80% Of German Equipment & Manpower Was On The Eastern Front

[wm]

True or false?

[Sid Guttridge]

The idea that the Soviet contribution to the defeat of Nazi Germany is under appreciated elsewhere is part of a propaganda campaign to create patriotic resentment of outsiders in today's Russia.

Certainly ignorance of the details of all aspects of WWII is increasingly widespread, but I don't know of anyone with any knowledge of the subject who is not aware that it was the Red Army that bore the main burden of the war against Germany at enormous human cost, or that it was the Red Army that tore the guts out of the German Army. By the end of 1944 80% of German casualties had been on the Eastern Front.

Sid.

[Art]

Ground Army in the summer of 1941 - definitely true.

[Sheldrake]

Most of the Kriegsmarine and much of the Luftwaffe was committed against the western powers. These were technologically intense services and used disproportionate economic resources. The efforts of the wartime allies were asymmetric. The Soviet Union spent blood while the British and US waged war with money and technology. On land the western allies fired three times as much artillery ammunition to reach the Elbe as the Russians, but suffered only one third of their casualties. https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads ... w2.308559/

[Carl Schwamberger]

The numerical analysis I've seen have been poor. A lot of distortions. ie: One left out all naval casualties. Another excluded prisoners taken in the west. Theres also a question of if prisoners taken in the last weeks distort the analysis one way or the other.

Other metrics for losses are often not looked at. ie: It appears the reverse could be true for aircraft losses. Perhaps not 80% but possibly better than 70% were lost in the west.

[Art]

There was a topic not much time ago:
viewtopic.php?f=76&t=250292

Just my two cents: reducing the economical cost of war to just weapons and military equipment wouldn't be correct. There were many other expenditures: rations, clothing, salaries, fuel and lubricants, construction and engineering materials, quartering, medical care, transportation, capital construction of various kinds, capital investments in economy after all.

[PanzerModeler]

I know that there is lots of noise made about the Soviet contribution, which mainly seems to have been to drown the Germans in Russian blood, but wasn't the Soviet war effort SIGNIFICANTLY propped up by Lend-Lease?

If I recall correctly, at the end of the war, something like 1/3rd of all Soviet military vehicles were Lend-Lease, and the majority of their supply trucks (Over half for sure, I want to say 75% or so but I can't be certain and I don't recall exactly what the figure was) were lend-lease vehicles even AFTER remembering that some 20,000 lend-lease supply trucks were converted into Katyusha rocket launchers!

Plus we sent raw materials, ammo, food, fuel, etc.

Yes certainly they contributed manpower, but without lend-lease I'm not so sure things would have been the same.

[Michael Kenny]

wasn't the Soviet war effort SIGNIFICANTLY propped up by Lend-Lease?

If your house catches fire and your family are trapped inside....
if the fire brigade turn up and rescue your children.........
if 4 of the firemen die during the rescue....
Do you then praise the people who made the fire engine and tell the surviving fireman that without the contribution of the factory workers they could not have accomplished anything?

[I have questions]

wasn't the Soviet war effort SIGNIFICANTLY propped up by Lend-Lease?

If your house catches fire and your family are trapped inside....
if the fire brigade turn up and rescue your children.........
if 4 of the firemen die during the rescue....
Do you then praise the people who made the fire engine and tell the surviving fireman that without the contribution of the factory workers they could not have accomplished anything?

that is perhaps the best metaphor I have seen to describe the Lend-Lease argument....

[Carl Schwamberger]

That rather dodges around the firemen being unable to do much of anything absent the fire truck.

Depending on the source...

28,000 German submarine crew lost their lives through the entire war. Thats barely half the monthly average loss on the eastern front.

The Italian campaign, from July 1943 resulted in 330,000 German losses excluding the final surrender. So 15,000 average loss per month out of 22 months. There may be some sort of allowance for the campaigning being a defense in rugged terrain, but Ill leave that for another time.

The Tunisian campaign is a bit more ambigious. Possibly 120,000 Germans lost between the November-April fighting, including the final haul of 90,000 PoW. Add that to the Italian campaign and its a monthly average of 15,000 men lost in 30 months. Thats noticeably below the monthly average in the east. That looks like a monthly average of 52,000 men lost - dead, wounded, PoW, in the east to June 1944. After that the number skyrockets .

I'm a bit lazy here & not having a average losses to the Allied OVERLORD/Rhineland campaigns. Tho I will note the German loss of 390,000 men in the Normandy battle does average 130,000 per month. Comparable to the latter 1944 losses in the east.

Of course casualties are only one important metric. WWII was a war of airpower in many respects. Theres strong evidence the German losses in the west overall dwarfed those in the east. How would the Red Army have fared had there not been a large commitment of air power in the west, and severe losses there?

From misc sources. Note the distribution between fronts as well as proportion of losses.

German aircraft losses by Theatre.png

LW Allocation Dec 43.png

OB rate of Growth.png

[PanzerModeler]

wasn't the Soviet war effort SIGNIFICANTLY propped up by Lend-Lease?

If your house catches fire and your family are trapped inside....
if the fire brigade turn up and rescue your children.........
if 4 of the firemen die during the rescue....
Do you then praise the people who made the fire engine and tell the surviving fireman that without the contribution of the factory workers they could not have accomplished anything?

I think you misunderstood the point I was driving at. As I did indeed say, below the excerpt you quoted:

Yes certainly they contributed manpower, but without lend-lease I'm not so sure things would have been the same.

As I said the manpower contribution they made to the war effort was significant. My point is that there's been lots of noise made to the effect that they did it all on their own, that Russian soldiers armed with the T-34, the IL-2, and the PPSH won the war all on their own and nobody else made a decisive impact. They didn't need the trucks, planes, tanks, food, and fuel the Americans and Brits sent them at all, they had it totally under control.

I wonder how well they would have done without all of that support, is what I'm saying. Not to say that they didn't pitch in, just without the material, how would it have gone?

[Michael Kenny]

That rather dodges around the firemen being unable to do much of anything absent the fire truck.

It is a metaphor. There is no actual fire truck. In my opinion all the LL arguments are just a way for others to try and take some (or all) of the credit for the Soviet victory.

How would the Red Army have fared had there not been a large commitment of air power in the west?

About as well as the Western Allies would have fared if there was no large commitment of the German Army in The East.

[Carl Schwamberger]

That rather dodges around the firemen being unable to do much of anything absent the fire truck.

It is a metaphor. There is no actual fire truck. In my opinion all the LL arguments are just a way for others to try and take some (or all) of the credit for the Soviet victory.

How would the Red Army have fared had there not been a large commitment of air power in the west?

About as well as the Western Allies would have fared if there was no large commitment of the German Army in The East.

Interesting. I'd never considered a 1-1 comparison.

[Carl Schwamberger]

... As I said the manpower contribution they made to the war effort was significant. My point is that there's been lots of noise made to the effect that they did it all on their own, that Russian soldiers armed with the T-34, the IL-2, and the PPSH won the war all on their own and nobody else made a decisive impact. They didn't need the trucks, planes, tanks, food, and fuel the Americans and Brits sent them at all, they had it totally under control.

I wonder how well they would have done without all of that support, is what I'm saying. Not to say that they didn't pitch in, just without the material, how would it have gone?

Theres a opposing school that argues with less LL the Red Army could survive nicely, but the western Allies would be defeated handily by the intact Wehrmacht. I'm not a expert on the eastern front, but crunching numbers, or looking at game models is inconclusive. It does not take much tweeking of the math to throw things wildly one way or another.

[Carl Schwamberger]

Heres a twelve year old discussion/analysis conducted by a Russian on this same subject. Its not light reading.

http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/showthr ... owers-quot