Impact of Lend-Lease on Soviet railways

Discussions on the economic history of the nations taking part in WW2, from the recovery after the depression until the economy at war.
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Jon G.
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Re: Impact of Lend-Lease on Soviet railways

#151

Post by Jon G. » 20 Feb 2012, 18:34

Sorry, LWD, if you want to term 1941-1945 amounts of rolling stock (aided by an influx of LL rolling stock) as 'time critical' vs. 1947 stocks as non-time critical, it rests on you to provide some, any, kind of measurement of size of rolling stock inventories vs. needs for these two periods in time if you want to lift your point above mere speculation. You haven't, so far.

Incidentally, re. your remark about the Soviets having 'enough stock to move what food stock you have to prevent a famine' you will be interested to learn that there in fact was a Soviet famine in 1946-1947

http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php? ... &Year=1947

...the post-WW2 Soviet famine seems to have originated in or around Moldova. Bessarabia, which is part of Moldova, was ceded to the Soviets from Romania (whose opinion was not sought) as part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

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LWD
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Re: Impact of Lend-Lease on Soviet railways

#152

Post by LWD » 21 Feb 2012, 16:02

I'm not sure it's worth my time but here goes one more attempt.
Here is my first post mentioning time critical I believe:
LWD wrote:
Jon G. wrote: .... Likewise, the Soviets probably needed more rolling stock in 1945 than they did in 1942-1944 - basically dismantling all of Eastern Germany and railing it back home will create additional needs for your rail system, for example, and, again, in geographical terms alone the area under Soviet control was much larger in 1945 than it was during the war.
But a lot of that wasn't time critical....
Now I thought it pretty clear that the non time critical parts I was refering to was the "dismantling all of Eastern Germany and railing it back home ". Since the allied agreements pretty much left the Soviets in charge of Eastern Germany for as long as they wanted to be why should it be time critical?
And again here I clarified it:
LWD wrote:Given that the Soviet had no intention of leaving occupied Eastern Europe for a good number of years if ever they had plenty of time to ship things back to the USSR. On the other hand delivery of supplies to units engaged in combat can be time critical and if the units are not well supplied you can remove the conditional. It matters little exactly what sectors the LL rolling stock was used for because it became part of the system as a whole.
Again if you have years to do something how can it be time critical? On the otherhand it's pretty clear that munitions and supplies for an ongoing military campaign can be quite "time critical".
Now if you disagree at this point with either of these make some reasonable argument against them otherwise I'll leave it to the other readers to decide which of us is correct.


Jon G.
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Re: Impact of Lend-Lease on Soviet railways

#153

Post by Jon G. » 21 Feb 2012, 21:10

LWD, it is mainly your continued insistence on on using the term 'time critical', on one hand, while on the other hand refusing to demonstrate to us how and by what metric lend-lease delivered railroad rolling stock was 'time critical'* as opposed to the immediate post-WW2 Soviet confiscations of ex-German rolling stock all over eastern Europe.

If you think that LL-delivered rolling stock was instrumental in delivering munitions and other supplies to front line Soviet armies (i.e. that it was 'time critical') it rests on you - not me, or anyone else - to underpin that, by example or by source showing us that LL-delivered rolling stock gave the Soviets opportunities which they would not otherwise have had.

Telling us that LL-delivered railroad rolling stock was 'time critical' because it was delivered during a war, as opposed to rolling stock plundered or confiscated by the advancing Soviets in the immediate aftermath of WW2 is inane to the point of telling me that your upthread post was written on a Tuesday, and not even 100% correct, since the Soviets began capturing German stuff well before the war was over.

In other words, I do not reject that supplies, men and munitions delivered by railroad can be 'time critical', what I want to know is how LL-delivered stuff had any effect in that regard for the Soviets.

* Admittedly an inference, but a rather obvious one, since your original claim - which you recaptioned above - simply was that post-WW2 Soviet captures of ex-German rolling stock wasn't 'time critical'.

Hanny
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Re: Impact of Lend-Lease on Soviet railways

#154

Post by Hanny » 15 Jun 2012, 22:40

Can anyone increase my grasp of what the SU did with the LL rail?, what was the new lines?, was it for LL from Persia?, how much of the damged line required new rails, my understnding that usual wrecking was to leave the rail and strip the sleepers. Did the SU simply upgrade its existing RR net with LL.

http://www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-12761.html

" build 6,700 kilometers of new lines during the war years. The new lines tapped areas rich in the mineral resources that were required for the war effort or shortened the distances between important economic regions. Of the 52,400 kilometers of Soviet main track roadway damaged during the war, 48,800 kilometers were restored by May 1945".


http://sturmvogel.orbat.com/SovLendLease.html

Soviet Production 48,990
Allied Deliveries 622,100
Total 671,090
Allied Proportion 92.7%



48990 tons*2240=109737600lbs/136lbs a rail is 806,894 rails, * 39 inches a rail=31,468,870, which to Klicks is 799 klicks.
LL by same is 10,150 klicks.

Total of 10,950 klicks from rail road, was 20% of the amount required to do the job of all new lines and all damaged replaced( which it simply could not be) LL contribution of rail road lines was therfore only 18% of the wartime requirement, but exactly what the SU did with it eludes me.
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LWD
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Re: Impact of Lend-Lease on Soviet railways

#155

Post by LWD » 18 Jun 2012, 17:30

Jon G. wrote:LWD, it is mainly your continued insistence on on using the term 'time critical', on one hand, while on the other hand refusing to demonstrate to us how and by what metric lend-lease delivered railroad rolling stock was 'time critical'* as opposed to the immediate post-WW2 Soviet confiscations of ex-German rolling stock all over eastern Europe.
I'll try once more. If you are planning an offensive in say 2 month then you need the supplies for that offensive delivered in time to use them for that offensive. If they are delivered in 3 months they are too late and if enough of them are too late then the offensive may need to be delayed or may have failed. I.e. combat supplies are "time critical". On the otherhand if you are moving confiscated items from territory you control and will continue to control for years with very few exceptions does it matter if it's shipped east this month or in 6 months or in a couple of years? I.e. it's not time critical.
If you think that LL-delivered rolling stock was instrumental in delivering munitions and other supplies to front line Soviet armies (i.e. that it was 'time critical') it rests on you - not me, or anyone else - to underpin that, by example or by source showing us that LL-delivered rolling stock gave the Soviets opportunities which they would not otherwise have had.
Again from my readings one of the things that determined the pace of Soviet offensives was the ability to build up enough forces and supplies to adequately support them. The LL rolling stock clearly added capacity to the Soviet logistics system. If the logistics system was one of the constraints (and to all appearances it was) then increasing it's capacity relaxed an important constraint.
Telling us that LL-delivered railroad rolling stock was 'time critical' because it was delivered during a war, as opposed to rolling stock plundered or confiscated by the advancing Soviets in the immediate aftermath of WW2 is inane to the point of telling me that your upthread post was written on a Tuesday, and not even 100% correct, since the Soviets began capturing German stuff well before the war was over.
It was not "time critical" because it was delivered during a war it was time critical because it increased the capacity of a logisitics system that was being used to support a war and one that was pretty clearly saturated. The fact that the Soviets were "capturing German stuff" before the war was over is irrelevant to my point. My point was simply that there was little need for haste in moving that caputured "stuff" back to the USSR after the war was over.
In other words, I do not reject that supplies, men and munitions delivered by railroad can be 'time critical', what I want to know is how LL-delivered stuff had any effect in that regard for the Soviets.
Obviously it increased the capacity of the overall logistics system. How any one piece or even the whole contributed is non trivial to document. Ceratainly the parts that added to the capacity of the Persian route for LL supplies would be a good example though.

Hanny
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Re: Impact of Lend-Lease on Soviet railways

#156

Post by Hanny » 18 Jun 2012, 22:15

Likewise, the Soviets probably needed more rolling stock in 1945 than they did in 1942-1944 - basically dismantling all of Eastern Germany and railing it back home will create additional needs for your rail system, for example, and, again, in geographical terms alone the area under Soviet control was much larger in 1945 than it was during the war.

But a lot of that wasn't time critical.

This appears to be the origin of time critical, most LL locomotives arrived during 44, so if there is an increase in volume of rail troop movements in 44, it may help if that can be shown. Certainly LL loco`s were not critical to the outcome of the Ostfront in any event as none arrived before late 43.
http://www.network54.com/Forum/594514/m ... +to+Russia
The U.S. sent the following locos to the Soviet Union :
- USATC S160 1-4-0 (2-8-0) : 44 up to Jan 1944, 149 more up to July 1944 (Type "ShA" in Russia)
- ALCO/BALDWIN 1-5-0 (2-10-0) : 700 /ALCO) + 937 (BALDWIN) in 1943-45 thru Northern Ports, Vladivostok and Odessa. (Type "Ea" in Russia)
- ALCO RSD-1 Diesel : 70 send (68 arrived) in early 1945, becoming type "Da" in Russia.
The British supplied none to Russia
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Art
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Re: Impact of Lend-Lease on Soviet railways

#157

Post by Art » 19 Jun 2012, 19:44

Hanny wrote: " build 6,700 kilometers of new lines during the war years. The new lines tapped areas rich in the mineral resources that were required for the war effort or shortened the distances between important economic regions. Of the 52,400 kilometers of Soviet main track roadway damaged during the war, 48,800 kilometers were restored by May 1945".
Complete destruction or breaking of steel rails is not an easy task, so in most cases reconstruction of railroads didn't require new rails in such great numbers. Rather it meant new rail ties, bridges, viaducts, water tanks at stations, signal lines etc. Information of new lines can be misleading. Part of them (if not the most part) were railroads which were already partly completed by the start of the war. You can safely assume that >50 000 kilometers of new rails were not actually used up for reconstruction of the old lines and construction of new ones.
The largest completely new railroads constructed during the war was the Volga lateral line and Astrakhan-Kizlyar line (The last one from July 1942 to February 1943 was the only land route connecting Caucasus with the rest part of the Soviet Union). See the thick lines on the scheme:
http://s016.radikal.ru/i337/1206/6e/21beb71d8d78.jpg
An article says that the government has ordered to import 1200 kms of rails from the USA for the construction of the Volga line, nor further details on import are mentioned.
It is worth to add that one of the sources of rails was cannibalizing railroads which were of less importance or not competed. I particular some sections of partly completed Bailkal-Amur railroad were dismantled to provide rails. It looks that there were certain stocks of rails by the start of the war as well.
It is pretty indicative that after 1942 nor large railroad construction projects were undertaken which must be attributed first of all to the deficit of rails.

Mil-tech Bard
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Re: Impact of Lend-Lease on Soviet railways

#158

Post by Mil-tech Bard » 10 Apr 2013, 23:24

FYI, these are the two definative documents regards US lend lease aid in World War 2 --

A GUIDE TO INTERNATIONAL SUPPLY 31 December 1945

http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/sing ... 2421/rec/1

INTERNATIONAL AID STATISTICS WORLD WAR II A SUMMARY OF WAR DEPARTMENT LEND LEASE ACTIVITIES REPORTED THROUGH 31 DECEMBER 1945

http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/sing ... /950/rec/2

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