What 5 - 10% Lend Lease Meant to USSR in WWII

PE_Sushi said:
S ! all

Very interesting thread indeed.
Here’s what I read about some parts of lend lease to the USSR (will quote my sources later, haven’t got them at hand yet).

Lend leased armored vehicules and airplanes were not significant, more or less 10-15 % of Soviet production. In addition, lend leased aircrafts and tanks were not significantly better or better at all that their Russian counterparts, except for some aircrafts at the begining of lend lease program.

BUT, lend lease was very significant in at least 2 domains (+ other domains which I don’t know about, so I don’t say that these were the only 2 domains) :

- Motorized transport : this was a huge flaw of societ army, which was poorly motorized at the begining of Barbarossa and Soviet production alone could not rise in this domain because weapons were the priority. In this domain, the vehicules supplied thru lend lease equal in numbers the whole soviet production !!

- Radios. One Russian tank out of ten was equipped with radio of poor quality, aircraft were also poorly equipped. US supplied many many radios to the soviets, and these were way better than Soviet radios.

So at least in the motorized transport area we can say that lend lease was very very important, both in impact on operations and in relative numbers also (when compared to indigenous production)

of course, it didn’t changed the outcome of the war : just check the numbers or pure soviet tanks or aircraft produced, germans were far behind and eventualy had to be crushed . Russians won with Russian tactics, Russian hardware and, most of all, Russian manpower.

Well y'see I think it did change the outcome of the war. The 2 types of aid you mentioned, along with locomotives, were absolutely critical to the Red Army's ability to fight. Without trucks and locomotives it would have been very difficult for the Red Army to mobilize properly. It would have been next to impossible to move the necessary amounts of supplies to one location, meaning no big massive Soviet offensives of the manner they mounted in 43/44. For example, without locomotives and trucks supplied by Lend-Lease, the Soviet Motorized Rifle Divisions would have been largely trudging it on foot, as most of the horses had either been killed or eaten.

Without radios, it would have been very difficult for their armored units to function effectively. It was hard enough for the Red Army Tank Divisions to fight their panzer equivalents at the best of times never mind being without an effective way to coordinate and respond to local changes quickly enough as only radio communication could have achieved.

It's true that Russians won largely with Russian hardware and manpower but never forgot they learned their tactics the hard way from the Wehrmacht. And even then they lacked the tactical skill and finesse of their German opponents, instead relying on brute force to power past the Germans. Zhukov was a great Marshall for the Soviet Union, but he was no Guderian or Manstein. Everything he learned he copied from his enemies.
 
The Ostfront started out fairly equal and the Russians did turn the tide, but many of them have no gratitude for any of the help they received from the West. That small 10% contribution may have been just enough of an edge for them to turn the tide. I don't know if they possessed the means to over come the German Armies going it completely alone. Maybe, but at best it would have taken years and years longer


Conversely, the West tends to lack in gratitude for what Russia did. Much of that is more to do with politics and the Cold War than anything else.
 
S! Doppelganger

I don't agree with your conclusion, but I know this question can be discussed because there is no definitive answer and your points and reasoning make much sense

about details I'm not sure that russian still used the very large Rifle units after 43, I thought they were scaled down to the benefit of more combined forces, but I agree that anyway transports availability were crucial : Soviet thrust usualy lasted only the time of one or two fuel loads their tanks had, after that they would be refueled (thx to transports) and carry on

about tactics, I totaly agree : they learnt the hard way from germans.
One German general (or whatever) said "they were first class fighters from the begining, in the course of the war, they learnt and became first class soldiers"

They got the upper hand on strategics but germans had tactical advantage because of smaller units being able to operate of their own and show initiative and flexibility.
Which leads me to your last point : Zhuvkov was excelent in front scale operations, Manstein more or less the same. Guderian was more in the operational or even tactical range, he is not known for overall strategical matters and, for example in july-sept 1941, he showed very narrow minded on his own situation and disregarded overall situation.
 
PE_Sushi said:
S! Doppelganger

I don't agree with your conclusion, but I know this question can be discussed because there is no definitive answer and your points and reasoning make much sense

about details I'm not sure that russian still used the very large Rifle units after 43, I thought they were scaled down to the benefit of more combined forces, but I agree that anyway transports availability were crucial : Soviet thrust usualy lasted only the time of one or two fuel loads their tanks had, after that they would be refueled (thx to transports) and carry on

about tactics, I totaly agree : they learnt the hard way from germans.
One German general (or whatever) said "they were first class fighters from the begining, in the course of the war, they learnt and became first class soldiers"

They got the upper hand on strategics but germans had tactical advantage because of smaller units being able to operate of their own and show initiative and flexibility.
Which leads me to your last point : Zhuvkov was excelent in front scale operations, Manstein more or less the same. Guderian was more in the operational or even tactical range, he is not known for overall strategical matters and, for example in july-sept 1941, he showed very narrow minded on his own situation and disregarded overall situation.

Well did he? He was ordered to wheel his Panzergruppe south to assist Army Group South to take Kiev. He protested vehemently but he obeyed orders. Do you think Hitler was right to secure the Ukraine first before launching Operation Typhoon? Certainly there's arguments both for and against. Had Army Group Centre just driven to Moscow IMO it would have fallen, although there would have been much stronger Soviet forces in/around Moscow to contend with. There was also the danger of a massive encirclement of said Army Group by those same forces captured and destroyed historically.

Guderian is best known as being an operational level commander but he was involved in the planning process. This became more true when he was reinstated in 1943 as he was heavily involved in Operation Zitadelle, where for example he desperately tried to persuade Hitler to call it off when it became clear that the element and momentum of surprise was lost. Being Inspector General of Panzertruppen was definitely a post where a great deal of strategic ability was called for and Guderian did a pretty good job under the circumstances.

There's many occasions where Guderian demonstrated great strategic awareness. For example his Panzerkorps dash to the Atlantic, his protest at being diverted south in August 1941. Just because he never had the chance to command an Army Group that doesn't mean to say he wasn't up to the job. Had he been a little less brash and been more of an sycophant he definitely would have at some point IMO.

Coming back to Zhukov yes he was a good strategist and he adapted combined arms tactics very quickly but he alone was responsible for the disaster that was Operation Mars. Manstein, Bock and the other German Army commanders had the constant meddling of Hitler to contend with and so their failures were not all of their own doing.
 
short because off topic : I consider he was narrow minded because of , in other things, he's obstructive attitude and didn't obeyed orders at first (he pushes to Roslavl). At operational level he was probably the best tank / mec commander of WWII.

And Citadel was a all narrow minded story since the planning ;)


to get back to the subject, one interesting thing about US lend leased trucks is that they were the best available, especialy on rough Russian conditions. Way better than their German 2 drive wheels counterparts.
 
Mark Conley said:
:cheers: heres to the defeat of the common enemy in WWII...it was a shame that the lat 60 years afterward were so painful for both countrys. :D


I find that to be a solid attitude, Mark Conley.
There are sour apples all over, I don't let them define what lend-lease was for me.

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A good book on lend-lease I got in Russia, fairly recently, was "tanks of lend-lease" printed in 2000. It profiles the weaponsystems sent over, a lot of new photos, not do the sword rattling, and gives info to work with on what units had lend-lease, what they wrote about it, etc.

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I would like to find data on Lend-lease (what was sent over to the USSR) to compare it with data of what Russia received (from Russian documents). Let me know if anyone has ideas where to get such data.

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USSR and USA stalled on the repayment issue, at some point. I saw this data in different places, although never saw the actual talks. Right now Russia is repaying the debt on the terms Yeltsin signed off on.
 
PE_Sushi said:
short because off topic : I consider he [Guderian I assume] was narrow minded because of , in other things, he's obstructive attitude and didn't obeyed orders at first (he pushes to Roslavl). At operational level he was probably the best tank / mec commander of WWII.

And Citadel was a all narrow minded story since the planning ;)


to get back to the subject, one interesting thing about US lend leased trucks is that they were the best available, especialy on rough Russian conditions. Way better than their German 2 drive wheels counterparts.
Lets remember - the man was never made Field Marshall and never given a chance to prove himself on that level of command, at least in the form that history tends to expect.

If being disagreeable and disobeying orders at times makes you a bad commander, then Patton was a lousy commander.
 
I know its a little late reply but earlier you, John, said only 20 million people died in the USSR, but that wasnt it. I know that over 28 million people died and many more were missing.
 
The importance of Land Leese is often overrated in USA and underrated in Russia....

Any way No doubt land leese helped reed army a lot but it never was a decisive factor....Before much of the shipment arrived Battle of Stalingrad was already won...
If there would have been no land leese, it could have prolonged the war but never could decide it... What we would have seen :
1-2 more summer retreats for red army and winter counter offensive resulting in breaking of wehrmacht ..

The west highly underrestimate the eastern front where 3/4th of the fighting went.. They made a documentry about it and named it "The Unknown war".. C'mon the front who faced the most of war is Unknown:confused:

As Churchill said "It was the red army who bored the gut out of german war machine"....
Without destruction of wehrmacht in east (around 75%) ofcourse there would have been no Normandy...........
 
It took Britain some 60 years to pay of its war time debts to the USA but paid of they are. Also when you talk about equpiment supplied to Russia you failed to mention all the equipment that Britain supplied as well. Also who paid the Free French forces and and equpped them all through WW2 and supplied all those partisan groups all over Europe
 
who paid the Free French forces and and equpped them all through WW2 and supplied all those partisan groups all over Europe
Thanx I had forgotten about that part of the war in Europe.

Looking over the vast quantities of materials received by European countries, one has to remember that this is what got to Europe! The convoys to the UK suffered horrible losses. The US Merchant Marine suffered around the same number of dead as the USAAF in Europe during WW-2!
Then there is the convoys from the UK all the way to Murmansk were more hazardous than crossing the Atlantic. I know the worst casualties were suffered in "Convoy PQ-17." Thirty-three merchant ships left the UK, and only eleven survived and delivered their goods!! So when you look at the totals of materials delivered to Murmansk, I would like to know how many tons of good destined for Murmansk left US ports?
The Soviet Army loved the Sherman tank! They used it for what it was designed to do, provide infantry support. The USA and UK used it for tank to tank combat of which it was practically a failure. The Soviets had a good tank for tank to tank combat, the T-34.
Stalin declined all money from the Marshall Plan on behalf of the USSR and the countries taken by the USSR from the German forces. This condemned eastern Europe to poverty.
 
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The Soviet Army loved the Sherman tank!
The Soviet Army hated the Sherman tank, in fact all tanks delivered by the West were utter **** in comparison to KV series and T-34s, they used them of course since you dont let expensive equipment lie around in wartime but please stop with the typical american masturbation over made up history.

Newscast, US tanks in WW2 were sh*t, British tanks were sh*t, Russians were the only allied army with good armour, their 34rs and KVs were levels of magnitude over Shermans in every possible respect except crew comfort.
They used it for what it was designed to do, provide infantry support.
Sherman was a general purpose tank, it was never ever designed as an infantry tank, it just sucked in every other role.
The USA and UK used it for tank to tank combat of which it was practically a failure. The Soviets had a good tank for tank to tank combat, the T-34..
Both tanks were designed for tank to tank combat with the slight difference of T-34 being an outstanding design while Sherman being an armoured coffin.

If it makes your ego hurt slightly less 34s chassis was based on an american design (never used in US though).
Stalin declined all money from the Marshall Plan on behalf of the USSR and the countries taken by the USSR from the German forces. This condemned eastern Europe to poverty.
Here we can agree, while US had very little to do with winning the war in Europe it did a LOT to help (western) Europe rebuild and even though my country did not benefit kudos to you guys for good will (even if politically motivated).
 
The Soviet Army hated the Sherman tank, in fact all tanks delivered by the West were utter **** in comparison to KV series and T-34s
According to articleS in the US Army's Armor Magazine, the Soviets liked the Sherman. For it was very reliable and easy to repair quickly and the Soviet Army used them in the doctrine the US Army believed in!

Sherman was a general purpose tank, it was never ever designed as an infantry tank, it just sucked in every other role.
I highly disagree with you there. The US Army 'doctrine' on combat before WW-2 called for US tanks to support the infantry and that enemy tanks were to be killed by indirect fire of artillery.
The USA could not make a tank that was good for tank to tank combat, and the US Army knew it! US industry could not produce a diesel engine powerful enough to power a tank, so a gasoline aircraft engine from Curtis Wright was used. US foundries could 'not' make castings large enough to manufacture a larger turret than what the Sherman tank had. So, a larger gun at that time could not be placed in the Sherman. Manufacturing and fighting doctrine were hand in hand.

If it makes your ego hurt slightly less 34s chassis was based on an american design (never used in US though).
The only thing the T-34 that was of a American design was Walter Christie's suspension. The Sherman did not use this suspension!

Both tanks were designed for tank to tank combat with the slight difference of T-34 being an outstanding design while Sherman being an armoured coffin.
No... the Sherman followed US Army philosophy prior to WW-2. As with US philosophy on how the air war over Western Europe should be conducted, US Military leaders were out of touch with how future conflicts would be waged! The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor caused the US Navy to throw out all pre-WW-2 philosophy on how the war in the Pacific Ocean against Japan should be conducted. Having only three aircraft carriers and no available battleships forced this issue.

US had very little to do with winning the war in Europe it did a LOT to help (western) Europe rebuild and even though my country did not benefit kudos to you guys for good will (even if politically motivated).
In Eastern Europe, you are correct just as the USSR had little to do with the war in Western Europe or North Africa. The US Government requested that the USSR build a railroad to accommodate this task but, the USSR did not do this. IF, the USSR had built a railroad to the Pacific coast, the USA could have transported a far greater percentage of the material that left US ports to the Pacific port in the USSR.

I agree with what 'fuser' posted, "The importance of Land Leese is often overrated in USA and underrated in Russia...."
 
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The Soviet Army hated the Sherman tank,

Have you a link to a book or source where we can see the extent of this this 'hatred'?
Though I have yet to see a Soviet account that claims the Sherman was a wonder tank I have yet to see one saying it was a dog.


their 34rs and KVs were levels of magnitude over Shermans in every possible respect except crew comfort.

Only a beginer would compare a Sherman to the KV. They were different classes of tanks and you might as well compare a Pz III to an IS2.
In overall terms their was little to chose between the T34/76 and the Sherman though clearly the T34 was a better tank they both, by late 1942, had passed their sell by dates and were vulnerable to all current German AT guns. Both tanks were one-size-fits-all solutions that seemed to work.



Both tanks were designed for tank to tank combat with the slight difference of T-34 being an outstanding design while Sherman being an armoured coffin.

To say this you would have to know the crew survivability statistics for Soviet tanks. Do you have them? Obviously you must or you never would have made your initial claim.
Please provide them . To help you the battlefield surveys found the average tank crew loss in NW Europe was 1 dead and 1 wounded per knocked out tank. All the stories about crews being wiped out in Shermans appear to be fiction (on average)
 
While "Quantity has a quality all it's own" I believe the US sent the USSR ALL the vacuum tubes used in their radios and radar.

Of course, Churchill said: If the Devil declared war on the Nazis, I'd send aid to hell." (or something like that) We forget how much the world both feared and hated the Austrian Corporal.
 
The issue of how critical lend-lease was to the Soviets during WWII is an interesting one.
The USSR has always downplayed it's importance.
It appears that the Red Army would have been capable of stopping the advance of the Germans on their own, but whether they could have regained the initiative, gone on the offensive and have retaken all the territory lost in previous fighting is another question.
The Red Army had plenty of tanks, but were deficient in trucks. Lend Lease furnished large numbers, especially Studebaker 2 1/2 ton types. Former Soviet Foreign Minister Anastas Mikoyan acknowledged the importance of these trucks in providing the strategic mobility required to go on the offensive and roll back the Germans.
In the last year of the war the Red Army was moving west at considerable speed. Use of the railroads would not account for this alone. The extensive Soviet rail system had suffered terrific damage as the fighting on the eastern Front had seesawed back and forth in the previous three years. Even if the Russians had been able to work miracles in repairing the lines, supplies, especially fuel and ammunition had to be moved forward from the railhead. So, it's easy to see that the many thousands of trucks would have made a great difference.
A fascinating aspect of Lend Lease is how the materials got to Russia. Everyone knows about the infamous Murmansk Run, but the percentage of materials delivered on that route was low. Most supplies reach Russia via Iran. Ships were unloaded in Iran, stuff was trucked north on a road built by Americans. The supplies were loaded onto barges. moved across the Caspian Sea and north on the Volga and Don Rivers. That was also the supply route for Russia's oil from the Caucasus. That's why the capture of Rostov - on Don and Stalingrad were such high priorities for the Germans. They needed to sever those river supply routes. However, another route for Lend Lease supplies was via Vladivostok. American ships were flagged as Russian. the American crewmen carried documents identifying them as Soviet seamen. Vladivostok is in the Sea of Japan so these ships had to sail right through Japanese held waters. The Japanese knew about this, but did nothing. They didn't want war with Russia. About 10-12 percent of LL aid reached Russia via this route. Approximately equal to the tonnages shipped via Murmansk.
 
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