What if there was no Lend-Lease?

[ljadw]

The USSR being no democracy is irrelevant,China neither was one : a democracy would be what the US were saying was a democracy :during the war,the propaganda was changing the USSR in a democracy: uncle Joe,etc .
After the war,a lot of dubious regimes became /were labelled democracies: Portugal,Iran,Turkey,etc ....

[ljadw]

Unlikely possibilities yes, since pragmatic "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" calculations would likely trump such dislikes, but politicians have certainly made worse miscalculations. The problem is that you seem to believe that it is all cold and rational calculations when personal prejudices, wishful thinking, and wrong-headed - sometimes truly bone-headed - thinking dominate such decisions in politics.:

The experience I have from politics is that at a high level,personal prejudices,etc,always are subordinated to,dominated by cold and rational calculations,because it is the only way to remain in power at that level .

Exemple : there was no love,only dislike between JFK and LBJ in 1960,but,both needed each other,resulting in an alliance,one becoming the presidential candidate,the other his running mate .

[LWD]

The USSR being no democracy is irrelevant,China neither was one :

It's at least as relevant as your posting FDR's arsenal of democracy comment.

a democracy would be what the US were saying was a democracy :during the war,the propaganda was changing the USSR in a democracy: uncle Joe,etc .

Did the US ever claim the USSR was a democracy?

In any case you have failed to prove or even support your contentions as to the implications of FDR's words.

[ljadw]

FDR said that Stalin was behaving as a christian gentleman;of course,FDR knew better:he knew what Stalin was and what he did .

[OpanaPointer]

The USSR being no democracy is irrelevant,China neither was one :

It's at least as relevant as your posting FDR's arsenal of democracy comment.

a democracy would be what the US were saying was a democracy :during the war,the propaganda was changing the USSR in a democracy: uncle Joe,etc .

Did the US ever claim the USSR was a democracy?

In any case you have failed to prove or even support your contentions as to the implications of FDR's words.

I have a two volume collection of Uncle Joe's communiques, Soviet version, around here somewhere. I need to dig that out.

[Scott Fraser]

... Still a substantial amount, I'm sure, but would it really have been enough? The point is you can't just say "they could have manufactured it themselves, therefore it didn't matter" - if they had manufactured it themselves, they would not have been able to manufacture as much of other things...

Lend-Lease is always controversial after being politicized so extensively for fifty years. There are many false impressions out, the product of Cold War propaganda that continues to echo, especially on internet forums.

My own opinion is that Lend-Lease was very important to the Soviet war effort, but it was not decisive.

There are a few things that to me stand out as bluntly obvious.

The vast proportion of Lend-Lease came from the United States, as does the vast proportion of chest-thumping. People focus on tanks, trucks and airplanes because they get the headlines. Deliveries from the USA began at the end of 1942, as Stalingrad was being fought. It first appeared in combat in the spring of 1943, localized to the Kuban. It did not really pick up speed until 1944, when many millions of tons were delivered via the Persian Corridor and Vladivostok. Looking at the timeline of the war, that was after the Red Army had stopped the Germans at Moscow, thwarted Hitler's drive to the Caucasus and destroyed the 6.Armee, and blunted the great German attack of 1943 at Kursk. Most certainly, from the summer of 1943 the arrival of American vehicles gave the Red Army much more tactical mobility, but by then the die was cast.

There are certainly specific instances where the equipment was important. The VVS-ChMF (Black Sea Fleet) was mainly equipped with US bombers and the Airacobra played an important part in the war around the Black Sea, where it gained it fame. Before Moscow in 1941, the arrival of a hundred Matildas was most welcome, since they were down to one tank factory at the time. Those are some instances of time and place where Lend-Lease weaponry was important. Apart from that, the benefits of Lend-Lease were more a general enhancement of Soviet capability.

To my mind, the most important aspect of Lend-Lease was how it changed Soviet industry. The dislocation of 1941 created real problems with production. To take telephone cables, for example. At the end of 1941, there was a huge copper shortage in the USSR. Think about the items that use copper — everything. Radios, motors, telephone lines, wiring harnesses, even bullets. This was industrial war, a battle of the factories, and having a source for the quantities of chromium, manganese, copper, aluminum, phosphates, additives and catalysis the needed was a huge relief. There was also quite a bit of technology transfer, stuff that doesn't show up in lading lists. This included petroleum refining, an aluminum plant, radar and radio, and probably more.

The other major benefit that Lend-Lease provided was that it freed up production capacity so it could be focused on a very few key commodities. Soviet industry was very concentrated. In relative terms, there were very few factories, but the ones that they had were huge, vertically integrated, and as efficient as one can expect from the cumbersome Soviet system.

To take trucks as example, the two massive prewar truck factories were immediately transferred to the Tank Ministry when the war broke out. So were many shipyards, locomotive repair and service facilities, heavy machinery factories, etc. By having it all under one Ministry, It was easy for the administration to choreograph production, or at least quotas. Those two truck factories were set to work building T-60s, crude little contraptions that could be built in a truck plant. Part of the specification for the T-60, btw, was that it could haul medium caliber artillery. Anyway, truck production did not cease. I don't have the number in front of me, but they still built upwards of 300,000 trucks.

When we get to 1944, L-L trucks were important in giving the Red Army the mobility to execute Bagration. From late 1943, the truck factories were no longer making T-60s but had converted to manufacturing huge numbers of SU-76s. That was the trade-off, or "opportunity cost" if the Soviet automotive factories had been required to build the equivalent number of trucks. trucks. They could have done it, but it would take time.

Time is the other thing that gets overlooked. Why do people fixate on May 1945? No one could argue that the Red Army could have reached Berlin by 1945 without Lend-Lease. The greater question is, without Lend-Lease, how long would it be until the clock ran out on Hitler's Reich? Time was Hitler's greatest enemy.

Regards
Scott Fraser

[Karelia]

...
The vast proportion of Lend-Lease came from the United States, as does the vast proportion of chest-thumping. People focus on tanks, trucks and airplanes because they get the headlines. Deliveries from the USA began at the end of 1942, as Stalingrad was being fought. It first appeared in combat in the spring of 1943, localized to the Kuban. It did not really pick up speed until 1944, when many millions of tons were delivered via the Persian Corridor and Vladivostok. Looking at the timeline of the war, that was after the Red Army had stopped the Germans at Moscow, thwarted Hitler's drive to the Caucasus and destroyed the 6.Armee, and blunted the great German attack of 1943 at Kursk. Most certainly, from the summer of 1943 the arrival of American vehicles gave the Red Army much more tactical mobility, but by then the die was cast....

Regards
Scott Fraser

The first aid deliveries to the USSR started already August 1941, before those events you mentioned, not a year later. There were two Arctic convoys per month. Also the Pacific Route started to operate already in 1941.

"The "Dervish" convoy assembled at Hvalfjörður and sailed on 21 August 1941. It arrived at its destination, Archangel, ten days later. The convoy was relatively small and consisted of only six merchant ships: Lancastrian Prince, New Westminster City, Esneh, Trehata, the elderly Llanstephan Castle, the fleet oiler Aldersdale and the Dutch freighter Alchiba. The Commodore was Captain JCK Dowding RNR. The escorts comprised the ocean minesweepers HMS Halcyon, Salamander and Harrier, the destroyers HMS Electra, Active and Impulsive and the anti-submarine trawlers HMS Hamlet, Macbeth and Ophelia. As evidence of Churchill's astute mastery of propaganda, on board Llanstephan Castle were two journalists and the artist, Felix Topolski."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_con ... rld_War_II

"[i]The Pacific Route opened in August 1941, but was affected by the start of hostilities between Japan and the US; after December 1941, only Soviet ships could be used, and, as Japan and the USSR observed a strict neutrality towards each other, only non-military goods could be transported.[24] Nevertheless, some 8,244,000 tons of goods went by this route, 50% of the total.[/i]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/BigL/BigL-5.html

[ChristopherPerrien]

Given how loaded this topic is, "No Lend-lease", implies the USA would have been supporting Germany in WWII, rather than the British or Soviet Empires.

Germany and the Nazi movement wins, rather than the forces of Judeo-Capitalism/Communism, simple as that.

[Scott Fraser]

The first aid deliveries to the USSR started already August 1941, before those events you mentioned, not a year later. There were two Arctic convoys per month. Also the Pacific Route started to operate already in 1941.

That is quite true. The first convoys reached the USSR in 1941, but if you look at the tonnage, the amount of materiel from the USA was quite minimal compared to what followed from 1943.

Regards
Scott Fraser

[Karelia]

That is quite true. The first convoys reached the USSR in 1941, but if you look at the tonnage, the amount of materiel from the USA was quite minimal compared to what followed from 1943.

Regards
Scott Fraser

Yes, the amounts of aid were of course clearly lower in 1941. However in the most desperate situation even small amounts of material can make the difference and tip the scale.

[Don71]

The first aid deliveries to the USSR started already August 1941, before those events you mentioned, not a year later. There were two Arctic convoys per month. Also the Pacific Route started to operate already in 1941.

That is quite true. The first convoys reached the USSR in 1941, but if you look at the tonnage, the amount of materiel from the USA was quite minimal compared to what followed from 1943.

Regards
Scott Fraser

I have other numbers and the supply with lend-lease from October 1941 to June 1942 was decisive.

The first Moscow Protocol was signed in highly embattled situation of the Red Army on 1.10.1941.

The commitments of the Protocol for the period Oct 41 to June 1942, for 9 months (until the required connection protocol):

1,5 Mio. tons wheat and goods for1 Milliarde $,
among them:
1.800 a/c's (Total inventory of the Red Army 1.1.42: roundabout 12.000 a/c's)
2.250 tanks (Total inventory of the Red Army 1.1.42: 7.700)
1.000 AA guns, among them 152 90mm and 756 37mm (Total inventory of the Red Army 1.1.42: : 7.900)
5.000 Jeeps
85.000 trucks (The total production of the SU 1941-45 was 205.000 trucks, thereof 150.000 for the military) (Total inventory of the Red Army all types of vehicles 1.1.42: 318.000)
108.000 field telephones
562.000 miles of field telephone cable
9.000 tons armor plates
30.000 tons explosive Toluol und TNT
15.000 tons chemicals

maximum possible number of machine tools (industrial lathes, milling machines, drilling presses etc.), delivered: 3.253 pieces
1.6 Mio. Pair of military boots (for the mobilization and reorganization of the Red Army)
1 Mio. yards. military fabric
~ 1000 tractors
45.000 tons barbed wire

The agreed goods were delivered almost entirely in the 9 months, minus some war losses during transport.

The SU got 85000 trucks till June-July of 1942 and 1,5 million tons of wheat

Wheat gross harvest of the SU 1940-42:
1940: 36.446 million tons.
1941: 24.298 million tons.
1942: 12.516 million tons.

My sources are Glantz and Alexander Hill (The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, 1941-45)

To my opinion this first part of supplies of lend lease at only 9 month from October 1941 till June 1942 were essential for the reorganistaion of the Red Army and to built the reserves, which first attacked at November 1942 (Stalingrad). Without this supplies to my opinion it would be impossible. Also the delivered wheat was more then 10% of all SU wheat at 1942 and was essential for the food supply of the Army, workers and civilian people.

[Marcelo Jenisch]

I think that if the USSR could have hold it's own at least until late 1942, the Germans would be in trouble anyway, due to the massive aerial war that the Anglo-Americans would star to wage against them within the next year and a half. And I think that such aerial war perhaps would be more effective than historically, given that the Allies would have retained the equipment sent to the USSR for themselfs, which included a significative number of aircraft. Also, it's mere speculation, but I think the production of the P-39 fighter for instance, could have been shut down and more relevant aircraft for the war against Germany be produced instead, such as the P-47. Perhaps other aircraft types and American factory workers involved in assisting the Soviets with their labour could have been redirected to the Allied cause. However, even if such things were plausible, I don't have idea of which impact they could have had in the war.

[Scott Fraser]

I have other numbers and the supply with lend-lease from October 1941 to June 1942 was decisive.

The first Moscow Protocol was signed in highly embattled situation of the Red Army on 1.10.1941.

The commitments of the Protocol for the period Oct 41 to June 1942, for 9 months (until the required connection protocol):

1,5 Mio. tons wheat and goods for1 Milliarde $,
among them:
1.800 a/c's (Total inventory of the Red Army 1.1.42: roundabout 12.000 a/c's)
2.250 tanks (Total inventory of the Red Army 1.1.42: 7.700)...

... My sources are Glantz and Alexander Hill (The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, 1941-45)

Curious, do you have data for what was shipped (as opposed to what was promised)?

My impression is that the USSR received nowhere near 1800 aircraft or 2250 tanks in that period. To the end of 1941, the USSR received only 145 Matilda and 216 Valentine tanks. They saw only limited combat during the Battle of Moscow, but nothing like decisive. As of 1.1.42, there were only 149 with tank units of the Western Front. In terms of aircraft, the primary types delivered to the USSR were the Hurricane and Hawk 81. In 1941, there were 230 Tomahawks sent and a similar number of Hurricanes, most based in the North. That's considerably less than the numbers you suggest.

It should be noted that weapons, per se, were not shipped via Vladivostok to avoid compromising Japanese-Soviet neutrality. Shipments via the Arctic were sharply reduced after PQ-17. During 1942, the British and then the Americans were hard at work improving Iranian railroads and roadways and it was only after the "Persian Corridor" was open that US equipment started to arrive in any quantity.

Anyway, I'd be interested if you have specific data regarding what was delivered when.

Regards
Scott Fraser

[OpanaPointer]

Try googling "Lend Lease Hyperwar" for some data.

[Scott Fraser]

Try googling "Lend Lease Hyperwar" for some data.

Do you have monthly or quarterly data on L-L shipments to the USSR?

Regards
Scott Fraser