If there were Allies,there would be LL,and if there was LL ,there were Allies .stg 44 wrote:I mean the Soviets wouldn't have survived without their own efforts, but neither would they have survived and won in the end without their allies and their efforts. In 1941 the Soviet manpower and their strategic depth enabled them to survive. In 1942 it was that strategic depth, manpower, Lend-Lease, and diversions on other fronts that saved the Soviets again and enabled them to counterattack. In 1943 LL saved the economy from imploding and famine from setting in, while it also provided the strategic mobility to reclaim Ukraine and its resources. It was irreplaceable US/UK food, weapons, machine tools, raw materials, transport, electronics, and fuel that kept the Soviets going, especially starting in 1942. They managed to survive the opening campaign with minimal outside aid, but beyond 1941 LL and Allied military efforts saved the USSR and enabled them to recover enough to counterattack and roll back the invader. With LL in 1943 it finally stabilized the economy and got it growing again, allowing even greater manpower mobilization than ever before, even as casualties continued to be enormous.Sid Guttridge wrote:Hi stg 44,
I think you are giving the Soviets scant credit for their own efforts.
Lend-Lease and the diversionary effect of North Africa were very secondary compared with this.
I doubt Lend-lease reached decisive levels until 1943 and it still had to be used by Soviet crews. The quantity and quality of early Lend-Lease was also questionable. For example, the British and Americans seem not to have made much use of Valentine tanks and Airacobra fighters themselves.
The USSR also absorbed as many Italian troops as North Africa in 1942, besides dozens of other minor Axis divisions. One sometimes has to wonder who was doing the diverting!
But all that would have been irrelevant if the USSR had succombed in 1941. Stalin's territorial acquisitions played a significant role in this, because they gave him strategic depth to fall back on after eache succeding debacle in 1941.
Cheers,
Sid.
http://www.amazon.com/Accounting-War-Pr ... 0521894247
Let me ask you then, if Britain succumbed in 1940, do you think the Soviets would have survived 1941? Or 1942 without Allies or LL?
LL while the US remained neutral was impossible .
The indirect Allied aid (air attacks on Germany,war in NA,in Italy, etc...) was much more important than LL .