter and we already know.
 
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No one ever mentions the RAF squadrons that fought in Russia along side the Russian ones.

Recently, I have read a curious story of the last veteran of such squadrons: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/new...old-its-too-dangerous-to-sit-in-Spitfire.html

BTW, another interesting info:

It should also be remembered that as early as 1942, when the war was still undecided, Stalin was offered an Anglo-American bomber force that would operate from the Caucasus beginning in 1943, but for political reasons he rejected the proposal, desiring only the aircraft.4 The $11 billion of Lend-Lease also provided raw materials, foodstuffs, and technical assistance vital to Soviet sustenance and production.

http://www.airpower.au.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1974/may-jun/collins.html

Makes me wonder if the Allies could not have cooperated better if wasn't for their political bias...

People also should be considerate the participation of the Poles, French and other Allies in '39-40, that despite their defeats, inflicted casualities on the Germans, particularly in aircraft. The Free French and the Poles also continued to fight to fight through the war.

Ah, and while not a critical participation, will have to promote my country as well: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg7lohLxUqo"]Brazil at War (1943) - YouTube[/ame]

The only South American country to sent troops to the war, to Italy, more than 25,000 men of Army and Air Force, as well as some U-boats sunk in our coast. We certainly would have helped the Allies much more if needed. :mrgreen:

PS: For those who not know, in the newsreel Rio is mentioned as capital, but since 1960 our capital is Brasilia.
 
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Another thing I don't think it's fair is the desconsideration of the wars fought in the Mediterranean/Africa and in the Pacific. The Soviets only entered in the latter, and while they helped a lot, they entered in a period when Japanese defeat was all but certain for years already.
 
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