"Show me your Red Army lend-lease tanks" Topic

Anyone playing or collecting Red Army lend-lease equipped forces? Sherman, Valentines etc.

For some reason, this has been on my mind for a while now, so convince me to build some.
Preferably in pictures :-)

I've thought about this, too. But, like you, I haven't started yet. When I do, I plan to get Valentines and Lees.

Don't forget the Bren Carriers (flame throwing Wasp?) and Matildas.

I took these pics at a tank park in Moscow. Both were lend lease.

I have 12 Lees that have no markings. They fight in Tunisia and then get on the ship for Leningrad.
I have also used my Matildas, Stuarts and Valentinrs as Lend Lease tanks.

I also painted a dozen Shermans for a friend.

There was a Russian Tank Corps made up entirely of Lend-Lease vehicles. They were taken away and replaced with T-34's etc. The personnel complained so much the western vehicles were returned. Happened in either the Ukraine or Rumania-can't remember where I read that.

Weasel:
I have a company of 10 Valentines for my Soviet forces but I have not painted them yet. I figure I'll get to them sometime in 2018! I also have Soviet recce troops in M-3 White Scout Cars and Universal Carriers but they as yet are unpainted too.
Cheers and good gaming.
Rod Robertson.

Same as Winston my Lee tanks do double duty.

I own a brace of Airfix Matildas; they are too small at 1/76 to use alongside my die cast desert Matildas so they got a coat of green paint and shipped off to Murmansk on the next convoy

I have some Lee/Grants ( No! Scream the HP) with Red stars and slogans, backed up with Valentines ( one of which is 'dug in' ), Churchills and Shermans-these serve double duty with Western forces too……….

I have half a dozen of the lovely milicast Soviet turret valentines adorned with ab crew..sadly no pics yet

Plus a few bren carriers and white scout cars for recce, and some dodge weapons carriers and Studebakers as generic transport

My "Bren carriers" have been redesignated as SU 14.5s.

My Scouts ride some white scout cars and a couple of M5 half tracks.

And once you become convinced, and you will, a little background reading:
"Commanding the Red Army's Sherman Tanks: The World War II Memoirs of Hero of the Soviet Union Dmitriy Loza" translated and edited by James F. Gebhardt, University of Nebraska Press 1996

Oh yes, I forgot about my carriers with 'big' MG's….(SU-14.5 I like that…)
…..and my White Scout Cars all with Russki crews……a brace of Studebakers provides troop transport of AT gun tows as required………

Dug some of them out…..( can't find the Scout Cars tho'…?)

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Valentine 'pill box' and recce tank!
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Austin truck, heroically sloganned Grant/Lee tank platoon, SU-14.5's lead a carrier platoon with Studebaker's to the rear (see below) with M3 halftracks
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I have a Soviet scout section in camo' suits that usually accompanies/crews thecarrier platoon……the 14.5 's provide some heavy hitting.

Very nice guys :-)

And in 12mm, I have U.S. dispatch riders in long overcoats on Harley Davidsons serving in the role of Red Army motorcycle troops. Couldn't find any 12mm Soviet motorcyclists.

The first tanks into Vienna were M4A2 (76) W. Despite what you may have heard, the book "Commanding the Red Army Shermans" mentioned above and written in that small window when authors could write freely without Soviet/Russian propaganda interference ,made it plain that those men who served in Shermans loved them. In particular they loved the consistency in manufacture and the accuracy of the 76mm gun. They would eventually be sent to fight the Japanese after VE Day. For cool photos just google "Soviet Sherman Tanks".

On the "russias war" website theres a nice little memoir by a Sherman commander. The M4 was a luxury ride by russian standards. He recalls that the crew had to post sentry on the tank to stop their own infantrymen from nicking the leather from the seats to repair boots etc

Looking good Gaz!

Anybody notice the different running gear and tracks on the original pic of the Uni carrier at start, also what looks like a ball mounted MG from a T34.

There was a Russian Tank Corps made up entirely of Lend-Lease vehicles. They were taken away and replaced with T-34's etc. The personnel complained so much the western vehicles were returned. Happened in either the Ukraine or Rumania-can't remember where I read that.

Not sure where this comes from, but all the stuff I've seen shows that Lend Lease stuff was very popular with the Soviets. Matilda, Valentine, M3 Stuart and M4 all popular. Only the M3 Lee wasn't mainly for its size, but the reliability, accuracy of the gun and luxury fit compared to the Soviet tanks were all appreciated.

I've long had a particular soft spot for the valentine.
The sovs loved em.

Here is one Soviet document on their views of US Lend Lease tanks, from 1942:

The translation reads:

To comrade Mikoyan,

on the question of 1943 delivery of American tanks I report:

1. In 1942, we recieved two types of tanks from America: M3 Light and M3 Medium. Apart from that, 26 tanks M4A2 (medium type tanks) made it to the USSR with convoy 19.
2. In combat, a number of major issues appear on tanks M3 Light and M3 Medium, reducing significantly their combat quality.
3. The main issues are the following:

a) the tanks start burning easily when penetrated by shells
b) large dimensions with significant number of vertical armor plates make these tanks easily damaged from enemy anti-tank artillery fire of even very small calibers
c) little durability of the aircraft-type engines, installed into tanks
d) it's impossible to shoot the sponson-mounted 75mm howitzer of M3 Medium tank, when the tank is in hulldown position, as the howitzer is located on ground level. It is also impossible to shoot two frontal machineguns that way for the same reason.

These issues of American tanks were reported to you in July 1942. Based on this I consider it pointless to buy M3 Light and M3 Medium in America further. Instead of them we should buy the M4A2 tanks in the same numbers:

The suspension, transmission and lower hull of the M4A2 was taken from the M3 Medium. Upper part of the hull is made with sloped armor. There is a 75mm gun installed in the turret – a howitzer paired with a machinegun. Instead of the gasoline engine there are two linked diesel engines "General Motors" with combined output of 375 horsepower. The M4A2 tank seems to be the latest model of the medium tank and fits the current needs more.

The significant drawback of the M4A2 tank seems to be the burning-through of the nozzle injectors and of the diesel engine pistons. The chief of the American military mission General Faymonville and Lt.Col.Gray know about this drawback. The latter considers this drawback to be easily remedied by installing tractor-type injectors (type "A"), which he asked to be delivered by plane from America in 300 pieces.

The M4A2 tanks have to be delivered with the switched diesel engine injectors, with resin-metallic tracks and with grousers for each track. Apart from that, I'd like to ask you to buy in America:

- halftrack APC's of the type M-2 (with armament)
- halftrack recon vehicles of the type M3A1 (with armament)
- mobile workshops for tank repair
- special automobile high capacity cranes

Reporting on your command.

Lt.Gen. of tank armies Korobkov
Lt.Gen. of tank armies Biryukov

In general, the Soviets didn't like the M3 Stuart nor the M3 Lee. I have never seen any indication they received the M3 Grant. The Grant was a version built specifically for the British. But there weren't enough Grants built to fill the British orders, and they had to accept Lees in part for the numbers they wanted. So I expect it is highly unlikely that Grants were provided to any other Lend Lease client. Even so, many wargamers seem to paint up Grants in Soviet colors.

The Soviets also did not seem to like the Matilda. The Churchill might have served them well in 1941 or 42, but by the time they got any in 1943 they were already looking for higher mobility from their heavy tanks, and the Churchill certainly did not qualify.

They did seem to like the M2, M5, M3 and M9 halftracks, the M3 scout car, the Valentine and the Sherman.

Note that this is all in reference to the Soviet leadership. What the individual tankers thought is harder to judge. We do know that Loza had many praises for the M4 Sherman. But what other tankers thought of other tanks is harder to assess.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Interesting Mark 1, but the criticism of the poor reliability of the engines seems at odds with the rest of the users experiences. Soviet tanks weren't particularly renowned for reliability either – certainly not compared to the M4. Also a bit disingenuous to complain about the M3 Stuart. Admittedly it wasn't as well armoured as the Valentine which the Soviets considered a light tank, but then neither were the T60 or T70.
The contemporary opinion of Soviet T34's by the U.S. is even less complimentary! Finding numerous faults.

Sure:

I'm trying to avoid using T-34s for my Red Army forces on principle, sticking to Lend-Lease and other Soviet tanks in preference, as it is my nature to do things with an eccentric difference (and Lend-Lease and the Red Army did produce quite a lot of eccentricities).

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

the criticism of the poor reliability of the engines seems at odds with the rest of the users experiences. Soviet tanks weren't particularly renowned for reliability either – certainly not compared to the M4.

The Soviets in WW2 demanded that their own tanks be quite reliable … for their rather brief expected operating life.

Not every design achieved this, of course. Nor every factory batch. But when they didn't, there was much criticism (as here in referring to the LL tanks).

The key is that the Soviet tanks were built to rather loose tolerances. They ran on lower grade fuels with more contaminants. After 1,000 hours they were used up. US tanks, as inferred from the letter, were engineered with an expectation of high quality well filtered fuels (note the ref to swapping parts spec'd for agricultural tractors into the Sherman M4A2 to replace parts spec'd for commercial trucks). US tanks could last much longer, but probably didn't work well at all with widely varying fuel qualities.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)