How much did the lend lease affect the Eastern Front?

Panzerkamfwagen · Oct 17, 2012

I found a complete list here:

That's a lot of stuff.

Here's a few items:

Other canned meats, excl. chicken 2,405,696,825 lbs.
Sausage, bologna, etc., canned 583,479,422 lbs.
Wheat flour, wholly of U.S. wheat 7,806,589 bar.

Some medicines:

Sulfanilamide 27,195 lbs.

Various kinds of wire:

Insulated copper wire, n.e.s. 399,556,720 lbs. 97,637,534
Copper wire, weather-proof 4,848,312 lbs.

gun powder:

powder, smokeless 22,075,681 lbs. 4,757,604

Every pound of powder is enough to load 175 of the Soviet rifle cartridges.

The discussion evolved from this thread over in American politics.

Here's another article about lend lease to the USSR

Now the question is whether or not the western allies were decisive in winning the war in Russia.

Bethesda · Oct 17, 2012

The trucks were important but the tanks etc supplied were inferior to Russian ones. Ultimately it was the resolve of the Russian people etc to throw out another invader that was decisive - along with an improvement in the tactics of the Soviet army using their quantative edge - 'quantity has a quality all of its own etc' - its very hard to stand up to an army where they could deploy the densities of artillery etc that the Russians (Soviets) put into the field.

Panzerkamfwagen · Oct 17, 2012

Bethesda said:
The trucks were important but the tanks etc supplied were inferior to Russian ones. Ultimately it was the resolve of the Russian people etc to throw out another invader that was decisive - along with an improvement in the tactics of the Soviet army using their quantative edge - 'quantity has a quality all of its own etc' - its very hard to stand up to an army where they could deploy the densities of artillery etc that the Russians (Soviets) put into the field.

My thesis was that without the western Allies, Russia would not have been able to stand up to the Germans, and I believe it because of three reasons.

An army marches on its stomach. Without the trucks, for instance, the Russians can't move the shells up to their artillery as well. That also makes things more difficult for them to mass artillery once they reach the Polish frontier because they can't move their shells around as well. The Germans and the Russians also used different gauges of railroad.

During the battle before Moscow, lots of the tanks that the Russians had were lend-lease from the western allies, so those certainly played a role.

Also, the Soviet Union was barely able to feed itself. Look at the famines that plagued it before and immediately after World War 2 when they weren't receiving any food aid from the allies. The Germans also occupied much of the agricultural land of the USSR, so without that food, the Soviet Army probably starts to starve.

If the UK had sued for peace after the Battle of France, and then the Germans also don't have a need to send forces to Africa or tie down hundreds of thousands of men in France and Norway.

Any one of those things, the Soviet probably could have overcome, but I don't think they could have overcome all three of them.

Bethesda · Oct 17, 2012

Panzerkampfwagen said:
My thesis was that without the western Allies, Russia would not have been able to stand up to the Germans, and I believe it because of three reasons.

An army marches on its stomach. Without the trucks, for instance, the Russians can't move the shells up to their artillery as well. That also makes things more difficult for them to mass artillery once they reach the Polish frontier because they can't move their shells around as well. The Germans and the Russians also used different gauges of railroad.

During the battle before Moscow, lots of the tanks that the Russians had were lend-lease from the western allies, so those certainly played a role.

Also, the Soviet Union was barely able to feed itself. Look at the famines that plagued it before and immediately after World War 2 when they weren't receiving any food aid from the allies. The Germans also occupied much of the agricultural land of the USSR, so without that food, the Soviet Army probably starts to starve.

If the UK had sued for peace after the Battle of France, and then the Germans also don't have a need to send forces to Africa or tie down hundreds of thousands of men in France and Norway.

Any one of those things, the Soviet probably could have overcome, but I don't think they could have overcome all three of them.

Equally of course without the USSR war effort the Western Allies would have no chance of winning the war in Europe - a fact often ignored in many Western circles. I know the point you are making and I think it is relevant but I do think people need to avoid an approach that puts too much emphasis either on Western help or German failings as if otherwise Slavs are incapable of fighting and winning a war - a certain earlier Corporal learned that you underestimate Russians at your peril.

TScott · Oct 17, 2012

The trucks were a huge help, but the $500 million in machine tools was an enormous help to the Soviets in building the weapons used to destroy Germany.

keith99 · Oct 17, 2012

TScott said:
The trucks were a huge help, but the $500 million in machine tools was an enormous help to the Soviets in building the weapons used to destroy Germany.

The industrial might of the United States combined with the will of both England and Russia made the outcome of WW II all but inevitable.

The safe from attack U.S. production facilities were unbeatable. But those facilities remained safe from attack because others were on the front lines.

Panzerkamfwagen · Oct 17, 2012

keith99 said:
The industrial might of the United States combined with the will of both England and Russia made the outcome of WW II all but inevitable.

The safe from attack U.S. production facilities were unbeatable. But those facilities remained safe from attack because others were on the front lines.

Even if the Japanese would have sunk the entire US battle fleet in a grand, decisive battle that they liked, and blown up all of the facilities at Pearl Harbor, they still would not have been able to mount a serious invasion of the United States. They simply didn't have the industrial might to build the ships to carry the supplies to do it.

Even at the height of their power, the Soviet Union could not have invaded the United States.

Panzerkamfwagen · Feb 6, 2013

Found an interesting article about how much difference the LL aid and second front made:

One very significant point about these figures is that if we remove the 11 900 AFVs received by the Soviets via Lend Lease, and allocate all German WWII fully tracked AFV production to the Wehrmacht’s East Front forces (i.e. add those lost fighting the Western Allies), then the Germans would have only needed kill loss ratio of 2.45 to 1 in order to have destroyed all Soviet fully tracked AFVs that existed on 22nd June 1941 (23 300 AFVs) and all 99 150 fully tracked AFVs produced during the war (122 450 AFVs). This figure is well below the 2.94 to 1 kill-loss ratio historically achieved. These figures demolish another more recently fashionable myth relating to the East Front; specifically that the Soviets (largely due to the huge number of T-34s produced) could have won WWII without any input from the US or Commonwealth forces. This is before we even consider the effects of increased German production (of all weapon types) due to the absence of Allied strategic bombing, the direct effects of German air superiority on the East Front from 1943 onwards, the effects of the Red Army loosing over half its motorised transport, and the effects of 9-10 000 additional (and fully supplied) heavy 88mm flak guns on the East Front from 1941 onwards.

Thoughts?

How much did the lend lease affect the Eastern Front?

Panzerkamfwagen

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Bethesda

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TScott

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keith99

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Panzerkamfwagen

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Panzerkamfwagen

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How much did the lend lease affect the Eastern Front?

Es braust unser Panzer im Sturmwind dahin.

Newbie

Es braust unser Panzer im Sturmwind dahin.

Newbie

Curmudgeon

sola dosis facit venenum

Es braust unser Panzer im Sturmwind dahin.

Es braust unser Panzer im Sturmwind dahin.

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