British tanks in Soviet OB during the 1941 Battle of Moscow?

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Sid Guttridge
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British tanks in Soviet OB during the 1941 Battle of Moscow?

#1

Post by Sid Guttridge » 07 Jan 2014, 19:32

Last night a documentary on British TV by Jeremy Clarkson on the loss of convoy PQ17 stated that earlier convoy operations were so important that three quarters of the tanks used by the USSR in its Moscow counter-offensive were British built.

This seems improbable to me.

Has anyone got the hard facts on this?

Cheers,

Sid.

Art
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Re: British tanks in Soviet OB during the 1941 Battle of Mos

#2

Post by Art » 07 Jan 2014, 19:50

Your doubts are justified, I guess. See the earlier thread:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 9&t=145031


Spearfish
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Re: British tanks in Soviet OB during the 1941 Battle of Mos

#3

Post by Spearfish » 19 Jan 2014, 14:16

Sid and Art
I am reading David Stahel's interesting re-evaluation of the 1941 Battle of Kiev and he reckons that British aid played an important part, not decisive, in the Moscow counter-offensive.
I am not commenting, just passing on information.
The book is well worth reading if you are interested in the Eastern Front/Greater Patriotic War

Art
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Re: British tanks in Soviet OB during the 1941 Battle of Mos

#4

Post by Art » 19 Jan 2014, 21:51

For information in early December 1941 Soviet forces in the Moscow sector (West, Kalinin, right wing of the South-West Front) possessed some 800 tanks. No way some 300 British tanks received by that day could make 3/4 of them. As I've said earlier the real number seems to be from several dozens to one hundred something.

AJFFM
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Re: British tanks in Soviet OB during the 1941 Battle of Mos

#5

Post by AJFFM » 20 Jan 2014, 21:29

I dug up a little and found this interesting site:

http://www.convoyweb.org.uk/russian/ind ... htm~rumain

It doesn't list the manifest but I dug up another site, its the Russian embassy in the UK and it has interesting info.:

http://www.rusemb.org.uk/arcticalliedconvoys/

It seems 750 Tanks were indeed delivered by Dec. 41 but How many were sent to Moscow and how many were sent to Leningrad I have no answer.

Art
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Re: British tanks in Soviet OB during the 1941 Battle of Mos

#6

Post by Art » 20 Jan 2014, 22:03

I believe stats on British tanks received by the Soviet military are known, see the page already referred to in another topic:
http://www.armchairgeneral.com/rkkaww2/ ... neral1.htm

AJFFM
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Re: British tanks in Soviet OB during the 1941 Battle of Mos

#7

Post by AJFFM » 28 Jan 2014, 19:33

From what I read in Jane's WWII Tanks the numbers supplied by British/Canadian governments is 4491 tanks (table in p .160). From the US DoD report in 1915 the number was 7172 tanks over all which seems to contradict the site above.

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fdsdh1
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Re: British tanks in Soviet OB during the 1941 Battle of Mos

#8

Post by fdsdh1 » 29 Jun 2014, 17:46

late reply


but wasn't it at Leningrad where British supplied tanks outnumbered Soviet built ones?
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