Luftwaffe only has to fight the VVS

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stg 44
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Re: Luftwaffe only has to fight the VVS

#31

Post by stg 44 » 19 Nov 2012, 22:39

BDV wrote:As per usual, the auxilliary airforces (Romanian, Hungarian, Finninsh, and Slovak) are completely disregarded.
If German production if higher, they might well get more and more modern aircraft.

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Re: Luftwaffe only has to fight the VVS

#32

Post by KDF33 » 19 Nov 2012, 23:27

The number of aircraft received via lend lease strikes me as irrelevent to the USSR's prospects of survival. The Soviets never lacked aircraft during the war. See for instance this table, which indicates that on the 1st of December 1941, at the USSR's lowest point in the war, they still had 2589 fighters and 1212 assault planes and bombers just with the forces aligned against Germany. In terms of fighters, they must have at the time had at least 4 to 5 times the German strength in the East.

The main problem for the Soviets was not a lack of planes but a lack of fuel. This is best illustrated by comparing Soviet yearly sortie generation with the total number of planes in the Operational Forces. We can use data from this source and the previously cited tables:


On December 1st, 1941, the USSR had 4179 combat planes on the Eastern Front. On November 1st, 1942, they had 8805. The frontal VVS, the long range aviation and the PVO made a total of 717 239 combat sorties during 1942.

On November 1st, 1942, the USSR had 8805 combat planes on the Eastern Front. On January 1st, 1944, they had 11 721. The frontal VVS, the long range aviation and the PVO made a total of 793 417 combat sorties during 1943. Note that, in 1943, combat strength peaked at mid-year (13 491) rather than at year's end.

On January 1st, 1944, the USSR had 11 721 combat planes on the Eastern Front. On January 1st, 1945, they had 18 823. The frontal VVS, the long range aviation and the PVO made a total of 911 046 combat sorties during 1944.


As you can see, it is during 1942 that the Soviet Air Force made the most sorties per aircraft of the war. This is because the limiting factor was not airframes, but fuel (and also, perhaps, spare parts) or, more precisely, that the supply of fuel could not keep up with the supply of airframes.

Notice also how the VVS flight schools were starved of fuel for pretty much all of the war (the worse full-year being 1943), here.

When one takes into account the fact that for most of the war Germany's supply of avgas was 1.5 to 2 times that of the USSR, what all this means is that, had the Luftwaffe been able to concentrate its full strength in the East, the VVS would have been even more attrited than historically and ever more hard-pressed to replace its losses in pilots, if not in airframes. In effect, the VVS would likely have suffered the negative feedback loop* that destroyed the Luftwaffe as en effective fighting force in 1944-45.

*Admittedly, the VVS did suffer such a negative feedback loop which, combined with the relatively low sortie generation per Soviet plane, explains why the loss ratios in the East so much favored the LW for much of the war and why the German airforce remained competitive despite being absolutely overwhelmed by the Soviets in terms of combat aircraft in units at the front


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Re: Luftwaffe only has to fight the VVS

#33

Post by phylo_roadking » 19 Nov 2012, 23:57

The number of aircraft received via lend lease strikes me as irrelevent to the USSR's prospects of survival. The Soviets never lacked aircraft during the war. See for instance this table, which indicates that on the 1st of December 1941, at the USSR's lowest point in the war, they still had 2589 fighters and 1212 assault planes and bombers just with the forces aligned against Germany. In terms of fighters, they must have at the time had at least 4 to 5 times the German strength in the East.
Here's the age-old issue, same as tanks ;)

Were they all competitive with Luftwaffe frontline fighters?

Where on the Eastern Front were they?

What was the operational rate?

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Re: Luftwaffe only has to fight the VVS

#34

Post by Kingfish » 20 Nov 2012, 00:13

stg 44 wrote: They would have a hard time getting lend-lease, as all the military aid had to go through either Persia or Murmansk historically. In the East Japan would not let the Soviets bring in military equipment via Vladivostok.
Persia would not be invaded and opened up as a Lend-Lease supply line without Britain in the war, so that is out as a supply source.
How is the US supposed to bring convoys of Lend-Lease to Murmansk without Germany stopping them and searching them for contraband, which was well within their international rights? Britain, if not in the war, cannot be used as base for US warships, nor would the US public support a US fleet escorting convoys all the way to Murmansk from the US. Without either Murmansk or Persia then no military aid is reaching the USSR.
Japan could not stop US military aid to Vladivostok unless she first declared war on the US, and once that occurred Germany and Italy followed suit (unless we game the scenario yet again to say Germany leaves the US alone).
Once war is declared the US is free to send as much aid as possible, and with no England in the picture the amount of aid would increase significantly.

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Re: Luftwaffe only has to fight the VVS

#35

Post by KDF33 » 20 Nov 2012, 01:21

Were they all competitive with Luftwaffe frontline fighters?
Of course not. But neither were the LL planes. Indeed, during 1941-42 1599 / 2545 (63%) LL fighters supplied were Hurricanes, which were no better than early LaGG-3 and Yak-1, and maybe even somewhat worse. As for the rest, they were 193 P-39 and 749 P-40 which were probably inferior to the best the Soviets could produce in 1942, the La-5 and the Yak-7.
Where on the Eastern Front were they?
For frontal VVS only, 6.5% in Karelia / 15.6% against HGN / 24.8% against HGM / 41.7% against HGS / 11.5% in reserve, presumably to be unleashed with the Moscow counter, so essentially also against HGM. So there would be a rough balance between the Moscow and Donets /Rostov sectors of the front.
What was the operational rate?
66% Op. rate on December 1, 1941. However, as previously stated, the real bottleneck was fuel availability, not the number of airframes nor the operational rate.

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Re: Luftwaffe only has to fight the VVS

#36

Post by phylo_roadking » 20 Nov 2012, 01:43

Of course not. But neither were the LL planes. Indeed, during 1941-42 1599 / 2545 (63%) LL fighters supplied were Hurricanes, which were no better than early LaGG-3 and Yak-1, and maybe even somewhat worse.
But that's exactly the point; like the British tanks around Moscow in December-January 1941, they were there....when needed. It doesn't matter that they were at a disadvantage - it mattered that they were there, and kept the VVS in the air in the numbers required to trade numbers against better German aircraft.
What was the operational rate?
66% Op. rate on December 1, 1941. However, as previously stated, the real bottleneck was fuel availability, not the number of airframes nor the operational rate.
Some authors don't necessarily agree... John Buckley for instance puts the initial bottleneck down to the HUGE damage done to the VVS in the first hours and days of BARBAROSSA with its equally huge loss of experienced pilots and ground crew. IIRC he says the VVS was put on the back foot, on the defensive, for nearly a year as a result of it.

Conversely - the Luftwaffe set out to do this amount of damage to the VVS at the start of the campaign - having dealt with the numbers' issues in their initial planning. It's short...but have you seen this? http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airc ... ratley.htm

Now...imagine if those expectations of damage done, and the reality of it - was increased in ratio by the number of Luftwaffe aircraft not lost in the West in 1940? THAT is an initial blow the VVS could not easily recover from.
Last edited by phylo_roadking on 20 Nov 2012, 01:50, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Luftwaffe only has to fight the VVS

#37

Post by stg 44 » 20 Nov 2012, 01:48

KDF33 wrote: 66% Op. rate on December 1, 1941. However, as previously stated, the real bottleneck was fuel availability, not the number of airframes nor the operational rate.
Considering that some 55% of Soviet aluminum came via lend-lease, I'd say that foreign supplies were pretty critical to the Soviets. Not sure whether that came via Vladivostok or not, because I'm not sure if it was considered a war material by Japan. Without that aluminum the Soviets are going to have a hard time getting the VVS supplied with airframes.
phylo_roadking wrote:
Of course not. But neither were the LL planes. Indeed, during 1941-42 1599 / 2545 (63%) LL fighters supplied were Hurricanes, which were no better than early LaGG-3 and Yak-1, and maybe even somewhat worse.
But that's exactly the point; like the British tanks around Moscow in December-January 1941, they were there....when needed. It doesn't matter that they were at a disadvantage - it mattered that they were there, and kept the VVS in the air in the numbers required to trade numbers against better German aircraft.
British Lend-Lease is very seriously overlooked, especially in 1941 when it made a major difference around Moscow. 1000 planes and tanks were very helpful to the hard-pressed defenders and during the counter attack.
phylo_roadking wrote: Now...imagine if those expectations of damage done, and the reality of it - was increased in ratio by the number of Luftwaffe aircraft not lost in the West in 1940?
That would be pretty brutal, especially if there are more bombers operational, which would help reduce the number of losses faced by the Heer.

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Re: Luftwaffe only has to fight the VVS

#38

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 20 Nov 2012, 02:34

KDF33 wrote: The main problem for the Soviets was not a lack of planes but a lack of fuel. This is best illustrated by comparing Soviet yearly sortie generation with the total number of planes in the Operational Forces. We can use data from this source and the previously cited tables:
Nice discussion, but somehow German fuel supply is danced around. Danced around in such a manner that it looks deliberate to me. John Ellis in 'Brute Force' cites both German sources and the USSBS at length on on th subject of German fuel supplies of all sorts and aviation fuel specifically, then analysis the effect on German operations and on training. Tooze IIRC discusses the same problem, of pilot training reduction due to fuel shortages. I remember Albert Price refering to this as well in his book of the German air forces.

Point here is the implication, assumption, or statement that the German air efforts will not be as restricted by fuel limits are wrong. Unless one proposes the German sortie rate be significantly reduced the same handicap will apply. Simply shifting most of the aircraft used in the west to the east does not magically reduce the number of sorties necessary. If the VVS is to be defeated decisively the necessary number of German sorties will have to be made & I've seen nothing here or elsewhere that remmotely suggests or supports the idea that increasing the number of German aircraft in the east reduces the necessary number of sorties to defeat the VVS.

A factor entirely unaddressed thus far in the conversation here is the pilot & aircraft loss rate. Not just from combat but from accident & other noncombat causes. From 1942 the noncombat 'operational' loss rate of the Luftwaffe was bad & it went to horrible by 1944. Once again Ellis, & Price address this. Pilot & aircraft losses are not a obscure subject hidden away, but have been addressed by a wide variety of German and Engliash language historians in the past six decades.

Luftatwaffe pilot & aircraft operational losses were the highest on the easter front, particualry after mid 1943 when Luftwaffe operations were no longer flown from marginal bases in the Mediterrainian/Africa regions. Shifting more of the operating air groups east places more of them in the poor operating conditions of the east and would push the operational loss rate higher than in out time line.

It may very well occur the Luftwaffe could defeat the Soviet military aviation forces, but I dont see any support that it would be a given, nor that it would even be easy in any fashion.

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Re: Luftwaffe only has to fight the VVS

#39

Post by KDF33 » 20 Nov 2012, 02:34

Replying in order:
But that's exactly the point; like the British tanks around Moscow in December-January 1941, they were there....when needed. It doesn't matter that they were at a disadvantage - it mattered that they were there, and kept the VVS in the air in the numbers required to trade numbers against better German aircraft.
At the start of the Moscow counteroffensive on December 5, 1941, of roughly 2600 Soviet fighters at the front, a grand total of 49 came from import: 31 belonged to the North Sea Fleet air force and 18 to the Karelian Front VVS. The PVO held none.

In addition, the STAVKA reserve held 7 Hurricanes (or were they P-40s?). It is conceivable that they were unleashed on HGM in front of Moscow, thereby turning the tide. :)

As for the British tanks in the battle of Moscow, I'd argue that what truly defeated Taifun was, in order of importance: 1) The autumn rains that gave the USSR a good 1-month respite to rebuild the forces destroyed at the opening of Taifun, 2) Germany's deficient logistics system, 3) The severe attrition of the Östheer panzer forces. I'd allow that the British tanks may have been marginally useful to push the Germans back, although I'd like you to provide some firm numbers about them.

Some authors don't necessarily agree... John Buckley for instance puts the initial bottleneck down to the HUGE damage done to the VVS in the first hours and days of BARBAROSSA with its equally huge loss of experienced pilots and ground crew. IIRC he says the VVS was put on the back foot, on the defensive, for nearly a year as a result of it.
I agree. But why couldn't the Soviets recover? Because fuel was very tight for their training program, and because the combat units at the front could never be used to their full potentiel because of the relative avgas shortage.

Now...imagine if those expectations of damage done, and the reality of it - was increased in ratio by the number of Luftwaffe aircraft not lost in the West in 1940? THAT is an initial blow the VVS could not easily recover from.
I fail to see how the BoB could have crippled the Luftwaffe effort in the east. Indeed, the Jagdwaffe retired a significant number of early Bf 109s during the winter-spring of 1940-41 and replaced them with the early F models. As for the pilots, from a low of roughly 900 fighter pilots in the operational units at the end of september 1940, the Jagdwaffe was back to over 1200 around the date of Barbarossa. The same appears to apply to the Kampfwaffe. Lastly, the Luftwaffe couldn't have been much larger than it was in 1941, since Barbarossa massively depleted German avgas stocks: from 613 000 tons on hand on the 31st December 1940, the Luftwaffe only had 254 000 tons at the end of 1941. It wasn't until 1942 that Germany produced enough avgas to adequately cover its requirements.

In any event, what happened earlier in the West is not important for this discussion: the Luftwaffe, with what it had in 1941 and what it could receive during the following years, was strong enough to defeat the VVS.

Considering that some 55% of Soviet aluminum came via lend-lease, I'd say that foreign supplies were pretty critical to the Soviets. Not sure whether that came via Vladivostok or not, because I'm not sure if it was considered a war material by Japan. Without that aluminum the Soviets are going to have a hard time getting the VVS supplied with airframes.
I agree. I was only talking about the supply of airframes. LL was critical for aluminum supply, but also for avgas or, for the matter, explosives. Without LL, the Soviet war effort would have been dramatically impaired, even if they were self-sufficient for the big-ticket items (tanks, guns, etc.).

British Lend-Lease is very seriously overlooked, especially in 1941 when it made a major difference around Moscow. 1000 planes and tanks were very helpful to the hard-pressed defenders and during the counter attack.
See my answer to the first question. Also, British aircraft are included (in fact they probably constitute most of the imports by December 5) in the data I provided.

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Re: Luftwaffe only has to fight the VVS

#40

Post by KDF33 » 20 Nov 2012, 02:36

Replying in order:
But that's exactly the point; like the British tanks around Moscow in December-January 1941, they were there....when needed. It doesn't matter that they were at a disadvantage - it mattered that they were there, and kept the VVS in the air in the numbers required to trade numbers against better German aircraft.
At the start of the Moscow counteroffensive on December 5, 1941, of roughly 2600 Soviet fighters at the front, a grand total of 49 came from import: 31 belonged to the North Sea Fleet air force and 18 to the Karelian Front VVS. The PVO held none.

In addition, the STAVKA reserve held 7 Hurricanes (or were they P-40s?). It is conceivable that they were unleashed on HGM in front of Moscow, thereby turning the tide. :)

As for the British tanks in the battle of Moscow, I'd argue that what truly defeated Taifun was, in order of importance: 1) The autumn rains that gave the USSR a good 1-month respite to rebuild the forces destroyed at the opening of Taifun, 2) Germany's deficient logistics system, 3) The severe attrition of the Östheer panzer forces. I'd allow that the British tanks may have been marginally useful to push the Germans back, although I'd like you to provide some firm numbers about them.

Some authors don't necessarily agree... John Buckley for instance puts the initial bottleneck down to the HUGE damage done to the VVS in the first hours and days of BARBAROSSA with its equally huge loss of experienced pilots and ground crew. IIRC he says the VVS was put on the back foot, on the defensive, for nearly a year as a result of it.
I agree. But why couldn't the Soviets recover? Because fuel was very tight for their training program, and because the combat units at the front could never be used to their full potentiel because of the relative avgas shortage.

Now...imagine if those expectations of damage done, and the reality of it - was increased in ratio by the number of Luftwaffe aircraft not lost in the West in 1940? THAT is an initial blow the VVS could not easily recover from.
I fail to see how the BoB could have crippled the Luftwaffe effort in the east. Indeed, the Jagdwaffe retired a significant number of early Bf 109s during the winter-spring of 1940-41 and replaced them with the early F models. As for the pilots, from a low of roughly 900 fighter pilots in the operational units at the end of september 1940, the Jagdwaffe was back to over 1200 around the date of Barbarossa. The same appears to apply to the Kampfwaffe. Lastly, the Luftwaffe couldn't have been much larger than it was in 1941, since Barbarossa massively depleted German avgas stocks: from 613 000 tons on hand on the 31st December 1940, the Luftwaffe only had 254 000 tons at the end of 1941. It wasn't until 1942 that Germany produced enough avgas to adequately cover its requirements.

In any event, what happened earlier in the West is not important for this discussion: the Luftwaffe, with what it had in 1941 and what it could receive during the following years, was strong enough to defeat the VVS.

Considering that some 55% of Soviet aluminum came via lend-lease, I'd say that foreign supplies were pretty critical to the Soviets. Not sure whether that came via Vladivostok or not, because I'm not sure if it was considered a war material by Japan. Without that aluminum the Soviets are going to have a hard time getting the VVS supplied with airframes.
I agree. I was only talking about the supply of airframes. LL was critical for aluminum supply, but also for avgas or, for the matter, explosives. Without LL, the Soviet war effort would have been dramatically impaired, even if they were self-sufficient for the big-ticket items (tanks, guns, etc.).

British Lend-Lease is very seriously overlooked, especially in 1941 when it made a major difference around Moscow. 1000 planes and tanks were very helpful to the hard-pressed defenders and during the counter attack.
See my answer to the first question. Also, British aircraft are included (in fact they probably constitute most of the imports by December 5) in the data I provided.

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Re: Luftwaffe only has to fight the VVS

#41

Post by stg 44 » 20 Nov 2012, 02:48

Carl Schwamberger wrote:
KDF33 wrote: The main problem for the Soviets was not a lack of planes but a lack of fuel. This is best illustrated by comparing Soviet yearly sortie generation with the total number of planes in the Operational Forces. We can use data from this source and the previously cited tables:
Nice discussion, but somehow German fuel supply is danced around. Danced around in such a manner that it looks deliberate to me. John Ellis in 'Brute Force' cites both German sources and the USSBS at length on on th subject of German fuel supplies of all sorts and aviation fuel specifically, then analysis the effect on German operations and on training. Tooze IIRC discusses the same problem, of pilot training reduction due to fuel shortages. I remember Albert Price refering to this as well in his book of the German air forces.

Point here is the implication, assumption, or statement that the German air efforts will not be as restricted by fuel limits are wrong. Unless one proposes the German sortie rate be significantly reduced the same handicap will apply. Simply shifting most of the aircraft used in the west to the east does not magically reduce the number of sorties necessary. If the VVS is to be defeated decisively the necessary number of German sorties will have to be made & I've seen nothing here or elsewhere that remmotely suggests or supports the idea that increasing the number of German aircraft in the east reduces the necessary number of sorties to defeat the VVS.

A factor entirely unaddressed thus far in the conversation here is the pilot & aircraft loss rate. Not just from combat but from accident & other noncombat causes. From 1942 the noncombat 'operational' loss rate of the Luftwaffe was bad & it went to horrible by 1944. Once again Ellis, & Price address this. Pilot & aircraft losses are not a obscure subject hidden away, but have been addressed by a wide variety of German and Engliash language historians in the past six decades.

Luftatwaffe pilot & aircraft operational losses were the highest on the easter front, particualry after mid 1943 when Luftwaffe operations were no longer flown from marginal bases in the Mediterrainian/Africa regions. Shifting more of the operating air groups east places more of them in the poor operating conditions of the east and would push the operational loss rate higher than in out time line.

It may very well occur the Luftwaffe could defeat the Soviet military aviation forces, but I dont see any support that it would be a given, nor that it would even be easy in any fashion.
Without the British in the war there is no blockade of Germany, which means that Germans can import oil and avgas from the world markets. The supply constraints that historically existed are not present in this scenario if Britain is not around to prevent Germany and Europe from gaining access to world markets for raw materials.
In fact the rest of Europe in this scenario would be able to add to German production; France's contributions to the German war effort were historically very limited by the crippling of their economy because of the lack of fuel to run their transport sector as well as needing very limited German raw materials to run their industry.
Without Britain preventing imports both the German and occupied territories will increase production above and beyond historical figures.

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Re: Luftwaffe only has to fight the VVS

#42

Post by phylo_roadking » 20 Nov 2012, 03:02

As for the British tanks in the battle of Moscow, I'd argue that what truly defeated Taifun was, in order of importance: 1) The autumn rains that gave the USSR a good 1-month respite to rebuild the forces destroyed at the opening of Taifun, 2) Germany's deficient logistics system, 3) The severe attrition of the Östheer panzer forces. I'd allow that the British tanks may have been marginally useful to push the Germans back, although I'd like you to provide some firm numbers about them.
It's discussed in a number of threads here; the numbers vary from 15% up to 25%...depending on which Russian author is prepared to admit it!
I fail to see how the BoB could have crippled the Luftwaffe effort in the east. Indeed, the Jagdwaffe retired a significant number of early Bf 109s during the winter-spring of 1940-41 and replaced them with the early F models. As for the pilots, from a low of roughly 900 fighter pilots in the operational units at the end of september 1940, the Jagdwaffe was back to over 1200 around the date of Barbarossa.
1/ the Luftwaffe wouldn't have had to come back up to those numbers; the total of trained aircrew would have been cumulative....including all those lost in the West 1939-June 1941.
The same appears to apply to the Kampfwaffe. Lastly, the Luftwaffe couldn't have been much larger than it was in 1941, since Barbarossa massively depleted German avgas stocks: from 613 000 tons on hand on the 31st December 1940, the Luftwaffe only had 254 000 tons at the end of 1941. It wasn't until 1942 that Germany produced enough avgas to adequately cover its requirements.
2/ again - no losses/consumption as a result of operations in the West 1939-June 1941 ;)
At the start of the Moscow counteroffensive on December 5, 1941, of roughly 2600 Soviet fighters at the front, a grand total of 49 came from import: 31 belonged to the North Sea Fleet air force and 18 to the Karelian Front VVS. The PVO held none
So what had happened to the over 100 Hurricanes that had arrived in the USSR by the time the first Russian-assembled Hurricane made its first kill over the Rybachiy Peninsula on the 31st of October 1941? 81 and 134 Sqns had only lost three of their 39 by the time the personnel left the USSR...by December they were being flown by 78th IAP.

Or the 230 Tomahawk IIs and 15 P-40Es received in 1941? The Tomahawk-equiped 126th IAP flew 666 combat sorties to cover the Kalinin and West Fronts and 318 combat sorties for the defense of Moscow in the period from 25th October 1941 to 25th April 1942....twelve pilots from 126th IAP became aces and 31 pilots of the regiment were awarded orders and medals for the Battle for Moscow.
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Re: Luftwaffe only has to fight the VVS

#43

Post by Marcelo Jenisch » 20 Nov 2012, 03:46

After a series of dramatic Nazi successes during the opening stages of Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, foreign observers predicted that Soviet resistance would soon collapse. By October, German troops were poised outside both Leningrad and Moscow. But the Germans were doggedly held off in front of Moscow in late November and early December, and then rolled back by a reinvigorated Red Army in a staggeringly brutal winter counteroffensive.

That the Soviet victories of late 1941 were won with Soviet blood and largely with Soviet weapons is beyond dispute. But for decades the official Soviet line went much further. Soviet authorities recognized that the "Great Patriotic War" gave the Communist Party a claim to legitimacy that went far beyond Marxism-Leninism or the 1917 Revolution, and took pains to portray their nation's victories in World War II as single-handed. Any mention of the role that Western assistance played in the Soviet war effort was strictly off-limits.

During Nikita Khrushchev's rule in the late 1950s and early 1960s, there was a window of greater frankness and openness about the extent of aid supplied from the West under the Lend-Lease Act—but it was still clearly forbidden for Soviet authors to suggest that such aid ever made any real difference on the battlefield. Mentions of Lend-Lease in memoirs were always accompanied by disparagement of the quality of the weapons supplied, with American and British tanks and planes invariably portrayed as vastly inferior to comparable Soviet models.

An oft-quoted statement by First Vice-Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars Nikolai Voznesensky summed up the standard line that Allied aid represented "only 4 percent" of Soviet production for the entire war. Lacking any detailed information to the contrary, Western authors generally agreed that even if Lend-Lease was important from 1943 on, as quantities of aid dramatically increased, the aid was far too little and late to make a difference in the decisive battles of 1941–1942.

But since the collapse of the Soviet Union, a trickle of information has emerged from archives in Moscow, shedding new light on the subject. While much of the documentary evidence remains classified "secret" in the Central Archives of the Ministry of Defense and the Russian State Archive of the Economy, Western and Russian researchers have been able to gain access to important, previously unavailable firsthand documents. I was recently able to examine Russian-language materials of the State Defense Committee—the Soviet equivalent of the British War Cabinet—held in the former Central Party Archive. Together with other recently published sources, including the wartime diaries of N. I. Biriukov, a Red Army officer responsible from August 1941 on for the distribution of recently acquired tanks to the front lines, this newly available evidence paints a very different picture from the received wisdom. In particular, it shows that British Lend-Lease assistance to the Soviet Union in late 1941 and early 1942 played a far more significant part in the defense of Moscow and the revival of Soviet fortunes in late 1941 than has been acknowledged.

Particularly important for the Soviets in late 1941 were British-supplied tanks and aircraft. American contributions of the time were far fewer. In fact, for a brief period during December 1941, the relative importance of British aid increased well beyond levels planned by the Allies as a result of American reaction to the outbreak of war with Japan; some American equipment destined for the Soviet Union was actually unloaded from merchant vessels and provided to American forces instead.

Even aid that might seem like a drop in the bucket in the larger context of Soviet production for the war played a crucial role in filling gaps at important moments during this period. At a time when Soviet industry was in disarray—many of their industrial plants were destroyed or captured by the advancing Nazi troops or in the process of evacuation east—battlefield losses of specific equipment approached or even exceeded the rate at which Soviet domestic production could replace them during this crucial period. Under these circumstances even small quantities of aid took on far greater significance.

According to research by a team of Soviet historians, the Soviet Union lost a staggering 20,500 tanks from June 22 to December 31, 1941. At the end of November 1941, only 670 Soviet tanks were available to defend Moscow—that is, in the recently formed Kalinin, Western, and Southwestern Fronts. Only 205 of these tanks were heavy or medium types, and most of their strength was concentrated in the Western Front, with the Kalinin Front having only two tank battalions (67 tanks) and the Southwestern Front two tank brigades (30 tanks).

Given the disruption to Soviet production and Red Army losses, the Soviet Union was understandably eager to put British armor into action as soon as possible. According to Biriukov's service diary, the first 20 British tanks arrived at the Soviet tank training school in Kazan on October 28, 1941, at which point a further 120 tanks were unloaded at the port of Archangel in northern Russia. Courses on the British tanks for Soviet crews started during November as the first tanks, with British assistance, were being assembled from their in-transit states and undergoing testing by Soviet specialists.

The tanks reached the front lines with extraordinary speed. Extrapolating from available statistics, researchers estimate that British-supplied tanks made up 30 to 40 percent of the entire heavy and medium tank strength of Soviet forces before Moscow at the beginning of December 1941, and certainly made up a significant proportion of tanks available as reinforcements at this critical point in the fighting. By the end of 1941 Britain had delivered 466 tanks out of the 750 promised.

The British Military Mission to Moscow noted that by December 9, about ninety British tanks had already been in action with Soviet forces. The first of these units to have seen action seems to have been the 138th Independent Tank Battalion (with twenty-one British tanks), which was involved in stemming the advance of German units in the region of the Volga Reservoir to the north of Moscow in late November. In fact the British intercepted German communications indicating that German forces had first come in contact with British tanks on the Eastern front on November 26, 1941.

The exploits of the British-equipped 136th Independent Tank Battalion are perhaps the most widely noted in the archives. It was part of a scratch operational group of the Western Front consisting of the 18th Rifle Brigade, two ski battalions, the 5th and 20th Tank Brigades, and the 140th Independent Tank Battalion. The 136th Independent Tank Battalion was combined with the latter to produce a tank group of only twenty-one tanks, which was to operate with the two ski battalions against German forces advancing to the west of Moscow in early December. Other largely British-equipped tank units in action with the Western Front from early December were the 131st Independent Tank Brigade, which fought to the east of Tula, south of Moscow, and 146th Tank Brigade, in the region of Kriukovo to the immediate west of the Soviet capital.

While the Matilda Mk II and Valentine tanks supplied by the British were certainly inferior to the Soviets' homegrown T-34 and KV-1, it is important to note that Soviet production of the T-34 (and to a lesser extent the KV series), was only just getting seriously underway in 1942, and Soviet production was well below plan targets. And though rapid increases in tank firepower would soon render the 40mm two-pounder main gun of the Matilda and Valentine suitable for use on light tanks only, the armor protection of these British models put them firmly in the heavy and medium categories, respectively. Both were superior to all but the Soviet KV-1 and T-34 in armor, and indeed even their much maligned winter cross-country performance was comparable to most Soviet tanks excluding the KV-1 and T-34.

A steady stream of British-made tanks continued to flow into the Red Army through the spring and summer of 1942. Canada would eventually produce 1,420 Valentines, almost exclusively for delivery to the Soviet Union. By July 1942 the Red Army had 13,500 tanks in service, with more than 16 percent of those imported, and more than half of those British.

Lend-Lease aircraft deliveries were also of significance during the Battle of Moscow. While Soviet pilots praised the maneuverability of the homegrown I-153 Chaika and I-16 Ishak fighters—still in use in significant numbers in late 1941—both types were certainly obsolete and inferior in almost all regards to the British-supplied Hurricane. The Hurricane was rugged and tried and tested, and as useful at that point as many potentially superior Soviet designs such as the LaGG-3 and MiG-3. There were apparently only 263 LaGG-3s in the Soviet inventory by the time of the Moscow counteroffensive, and it was an aircraft with numerous defects. At the end of 1941 there were greater numbers of the MiG-3, but the plane was considered difficult to fly. The Yak-1, arguably the best of the batch, and superior in most regards to the Hurricane, suffered from airframe and engine defects in early war production aircraft.

A total of 699 Lend-Lease aircraft had been delivered to Archangel by the time the Arctic convoys switched to Murmansk in December 1941. Of these, 99 Hurricanes and 39 Tomahawks were in service with the Soviet air defense forces on January 1, 1942, out of a total of 1,470 fighters. About 15 percent of the aircraft of the 6th Fighter Air Corps defending Moscow were Tomahawks or Hurricanes.

The Soviet Northern Fleet was also a major and early recipient of British Hurricanes, receiving those flown by No. 151 Wing of the RAF, which operated briefly from Soviet airfields near Murmansk. As early as October 12, 1941, the Soviet 126th Fighter Air Regiment was operating with Tomahawks bought from the United States by Britain. Tomahawks also served in defense of the Doroga Zhizni or "Road of Life" across the ice of Lake Ladoga, which provided the only supply line to the besieged city of Leningrad during the winter of 1941–42. By spring and summer of 1942 the Hurricane had clearly become the principal fighter aircraft of the Northern Fleet's air regiments; in all, 83 out of its 109 fighters were of foreign origin.

British and Commonwealth deliveries to the Soviet Union in late 1941 and early 1942 would not only assist in the Soviet defense of Moscow and subsequent counteroffensive, but also in increasing Soviet production for the next period of the war. Substantial quantities of machine tools and raw materials, such as aluminum and rubber, were supplied to help Soviet industry back on its feet: 312 metal-cutting machine tools were delivered by convoy PQ-12 alone, arriving in March 1942, along with a range of other items for Soviet factories such as machine presses and compressors.

Once again, raw figures do not tell the whole story. Although British shipments amounted to only a few percent of Soviet domestic production of machine tools, the Soviet Union could request specific items which it may not have been able to produce for itself. Additionally, many of the British tools arrived in early 1942, when Soviet tool production was still very low, resulting in a disproportionate impact. The handing over of forty imported machine tools to Aviation Factory No. 150 in July 1942, for example, was the critical factor in enabling the factory to reach projected capacity within two months.

Lend-Lease aid did not "save" the Soviet Union from defeat during the Battle of Moscow. But the speed at which Britain in particular was willing and able to provide aid to the Soviet Union, and at which the Soviet Union was able to put foreign equipment into frontline use, is still an underappreciated part of this story. During the bitter fighting of the winter of 1941–1942, British aid made a crucial difference.
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Marcelo Jenisch
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Re: Luftwaffe only has to fight the VVS

#44

Post by Marcelo Jenisch » 20 Nov 2012, 04:48

Carl Schwamberger wrote:Point here is the implication, assumption, or statement that the German air efforts will not be as restricted by fuel limits are wrong.
Carl, an interesting point is the bombings in the Romanian oil fields, as well as the synthetic fuel plants in Germany. In both it was an Anglo-American effort and it was significative.

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stg 44
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Re: Luftwaffe only has to fight the VVS

#45

Post by stg 44 » 20 Nov 2012, 04:53

Jenisch wrote:
Carl Schwamberger wrote:Point here is the implication, assumption, or statement that the German air efforts will not be as restricted by fuel limits are wrong.
Carl, an interesting point is the bombings in the Romanian oil fields, as well as the synthetic fuel plants in Germany. In both it was an Anglo-American effort and it was significative.
Check out my post above, but without Britain in the war, Germany and all of Europe has access to world oil and raw material markets, which means no fuel shortages for Germany at all. Massive boost for the Luftwaffe.

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