Soviet wartime domestic truck production

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LWD
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Re: Soviet wartime domestic truck production

#16

Post by LWD » 18 Nov 2008, 18:45

Michael Kenny wrote: .... What I say is it is not as ' criticaly important' as some would have us believe.
I'll respond to this down a few quotes.
Most people assume that the LL Truck deliveries comprised nearly all Soviet stocks.
Do they really? Can you document this? My own suspicion is that if you did a random sample of the worlds population the majority would respond "I don't know". So I'd defintly be interested in data proving otherwise. If not continueing to state this is just a straw man arguement.
They didn't so why the problem when this is articulated?
In one sense it's not a problem but it usually crops up in discussions on the effect of LL in general or the logistics impact of LL in which case just looking at truck production numbers can be misleading.

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Re: Soviet wartime domestic truck production

#17

Post by Michael Kenny » 18 Nov 2008, 20:17

LWD wrote: Do they really? Can you document this? My own suspicion is that if you did a random sample of the worlds population the majority would respond "I don't know".
Perhaps I should have made it clear I was talking about members of the Forum rather than say Mongolian Yak Herders without internet connections.
It is a common theme on nearly every forum I have visited. It usualy starts when someone posts a 100 page list of every LL item sent to Russia 1941-1945. It is only when we get the lists of Soviet domestic production that the figures would make any sense.
The recent thread on pre-war Soviet Locomotives stocks show how easy it is to manipulate the figures to make LL appear more significant than they actualy were.
Why is it than any attempt to get at the actual totals is seen as a provocation?


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Re: Soviet wartime domestic truck production

#18

Post by Michael Kenny » 18 Nov 2008, 20:22

Appleknocker27 wrote:I agree that Lend Lease is a controversial issue and tends to be either down played in importance or blown out of proportion. In this particular case of trucks, I don't think you can really downplay the importance of the Allied contribution to Soviet combat mobility. This from Feldgrau:
"In the early 1930’s the U.S. helped lay the foundations for a formidable Soviet truck production capability.
Does anyone have a complete list of machine tools ect supplied by Germany before 1941? I believe they were substantial and perhaps even greater than the LL transfers.

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Re: Soviet wartime domestic truck production

#19

Post by LWD » 18 Nov 2008, 20:41

Michael Kenny wrote:
LWD wrote: Do they really? Can you document this? My own suspicion is that if you did a random sample of the worlds population the majority would respond "I don't know".
Perhaps I should have made it clear I was talking about members of the Forum rather than say Mongolian Yak Herders without internet connections.
It's still not at all clear that you are correct. Indeed you may find a vocal minority expressing such views but that does not mean it's a majority opinion.
It is a common theme on nearly every forum I have visited. .... It is only when we get the lists of Soviet domestic production that the figures would make any sense.
It may be a common theme but again it doesn't mean it's a majority belief. And propagating another fallicy doesn't really help the situation. AS for it makeing sense when you have a list of Soviet domestic production maybe yes maybe no. It really depends on what the question is. In many cases you'll need to know a lto more in some the list may be enough.
The recent thread on pre-war Soviet Locomotives stocks show how easy it is to manipulate the figures to make LL appear more significant than they actualy were.
Or not. It's not clear that the lists were manipultaed to make LL appear more significant but from what I recall of that thread it didn't establish a defintitive answer in any case.
Why is it than any attempt to get at the actual totals is seen as a provocation?
It's not at least by most people but when combined with provocative statements the results are as can be exptected.
Michael Kenny wrote: Does anyone have a complete list of machine tools ect supplied by Germany before 1941? I believe they were substantial and perhaps even greater than the LL transfers.
I would easily believe that with Italy or Japan but Germany was the prefered source of a lot of machine tools from what I've read. I'm not at all sure that they would be major importers of such.

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Re: Soviet wartime domestic truck production

#20

Post by Appleknocker27 » 19 Nov 2008, 06:11

Michael Kenny wrote:
Appleknocker27 wrote:I agree that Lend Lease is a controversial issue and tends to be either down played in importance or blown out of proportion. In this particular case of trucks, I don't think you can really downplay the importance of the Allied contribution to Soviet combat mobility. This from Feldgrau:
"In the early 1930’s the U.S. helped lay the foundations for a formidable Soviet truck production capability.
Does anyone have a complete list of machine tools ect supplied by Germany before 1941? I believe they were substantial and perhaps even greater than the LL transfers.
Here is a link from Yale Univ. that has some of the basic dialogue topics between the Germans and Soviets, you'll see some of the major German firms mentioned prominently http://www.yale.edu/rusarch/trgva.html
I haven't seen a comprehensive list of what Germany sent the Soviets in the 1920's-30's but as you say, I'm also sure it was substantial. I believe that the majority of the German Soviet collaboration was clandestine, so Im not sure a comprehensive history of it exists. In regard to this thread on the truck/automotive industry though, it appears as though the US was the major foreign player involved. More importantly, the Soviets adopted US mass production techniques as opposed to German (as the Feldgrau article would suggest).

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Re: Soviet wartime domestic truck production

#21

Post by Pips » 19 Nov 2008, 12:29

The whole issue of LL has been coloured over the years by the falling out that occurred between the Allies in the Cold War period. The Soviets deliberately downplayed (or ignored) Western contributions, and the West played up it's assistance.

To a degree the Soviet view can be explained away in that at the time of Stalingrad only 5% of the total LL had been received by the Soviets - despite the best efforts on the part of the Bristish and Americans. The Soviets rightly believed that they had done the hard yards in first stopping, and then reversing, German aggression.

Nevertheless LL was a crucial factor in the Soviet revival. According to Khrushchev "Several times I heard Stalin acknowledge the value of Lend Lease within the small circle of people around him. He said that ..... if we had had to deal with Germany one to one we would not have been able to cope because we lost so much of our industry". (Source Khrushchev Remembers: The Glasnost Tapes by J.L. Schecter and V.V. Luchkov) And in a bugged conversation in 1963 (and released thirty years later) Marshal Zhukov endorsed the view that "without LL the Soviet Union could not have continued the war". (Source: Lend Lease in Soviet Military Efforts 1941-1945, Journal of Slavic Military History 7 1994, by B.V. Sokolov)

None of the above is in any way meant to downplay the extraordinary revival performance of Soviet industry during the war, which was made possible only by the use of crude mass-production techniques, by skillful improvisation in planning and through the greater independence and initiative allowed plant managers and engineers. Bear in mind that almost 15,000 Soviet officials and engineers visited American factories and military installations on the LL scheme. As a result of the improvements in production, the modernisation of Soviet fighting power and developments in organisation and technology the Red Army was in a position to confront the Germans almost on equal terms at Kursk in 1943. In and of itself an remarkable achievement.

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Re: Soviet wartime domestic truck production

#22

Post by Michael Kenny » 19 Nov 2008, 14:34

LWD wrote: It's not clear that the lists(of LL Locos) were manipultaed to make LL appear more significant but from what I recall of that thread it didn't establish a defintitive answer in any case.
I suppose you could support an initial claim that 80% of Soviet Locos were suplied under LL-if you consider 2000 to be 80% of 28000. Allow for 14000 losses and you still can't reach anything near 80%!

Forgive me if I now leave this distracting spat and concentrate back on actual truck numbers.

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Re: Soviet wartime domestic truck production

#23

Post by LWD » 19 Nov 2008, 14:59

Michael Kenny wrote:
LWD wrote: It's not clear that the lists(of LL Locos) were manipultaed to make LL appear more significant but from what I recall of that thread it didn't establish a defintitive answer in any case.
I suppose you could support an initial claim that 80% of Soviet Locos were suplied under LL-if you consider 2000 to be 80% of 28000. Allow for 14000 losses and you still can't reach anything near 80%!
I just chekced that thread and didn't sea the 80% number you refer to could you provide a link?

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Re: Soviet wartime domestic truck production

#24

Post by Michael Kenny » 19 Nov 2008, 15:16

Because the 2000 LL Locos were sent during the war they are compared to Soviet wartime production. Thus they are 80% of WARTIME supplies. By ignoring the pre-war stocks the significance is greatly inflated.


I have seen claims (not sourced) that says Germany exported more machine tools to the USSR in 1940 than were supplied under LL for the entire war. And hard data out there?

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Re: Soviet wartime domestic truck production

#25

Post by LWD » 19 Nov 2008, 15:39

Michael Kenny wrote:Because the 2000 LL Locos were sent during the war they are compared to Soviet wartime production. Thus they are 80% of WARTIME supplies. By ignoring the pre-war stocks the significance is greatly inflated.
So again your statment is not supported by the facts. There was no claim that they were 80% of war time supplies. Indeed I couldn't even find support for someone claiming that they were 80% of war time production. There is even less support for the numbers being "manipulated". Indeed you are the one that seams to be trying to manipulate things by making unfounded statments. The railroad thread produced some very good information and demonstrated pretty conclusivly that using any single set of numers in isolation can be misleading. Some are hung up on war time production you seam to be hung up on total numbers. Neither is intrinsicly better than the other. Depending on what is being dicussed either one can be more or less useful.

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Re: Soviet wartime domestic truck production

#26

Post by Jon G. » 19 Nov 2008, 19:33

Here is the rail thread:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 6&t=132150

Also see this thread:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=1588

...and this page. Note that no railroad equipment was supplied under LL prior to July 1st 1943, and that more motor vehicles were supplied in 1944 than in 1941, 1942 and 1943 combined.

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Re: Soviet wartime domestic truck production

#27

Post by Michael Kenny » 20 Nov 2008, 17:29

LWD wrote: The railroad thread produced some very good information and demonstrated pretty conclusivly that using any single set of numers in isolation can be misleading.
Which is the main thrust of my argument. However you seem to have got a bee in your bonnet over the issue so forgive me if I leave you to your indignation.
Pips wrote:The whole issue of LL has been coloured over the years by the falling out that occurred between the Allies in the Cold War period. The Soviets deliberately downplayed (or ignored) Western contributions, and the West played up it's assistance.
Yes that is the problem. Too many people (caution: not backed by any research) trying to cash in on the Soviet success in defeating the Germans.
To a degree the Soviet view can be explained away in that at the time of Stalingrad only 5% of the total LL had been received by the Soviets - despite the best efforts on the part of the Bristish and Americans. The Soviets rightly believed that they had done the hard yards in first stopping, and then reversing, German aggression.
Agreed. I remember one very long thread ( caution: Not on this board) where the LL locos were claimed to have been crucial to keeping Stalingrad supplied.
None of the above is in any way meant to downplay the extraordinary revival performance of Soviet industry during the war, which was made possible only by the use of crude mass-production techniques, by skillful improvisation in planning and through the greater independence and initiative allowed plant managers and engineers. Bear in mind that almost 15,000 Soviet officials and engineers visited American factories and military installations on the LL scheme. As a result of the improvements in production, the modernisation of Soviet fighting power and developments in organisation and technology the Red Army was in a position to confront the Germans almost on equal terms at Kursk in 1943. In and of itself an remarkable achievement.
As I mentioned earlier I have seen claims that the machinery and tooling imported from Germany 1939-41 was greatly in excess of the LL supplies of the same nature. It would appear that -if they were so minded-the Germans could also claim to have contributed to the Soviet victory.
Though Britain recieved LL aid in much greater quantities than the Soviets you never get the same amount of credit-grabbing applied (warning: not backed by references)to her war effort.

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Re: Soviet wartime domestic truck production

#28

Post by LWD » 20 Nov 2008, 18:07

Michael Kenny wrote:
LWD wrote: The railroad thread produced some very good information and demonstrated pretty conclusivly that using any single set of numers in isolation can be misleading.
Which is the main thrust of my argument. However you seem to have got a bee in your bonnet over the issue so forgive me if I leave you to your indignation.
....
Not indignation at all. My point was that you were and are guilty of exactly the same thing you were complaining about. You just want to use a different set of numbers apparently because they match your beliefs closer.

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Re: Soviet wartime domestic truck production

#29

Post by Appleknocker27 » 22 Nov 2008, 08:22

There really isn't much point to comparing LL trucks/jeeps with LL locomotives and their relative effects, its apples and oranges.
Also, in regard to the manipulation of numbers I often see LL broken down as if the US was the only contributor to the USSR. It is true that the UK recieved much more LL from the US, but the UK was also a significant contributor to the USSR. The UK and Canada sent a large amount of aid and a large number of high quality trucks to the Soviets as well. The later war Soviet advances would have been very difficult without Allied supplied trucks, not to mention high octane aviation fuel, motor vehicle fuel and tactical radios.
In short, the Soviet war economy had some glaring deficiencies that LL made a significant difference in rectifying. The est 14% of Soviet GDP that LL made up is not an accurate reflection of its true value because much of what was supplied, the Soviets did have the ability to produce for themselves.

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Re: Soviet wartime domestic truck production

#30

Post by Michael Kenny » 23 Nov 2008, 01:39

By one of those strange coincidences I got a new book today( 'Bloody Streets, The Soviet Assault On Berlin April 1945')
and the photo below caught my eye.
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