WW II was won by quality airplanes, fuel and trucks. Although the USSR produced absurdly exagerated numbers of cannon, tanks and bad airplanes, they kept losing against the Germans (who out maneuvered and wiped them out) until Germany lost air superiority and the Soviets had hundreds of thousands of American trucks and American fuel in the battle of Kursk. Then all hell broke loose.
Although the western front was much smaller than the eastern front, it was the western allies (including excellent Polish pilots in Poland, France, the BoB, etc,) who destroyed far more and better German planes than the Soviets ever did.
For example, while Göring had to withdraw the Stuka from Western Europe in 1940 because of unacceptable losses (so there were only 290 Stukas for Barbarossa), the Stukas (Kanonenvogel) were knocking out hundreds of Soviet tanks still in Kursk. The Germans had to send planes, tanks, men, fuel, etc, to Greece, Africa, etc, to fight the British and later the Americans. For example, they had to send crucial planes from Stalingrad to Africa in 1942 (Torch). Then the allies destroyed the incredible amount of 1,000 German planes per month (on average) in 1944, while the Soviets destroyed 400 per month that year. The allies also destroyed many tanks and men in Africa, Sicily etc, before Kursk. The allies also spent fortunes and thousands of men bombing German steel, tanks, fuel, plane, ball bearing, cannon factories, etc, Flooding huge areas, etc,
Without the hundreds of thousands of American trucks and the fuel, the red army was a sitting duck.
Ironically, although France was invaded with Soviet fuel and grain, it was a squadron of French pilots fighting in the USSR which achieved the best scores there (Normandie-Niemen). By the way among the sea of incompetent Soviet generals who sacrificed stupidly huge numbers of troops, tanks ,etc, It was the Polish generals in the red army who lost the fewest people and a Polish-descent Soviet general who performed best among the Soviets.
To see what the Soviets received you can go to the thread I just opened about production in WW II.
An example of desperate Soviet tactics:
The night witches of the women only 588th bombing squadron used the obsolete Polikarpov Po-2 linen and wood biplanes with 125 hp engines to bomb the Germans every night with a demoralizing effect . As a bomber it could carry six 50 kg (110 lb) bombs but at an excruciatingly low speed, so usually 2 to 4 bombs were carried, each crew of 2 performing several missions per night.. The pilot would often idle the engine before attacking and glide in to drop the bombs stealthily. The night witches received 23 Hero of the Soviet Union citations. One crew flew a record 18 missions in one night and by the end of the war almost all members had flown over 1,000 missions each. The group performed 23,000 missions, dropping nearly 3,000 tons of bombs. Incredibly, only 30 members died in combat between 1942 and 45. So this inexpensive, obsolete plane was put to good use by the brave night witches.
till july):7835