"'We Would Have Lost': Did U.S. Lend-Lease Aid Tip" Topic

…The Balance In Soviet Fight Against Nazi Germany?

"On February 24, 1943, a Douglas C-47 Skytrain transport aircraft with serial number 42-32892 rolled out of a factory in Long Beach, California, and was handed over to the U.S. Air Force.

On March 12, 1943, the plane was given to the Soviet Air Force in Fairbanks, Alaska, and given the registration USSR-N238. From there, it flew 5,650 kilometers to the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, one of some 14,000 aircraft sent by the United States to the Soviet Union during World War II under the massive Lend-Lease program.

This particular C-47 was sent to the Far North and spent the war conducting reconnaissance and weather-monitoring missions over the Kara Sea. After the war, it was transferred to civilian aviation, carrying passengers over the frozen tundra above the Arctic Circle. On April 23, 1947, it was forced to make an emergency landing with 36 people on board near the village of Volochanka on the Taimyr Peninsula…"

Rferl Org

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Armand

US Air Force didn't exist in 1943.

It was the US Army Air Force.

Of course it did. The reality is, they lost the First World War and would likely have lost the Second without allied aid.

The reality is, they lost the First World War and would likely have lost the Second without allied aid.

That is one opinion. Obviously the reverse is also a valid opinion That The Western Allies could not have won WW2 without the damage done to the German Army by the Soviets.

Victory over Nazi Germany absolutely required all three of the major Allied combatants. Without British determination to persevere regardless of cost, the war would have ended in 1940 with a German-controlled European empire (the Soviet Union was neutral at this time). Without the heroic sacrifices of the Soviet peoples the war could never have been won. And neither the British nor the Soviets could have carried on the fight without the industrial might of the United States.

Thanks

Armand

If we're just discussing US/UK weapons/materials sent to Russia, then yes, it was a huge help. As early as the final German push to take Moscow in '41 a percentage of the tanks facing them were lend/lease tanks.

Would the Soviets have won w/o lend/lease? Maybe. But would they have won so decisively (think Bagration) w/o Allied AFV's and trucks? I don't think so.

The Germans lost approximately 2.4 million men on the Eastern Front while losing only 900,000 everywhere else. Lend lease absolutely helped, but from the Allied perspective, it was purely enlightened self interest. Every tank, plane and radio that helped kill a German on the Eastern front was a bloodless win for the Western Allies.

The US had Nukes. That would likely had an impact with the war lasting longer.

The Western Allies also accounted for 1.1m German troops and 44k flak guns being kept in Germany for the duration.

The Luftwaffe was also destroyed in the West, not the East, with 4 times higher losses in the West.

With that additional firepower and manpower, I suspect it would not have been an easy or quick win for the Russians…

In war, it is nearly always self interest…

Eumelus:
"Victory over Nazi Germany absolutely required all three of the major Allied combatants. Without British determination to persevere regardless of cost, the war would have ended in 1940 with a German-controlled European empire (the Soviet Union was neutral at this time). Without the heroic sacrifices of the Soviet peoples the war could never have been won. And neither the British nor the Soviets could have carried on the fight without the industrial might of the United States."

For a start, the Soviet Union wasn't neutral – it was allied to Germany, acting in concert with it to attack Poland then providing vital oil and raw materials to fight France and the British Empire.

Despite the huge and terrible sacrifices of the people of the Soviet Union, after their betrayal by their ally, I'm not at all convinced the Western Allies wouldn't have won anyway. Even without nuclear weapons, the combination of blockade and relentless bombing of German cities and industry would eventually have pushed Germany to the point that they could no-longer fight,

McKinstry:
"The Germans lost approximately 2.4 million men on the Eastern Front while losing only 900,000 everywhere else. Lend lease absolutely helped, but from the Allied perspective, it was purely enlightened self interest. Every tank, plane and radio that helped kill a German on the Eastern front was a bloodless win for the Western Allies."

Whilst all that is true, it misses the fact that most of those Germans lost on the Eastern Front were from semi-static infantry divisions trying to hold the huge line of contact. The better Armoured and Mechanised troops were divided about 50-50, most of the air war was in the West and almost all of the naval war.

Those arguing that the biggest threat to Germany was Soviet tanks never seem to wonder why the Germans failed to realise that and instead allocated more of their industrial resources to defending against Bomber Command and the 8th Airforce.

Thanks also…

Armand

Those arguing that the biggest threat to Germany was Soviet tanks never seem to wonder why the Germans failed to realise that and instead allocated more of their industrial resources to defending against Bomber Command and the 8th Airforce.

Boots on the ground win wars and the standard Infantry Division is king of the battlefield. Germany took a gamble with The Soviet Union. It knew it could not maintain an Army big enough to match the Soviets for a long war of attrition and assumed a quick victory would allow them to first expand their Army to a size far bigger than they could equip and then quickly de-mobilize those men back into civilian industry before any shortcomings came into play. They lost that bet and were trapped into a manpower war they never had any chance of winning.
One could say all those men fighting in the 'semi-static infantry divisions' in the East would have been enough (if in industry) to find a solution to the Bomber Offensive.

I yield to no one in my disdain for Stalin, but it is simply not the case that Germany and the Soviet Union were allies. Their relationship was by treaty non-aggression, not alliance (neither party being required to join existing hostilities nor to come to the aid of the other should new hostilities commence). Trade of material does not constitute alliance – we're hardly allies with China, one of our biggest trade partner.

The logistical chains that feed and sustain those divisions are what keep them from disintegrating into ragged bands of hungry foragers, and in neither world war did Russia (or the Soviet Union) have an industrial base sufficient to arm its military while simultaneously sustaining it. The Russian railway system collapsed in 1916-1917, and probably would have done so again, without the shipment of thousands of rail cars and locomotives and hundreds of thousands of trucks.

The Russian railway system collapsed in 1916-1917, and probably would have done so again, without the shipment of thousands of rail cars and locomotives and hundreds of thousands of trucks

The USA shipped 2000 locos and 11,000 railcars to The Soviets. They did not start arriving until 1944 and then were mainly used for supplies coming through Persia. Pre-war the Soviets had c 30,000 locos and 600,000 railcars.
For trucks you have to look at Soviet Truck holdings and when the LL trucks arrived AND disregard all those that arrived AFTER the war was over.

They started arriving in 1943, after Stalin requested them in April. Soviet locomotive production during the war was:

1941 – 200
1942- 9
1943 – 43
1944 – 32
1945 – 8

I don't have a prewar annual production figure, but postwar, the estimates I could find put it in the vicinity of 2000+ locomotives per year, which probably incorporates a combination of replacement capital stock and expansion. The locomotive works in the USSR had converted to military production, which accounts for part of the drop.

The US shipped more than 2,000 engines, the bulk of them arriving in 1944-45. That's almost a year's production, which seems pretty substantial, given wartime conditions, attrition, 2,000 engines lost in 1941, domestic production switching to military industries, etc. I suspect that count is slightly low, since Baldwin and Alco alone are credited with about 2,000 engines in class Ye specifically for use on the Russian broad gauge network, but regardless, it was a pretty substantial contribution.

They started arriving in 1943, after Stalin requested them in April.

They began to ship them in second half of 1943.The locomotives did not start shipping until 1944. 'Shipping' meaning they left a US port and an arrival (unloading) was 1 to 3 months later.
The reason the Soviets stopped Loco production is because they could afford to. Their pre-war stock was considered enough to see them through and they deliberately chose to stop production to concentrate on more vital equipment. LL Locos and rolling stock were a welcome addition but in no way was it critical.