Lend/lease trucks in Russia
mlrichman
know how these trucks fared in the Russian winter? Could they be
driven at all?
--
stanleverlock
news:<bcd2pe$26oq$1...@nntp6.u.washington.edu>...
The United States through it's Lend Lease program suppiled the
Russian Armed forces with 1941 model Ford and Chevrolet 2-1/2 ton
Trucks and Some 1-1/2 ton Dodge 4 Wheel drive trucks and 1941 model
jeeps.
I am looking for exact figures, but it is safe to say the the
Russian Army moved forward and retreated thru 1942 until 1945 on
American supplied Trucks and Jeeps and tires and spam.
The Russians supplied all their own gasoline and motor oil.
Similiar large amounts of Air Planes(25% - 35%) were transfered to
the Red Air force in the form of fighters(p-40's) attack aircraft
(Bell P-39's), medium bombers (B-20's and 25's) and 100% of all their
Transport Aircraft( the DC-3)
They were also sent some Tanks(m-3's) but by and large trucks and
food.
The Russians were sent a complete Ford Truck Assembly plants and i
believe a jeep assembly plants possibly two of each and technical
experts to assemble the plants and start production. These plants and
the Irians (Iran) which was where the another assembly plant was
built. the three truck and jeep assembly plants supplied the Red Army
with at least 50% and easily more of their Motor transport.
The Russians under the Communist's hated to admit, they loved and
appreciated the trucks and food, which probadly did as much to save
the Soviet Union from the Germans overrunning them as their own
efforts.
Stalin of course would never admit that.
but what would you expect from an (expletive deleted) like that!
By the Way the ZIL Truck works built that same model of truck and
jeep for the Russian Armed Forces with very little modifcation into
the 1970's and possibly the 80's
Yours truly,
Stanleverlock
Brad Meyer
wrote:
>The United States sent Russia a lot of trucks during WW2. Does anyone
>know how these trucks fared in the Russian winter? Could they be
>driven at all?
>From what I have read they were used extensively (the Russians also
built knockoffs of the duce-and-a-half. I should think they had little
if any problems with the trucks holding up to the winter. The northern
end of the Alaska highway (built during the war) is farther north then
St Petersburg (Leningrad) and the same sorts of trucks were used year
round there.
--
Ed Frank
Why not? Winter is not exactly an unknown concept in,
say, Detroit. These were largely high-clearance, powerful
military vehicles, purpose-designed and built for hard
use in bad conditions.
Ed Frank
--
JDupre5762
>wrote:
>
>>The United States sent Russia a lot of trucks during WW2. Does anyone
>>know how these trucks fared in the Russian winter? Could they be
>>driven at all?
I have read that of all the finished goods sent to the USSR aside from
ammunition and medicines the most highly prized were the Bell P-39 Airacobra
fighter aircraft which many Soviet aces used to score substantial numbers of
aerial victories and the military trucks which were considered as good or
better than anything the Soviets or Germans had.
John Dupre'
--
Andrew Clark
"stanleverlock" <gsc0...@mail.wvnet.edu> wrote
> I am looking for exact figures, but it is safe to say the
the
> Russian Army moved forward and retreated thru 1942 until
1945 on
> American supplied Trucks and Jeeps and tires and spam.
US lend-lease to the USSR did not begin until mid-1942 and
large numbers of trucks did not arrive until late 1943 and
early 1944. US trucks and other supplies certainly helped to
make possible the great mechanised maneouvres of the Red
Army in 1944/45, but by that stage Germany was inexorably
losing the war in any case. Thus, there is no case for
saying that US lendlease was critical to the survival of the
USSR.
In fact, there is a good case for saying that certain types
of US lend lease - the trucks etc - was to the US's
long-term strategic disadvantage, because it helped the USSR
to quickly seize eastern Europe with less casualties than
might otherwise have been the case. As a consequence, the
Red Army was on the Oder long before the Western allies
could think of reaching it. Strategically, it was more in
the US interest for the Eastern Front to be a long slogging
match around a front based well east of Germany, draining
both Soviet and German resources, while the Western armies
came up from the West.
Had Truman been in power rather earlier, rather than the
Soviet-appeasing Roosevelt, I'm certain that this sort of
thinking would have dominated Western strategy from 1943
onwards, just as it would have dominated British strategy
but for the US predominance.
(snip remainder)
--
Michael Emrys
acl...@starcottDELETETHISBIT.freeserve.co.uk wrote on 6/17/03 10:39 AM:
"...there is a good case for saying that certain types of US lend lease -
the trucks etc - was to the US's long-term strategic disadvantage, because
it helped the USSR to quickly seize eastern Europe with less casualties than
might otherwise have been the case. As a consequence, the Red Army was on
the Oder long before the Western allies could think of reaching it.
Strategically, it was more in the US interest for the Eastern Front to be a
long slogging match around a front based well east of Germany, draining both
Soviet and German resources, while the Western armies came up from the
West."
That may be a viable opinion with the benefit of hindsight, but in 1943-44
the Western Allies were still at some pains to ensure that the USSR did not
make a separate peace with Germany. Ergo, they (and note that this is not
just the US but the UK as well) bent over backwards to placate and support
Stalin in the war.
Michael
David Thornley
Andrew Clark <acl...@starcottDELETETHISBIT.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
>In fact, there is a good case for saying that certain types
>of US lend lease - the trucks etc - was to the US's
>long-term strategic disadvantage, because it helped the USSR
>to quickly seize eastern Europe with less casualties than
>might otherwise have been the case.
At that time, the British, US, and Soviets knew they would be
able to win the war if only they continued to cooperate. If
one party were to drop out, or drastically limit its participation,
then things became a lot chancier.
The continued active participation of the Soviet Union, in particular,
was vital. Without the Soviets pressing the Germans, Germany had an
excellent chance of defeating any landing in France. Even after
the Cobra breakout, the Soviets still occupied a sizable majority
of the German Army.
>could think of reaching it. Strategically, it was more in
>the US interest for the Eastern Front to be a long slogging
>match around a front based well east of Germany, draining
>both Soviet and German resources, while the Western armies
>came up from the West.
>
If it was going to work that way, yes.
In fact, the Soviet Union was facing severe manpower problems in
1944 and 1945 in any case. Without the US-supplied vehicles,
the Soviet offensives would have cost more for less gain, and
the Soviet manpower problem would have been even more severe.
In this case, the Germans would have been able to transfer a large
amount of force to face the Western Allies, since the Soviets were
simply not threatening. There was also the question of whether
Stalin might seek a separate peace. Modern authors have argued
that he could not have, but I'm not convinced, and in any case
neither Roosevelt nor Truman nor Churchill could have known one
way of another. Stalin was always secretive, and there was no
way to find out much about the Soviet Union.
--
David H. Thornley | If you want my opinion, ask.
da...@thornley.net | If you don't, flee.
http://www.thornley.net/~thornley/david/ | O-
Y. Macales
> large numbers of trucks did not arrive until late 1943 and
> early 1944. US trucks and other supplies certainly helped to
> make possible the great mechanised maneouvres of the Red
> Army in 1944/45, but by that stage Germany was inexorably
> losing the war in any case. Thus, there is no case for
> saying that US lendlease was critical to the survival of the
> USSR.
This is based on 20/20 hindsight. You go on to say that it actually
was NOT in the interest of the US to supply the trucks because it
made it easier for the USSR to move into eastern Europe. None of
this was apparent before Operation Overlord. If Overlord
had not succeeded, then there would have been the possibility of
a renewed German offensive on the Eastern Front in 1944-5.
In Antony Beevor's
book "The Fall of Berlin" he states the Lend-lease trucks were
absolutely vital for the Red Army to move supplies westwards because
of the different guage of the railroad tracks in Poland and Germany
as compared to the USSR.
It is true that in 1944 Churchill began to worry about what Stalin
was going to do after the war and he felt that President Roosevelt
was too fixated on the immediate conduct of the war and not on
potential post-war problems, but the Americans didn't agree with this
and insisted on taking a cautious approach with the Germans (one could
say that the Battle of the Bulge vindicated their thinking) and
building up the maximum capability on both the Eastern and Western
Fronts in order to bring the war to a successful conclusion as fast
as possible, also in order to reduce casualties (particularly
American) to a mininum.
Another example of 20/20 hindsight is the criticism of the bombing of
Dresden (Operation Thunderclap). Given the fact that Germany
surrendered a few weeks later, it now seems that the attack was
superfluous, but at the time there was great concern that the Allied
offensives would bog down and that there was also a possibility that
the Germans would carry out their "Werewolf" plan and set up guerrilla
units that would continue the war even after the conventional battles
had ended. One of the ideas behind "Thunderclap" was to show the German
that continued resistance was futile. One could say that it was
successful in this.
Karl K
"Andrew Clark" <acl...@starcottDELETETHISBIT.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in
message news:bcnjo0$27qi$1...@nntp6.u.washington.edu...
>
> "stanleverlock" <gsc0...@mail.wvnet.edu> wrote
>
> > I am looking for exact figures, but it is safe to say the
> the
> > Russian Army moved forward and retreated thru 1942 until
> 1945 on
> > American supplied Trucks and Jeeps and tires and spam.
>
> US lend-lease to the USSR did not begin until mid-1942 and
> large numbers of trucks did not arrive until late 1943 and
> early 1944. US trucks and other supplies certainly helped to
> make possible the great mechanised maneouvres of the Red
> Army in 1944/45, but by that stage Germany was inexorably
> losing the war in any case. Thus, there is no case for
> saying that US lendlease was critical to the survival of the
> USSR.
That is a myth and completely ignores the importance of LL.
The US and Britain began supplying the USSR with vast amounts
of material from September 1941, nine months before Soviet lend-lease
agreement
was officially signed.
From September 1941 to June 1942, the US supplied to the Soviets
Aircraft 1785
Tanks 3148
Machine Guns 81287
explosives 59 Million pounds
Trucks 36825
Already by June 1942 the USSR had received more trucks from the US than
Germany produced in the entire war.
Lech K. Lesiak
I'm reading the memoir of a Polish kid who ended up as a political officer
in the Soviet air force.
In the summer of 1942 he and his unit had retreated south from Rostov to
the Caucasus mountains around Georgia. He mentions seeing new Studebaker
four wheel drive trucks.
How would they have been shipped there? Through the Med and into the
Black Sea?
Ref. Karol, K.S.; 'Between Two Worlds - The Life of a Young Pole in Russia
1939-46'; Henry Holt & Co, 1987. ISBN 0-8050-0099-2
Cheers,
Lech
Ed Frank
> the Caucasus mountains around Georgia. He mentions seeing new Studebaker
> four wheel drive trucks.
> How would they have been shipped there? Through the Med and into the
> Black Sea?
No way. They probably came up through Iran (although
that seems pretty early). IIRC, no war materials were
shipped through the Black Sea to the USSR--the Turks
couldn't allow it and still claim to be neutral (leaving
aside the difficulties of Allied shipping through the
esatern Med in early '42).
Ed Frank
--
Gooneybird
(Snip)
> How would they have been shipped there? Through the Med and into the
> Black Sea?
I was under the impression that the overwhelming volume of Lend-Lease equipment
sent to the USSR went through the North Atlantic to Murmansk. I seriously doubt
that very much went through Odessa or other Black Sea ports simply because the
sea routes to those destinations would have put the vessels on them within
relatively easy range of the Luftwaffe for an extended period of time.
George Z.
--
Scotty
US lendlease was critical to the survival of the USSR."<<
"The Role of Lend-Lease in Soviet Military Efforts, 1941-1945" by
BORIS V. SOKOLOV, clearly states that the USSR was all but done for
without Lend Lease.
Quoting Zhukov: "Speaking about our readiness for war, from the point
of view of the economy and economics, one cannot be silent about such
a factor as the subsequent help from the Allies. First of all,
certainly from the American side, because in that respect the English
helped us minimally. In an analysis of all facets of the war, one must
not leave this out of one's reckoning. We would have been in a serious
condition without American gunpowder, and could not have turned out
the quantity of ammunition which we needed. Without American
`Studebekkers' [sic], we could have dragged our artillery nowhere.
Yes, in general, to a considerable degree they provided our front
transport. The output of special steel, necessary for the most diverse
necessities of war, were also connected to a series of American
deliveries." Zhukov underscored that, "We entered war while still
continuing to be a backward country in an industrial sense in
comparison with Germany."
Simonov's truthful recounting of these meetings with Zhukov, in 1965
and
1966, are corraborated by the utterances of Zhukov, recorded as a
result of
eavesdropping by security organs in 1963, "It is now said that the
Allies never helped us. However, one cannot deny that the Americans
gave us so much material, without which we could not have formed our
reserves and could not have continued the war. We had no explosives
and powder. There was none to equip rifle bullets. The Americans
actually came to our assistance with powder, explosives and the sheet
steel did they give us. We really could not have put right our
production of tanks if the Americans had not helped with steel. And
today it seems as though we had all this ourselves in abundance.
America supplied 80% of all canned meat, 92% of all railroad
locomotives, rolling stock and rails. 57% of all aviation fuel. 53% of
all explosives. 74% of all truck transport. 88% of all radio
equipment. 53% of all copper. 56% of all aluminum. 60+% of all
automotive fuel. 74% of all vehicle tires. 12% of all armored
vehicles. 14% of all combat aircraft. The list includes a high
percentage of the high grade steel, communications cable, canned foods
of all types, medical supplies, and virtually every modern machine
tool used by Soviet industry. Not to mention the knowledge required to
use and maintain this equipment."
"How frequently analyses of the historical process become little more
than
tendentious exercises reflecting the writer's bias." [William Styron,
American Author]. As Mark Twain once said, "Get your facts first, and
then you can distort them as much as you please."
Let's face a Fact of Life, gentlemen: two different sources seldom
present the same facts, and each considers the other incorrect.
Cheers, Gentlemen, the next pint's on me. Scotty.
--
stanleverlock
news:<3ef7bffc...@news.pacific.net.au>...
> Just ran across to a reference to US trucks in Russian pretty early on.
>
> the Caucasus mountains around Georgia. He mentions seeing new Studebaker
> four wheel drive trucks.
>
> How would they have been shipped there? Through the Med and into the
> Black Sea?
>
> Ref. Karol, K.S.; 'Between Two Worlds - The Life of a Young Pole in Russia
> 1939-46'; Henry Holt & Co, 1987. ISBN 0-8050-0099-2
>
> Cheers,
> Lech
Dear Mr. Lesiak,
Please remeber that during WW II just about the only ships moving
in the Agean were Turkish or possibly Greek.
The Luftwaffe would have destroyed any Allied vessels caught in
those waters and would have directed either Italian or german U- boots
to the Attack.
The Studebaker Trucks would have probadly been driven up through
Iran and the Trans-Causus Region into Russia.
Yours truly,
Stanleverlock
Andrew Clark
"Karl K" <K...@bn4rst.net> wrote
> From September 1941 to June 1942,
> the US supplied to the Soviets
(snips for space)
This is taken verbatim from an amateur website which does
not state its sources. Please supply figures from a
reputable source. My statement is based on the works of
Professor Mark Harrison.
Gregory E. Garland
> I'm reading the memoir of a Polish kid who ended up as a political officer
> in the Soviet air force.
>
> In the summer of 1942 he and his unit had retreated south from Rostov to
> the Caucasus mountains around Georgia. He mentions seeing new Studebaker
> four wheel drive trucks.
>
> How would they have been shipped there? Through the Med and into the
> Black Sea?
>
About half the Russian Lend-Lease went through Vladivostok (and a handful
of other Far East ports). It was carried on Russian ships to which the
Japanese
chose to turn a blind eye rather than risk opening another front against the
Russian army which had soundly defeated them a few years earlier.
--
Geoffrey Sinclair
>US lend-lease to the USSR did not begin until mid-1942 and
>large numbers of trucks did not arrive until late 1943 and
>early 1944. US trucks and other supplies certainly helped to
>make possible the great mechanised maneouvres of the Red
>Army in 1944/45, but by that stage Germany was inexorably
>losing the war in any case. Thus, there is no case for
>saying that US lendlease was critical to the survival of the
>USSR.
US shipments to the USSR 22 June 1941 to 30 September
1941, 166,200 long tons, shipments 1 October 1941 to 30
June 1942 1,420,255 long tons. US shipments arrived in
1941
Vehicle shipments, including tanks, in long tons,
1 October 1941 to 30 June 1942 214,148 tons
1 July 1942 to 30 June 1943 308,919 tons
1 July 1943 to 30 June 1944 641,618 tons
1 July 1944 to 12 May 1945 531,235 tons
13 May 1945 to 2 September 1945 28,353 tons
This is most but not all the vehicles shipped, 427,284
trucks were shipped under lend lease out of a total
of 437,039.
Shipments,
48,993 jeeps, 3,510 amphibious jeeps, 25,240 3/4 ton,
159,494 1.5 ton, 193,603 2.5 ton, 858 5 ton or larger
trucks, 2,792 special purpose vehicles, 1,960 truck
tractors, 589 DUKW.
In addition 1,543 field repair trucks, 130 tank recovery
units, 655 tank transporters, 1,682 light and 5,374
medium tanks, 804 self propelled guns, 1,000 SP
AA (50 cal), 1,158 half tracks, 3,383 armoured
scout cars.
The Commonwealth supplied 5,218 tanks, 5,591
trucks and carriers.
The big boost to the USSR supply lines was the railway
rolling stock, 1,911 steam locomotives, 70 diesel electric
locomotives, 11,155 rail cars. None was shipped until
the second half of 1943, and 80% in tonnage terms was
sent after 1 July 1944.
>In fact, there is a good case for saying that certain types
>of US lend lease - the trucks etc - was to the US's
>long-term strategic disadvantage, because it helped the USSR
>to quickly seize eastern Europe with less casualties than
>might otherwise have been the case. As a consequence, the
>Red Army was on the Oder long before the Western allies
>could think of reaching it. Strategically, it was more in
>the US interest for the Eastern Front to be a long slogging
>match around a front based well east of Germany, draining
>both Soviet and German resources, while the Western armies
>came up from the West.
Yes folks were are yet again at the myth the allies could have
kept the Red Army in the pre war USSR while they advanced
to Warsaw, Bucharest and the Baltic States all at no cost to
the western allies.
The Red Army made it to Poland around 5 January 1944,
on the 6th they took Rokitno 12 miles inside the pre war
borders.
If Red Army pressure in the east is lower more of the
Wehrmacht appears in the west. No free lunches.
Presumably the reduction in aid is accompanied by a refusal
to let the Red Army into post war Germany and Austria?
>Had Truman been in power rather earlier, rather than the
>Soviet-appeasing Roosevelt, I'm certain that this sort of
>thinking would have dominated Western strategy from 1943
>onwards, just as it would have dominated British strategy
>but for the US predominance.
What is the strategic advantage the US would have gained?
There would have been a cold war anyway, what major
strategic advantage to the US was the communist border
further east in Europe as opposed to the USSR having to deal
with a bunch of potentially restless colonies?
A weaker Red Army is a weaker alliance. Hitler decided to
hold or demolish the channel ports and how much of the
Heer would defend where.
Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.
--
Andrew Clark
"Scotty" <Mils...@aol.com> wrote
> "The Role of Lend-Lease in Soviet Military Efforts,
> 1941-1945" by BORIS V. SOKOLOV, clearly
> states that the USSR was all but done for
> without Lend Lease.
I can't find a ISBN reference for this work and it doesn't
seem to be listed in any bibliographies, although the same
extract as you posted here up in lots of newsgroups. Can you
supply further details of the actual publication?
I'm aware, however, that there is a lot of controversy over
Sokolov and his work, especially since the Soviet archives
became available to authors like Glantz. At worst, Sokolov
appears to have relied on Zhukov's alleged comments as
allegedly captured on tape in an allegedly bugged interview
which allegedly sat in the Soviet archives until he found
it. We have heard a lot of "Soviet archive" stories of this
sort, and some of them are true (Hitler's remains, for
example) and many are false. Can you help substantiate
Sokolov's story?
--
Brad Meyer
<lkle...@calcna.ab.ca> wrote:
>Just ran across to a reference to US trucks in Russia
>How would they have been shipped there? Through the Med and into the
>Black Sea?
Some of the equipment went from westcoast US ports in Soviet bottoms
and then via the trans-siberian R&R. The Japanese were very careful
during the war to not interfere with Soviet shipping.
--
Geoffrey Sinclair
>Just ran across to a reference to US trucks in Russian pretty early on.
>I'm reading the memoir of a Polish kid who ended up as a political officer
>in the Soviet air force.
>In the summer of 1942 he and his unit had retreated south from Rostov to
>the Caucasus mountains around Georgia. He mentions seeing new Studebaker
>four wheel drive trucks.
>How would they have been shipped there? Through the Med and into the
>Black Sea?
No, via the Persian Gulf and Iran.
>Ref. Karol, K.S.; 'Between Two Worlds - The Life of a Young Pole in Russia
>1939-46'; Henry Holt & Co, 1987. ISBN 0-8050-0099-2
You can check out Roads to Russia by Robert Jones, for
US aid, Comrades in Arms by Joan Beaumont for
Commonwealth aid to the USSR. The US Army has a
history The Persian Corridor and aid to Russia by T.H.
Vail Motter.
The table in Roads to Russia for US cargo shipped to the
USSR in gross long tons (which would ignore aircraft flown in),
North Russia 3,964,000 (7% lost), Persian Gulf 4,160,000
(4% lost), Black Sea 681,000 (1% lost), Soviet Far East
8,224,000 (1% lost), Soviet Arctic 452,000 (0% loss).
In addition to the US tonnages sent from North America
a further 166,359 long tons of petroleum products
was sent from Adaban in the time period 1 July 1943 to
30 June 1944 and a further 388,843 long tons from
Adaban in the time period 1 July 1944 to 31 May 1945.
This compares to the total shipment from North America
of 2,113,449 long tons of petroleum products.
The Turks allowed allied lend lease shipments to use
the Black Sea in 1945, as far as I know after their 1st
March 1945 declaration of war on Germany and Japan.
Rich
news:<bcnjo0$27qi$1...@nntp6.u.washington.edu>...
> large numbers of trucks did not arrive until late 1943 and
> early 1944. US trucks and other supplies certainly helped to
> make possible the great mechanised maneouvres of the Red
> Army in 1944/45, but by that stage Germany was inexorably
> losing the war in any case. Thus, there is no case for
> saying that US lendlease was critical to the survival of the
> USSR.
This is not quite correct. The totals shipped in 1941 (in December,
although US Lend-Lease with the USSR officially began in October) were
180 tanks, 150 aircraft and 8,300 other vehicles, an insignificant
number. However, in 1942 3,000 tanks, 2,500 aircraft and 79,000 other
vehicles were shipped. In 1943 another 920 tanks, 5,150 aircraft and
144,400 other vehicles were shipped. Through 30 June 1945 an
additional 2,900 tanks, 6,650 aircraft and 188,700 other vehicles were
shipped.
About 17.1 percent (based upon dollar value) of the munitions
(ordnance and ammunition, aircraft, tanks, motor vehicles, and
watercraft) sent to the USSR in 1942 arrived by 1 April.
By the end of 1942, 13 months after the actual beginning of
Lend-Lease, 3,180 tanks were shipped, 3,820 more were shipped in the
30 months following. So 45 percent of the tanks were shipped prior to
the end of 1942. The respective figures for aircraft were 2,650 and
11,800, so 18.3 percent were shipped prior to the end of 1942. For
other vehicles it was 87,300 and 333,100, or 20.8 percent. Looked at
another way, by the end of 1943, about halfway through, 4,100 of 7,000
tanks, 7,800 of 14,450 aircraft and 231,700 of 420,400 other vehicles
were shipped.
Also, by 1 March 1943 49,000 tons of TNT and toluene had been shipped
to the USSR, increasing to 144,000 tons by the end of October, along
with 251,000 tons of other vital chemicals. This was critical for the
production of Soviet ammunition, since the one component of Soviet
industry that had not safely been evacuated in the face of Barbarossa
was the chemical industry. Also critical were the 1,000,000 tons of
foodstuffs shipped by 1 April 1943.
Yet another way to look at Lend-Lease is to realize that on the
southern front of the Kursk Bulge in July 1942, about 20 percent of
the German armor strength was made up of Stuarts, Grants, Matildas,
and Churchills.
Michael Emrys
gsc0...@mail.wvnet.edu wrote on 6/24/03 2:33 AM:
> The Studebaker Trucks would have probadly been driven up through Iran and the
> Trans-Causus Region into Russia.
I early-mid 1942? I thought the Persian Corridor didn't really get cooking
until much later in the war. For one thing, a completely new railway needed
to be built.
Personally, I think it more likely that they were landed in Murmansk or
Archangel and driven south, though I admit I am not prepared to prove that
statement.
Michael
Lech K. Lesiak
> I was under the impression that the overwhelming volume of Lend-Lease equipment
> sent to the USSR went through the North Atlantic to Murmansk.
That's my impression as well, although I believe there were shipments
across the Pacific to Vladivostok.
Given the military situation in the summer of 42, I don't know how
Studebaker trucks would have been moved from Murmansk to Georgia.
Was there a southern route through Persia?
Cheers,
Lech
Oliver Missing
news:<3ef0beb7...@news.pacific.net.au>...
>
> The United States through it's Lend Lease program suppiled the
> Russian Armed forces with 1941 model Ford and Chevrolet 2-1/2 ton
> Trucks and Some 1-1/2 ton Dodge 4 Wheel drive trucks and 1941 model
> jeeps.
Stan,
AFAIK, the "Ford" you mention is the 2G8T 1.5ton 4x2 (from '43 on :
G8T), and the Dodge is the T-203-B 1.5ton 4x4 (VF-405).
The Chevy _2_-1/2-ton as LL truck is new to me, could be the 1.5ton
with the THORNTON double bogie. The _1_-1/2-ton was the MS4409.
Just building up a site about the exact theme of this thread.
You can find it at
<a target=_blank href="http://www.o5m6.de">Trucks lend-leased to
Russia</a> [www.o5m6.de].
I'm so far dealing with visually presenting the more rare models (no
US6, Dodge WCs, Willys].
Any additional information welcome, please contact me.
Regards,
Oliver Missing
Louis Capdeboscq
> IIRC, no war materials were
> shipped through the Black Sea to the USSR--the Turks
> couldn't allow it and still claim to be neutral
...which is why the Allies waited until Turkish neutrality was more
"flexible", and/or until Turkey declared war on Germany (early '45) to
use the Black Sea.
Some of the biggest lend-lease convoys of the war arrived at Odessa or
Sevastopol, in Spring '45.
Louis
--
Remove "e" from address to reply
--
Louis Capdeboscq
> I was under the impression that the overwhelming volume of Lend-Lease equipment
> sent to the USSR went through the North Atlantic to Murmansk.
About 49% arrived through Vladivostok, about 23% through Murmansk and
24% through Persia.
Until Stalingrad, you could indeed say that the majority of the
lend-lease equipment arrived at Murmansk as neither the Persian nor the
Pacific routes were fully operational yet.
Y. Macales
> About 49% arrived through Vladivostok, about 23% through Murmansk and
> 24% through Persia.
>
>
and British fighting the Japanese, it is interesting that half the
materiel went through Vladivostok. Did the Japanese try to intercept
the ships? (I assume that most of the ships were British or American
since the USSR wasn't a naval power) Since they had a neutrality pact
wit the USSR, did they want interfere with this movement?
Michael Emrys
yaakov_...@hotmail.com wrote on 7/4/03 5:20 PM:
> (I assume that most of the ships were British or American since the USSR
> wasn't a naval power)
Begging your pardon, but that would be a mistake. So far as I know, all the
LL going through Soviet East Asian ports traveled in Soviet bottoms. The
Japanese did not bother them.
Michael
Brad Meyer
Macales) wrote:
>>
>> About 49% arrived through Vladivostok, about 23% through Murmansk and
>> 24% through Persia.
>>
>>
>Considering that the North Pacific Ocean was a war zone with the US
>and British fighting the Japanese, it is interesting that half the
>materiel went through Vladivostok. Did the Japanese try to intercept
>the ships?
No. They had a non-agression pact in force with the Soviet Union.
>(I assume that most of the ships were British or American
>since the USSR wasn't a naval power)
Bad assumption. Virtually all the traffic (if not in fact all) was in
Soviet bottoms. There are numerous instances of US subs aborting
attacks on what were discovered, as the attacks developed, to be
Soviet ships.
>Since they had a neutrality pact
>wit the USSR, did they want interfere with this movement?
Absolutely not! They were sweating bullets to try to keep the Soviets
quiet to (a) giove them a free hand against the ABDA powers and (b)
keep them form supplying Mao and the CHinese communists.
--
dp
Apparently, the Japanese took special care not to interfere with Russian
ships going to and from the US. I seem to recall something about sanctioned
"shipping lanes".
dp
"Y. Macales" <yaakov_...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3f06195...@news.pacific.net.au...
> Considering that the North Pacific Ocean was a war zone with the US
> and British fighting the Japanese, it is interesting that half the
> materiel went through Vladivostok. Did the Japanese try to intercept
> the ships? (I assume that most of the ships were British or American
> since the USSR wasn't a naval power) Since they had a neutrality pact
> wit the USSR, did they want interfere with this movement?
>
--
stanleverlock
> Considering that the North Pacific Ocean was a war zone with the US
> and British fighting the Japanese, it is interesting that half the
> materiel went through Vladivostok.
>
>USSR wasn't a naval power)
>
>interfere with this movement?
Dear Yaakov,
Did the Japanese try to intercept the ships?
was to attack Warships. The Japanese would probadly not molest any
vessel under Russian escort or Russian flagged vessels even if they
were steaming into and out of american ports.
I checked my one major reference book on the Russian shipping.
The figures for soviet merchant fleet is unknown and the Russian navy
had a reported total of 47 destroyers and no escorts for any type for
convoy duty.
Thus it appears they were totally dependent on the Allies for any type
of shipping and escorts into and out of Vladivostok.
I also cite the already mentioned of the Japanese and Russian non
Aggresion treaty .
yours truly,
Stanleverlock
--
Geoffrey Sinclair
>Considering that the North Pacific Ocean was a war zone with the US
>and British fighting the Japanese, it is interesting that half the
>materiel went through Vladivostok. Did the Japanese try to intercept
>the ships?
There were one or two incidents but by and large the ships
were allowed to pass unmolested.
>(I assume that most of the ships were British or American
>since the USSR wasn't a naval power) Since they had a neutrality pact
>wit the USSR, did they want interfere with this movement?
The Japanese were quite within their rights to sink and capture
American and British merchant ships, regardless of whose cargo
was on board. The ships that sailed to the Soviet far east were
officially Soviet. The USSR did have a merchant fleet, something
like 299 ships of 1,600 Gross Register Tons or greater in 1939
(22 tankers), around 1,048,000 GRT or 1,493,000 Deadweight tons.
In addition the US transferred merchant ships to the USSR under
lend lease.
In order to minimise the chance of interference the shipments
were as non military as possible, things like food.
SAP BASIS Consultant
> >>Andrew Clark wrote, in part, "Thus, there is no case for saying that
> US lendlease was critical to the survival of the USSR."<<
>
On the same note...
I remember reading (I believe from Richard Overy's "Why The Allies Won",
though I am not 100% sure and I don't have the book here to verify) that
in addition to trucks, food, and other well-known Lend-Lease goods, the
Allies (Mainly the U.S) supplied the USSR with a lot of military
communication equipment. The same source indicated that the Soviet
troops were able to greatly improve their coordination in the battle
of Kursk, in comparison with previous battles, largely due to this
equipment.
This is not to say that the USSR could not have built this equipment,
but, as in all of the other Lend-Lease goods, it would taken valuable
resources to do so.
I hate to recommend a book that I have not yet had a chance to read,
but in Overy's book "Russia's War" the importance of lend-lease is
discussed.
A few years ago, somebody posted the following statistics regarding
Lend-Lease; I am not sure whether he meant 'By America or by all
of teh Allies'. Are they accurate?
http://yarchive.net/mil/lend_lease.html
"I can dig out the exact contribution by America, these numbers are from memory,
but are still very close. These are the percentages of the total available to
the Soviet military and industry that were supplied by America:
80% of all canned meat.
92% of all railroad locomotives, rolling stock and rails.
57% of all aviation fuel.
53% of all explosives.
74% of all truck transport.
88% of all radio equipment.
53% of all copper.
56% of all aluminum.
60+% of all automotive fuel.
74% of all vehicle tires.
12% of all armored vehicles.
14% of all combat aircraft.
The list includes a high percentage of the high grade steel, communications
cable, canned foods of all types, medical supplies, and virtually every modern
machine tool used by Soviet industry. Not to mention the "know-how required to
use and maintain this equipment."
--
Alex
news:<beeoco$28j8$1...@nntp6.u.washington.edu>...
[]
> "I can dig out the exact contribution by America, these numbers are from memory,
> but are still very close. These are the percentages of the total available to
> the Soviet military and industry that were supplied by America:
[]
> 88% of all radio equipment.
While I have no reason to doubt the author, this particular number
somewhat
contradicts to a practical experience I know of. A person who served
as a communication officer in the Soviet Army in 1941-45 assured me
that their
front saw very little of the American radio equipment (he mentioned
couple
of models he dealt with) and mostly got the Soviet one. Of course, one
of
the reasons for this contradiction could be in a fact that he was
serving on
a less "presitgious" Karelian Front with the most of the better
supplies
coming to the other fronts.
However, they had been driving mostly the American trucks. :-)
Louis Capdeboscq
> Considering that the North Pacific Ocean was a war zone with the US
> and British fighting the Japanese, it is interesting that half the
> materiel went through Vladivostok.
The North Pacific Ocean was not a war zone between the USSR and Japan
until August 1945, by which point the USSR was less in need of
lend-lease and the Japanese ability to interfere with anything had
become sorely limited.
There is a webpage on the Pacific lend-lease route that a websearch
using "lend lease" or "lend lease routes" should provide after a bit of
effort.
> Did the Japanese try to intercept the ships?
They designated some of the choice passages "off limits". Other than
that, no, they didn't.
A few ships were sunk, both by the Japanese and by the US, but these
were unintended errors.
> (I assume that most of the ships were British or American
> since the USSR wasn't a naval power)
The ships were all sailing with Soviet crews under the Soviet flag. Of
course, the Japanese knew that the vast increase in Soviet-flagged
merchant hulls (particularly liberty ships) didn't come from the
Vladivostok shipyards. But appearances were safe.
> Since they had a neutrality pact
> wit the USSR, did they want interfere with this movement?
They didn't exactly like it, and the Germans kept badgering them to do
something about it. On the other hand, when the subject was broached
through diplomatic channels, Molotov quite clear that the Soviet Union
considered the matter vital and stopping the traffic would not be taken
kindly.
In other words, an informal arrangements was in force: the Japanese let
US lend-lease travel to Soviet ports, and the Soviets let Kwantung Army
live. From the Japanese point of view, this made a lot of sense: by the
time that this lend-lease route became important, the Soviets had
already stopped the Germans in front of Moscow and Stalingrad. So it
wasn't as if Japanese neutrality was the difference between the survival
of the Soviet Union and its conquest. On the other hand, a belligerent
Soviet Union would be extremely bad news for Japan, starting with US
heavy bombers based in the Maritime Province... and contrary to the
China B-29 bases, there was no hope that the IJA could launch an "off
the cuff" offensive to conquer the bases. Soviet garrisons in the
Maritime Province and Chinese troops were not in the same league...
Stuart Wilkes
news:<beeoco$28j8$1...@nntp6.u.washington.edu>...
<snip>
> The same source indicated that the Soviet troops were able to greatly
> improve their coordination in the battle of Kursk, in comparison with
> previous battles, largely due to this equipment.
So how did they manage their rather neat encirclement of 6th Army at
Stalingrad? Seems rather more difficult, in the C2 sense, than
building deep defenses and then setting up counteroffensives from
behind them. I don't want to deny that Lend-lease was extremely
helpful, but the Soviets did manage victoris without it.
<snip list of Lend-Lease equipment"
But most of it arrived after the most critical moments for Soviet
<survival>, while certainly facilitating subsequent Soviet offensives.
Stuart Wilkes
Oliver Missing
www.feldgrau.com/econo.html :
In January 1944, an American Lend-Lease convoy left Seattle bound for
Vladivostok.
Its manifest read as follows:
46 merchantmen (all 8-10K ton ships); built by McCormack Ship Yards;
Soviet flagged (to avoid being torpedoed by the Japanese who could
attack U.S. flagged vessels but who could not attack Soviet flagged
ones) and Soviet crewed.
Six of the 46 ships were loaded with ammunitions and small arms.
Four of the 46 ships were loaded with foodstuffs.
Two of the 46 ships were loaded by Dodge (presumably with trucks).
One ship was loaded by Westinghouse (presumably with communications
gear).
They carried:
22.000 tons of steel provided by U.S. Steel.
3.000 truck chassis, by Ford (the Soviets also assembled U.S. trucks
from parts).
3.000 truck differentials from Thornton Tandem Co.
2.000 tractors by Allis Chalmers Co. (agricultural and military use)
1.500 automotive batteries from the Price Battery Corp.
1.000 aircraft provided by the North American Aviation Co.
612 airplanes from the Douglas Aircraft Co.
600 trucks from Mack.
500 Allison aircraft engines.
500 half-tracks from Minneapolis Moline Co.
400 airplanes from Bell Aircraft
400 electric motors from Wagner Electric Co.
400 truck chassis by GM (see Ford above)
310 tons of ball bearings from the Fafnir Company.
200 aircraft provided by the U.S. Navy
200 aircraft engines by Aeromarine
100 tractor-trailer units by GM (trucks)
70 aircraft engines by Pratt & Whitney
Regards,
Oliver Missing
www.o5m6.de
Louis Capdeboscq
> 80% of all canned meat.
Very useful. However at no time was lend-lease-supplied food sufficient
to feed more than 1.5% of the Soviet population. In 1942 it was
something like 0.8%.
> 92% of all railroad locomotives, rolling stock and rails.
Only a few railway cars and no locomotives arrived before 1944. The
locomotives which did arrive went mostly unused, being too heavy for
Soviet tracks.
However, the Americans did install an automatic signalling system which
improved the average speed of Soviet trains. Probably a more significant
contribution than the US locomotives.
> 57% of all aviation fuel.
Extremely important, as the Soviets couldn't have manufactured
equivalent fuel on their own, or at least not in the quantities which
they received.
> 53% of all explosives.
Also very important. The Soviets used a lot of ammo and were always
short of the stuff.
> 74% of all truck transport.
I'm not sure where that figure comes from. By 1945, lend-lease trucks
represented 35% of the Red Army trucks, and 50% of the load-carrying
capacity. An impressive figure in and of itself, of course.
I'm aware that due to the higher quality of the US trucks the Soviets
tended to use them at the front more than they did their own trucks, but
am not sure how that would make up for the difference between 35/50% and
74%.
> 88% of all radio equipment.
Yes, on the other hand the Soviets were already buying radios in the US
before the war and would doubtless have continued to do so lend-lease or
not. The US also supplied field telephones. IIRC these were made to
Soviet specifications so for the uninitiated they looked Soviet-made.
> 53% of all copper. 56% of all aluminum.
...and various other non-ferrous materials which came in handy to make
special steels.
> 60+% of all automotive fuel.
I think this includes the aircraft fuel which you mentioned above, in
other words it is being counted twice.
> 74% of all vehicle tires.
Again, extremely important as the Soviets would have been hard-pressed
to set up an adequate synthetic rubber manufacturing capacity.
> 12% of all armored vehicles. 14% of all combat aircraft.
These were probably the least important categories. They came in handy
in 1941-42, though, when Soviet manufacturing capacity was still disrupted.
> The list includes a high percentage of the high grade steel, communications
> cable, canned foods of all types, medical supplies, and virtually every modern
> machine tool used by Soviet industry. Not to mention the "know-how required to
> use and maintain this equipment."
Regarding machine tools, you have to distinguish between what was vital
to the Soviet war effort and what was supplied, at the Soviet request,
later in the war. For instance, the Soviets already had a fine (German-
and US-built) manufacturing base. However, since the US were giving away
practically anything that the Soviets asked for, by the end of the war
Stalin started requesting items which were obviously aimed for after the
war.
These shipments distort the figures. Don't forget that most of the
lend-lease shipments arrived in 1944 and later. Like many things in the
Western Allied war effort, lend-lease shipments were heavily bottom-loaded.
Louis
--
Remove "e" from address to reply
--
Andrew Clark
"Rich" <Rich...@msn.com> wrote
> This is not quite correct. The totals shipped in
> 1941 (in December, although US Lend-Lease with
> the USSR officially began in October) were
> 180 tanks, 150 aircraft and 8,300 other vehicles
> , an insignificant number. However, in 1942 3,000
> tanks, 2,500 aircraft and 79,000 other vehicles were
> shipped. (snip)
> By the end of 1942, 13 months after the
> actual beginning of Lend-Lease, 3,180 tanks
> were shipped, 3,820 more were shipped in the
> 30 months following. So 45 percent of the tanks
> were shipped prior to the end of 1942. The
> respective figures for aircraft were 2,650 and
> 11,800, so 18.3 percent were shipped prior to
> the end of 1942. For other vehicles it was 87,300
> and 333,100, or 20.8 percent. (snip)
I suppose the question is when did the USSR turn the corner
in the sense that it could be fairly confident that it would
not lose the war, even if winning it was a whole different
question? Supplies prior to that date were critical to
Soviet survival, whereas supplies after that date were not
critical to Soviet survival, although they may have been
*critical to victory over Germany in the historical
scenario*.
A good analogy is the UK in December 1940, when Home Forces
and the RAF reached a degree of strength that made a
successful German invasion virtually impossible in any
circumstances, although the date at which the BCE would be
able to win the war was something which could not be even
predicted. Reaching that point of "undefeatability" was very
largely a solely British effort, but winning the war was
very much a joint effort (I see that in early 1941 the
British Joint Planners predicted a 10-15 year war to defeat
Germany if the US did not declare war!).
>From what I can see, historians tend to identify as critical
the failure of the German blitzkrieg campaign in December
1941 to force a early end to the war and the failure of the
German summer campaign in 1942 to put right the situation.
The argument, as I understand it, seems to be that, after
the autumn of 1942, the USSR was in the strategic ascendant
and an eventual Soviet victory was assured. To coin a
phrase, Hitler failed to exploit the window of Soviet
weakness in 1941-42 just as he failed to exploit the window
of British weakness in 1939-40.
Now, if my interpretation of your figures is correct, 480
tanks (11%), 2,650 aircraft (18%), and 84,300 other vehicles
(20%) (including 37000 trucks) were delivered before the end
of 1942. My understanding is that the delivery of these
items was weighted toward the end of 1942 rather than the
beginning, but I do not have access to month-by-month
figures. However, it is probably safe to reduce the 1942
totals by 65% to take account of this fact, giving very
approximately 315 tanks, 1275 aircraft and 40,850 vehicles
including about 17,500 trucks delivered to June 1942.
This supply compares to Soviet production in the period to
June 1942 of circa 9500 tanks, 41,200 aircraft and 97,000
trucks (Harrison "Soviet Planning in Peace and War,
1938-1945", Cambridge UP).
In other words, in the really critical period for the
survival of the USSR, lend lease amounted to about only 15%
of Soviet new truck deliveries and a negligible contribution
(3%) to new aircraft and tank deliveries. I find it hard to
imagine that a contribution on this scale could be critical
to Soviet survival.
> Also, by 1 March 1943 49,000 tons of TNT and
> toluene had been shipped to the USSR, increasing
> to 144,000 tons by the end of October, along
> with 251,000 tons of other vital chemicals.
> This was critical for the production of Soviet
> ammunition,
Actually, as far as I can judge from Mark Harrison's books,
Soviet ammunition and explosives manufacturing capacity was
so limited before early 1943 that domestic supply of
materials was sufficient to meet manufacturing capacity,
although that capacity was of course far below the military
requirement. The materials supplied by the West in 1940-43
were largely stockpiled until they could be used, when they
were vital in building up the vast stocks of ammunition
needed in the victory campaigns of 1943-45.
> Also critical were the 1,000,000 tons of
> foodstuffs shipped by 1 April 1943.
I'm not aware that a million tons of foodstuffs was shipped
by 1 April 1943. What's your source, and can you break this
total down? Does it include raw materials like grain?
> Yet another way to look at Lend-Lease is to realize
> that on the southern front of the Kursk Bulge in
> July 1942, about 20 percent of the German armor
> strength was made up of Stuarts, Grants, Matildas,
> and Churchills.
Wasn't Kursk in 1943, not 1942?
--
David Thornley
Andrew Clark <acl...@starcottDELETETHISBIT.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
>I suppose the question is when did the USSR turn the corner
>in the sense that it could be fairly confident that it would
>not lose the war, even if winning it was a whole different
>question?
That is an excellent question. To apply to Lend-Lease decisions,
we must consider it from the viewpoint of the US and British
authorities, acting conservatively. After all, if the Soviet
Union did fall, the consequences would be enormous.
Supplies prior to that date were critical to
>Soviet survival, whereas supplies after that date were not
>critical to Soviet survival, although they may have been
>*critical to victory over Germany in the historical
>scenario*.
>
That is another useful distinction.
However, at the time this was relevant, Germany occupied Norway,
Denmark, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and several other
countries that Britain and the US didn't care about as much.
Moreover, the war effort was straining the Western national
economies (the British more and earlier than the US), and so
defeating Hitler as soon as possible was considered a Good Thing.
>A good analogy is the UK in December 1940, when Home Forces
>and the RAF reached a degree of strength that made a
>successful German invasion virtually impossible in any
>circumstances,
That is not the point at which Britain became undefeatable;
that is merely the point at which Great Britain could not be
invaded in the foreseeable future. Nobody knew how effective
the German submarines could be, and Britain was in grave
danger for the future if ever forced to peace terms.
>very much a joint effort (I see that in early 1941 the
>British Joint Planners predicted a 10-15 year war to defeat
>Germany if the US did not declare war!).
>
Even so, I don't know what they based the defeat of Germany
on. Unless Britain revolutionized the social structure in
India, the Brits were not going to field an army anywhere near
strong enough to defeat Germany.
Again, we see here the problem with just not being defeated:
this would have left Europe, including Britain, far worse off
than historically in 1945. The Allies needed to beat Germany
as soon as possible.
>>From what I can see, historians tend to identify as critical
>the failure of the German blitzkrieg campaign in December
>1941 to force a early end to the war and the failure of the
>German summer campaign in 1942 to put right the situation.
Those were critical failures, as seen with 20/20 hindsight.
Glantz and House point out that Kursk was something of an
experiment: it was the first time a major German offensive
was stopped without a retreat of hundreds of miles. Even
so, the Germans made impressive progress, and the loss ratio
in that attack was heavily in favor of the Germans.
>The argument, as I understand it, seems to be that, after
>the autumn of 1942, the USSR was in the strategic ascendant
>and an eventual Soviet victory was assured.
I'm not convinced. If the German war effort had been better run,
the Germans could have tried for a peace of exhaustion, such that
neither Germany nor the Soviet Union could win. The Soviets were
in pretty bad shape in 1945, one sign of which being the drafting
of 16-year-olds into the army. This is after a good many highly
successful offensives and exploitations (and some not so successful),
and the liberation of all of the prewar Soviet Union in the middle
of 1944. With less ability to exploit breakthroughs, the Red Army
would have taken more casualties, and a slower advance back West
would have meant fewer people to draft.
There was also the possibility of a diminished Soviet war effort that
would have allowed Germany to turn more force against the Western
Allies. From D-Day until the end of 1944, the West faced maybe
one-third of the German Army, and inflicted one-third of the
casualties. If we suppose that the Soviets are exhausted by then,
the Germans could certainly throw a much larger force against the
Western armies. As it was, Eisenhower and Montgomery were afraid
that they would lose the battle of the buildup in Normandy.
So, the continued supply of stuff to the Soviets played a very
important role in defeating Germany, even long after a German
victory was largely prevented.
>In other words, in the really critical period for the
>survival of the USSR, lend lease amounted to about only 15%
>of Soviet new truck deliveries and a negligible contribution
>(3%) to new aircraft and tank deliveries. I find it hard to
>imagine that a contribution on this scale could be critical
>to Soviet survival.
>
Me too. It was close-run, but not that close-run. I think the
Soviets would have remained undefeated by their own efforts up
until sometime in 1943, at least.
--
David H. Thornley | If you want my opinion, ask.
da...@thornley.net | If you don't, flee.
http://www.thornley.net/~thornley/david/ | O-
--
Ed Frank
A. Clark:
> >(I see that in early 1941 the
> >British Joint Planners predicted a 10-15 year war to defeat
> >Germany if the US did not declare war!).
D. Thornley:
> Even so, I don't know what they based the defeat of Germany
> on. Unless Britain revolutionized the social structure in
> India, the Brits were not going to field an army anywhere near
> strong enough to defeat Germany.
Uh-oh. Now you've done it! It would be interesting
to know how victory was defined by the BJP in early
1941, when not even the USSR was at war with Germany.
> With less ability to exploit
Or to create
> breakthroughs, the Red Army
> would have taken more casualties, and a slower advance back West
> would have meant fewer people to draft.
Yes, the idea that the Sovs would have eventually
won without Lend-Lease, just more slowly, has IMHO
little support. Absent the strategic mobility
and communication equipment provided by L-L, the
Red Army's task would have been nigh to impossible
in 1944-45. IMHO.
> I think the
> Soviets would have remained undefeated by their own efforts up
> until sometime in 1943, at least.
Precisely--Lend-Lease had little to do with the
-survival- of the USSR, but a lot to do with the
eventual -triumph- of the USSR, as I think Andrew
Clark wrote just now, and as others have argued
here for years.
Ed Frank
--
Louis Capdeboscq
> Precisely--Lend-Lease had little to do with the
> -survival- of the USSR, but a lot to do with the
> eventual -triumph- of the USSR, as I think Andrew
> Clark wrote just now, and as others have argued
> here for years.
The problem with that reasoning is that, given the nature of the war in
the East, one side was going to triumph and one side was going to be
annihilated. Therefore the difference between triumph and survival was
extremely thin.
As has also been noted here, even today with access to German and Soviet
archives, we can't pinpoint precisely the moment when lend-lease should
have been shut down. Suggesting that Western decision-makers, whose
information about the overall situation was far less extensive but who
were keenly aware of how vital the Eastern Front was to the Allied war
effort, engage in fine-tuning of lend-lease doesn't strike me as a very
realistic possibility.
I'll add that the Soviet economy was probably over-mobilized by 1942
(source: Harrison, forgot exactly where). While the same Harrison
speculates that without lend-lease the Soviets might simply have delayed
rebuilding their economy (which was where the bulk of lend-lease went
after 1943) the better to prosecute the war, he also shows that the
economy had gone too far toward mobilization by the time of Stalingrad
and something would have to give. Lend-lease allowed the Soviets to
remain "over-mobilized", but without it they might not have survived.
Finally, neither Hitler and least of all Stalin were willing to be duped
into getting bled white in an Eastern stand-off. Such moves by the
deeply-suspected Western Allies might simply have led to a pause in
Soviet offensives (with attendant German transfers to the West) so as to
make sure that the US/UK really pulled their weight, at least to
Stalin's satisfaction. From Hitler's point of view, it shouldn't be
forgotten that Germany - not the West - eventually decided where the
iron curtain would fall. When all is said and done, Soviet domination
over the least-populated and the least-developped part of Europe was an
acceptable price to pay for victory in WWII. And from Roosevelt's point
of view, how many more American casualties was Eastern Europe worth ?
narrl...@hotmail.com
> Ed Frank wrote:
> > Precisely--Lend-Lease had little to do with the
> > -survival- of the USSR, but a lot to do with the
> > eventual -triumph- of the USSR
> the East, one side was going to triumph and one side was going to be
> annihilated.
I disagree. There was nothing inherent in the situation
that dictated that only these two extremes were possible.
If the USSR had been weaker, or the Germans stronger
(two sides of the same coin, of course) there might have
been some intermediate settlement. The fall of Berlin
and the Soviet occupation of the eastern regions of
Germany were contingent events, not foreordained IMO.
I don't know what form another settlement would take,
and I doubt whether any long-term peace was possible,
but willpower and thirst for vengeance/justice alone
can not substitute for raw military power.
>Therefore the difference between triumph and survival was
> extremely thin.
Perhaps.
> As has also been noted here, even today with access to German and Soviet
> archives, we can't pinpoint precisely the moment when lend-lease should
> have been shut down.
I'm snipping the rest of your learned, informative,
and interesting comments, partly because I don't have
time to match them line for line, but more importantly
because they aren't relevant to my argument. I have
never held that fine-tuning of L-L to ensure that
the USSR only won by "this much" rather than "that
much" was a realistic option (although the counter-
factual speculation can help us analyze the situation
in some measure). You will not find any posts from
me complaining about the betrayal of Yalta on this
forum or any other.
Others, who -have- argued that the Western Allies (in
particular the US) unnecessarily gave away too much, can
weigh in as suits them.
Ed Frank
--
David Thornley
Louis Capdeboscq <loui...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>The problem with that reasoning is that, given the nature of the war in
>the East, one side was going to triumph and one side was going to be
>annihilated. Therefore the difference between triumph and survival was
>extremely thin.
>
It was entirely possible for a situation to arise such that Germany
still occupied large amounts of the pre-war Soviet Union, with the
Red Army effectively unable to dislodge them. The idea of victory
or annihilation is incompatible with the idea that both sides
could be incapable of a successful large-scale attack.
Suppose the Soviets had suffered greater losses in their 1943
offensives, and had effectively lost their ability to attack.
This doesn't strike me as impossible. Then, the front automatically
quiets down to some extent, and this is bad for the Western Allies.
If you're saying that Eurasia wasn't big enough for the both of them,
that is possible, but I'm not convinced of that.
>Finally, neither Hitler and least of all Stalin were willing to be duped
>into getting bled white in an Eastern stand-off. Such moves by the
>deeply-suspected Western Allies might simply have led to a pause in
>Soviet offensives (with attendant German transfers to the West) so as to
>make sure that the US/UK really pulled their weight, at least to
>Stalin's satisfaction.
Right. In other words, a de facto standoff could occur in the East,
and possibly some sort of negotiated armistice. It wouldn't have
to be a lasting peace to be devastating to the Western Allied
war effort.
Louis Capdeboscq
> Louis Capdeboscq wrote
>>The problem with that reasoning is that, given the nature of the war in
>>the East, one side was going to triumph and one side was going to be
>>annihilated.
>
> I disagree. There was nothing inherent in the situation
> that dictated that only these two extremes were possible.
> If the USSR had been weaker, or the Germans stronger
> (two sides of the same coin, of course) there might have
> been some intermediate settlement.
At what point ? Hitler certainly had no intention of letting the Soviets
off the hook. We know that whenever it seemed to him as if the Germans
were going to win (i.e. during Barbarossa, then Fall Blau, and on to
1943 my memory of the latter being from the transcripts of Hitler's
conferences which were published a while ago) he ranted at length about
what postwar treatment of the Soviet Union would look like - and it
wasn't "intermediate", as Hitler wasn't fond of half-measures as you know.
Stalin was more interested in an intermediate peace - which is in fact
what he got, from his point of view - as he had another potential
opponent in the shape of the West. Even then, his negociating position
wasn't exactly acceptable to Hitler. One of his best-known (and most
debated !) offers, prior to Kursk, had the Germans moving back to the
prewar borders after all.
Given the dynamics at work, particularly but not solely on Hitler's
side, I simply don't see how an intermediate peace could happen. Germany
wasn't going to settle for less than full victory until it was too late.
> The fall of Berlin
> and the Soviet occupation of the eastern regions of
> Germany were contingent events, not foreordained IMO.
It depends on what you call contingent of course. I agree that they were
not foreordained as it took various people's input to shape the outcome
of that particular war. In particular, absent lend-lease, there's a
chance that the Soviets would have lost.
In other words, from the Western Allies' point of view the choice was
between no lend-lease and letting Hitler conquer most of European
Russia, or lend-lease and letting Hitler decide where the iron curtain
would fall - in that case, not unpredictably, he let it fall roughly in
the middle.
> I have
> never held that fine-tuning of L-L to ensure that
> the USSR only won by "this much" rather than "that
> much" was a realistic option (although the counter-
> factual speculation can help us analyze the situation
> in some measure).
You referred to what "Andrew Clark wrote just now, and as others have
argued here for years."
What Andrew wrote in his post dated 07/16 was (heavy editing out of
details) "I suppose the question is when did the USSR turn the corner
(...)? Supplies prior to that date were critical to
Soviet survival, whereas supplies after that date were not
critical to Soviet survival, although they may have been
*critical to victory over Germany in the historical
scenario*. (...) The argument, as I understand it, seems to be that,
after the autumn of 1942, the USSR was in the strategic ascendant
and an eventual Soviet victory was assured. (...) In other words, in the
really critical period for the survival of the USSR, lend lease amounted
to about only 15% of Soviet new truck deliveries and a negligible
contribution (3%) to new aircraft and tank deliveries. I find it hard to
imagine that a contribution on this scale could be critical to Soviet
survival."
As far as I can tell this means that 1/ lend lease prior to the end of
1942 could contribute to the survival of the USSR, while lend-lease
after this date only contributed to the Soviet victory (i.e. complete
with occupation of Berlin and Eastern Europe), and 2/ that lend-lease
wasn't even necessary to the Soviet survival as it was too little early
on. In other words lend-lease didn't guarantee Soviet survival as it
turned out, but it only helped the Soviets overrun Eastern Europe.
Emphasis being on the "as far as I can tell" here.
Prior to that I remember a discussion with Andrew precisely on the issue
of "fine-tuning" lend-lease. All of this to explain while I may perhaps
inadvertently have lumped you with the "fine-tuning lend-lease" crowd
(though not with the "Yalta was a disgrace" one !).
To go back to what you wrote, namely " Precisely--Lend-Lease had little
to do with the -survival- of the USSR, but a lot to do with the eventual
-triumph- of the USSR", I understand how it could theoretically be
thought that fine-tuning lend-lease would have assured Soviet survival
while preventing the historical triumph but this ignores the fact that
ultimately Hitler, not Stalin and certainly not Roosevelt, decided where
the iron curtain would fall.
Louis
Louis Capdeboscq
> Now, if my interpretation of your figures is correct, 480
> tanks (11%), 2,650 aircraft (18%), and 84,300 other vehicles
> (20%) (including 37000 trucks) were delivered before the end
> of 1942.
That is in fact 3,180 tanks, and these are US deliveries alone.
For instance, these figures only list 7,000 tanks shipped to the Soviet
Union, and don't count another 5,000 or so shipped by the Commonwealth.
I assume, but this is pure guesswork, that the Commonwealth deliveries
were less bottom-loaded than the US ones, so perhaps more than 50% of
the tanks were shipped before the end of 1942.
> My understanding is that the delivery of these
> items was weighted toward the end of 1942 rather than the
> beginning, but I do not have access to month-by-month
> figures. However, it is probably safe to reduce the 1942
> totals by 65% to take account of this fact, giving very
> approximately 315 tanks, 1275 aircraft and 40,850 vehicles
> including about 17,500 trucks delivered to June 1942.
That would me more like 2,000 tanks, with probably another 2,000 from
the Commonwealth, so that's 4,000 lend-lease vehicles against a domestic
production of 10,000 or so, including a significant proportion of light
tanks.
Rich
news:<bf41j2$23l4$1...@nntp6.u.washington.edu>...
> Now, if my interpretation of your figures is correct, 480
> tanks (11%), 2,650 aircraft (18%), and 84,300 other vehicles
> (20%) (including 37000 trucks) were delivered before the end
> of 1942. My understanding is that the delivery of these
> items was weighted toward the end of 1942 rather than the
> beginning, but I do not have access to month-by-month
> figures. However, it is probably safe to reduce the 1942
> totals by 65% to take account of this fact, giving very
> approximately 315 tanks, 1275 aircraft and 40,850 vehicles
> including about 17,500 trucks delivered to June 1942.
Andrew I am simply amazed that you were able to scramble my figures so
badly. To repeat - US Lend-Lease delivery of tanks in the year 1941
(all probably in December) totaled 180. A total of 3,180 tanks were
shipped 1941-1942. That was 45 percent of the total shipped 1941-1945.
So, first 13 months = 45 percent of total, last 30 months = 55 percent
of total. Put another way, it was about 3.5 percent of the total per
month through the end of 1942 and 1.8 percent per month therafter.
Your "65%" assumption is precisely that, an assumption, nothing more
and nothing less. If I was in an uncharitable mood I could
characterize it as a WAG. :)
BTW (and with thanks to Geoffrey Sinclair for the quotes), the actual
figures as quoted in the Oxford Companion to World War II (sourcing
Harrison), for tank and SPG supply are
"period beginning 1 June 1941, 4,090 domestic, 0 foreign
beginning 1 December 1941, 7,767 domestic, 1,678 foreign,
beginning 1 May 1942, 12,960 domestic, 2,904 foreign
beginning 1 November 1942 15,708 domestic, 2,413 foreign.
The next period starts 1 July 1943"
And as I replied to Geoffrey:
"Yes, in total quantity the numbers were not that significant. But
considering that T-70 production continued as about one-third to
one-quarter of Soviet tank production into 1943, then the early
arrival of Matildas, Valentines, Churchills (the equipment of the
Guards Heavy Tank Regiments in the Guards Tank and Mechanized Corps at
Kursk), and Grants was significant."
> Actually, as far as I can judge from Mark Harrison's books,
Actually Soviet artillery production far outstripped their capability
to produce ammunition. I recommend you try to find a copy of Arthur
Volz's articles on Soviet and German artillery and ammunition
production. They are in Volume 10, 11 and12 of the Soviet Armed Forces
Review Annual (1986-1988).
> I'm not aware that a million tons of foodstuffs was shipped
> by 1 April 1943. What's your source, and can you break this
> total down? Does it include raw materials like grain?
The source are the periodic Lend-Lease reports as mandated in the act
of Congress. I can give you the full citations if you need.
> Wasn't Kursk in 1943, not 1942?
Oops! But the fact that something on the order of 18 to 20 percent (I
calculated it once and can't find my figures - and am being somewhat
lazy) of the Soviet tank force at Kursk were Lend-Lease, and that
about one-third of the Soviet tanks there were nearly useless T-60 and
T-70 types, remains.
Louis Capdeboscq
> Louis Capdeboscq wrote:
>
>>The problem with that reasoning is that, given the nature of the war in
>>the East, one side was going to triumph and one side was going to be
>>annihilated. Therefore the difference between triumph and survival was
>>extremely thin.
>
> I don't see that as obvious.
Absent lend-lease, it's unlikely that the Soviets can really hurt the
Wehrmacht. In that case, Hitler will most likely keep pushing - as he did.
If Hitler no longer keeps going for the kill, it means he's decisively
weakened (that is when he historically stopped going for a victory) so a
Soviet "triumph" (the original wording) will be in the making.
> It was entirely possible for a situation to arise such that Germany
> still occupied large amounts of the pre-war Soviet Union, with the
> Red Army effectively unable to dislodge them.
Theoretically, yes. On the other hand, the Soviet Union was very close
to the breaking point in late 1942. The more the Germans push, the
lesser the Soviet ability to resist absent lend-lease (you can't grow
enough food and provide enough raw materials in Siberia).
> Suppose the Soviets had suffered greater losses in their 1943
> offensives, and had effectively lost their ability to attack.
They don't lose their ability to attack. They lose their ability to
attack against the historical German defense (1) and with the historical
methods used (2). In such a case, and assuming that Hitler doesn't step
in with plans for a final offensive to finish off the Bear once and for
all, the front will settle down until either (1) goes away, e.g. the
Germans transfer more and more forces to the West, and/or (2) changes,
e.g. the Soviets develop an even less manpower-intensive and more
firepower-intensive method of attack - something toward which they were
already transitioning in any case, as attested by the very different
tactics used in 1941 and 1945.
> This doesn't strike me as impossible. Then, the front automatically
> quiets down to some extent, and this is bad for the Western Allies.
Sure. So two things can happen:
1. The Allies grind down the extra German troops arrayed against them
(at the cost of a longer and more costly war), in which case the Eastern
Front is drained of reinforcements which means the Soviets can now have
a go at it,
2. German defeats the Allies (i.e. arranges a diplomatic settlement), in
which case it is now free to turn against the Soviet Union.
I consider #1 to be by far the most likely. In that scenario, the
Soviets still end up with Eastern Europe. Ultimately, Hitler and not the
Allies was the one who decided where the iron curtain would fall.
> If you're saying that Eurasia wasn't big enough for the both of them,
> that is possible, but I'm not convinced of that.
No, I'm saying that given the dynamic of Barbarossa, I don't see a
negociated settlement between the two. Perhaps a temporary truce, but it
would be broken at the first opportunity.
> Right. In other words, a de facto standoff could occur in the East,
> and possibly some sort of negotiated armistice. It wouldn't have
> to be a lasting peace to be devastating to the Western Allied
> war effort.
Indeed.
From the Allied point of view, the Eastern Front is at best an "on/off"
proposition. They can choose between a victory with or without the
Soviet Union, but there's no scenario that I can think of where the
Soviets are still around and Germany loses but Eastern Europe isn't
under Stalin's control.
Rich
> And as I replied to Geoffrey:
> "Yes, in total quantity the numbers were not that significant. But
> considering that T-70 production continued as about one-third to
> one-quarter of Soviet tank production into 1943, then the early
> arrival of Matildas, Valentines, Churchills (the equipment of the
> Guards Heavy Tank Regiments in the Guards Tank and Mechanized Corps at
> Kursk), and Grants was significant."
>
Oops, my bad! I finally went back and recalculated the Soviet tank
park at Kursk. For the forces deployed and committed to the southern
front between 5 and 18 July they totaled the following (operational/in
repair - when known):
Churchill 89/7
Matilda and Valentine 47/2
Grant and Stuart 133/0
KV-1 and 2 35/0
T-34 1,548/63
T-60 and 70 633/35
SU-122 48/0
SU-152 22/1
So the Lend-Lease types made up 10.4 percent of the total and 13.4
percent of the total minus the less capable T-60 and T-70, which in
turn made up a whopping 25.4 percent of the total and 28.3 percent of
the total of Soviet types.
Also, in looking at Harrison's figures it is interesting to note that
although LL only made up 14.6 percent of the total Soviet tanks
through 1 July 1943, they were 17.8 percent of the deliveries for 1
Dec 41 to 30 April 42 and 18.3 percent of the total for 1 May to 31
Oct 42, critical periods in the Soviet war effort.
Another search has revealed the claim - so far unsubstantiated - that
between 41 and 45 about 70 percent of the aircraft issued to the PVO
were British and US LL types.
--
Andrew Clark
"David Thornley" <thor...@visi.com> wrote
> However, at the time this was relevant, Germany
> occupied Norway, Denmark, France, Belgium,
> the Netherlands, and several other countries that
> Britain and the US didn't care about as much.
> Moreover, the war effort was straining the Western
> national economies (the British more and earlier
> than the US), and so defeating Hitler as soon as
> possible was considered a Good Thing.
Of course. But most of the reason for the strain on the BCE
economy, and the UK economy in particular, was self-induced
rather than imposed by fighting Germany. Politically, the
British wished to play as equal as possible a role in WW2
alongside the US, and after 1943 the effort of this
self-imposed role stretched BCE resources to the limit. As
it was, in early 1944 decisions were taken to ameliorate the
strain by relaxing the competition, for example by starting
to convert production and labour back to civilian uses and
accepting the inevitability of a very limited role in the
final campaign against Japan.
To argue that it was necessary to maximise supplies to the
USSR in order to finish the war before the UK economy broke
under the strain is not valid. It would have been possible
for the British to sustain a longer war simply by scaling
back the military commitment and letting the US bear more
responsibility (and have even more influence in strategic
decision-making too, of course).
> That is not the point at which Britain became
> undefeatable; that is merely the point at which
> Great Britain could not be invaded in the
> foreseeable future. Nobody knew how effective
> the German submarines could be, and Britain
> was in grave danger for the future if ever forced
> to peace terms.
Despite Churchill's gloomy remarks, we now know that the
U-boat never came close to imposing anything approaching
catastrophic conditions in the UK. Again, had the shipping
and import situation worsened beyond historical levels, the
British would have reacted to it, with more resources put
into ASW in the air and at sea. This would have contained
the threat again. The bottom line is that Germany could not
beat the USSR and simultaneously beat the British at sea and
in the air - even Hitler saw this as true, which is why
after the failure of 1940 he wanted to quickly defeat the
USSR in 1941 before turning back to the main enemy -
Britain - for a long campaign of attrition from 1942
onwards. The entry into the war of the US made it possible
for the whole thing to happen much faster.
> Even so, I don't know what they based the
> defeat of Germany on. Unless Britain
> revolutionized the social structure in
> India, the Brits were not going to field
> an army anywhere near
> strong enough to defeat Germany.
I haven't looked into the matter in any depth, but AFAIK the
general strategy as seen in 1940 was fairly tried and tested
in previous wars, particularly the Napoleonic! It was
firstly to clear the Med & defeat the Italians while
securing the Atlantic. Then a European coalition against
Germany backed by US industrial production would be slowly
assembled, while bombing Germany with a 6000 bomber
strategic air force. The latter in particular might not have
been achievable, but a front line strength of 3000 bombers
ought to have been achievable.
Manpower for the initial ground campaign come from the
Empire and
such allies as Turkey, Spain, Portugal, post-defeat Italy,
Yugoslavia etc. Peripheral theatres would be picked off one
by one - Norway, the Balkans for example, degrading German
assets all the time, until France could be invaded in stages
leading to a slow advance in phases to the low countries and
the borders of Germany. Then the reconstituted French army,
with the BCE and other Allies, would deal the final blow. In
reality, of course, the British A-bomb would come along in
1945-46 and settle the matter quite quickly.
> Again, we see here the problem with just not
> being defeated: this would have left Europe,
> including Britain, far worse off than historically
> in 1945. The Allies needed to beat Germany
> as soon as possible.
I disagree. Fighting a long war at three-quarters throttle
as the premier European power backed by US industry was
probably less damaging to British interests than fighting a
short war at 150% throttle as a junior partner of the US.
(snips)
> I'm not convinced. If the German war effort had been
> better run, the Germans could have tried for a peace
> of exhaustion, such that neither Germany nor the Soviet
> Union could win.
An exhausted Germany was to British and US advantage,
surely?
> The Soviets were in pretty bad shape in 1945, one sign of
> which being the drafting of 16-year-olds into the army.
> This is after a good many highly successful offensives
> and exploitations (and some not so successful),
> and the liberation of all of the prewar Soviet Union in
> the middle of 1944.
Again, Stalin was fighting a deliberately high-intensity
short war with the aim not only of defeating Germany (that
was not really in doubt after 1943) but also securing an
empire in eastern Europe with US connivance. Look at the
massive and unnecessary casualties taken after the crossing
of the Elbe to grab eastern Germany, for example. A longer
and less intense war in the East would still defeat Germany,
but Stalin ran the risk of finding a Franco-British army (if
not US also) waiting for him on the Elbe.
> With less ability to exploit breakthroughs, the
> Red Army would have taken more casualties,
> and a slower advance back West
> would have meant fewer people to draft.
Again, this is a matter of balance. Demographically, the
USSR and BCE/France would always beat the smaller Germany in
a long campaign, albeit more bloodily.
> There was also the possibility of a diminished Soviet
> war effort that would have allowed Germany to turn
> more force against the Western
> Allies.
There are a few relevant points here.
Firstly, the Allies *did* achieve a landing in France
despite facing a numerically superior garrison. Deception
and surprise and powerful force-multipliers - when they
work. So is tactical airpower.
Secondly, the Allied tactic of using secondary theatres to
draw off German reserves from France historically worked
brilliantly - Italy, Norway, the Balkans all tied up large
German forces with a relatively small Allied commitment
(yes, historically the campaign in N Italy was not
cost-effective in itself, but was nevertheless strategically
sound in terms of Normandy). Such a dispersion strategy
could have been taken several steps further by making actual
raids-in-force in the Balkans and Norway and, particularly,
taking steps to create a military resistance movement in
France and the west, rather than an intelligence and
sabotage movement.
Thirdly, a greater focus on strategic bombing would enable
an even greater degree of attrition of German resources and
an even greater degree of isolation of the battlefield.
All this would help to reduce the impact of potentially
larger German garrison in France. And of course while Allied
divisions in 1944 might have not shone in their offensive
role, their defensive capability was extraordinarily
resilient. Once established in Normandy, an Allied army
would be very hard to remove, and the Allies might fight
with advantage a battle of attrition, just as they did on a
smaller scale before Caen.
> From D-Day until the end of 1944, the West faced
> maybe one-third of the German Army, and inflicted
> one-third of the casualties. If we suppose that
> the Soviets are exhausted by then,
> the Germans could certainly throw
> a much larger force against the Western armies.
Lots of ifs here.
Firstly, in 1944, a very substantial force of first-class
mobile assault divisions *were* withdrawn from the East to
reinforce the West (notwithstanding that they see-sawed
about between the two quite a lot..). How many more of these
first-class mobile assault divisions do you think could have
been made available in the West? The Wehrmacht had masses of
infantry divisions of various grades in the East, but to
combat the mechanised, armour-heavy divisions of the Western
armies, the top-grade assault divisions were needed.
Secondly, the USSR's armed forces were historically growing
stronger relative to Germany as soon as 1942 - without yet
having received the bulk of lend lease supplies. I can see
that with a lower level of lend lease the Red Army might be
unable to make a great deal of headway in 1943 and 1944, but
it seems highly unlikely that the weakening Wehrmacht,
however brilliantly led, could drive the resurgent Red Army
to exhaustion in this timeframe. And as long as the Red Army
is strong in the East, large numbers of troops cannot be
withdrawn without accepting a corresponding loss of
position. Of course, a general withdrawal to a defensive
line far behind the then front would liberate large numbers
of troops, but only for six months or so. But can you see
Hitler ever agreeing to this?
> As it was, Eisenhower and Montgomery were
> afraid that they would lose the battle of the
> buildup in Normandy.
Of course. They were confident of securing the beaches, and
of being able to defeat anything the Wehrmacht could do once
firmly established ashore. The vulnerable period was the
period of arrival and consolidation.
This is in fact a operational issue rather than a strategic
one, and I'd suggest two main limiting factors on the
utility of larger reserves in the West.
The first is dispersal. The Germans had to disperse their
forces along 600 miles of vulnerable coastline and however
many troops were withdrawn from the East, the Allies had the
power to concentrate a decisive force at any point along
that line and also to make several landings simultaneously.
Thus, unless one is a gambler like Rommel, the coast has to
be thinly defended and the majority of forces held back as
an operational reserve to repel the landing or landings.
Ergo, the Allies had the power, through deception, surprise,
sabotage and air power to restrict the movement of those
reserves. And of course German forces in 1944 were
critically limited in their power to manoeuvre anyway, due
to lack of vehicles, fuel and tyres.
Secondly, logistics and their vulnerability. In late 1944, a
highly mechanised and exceptionally well supplied Allied
Army with air superiority nevertheless found it impossible
to project force deep into enemy held territory due to
ruined LOC stretching a long way from its base depots on the
coast. Given that the Allies had the power to ruin German
LOC in the West on a gigantic scale, how then is a
vehicle-short German army without any real air cover
supposed to project force deep into France over ruined LOC
stretching a long way from *its* base depots in Germany?
What happened in Normandy was that panzer divisions were
destroyed not by assault but by shortage of fuel and
abandonment of vehicles. (Look at Lehr before Cobra, for
example). The actual utility of another Pz corp. or even Pz
Armee in France is severely limited if the Allied TAFs are
blowing the POL trucks off the roads.
> So, the continued supply of stuff to the Soviets played a
> very important role in defeating Germany, even long after
a
> German victory was largely prevented.
I'm not altogether convinced, as explained above.
(snip)
--
Geoffrey Sinclair
>David Thornley wrote:
>> Louis Capdeboscq wrote:
>>
>>>The problem with that reasoning is that, given the nature of the war in
>>>the East, one side was going to triumph and one side was going to be
>>>annihilated. Therefore the difference between triumph and survival was
>>>extremely thin.
>>
>> I don't see that as obvious.
>
>Absent lend-lease, it's unlikely that the Soviets can really hurt the
>Wehrmacht. In that case, Hitler will most likely keep pushing - as he did.
I presume you mean hurt the Germans in 1942 or later. The effective
strength of the army in the east had started at around 3,300,000 at
Barbarossa and had declined steadily to 2,700,000 by July 1942,
It was built back up to 2,900,000 in October, declined to 2,700,000
by April 1943 and then built back up to 3,138,000 for Citadel. This
excludes axis allied troops.
>If Hitler no longer keeps going for the kill, it means he's decisively
>weakened (that is when he historically stopped going for a victory) so a
>Soviet "triumph" (the original wording) will be in the making.
Well in the middle of 1942 in order to attack on around half the
front Hitler had to bring forward the German and Romanian army
previously in the Crimea, and add a Hungarian, an Italian and a
second Romanian army. This speaks a great deal of how badly
hurt the Heer had been in 1941/42. Both sides had done great
damage to each other, now came the recovery phase in both
equipment, tactics and strategy.
There is also the objectives of the 1942 offensive, those oilfields
were a long way away but otherwise there was not a great deal
of the Soviet economy being threatened. The offensive seems to
be more justified in forcing the Red Army to fight in the hope its
command would remain poor and therefore take large losses.
This did not happen.
Almost like 1942 was the year neither side could really knock out
the other without help, building for 1943. It is notable by the way
around half the front was quiet for most of the year.
In the opening attacks the Nazis had captured around 1/3 the
population of the USSR, and often more than 1/3 of significant
sectors of the economy. In one sense the loss of population
helped survival, the USSR only had to find 2/3 of the food for
example, as well as the other resources needed by the people
and their work places, but while it helped survival it did not help
the combat power needed to expel the Germans.
The Germans were also having their problems, they had cut back
on inadequate army production and had suffered significant losses.
To cover the losses they needed more allies and/or more and/or
better equipment. Manufacture of equipment and training the troops
would take time. As an illustration,
I looked at Jentz, as of mid 1942 his figures show 16.6% of the
panzers in the east were panzer II, 14% were 38t, and I am not
sure they were better than a T-70, another 27.2% were the 50
mm short barrelled III. Even as late as November 1942 the II,
38t and short III made up 39.8% of the German tank park, were
they all that better than the T-70? The long 75 mm IV and VI
made up 13.9%.
Kursk is the big shift, II, 38t and short III down to 10% of the park,
long IV, V and VI up to 48.7%
I see the Soviets having two potential crisis years, 1942 when the
pre war stockpiles are exhausted and they need to bring the
economy more into balance and 1943 when the German economy
can finally field large numbers of improved weapons. It would be
obvious in 1942 that the German economy was in the better
position to grow.
>> It was entirely possible for a situation to arise such that Germany
>> still occupied large amounts of the pre-war Soviet Union, with the
>> Red Army effectively unable to dislodge them.
>
>Theoretically, yes. On the other hand, the Soviet Union was very close
>to the breaking point in late 1942. The more the Germans push, the
>lesser the Soviet ability to resist absent lend-lease (you can't grow
>enough food and provide enough raw materials in Siberia).
The USSR was a wheat exporter pre war, not a huge amount but it
was exporting. As to the idea the USSR was close to breaking point
what was the missing resource that would force the USSR into
armistice or surrender? Stalin had survived the famines of the 1930s.
Given the Germans kept fighting until nearly completely occupied I think
you need to assume the same for the USSR, given the similarities in the
systems of Government.
Oxford companion to World War II,
USSR coal production, million tons, 1940 165.9, 1941 151.4, 1942 75.5,
1943 93.1, 1944 121.5, 1945 149.3,
USSR Steel production, million tons, 1940 18.3, 1941 17.9, 1942 8.1,
1943 8.5, 1944 10.9, 1945 12.4.
Sources are the History of the Second World War (12 volumes),
published in Moscow 1973 to 1982.
The following are industry indexes published by the USSR histories
in the 1960s, so I would be cautious about them, though the Oxford
chooses to use them,
Table is year, net material product, gross industrial production, arms
production, light industry, gross agricultural output, turnover of state
owned retail net, with 1940 taken to be 100
1941 / 92 / 98 / 140 / 88 / 62 / 84
1942 / 66 / 77 / 186 / 48 / 38 / 34
1943 / 74 / 90 / 224 / 54 / 37 / 32
1944 / 88 / 104 / 251 / 64 / 54 / 37
1945 / 83 / 92 / 173 / 62 / 60 / 42
So agriculture was down to less than 40% of pre war in 1942 and
1943. Even if you lost 25% of the population that still halves the
food per person available. The early shipments of food must have
been important, the US had shipped over 1,000,000 tons by the
end of June 1943. The Oxford claims in 1942 the population of
the "new" USSR was 130 million, down from 194.1 million, almost
exactly 2/3 the pre war figure. It would seem like the collective
farms were hard hit by withdrawals of manpower and equipment,
but it also seems like the farm workers could grow and sell food
from their own plots. I know the collective farms were very inefficient
when the party ran them according to ideology, it looks like the rules
were relaxed during the war. The hidden bonus of efficiency
improvements. Dependants rations, 780 calories, employees
1,074 to 1176 calories, heavy workers 3,181 to 4,418 calories were
the official rations.
In theory the 1941 production would be consuming stockpiles, given
the months of stocks in the standard system and you would really
see the lack of production in 1942 as the stockpiles exhausted
because key raw materials were not being produced in the same
quantities.
It should be noted air forces and navies are more resource intensive
than armies, as an example, A British armoured division required
1,000 British gallons per mile, so a 25 mile movement is 25,000
gallons. You could put 2,154 gallons into a Lancaster, so 25 miles
on the ground is the same as launching 12 Lancasters. A 1,000
Lancaster raid uses say 2,000,000 gallons or 2,000 armoured
division miles, say 50 miles for 40 armoured divisions.
So it is not surprising the Red Navy played a very limited part in
the war and the Red Air Force was not a major factor until mid 1943.
From the 6 volume set
Germany and the Second World War / edited by the Militargeschichtliches
Forschungsamt (Research Institute for Military History).
When it comes to explosive consumption the Heer used 5 to 10,000
tons a month July 1941 to June 1942, maybe around 90,000 tons
in total.
For powder consumption the Heer used maybe 50,000 tons in the
same time period.
US lend lease total arrivals were 139,186 tons of TNT and 46,153
tons of dynamite,129,667 tons smokeless powder, 2,210 tons stick
powder, 55 tons of other powder and 1,027 tons of cordite powder
over the course of the war.
All up the US supplied around the equivalent of the Heer's use of
explosives from June 1941 to February/March 1943, and until around
May/June 1943 for powder use.
So although the tonnages look low, and they were inevitably end
loaded, when you look at consumption the US is supplying a large
amount of the chemicals needed by the USSR. Chemicals and
explosives shipments from the US to the USSR to 30 June 1942
come to 60,733 tons arrived. Not all of that would be explosives
but it is not too bad when compared to the Heer's use of 90,000
tons of explosives for the same time period.
The Luftwaffe use of explosives July 1941 to June 1942 around
132,000 tons, of which maybe 2/3 to 4/5 would be in the east.
Sort of confirmation how the army was the lowest consumer of
resources per man.
The Soviets had to fight a low tech war, fortunately for them so
did much the German Army in 1942.
In assessing the role of the aid there are two things, aid to keep
the army going and aid to keep the economy going, this includes
supplying items the USSR could only supply from domestic
production at disproportionate cost, say opening new mines, or
needed in small but important amounts.
So we have the "stitch in time", or opportunity costs sort of
approach. Which increases the effect of the supplies but
by how much? Given the Germans could not push hard in
1942 due to their own problems.
Could Lend Lease have been the difference in 1943, not
1942, when a fired up German economy could deliver the
equipment and ammunition to the east to overwhelm an
unsupported Red Army? Look at the rise in German tank
quality in 1943, or was it all too late because the west was
coming and the USSR would have fought on even losing
Moscow? Did the threat of the west force Hitler to try a major
attack in 1942 instead of a series of limited offensives
designed to set the scene for 1943? Or did something like
the lack of axis fuel production mean the German economy
could not create and supply the military needed to defeat the
USSR even in 1942/43, given Stalin had learnt to be more
careful and the west was forcing more and more military power
away from the east?
Who can answer these questions?
As far as I can tell the one item that could be considered vital
would be the explosives and propellants supply, given the
amounts the USSR probably used. Everything else seems to
be in the useful category, but could be overwhelmed by things
like Stalin's behaviour at Kursk in early 1942 or Hitler's at
Stalingrad in late 1942.
A million tons of food divided by 130 million people is around 16.5
pounds of food each, was the USSR that close to famine that
around a week's food made a vital difference in the first two years
of the war?
> From the Allied point of view, the Eastern Front is at best an "on/off"
>proposition. They can choose between a victory with or without the
>Soviet Union, but there's no scenario that I can think of where the
>Soviets are still around and Germany loses but Eastern Europe isn't
>under Stalin's control.
Agreed.
Rich Rostrom
>A million tons of food divided by 130 million people is around 16.5
>pounds of food each, was the USSR that close to famine that
>around a week's food made a vital difference in the first two years
>of the war?
Remember Micawber's principle:
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six,
result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure
twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.
When it's the difference between life and death for even a small
part of the population, it could mean the difference between
order maintained and panic.
Also, this food was a reliable supply under the regime's control.
It insured that the regime would be able to feed its loyalists,
its enforcers, and other critical personnel. One million tonnes
is a year's food for about 5 million people.
Yes, the Soviet regime survived the Terror Famine, but the Terror
Famine was imposed by them on selected targets, there was never
any _general_ fear of starvation. Also, in the areas where the
Terror Famine was most severe, there was substantial breakdown
of the social order.
--
Never consume legumes before transacting whatsoever | Rich Rostrom
even in the outermost courtyard of a descendant of |
Timur the Terrible. | rrostrom@dummy
--- Avram Davidson, _Dr. Bhumbo Singh_ | 21stcentury.net
--
David Thornley
Louis Capdeboscq <loui...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>David Thornley wrote:
>> Louis Capdeboscq wrote:
>>
>>>The problem with that reasoning is that, given the nature of the war in
>>>the East, one side was going to triumph and one side was going to be
>>>annihilated. Therefore the difference between triumph and survival was
>>>extremely thin.
>>
>> I don't see that as obvious.
>
>Absent lend-lease, it's unlikely that the Soviets can really hurt the
>Wehrmacht. In that case, Hitler will most likely keep pushing - as he did.
>
tempo of war had picked up tremendously since the last wars of
annihilation, one of the two was going to win before too many years
had gone past.
However, that's not necessarily going to help in the 1940s.
>> This doesn't strike me as impossible. Then, the front automatically
>> quiets down to some extent, and this is bad for the Western Allies.
>
>Sure. So two things can happen:
>
>1. The Allies grind down the extra German troops arrayed against them
>(at the cost of a longer and more costly war), in which case the Eastern
>Front is drained of reinforcements which means the Soviets can now have
>a go at it,
This is, as you say, the more likely. In this case, what we've got
is more Western Allied casualties, more overall destruction of Europe,
and in general more bad stuff, and as you point out this really
doesn't change where the Iron Curtain winds up.
>2. German defeats the Allies (i.e. arranges a diplomatic settlement), in
>which case it is now free to turn against the Soviet Union.
>
We still have to consider Hitler's determination to be victorious,
and I don't think he's going to settle for returning France and the
Low Countries in exchange for peace. Similarly, the Allies would
not have considered negotiating a peace with Germany still in France
unless Germany could cause great harm off the Continent, which
seems unlikely.
So, I'd consider Hitler's death to be a prerequisite for this.
His successors might be more willing to negotiate.
>> If you're saying that Eurasia wasn't big enough for the both of them,
>> that is possible, but I'm not convinced of that.
>
>No, I'm saying that given the dynamic of Barbarossa, I don't see a
>negociated settlement between the two. Perhaps a temporary truce, but it
>would be broken at the first opportunity.
>
So, it depends on when that opportunity arises. If the Soviets are
just too weak, and can't afford to attract another major German effort,
and the Germans are busy elsewhere, it could last a while. This isn't
any too stable, though.
> From the Allied point of view, the Eastern Front is at best an "on/off"
>proposition. They can choose between a victory with or without the
>Soviet Union, but there's no scenario that I can think of where the
>Soviets are still around and Germany loses but Eastern Europe isn't
>under Stalin's control.
>
>
Agreed, except that I don't think the Allies could reliably choose
a victory without the Soviet Union before maybe August 1944.
--
David H. Thornley | If you want my opinion, ask.
da...@thornley.net | If you don't, flee.
http://www.thornley.net/~thornley/david/ | O-
--
David Thornley
Andrew Clark <acl...@starcottDELETETHISBIT.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
>"David Thornley" <thor...@visi.com> wrote
>
>> However, at the time this was relevant, Germany
>> occupied Norway, Denmark, France, Belgium,
>> the Netherlands, and several other countries that
>> Britain and the US didn't care about as much.
>
>economy, and the UK economy in particular, was self-induced
>rather than imposed by fighting Germany. Politically, the
>British wished to play as equal as possible a role in WW2
>alongside the US, and after 1943 the effort of this
>self-imposed role stretched BCE resources to the limit.
Right. However, this effort was probably insufficient to
defeat Germany. Churchill not only desired to play an equal
role as long as he could, but to get the US firmly committed.
With less British effort, that might have been harder.
As
>it was, in early 1944 decisions were taken to ameliorate the
>strain by relaxing the competition, for example by starting
>to convert production and labour back to civilian uses and
>accepting the inevitability of a very limited role in the
>final campaign against Japan.
>
So, what we need to consider here is the balance. There is
a normal peacetime economy on one side, and a total war
economy on the other. How much military force could Britain
exert with a sustainable economy?
>To argue that it was necessary to maximise supplies to the
>USSR in order to finish the war before the UK economy broke
>under the strain is not valid. It would have been possible
>for the British to sustain a longer war simply by scaling
>back the military commitment and letting the US bear more
>responsibility (and have even more influence in strategic
>decision-making too, of course).
>
While this is true, the fact is that the US economy was under
strain as well. You are proposing that the US effort be increased
over a long period of time, and I don't know that this is
going to work to defeat Germany. If it does, it will be after
the defeat of Japan, and that could not be easily sped up no
matter what the US did. That defeat was a matter of building
enough aircraft carriers to carry out the Central Pacific
offensive, and given the rapid US shipbuilding it is hard to
see how that could be sped up.
This leaves Hitler running things in Europe at least until the
late 1940s. While he dominates Europe, he's got resources
at least comparable to the English-speaking powers in many ways,
and is going to be getting stronger. I don't see this as a good
move.
>> That is not the point at which Britain became
>> undefeatable; that is merely the point at which
>> Great Britain could not be invaded in the
>> foreseeable future. Nobody knew how effective
>
>Despite Churchill's gloomy remarks, we now know that the
>U-boat never came close to imposing anything approaching
>catastrophic conditions in the UK.
Right, but this is 20-20 hindsight. At the time, it looked much
more serious.
Again, had the shipping
>and import situation worsened beyond historical levels, the
>British would have reacted to it, with more resources put
>into ASW in the air and at sea.
While transferring aircraft to Coastal Command would have been
a good idea, even historically, I don't know that the RN could
really expand its ASW activities all that much.
This would have contained
>the threat again. The bottom line is that Germany could not
>beat the USSR and simultaneously beat the British at sea and
>in the air - even Hitler saw this as true, which is why
>after the failure of 1940 he wanted to quickly defeat the
>USSR in 1941 before turning back to the main enemy -
>Britain - for a long campaign of attrition from 1942
>onwards. The entry into the war of the US made it possible
>for the whole thing to happen much faster.
>
Right. This is entirely true, based on the premise that Hitler
will be engaged in beating the Soviet Union for the foreseeable
future. If the Soviet Union falls or collapses, or ceases to
be a significant threat, Germany can divert a lot of effort
against the British.
>> Even so, I don't know what they based the
>> defeat of Germany on. Unless Britain
>> revolutionized the social structure in
>> India, the Brits were not going to field
>> an army anywhere near
>> strong enough to defeat Germany.
>
>I haven't looked into the matter in any depth, but AFAIK the
>general strategy as seen in 1940 was fairly tried and tested
>in previous wars, particularly the Napoleonic!
I don't see the relevance. In the Napoleonic wars, the British
were supporting several Continental armies against France, giving
the British an importance way out of proportion to the size of
the British Army. This is very nearly the exact analog of
Lend-Lease.
As long as Britain could stir up other powers, such as Austria,
Prussia, and Russia, and support them, Napoleon had a bad time
of things. From 1808 to 1812, they really didn't accomplish
all that much.
It was
>firstly to clear the Med & defeat the Italians while
>securing the Atlantic.
Italy could not be taken against strong German opposition. The
Italians themselves could possibly be forced out of the war,
but we saw how well that worked historically.
Then a European coalition against
>Germany backed by US industrial production would be slowly
>assembled, while bombing Germany with a 6000 bomber
>strategic air force. The latter in particular might not have
>been achievable, but a front line strength of 3000 bombers
>ought to have been achievable.
>
Yeah, and then what? Is Germany supposed to sit still for that?
Even during the great air battles of Spring 1944, the Luftwaffe
kept some 40% of its force facing the Soviets. Without the
Soviet sinkhole for resources, and without the USAAF campaign,
I don't see Bomber Command making a decisive difference.
Bomber Command operated in much the same manner as the U-boat
campaign: the attackers were individually vulnerable, but
operated by stealth. Against a strong ASW defense, such as the
Allies established in 1943 and maintained, no reasonable number
of U-boats were going to win the Battle of the Atlantic.
The same is true of the bomber war. In fact, Bomber Command
was essentially defeated in the Battle of Berlin, and was
restricted to closer targets until the advancing Allied armies
destroyed the radar lines the Germans needed to stop the bombers.
At this point, the USAAF was pushing its highly expensive but
basically unstoppable (given the resources) campaign.
>Manpower for the initial ground campaign come from the
>Empire and
>such allies as Turkey, Spain, Portugal, post-defeat Italy,
>Yugoslavia etc.
How is Britain supposed to get these countries to sign on?
Turkey seems to have spent the war trying to stay out. Spain
was more pro-German than pro-British, and while Portugal could
likely be induced to join the war that really isn't much military
force.
Moreover, we're talking about some rather unpromising armies
here, and equipping and training them would take a long time.
Peripheral theatres would be picked off one
>by one - Norway,
Norway, yes, although the Germans had a heck of a lot of defenders
there.
the Balkans for example,
That's going to be one rough campaign. The terrain is bad, and so
are the logistics. It will take a considerable superiority of
force to attack in that theater.
degrading German
>assets all the time,
Not to mention British assets. Some of these campaigns are going
to be really, really expensive.
until France could be invaded in stages
>leading to a slow advance in phases to the low countries and
>the borders of Germany.
This would seem to presuppose maintaining a serious advantage
in combat ability over Germany, and preventing the Germans from
coming along and taking France back. I just don't see where
the manpower and equipment is coming from.
Then the reconstituted French army,
>with the BCE and other Allies, would deal the final blow. In
>reality, of course, the British A-bomb would come along in
>1945-46 and settle the matter quite quickly.
>
I'm not nearly as confident as you of the British A-bomb, and
assuming it was going to work it was still going to be very
expensive. Historically, the Brits turned the A-bomb project
over to the US, which could afford it, and didn't have to pay
for it for the rest of the war.
>I disagree. Fighting a long war at three-quarters throttle
>as the premier European power backed by US industry was
>probably less damaging to British interests than fighting a
>short war at 150% throttle as a junior partner of the US.
>
Is this going to work?
We're talking about fielding far more troops than the British did
historically, and more ASW effort, and more air effort, and a
nuclear program, and this is supposed to be a three-quarters
throttle war program?
Exactly what is giving here? It isn't the RN, RAF, or British
Army.
>> I'm not convinced. If the German war effort had been
>> better run, the Germans could have tried for a peace
>> of exhaustion, such that neither Germany nor the Soviet
>> Union could win.
>
>An exhausted Germany was to British and US advantage,
>surely?
>
Compared to what? Compared to a defeated Germany, that's very
definitely not to the British and US advantage.
>> The Soviets were in pretty bad shape in 1945, one sign of
>> which being the drafting of 16-year-olds into the army.
>
>Again, Stalin was fighting a deliberately high-intensity
>short war with the aim not only of defeating Germany (that
>was not really in doubt after 1943)
I'm not so sure.
but also securing an
>empire in eastern Europe with US connivance.
Which he didn't object to, of course.
Look at the
>massive and unnecessary casualties taken after the crossing
>of the Elbe to grab eastern Germany, for example. A longer
>and less intense war in the East would still defeat Germany,
>but Stalin ran the risk of finding a Franco-British army (if
>not US also) waiting for him on the Elbe.
>
Alternatively, a less intense war in the East allows Germany
to turn resources toward the West, and offer more fierce
resistance. Or else Germany just makes one more push when
the Soviets aren't set up for it.
>Again, this is a matter of balance. Demographically, the
>USSR and BCE/France would always beat the smaller Germany in
>a long campaign, albeit more bloodily.
>
That was the main Allied plan. The main German plan was to defeat
potential enemies singly, much as they did France. The Allies
therefore needed to present something of a united front.
>Firstly, the Allies *did* achieve a landing in France
>despite facing a numerically superior garrison. Deception
>and surprise and powerful force-multipliers - when they
>work. So is tactical airpower.
>
Right. There are force multipliers here, but don't count on them
too much.
To give a simple example, suppose the force ratio is 2:3, with
a force multiplier of 2 for the first side; then the first side
is superior. Make it 2:5, and the second side is superior.
Basically, if the Germans could be stronger in the West, they would
be correspondingly harder to defeat. Since the Normandy campaign
at least appeared to be touch-and-go for a while, this isn't
reassuring.
>Secondly, the Allied tactic of using secondary theatres to
>draw off German reserves from France historically worked
>brilliantly - Italy, Norway, the Balkans all tied up large
>German forces with a relatively small Allied commitment
Right. This is factored into the historical result.
>sound in terms of Normandy). Such a dispersion strategy
>could have been taken several steps further by making actual
>raids-in-force in the Balkans and Norway
Norway was already heavily defended, and I don't see that it
would have gotten more defenders.
and, particularly,
>taking steps to create a military resistance movement in
>France and the west, rather than an intelligence and
>sabotage movement.
>
A military resistance movement was going to be a bloodbath, and
not in a positive way. The only way one of those can possibly
work is closely in concert with a strong regular army operating
in the same area. That wasn't going to happen.
>Thirdly, a greater focus on strategic bombing would enable
>an even greater degree of attrition of German resources and
>an even greater degree of isolation of the battlefield.
>
If it works. Given more German resources, this is iffy.
>All this would help to reduce the impact of potentially
>larger German garrison in France.
This still isn't encouraging.
And of course while Allied
>divisions in 1944 might have not shone in their offensive
>role, their defensive capability was extraordinarily
>resilient. Once established in Normandy, an Allied army
>would be very hard to remove, and the Allies might fight
>with advantage a battle of attrition, just as they did on a
>smaller scale before Caen.
>
Right. So, given more time and effort and casualties, the Allies
might manage to do as well.
This is not good for the Western Allies, and it's not good for
France. It gives Germany time to try to exploit its conquests
better.
>Firstly, in 1944, a very substantial force of first-class
>mobile assault divisions *were* withdrawn from the East to
>reinforce the West (notwithstanding that they see-sawed
>about between the two quite a lot..). How many more of these
>first-class mobile assault divisions do you think could have
>been made available in the West?
Depends on what's happening in the East, doesn't it? Those divisions
were very valuable against the Soviets.
The Wehrmacht had masses of
>infantry divisions of various grades in the East, but to
>combat the mechanised, armour-heavy divisions of the Western
>armies, the top-grade assault divisions were needed.
>
The lesser German divisions still had their role, and did a good
job from time to time.
>Secondly, the USSR's armed forces were historically growing
>stronger relative to Germany as soon as 1942 - without yet
>having received the bulk of lend lease supplies.
True, but that was also with lower Soviet production, and so
the lesser amount of Lend-Lease was significant.
>to exhaustion in this timeframe. And as long as the Red Army
>is strong in the East, large numbers of troops cannot be
>withdrawn without accepting a corresponding loss of
>position.
However, larger numbers of troops can be withdrawn than historically
against a weaker Red Army than historical, and that's what we're
considering here.
Given a lesser Soviet threat, the Germans can turn more resources
against the West. This is not good for the West, and, what's more,
doesn't necessarily change where the Iron Curtain winds up. That
was largely Hitler's decision, based on where he sent troops.
Either Hitler wins or he has insufficient resources. If he has
insufficient resources to hold off both the West and the Soviets,
he chooses where to allocate the resources. If he leaves very
light forces against the Soviets, then even a relatively weaker
Red Army does better, and can occupy much of Eastern Europe.
>The first is dispersal. The Germans had to disperse their
>forces along 600 miles of vulnerable coastline and however
>many troops were withdrawn from the East, the Allies had the
>power to concentrate a decisive force at any point along
>that line and also to make several landings simultaneously.
The Allies really didn't have the ability to make several
landings simultaneously until much later. The Normandy invasion
represented pretty much what amphibious assault capability the
Allies could mount in the Spring of 1944, and those assets
were tied up for a long time to supply the Allied armies.
>Thus, unless one is a gambler like Rommel, the coast has to
>be thinly defended and the majority of forces held back as
>an operational reserve to repel the landing or landings.
There are a limited number of good invasion spots, and Rommel
was smart enough to spot them.
>Secondly, logistics and their vulnerability. In late 1944, a
>highly mechanised and exceptionally well supplied Allied
>Army with air superiority nevertheless found it impossible
>to project force deep into enemy held territory due to
>ruined LOC stretching a long way from its base depots on the
>coast.
Right.
Given that the Allies had the power to ruin German
>LOC in the West on a gigantic scale, how then is a
>vehicle-short German army without any real air cover
>supposed to project force deep into France over ruined LOC
>stretching a long way from *its* base depots in Germany?
This isn't quite the same. The Allied supply came from
essentially more concentrated spots, and really didn't have
the variety of routes available to the Germans. Moreover,
there's a difference between LOCs that were fought over and
those just hit by air.
Rich Rostrom
>The offensive seems to be more justified in forcing the Red
>Army to fight in the hope its command would remain poor and
>therefore take large losses. This did not happen.
I wouldn't say that. Soviet command and control was better
in 1942 than 1941, but still mediocre at best, and troop
quality was still very ragged.
The opening phases of the 1942 campaign saw some pretty
hefty Soviet losses: 150,000 in the Kerch Peninsula,
240,000 in the Izyum pocket, 100,000 at Sevastopol. That's
half a million casualties even before the Germans started
their main offensive to the east.
Louis Capdeboscq
>>Absent lend-lease, it's unlikely that the Soviets can really hurt the
>>Wehrmacht. In that case, Hitler will most likely keep pushing - as he did.
>
> I presume you mean hurt the Germans in 1942 or later.
Yes, I do.
After all, the Germans did take the bulk of their losses after 1943.
Effective German strength is part of the story, another part is that
after mid-43 that strength still declined despite more reinforcements
being poured into the system.
>>If Hitler no longer keeps going for the kill, it means he's decisively
>>weakened (that is when he historically stopped going for a victory) so a
>>Soviet "triumph" (the original wording) will be in the making.
>
> Well in the middle of 1942 in order to attack on around half the
> front Hitler had to bring forward the German and Romanian army
> previously in the Crimea, and add a Hungarian, an Italian and a
> second Romanian army. This speaks a great deal of how badly
> hurt the Heer had been in 1941/42.
Yes, it does.
It also speaks a great deal of how badly Hitler wanted to attack in the
East. Which was my point.
Hitler was going for the kill and was not going to stop at a compromise
peace. He was going to throw everything he could at the Soviets. The
only thing that would stop him trying to achieve total victory would be
recognizable, i.e. total, defeat.
Which was my point.
> There is also the objectives of the 1942 offensive, those oilfields
> were a long way away but otherwise there was not a great deal
> of the Soviet economy being threatened. The offensive seems to
> be more justified in forcing the Red Army to fight in the hope its
> command would remain poor and therefore take large losses.
> This did not happen.
Justification seems to have been that the Soviet Union would collapse
through lack of oil and by bringing its units to battle on open ground.
(snip)
> The USSR was a wheat exporter pre war, not a huge amount but it
> was exporting.
Yes, by squeezing everything out of grain-producing regions which were
largely lost in the Barbarossa / Blau offensives (Ukraine, Kuban, etc).
> As to the idea the USSR was close to breaking point
> what was the missing resource that would force the USSR into
> armistice or surrender?
Manpower & territory ?
> Given the Germans kept fighting until nearly completely occupied I think
> you need to assume the same for the USSR, given the similarities in the
> systems of Government.
I don't have a problem with that asumption.
My point is that Hitler would keep trying until something broke, either
German or - preferably from his point of view - Soviet resistance. I
added that absent lend-lease there's a fair chance that he could have
succeeded.
As the figures you provided, particularly for ammo, which I edited out,
show.
Louis Capdeboscq
>>>Louis Capdeboscq wrote:
>>Absent lend-lease, it's unlikely that the Soviets can really hurt the
>>Wehrmacht. In that case, Hitler will most likely keep pushing - as he did.
>
> OK, but that doesn't necessarily apply in the short run. Since the
> tempo of war had picked up tremendously since the last wars of
> annihilation, one of the two was going to win before too many years
> had gone past. However, that's not necessarily going to help in the 1940s.
I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you mean here.
My point was that Hitler attacked in 1941. He attacked in 1942. He
attacked in 1943. Each attack was weaker than the previous one. In 1944,
he didn't attack because he hoped to beat back the US/UK first.
So we're talking very short term here. Say the Soviet Union doesn't pull
off the Stalingrad counter-attack because there's no lend-lease, Germany
is in a vastly more favorable position come 1943.
> This is, as you say, the more likely. In this case, what we've got
> is more Western Allied casualties, more overall destruction of Europe,
> and in general more bad stuff, and as you point out this really
> doesn't change where the Iron Curtain winds up.
...so there's not much point in not letting Stalin have lend-lease after
all.
If he wants to have more Shermans in which to blow up Soviet troopers
(as opposed to GI's) , more power to him !
(snip points of agreement)
> So, it depends on when that opportunity arises. If the Soviets are
> just too weak, and can't afford to attract another major German effort,
> and the Germans are busy elsewhere, it could last a while.
My problem with that is I can't see a situation in which the Soviets are
too weak to attrack the amount of effort which the Germans are likely to
devote to a given theater, but the Germans don't take advantage of that
weakness. They were quick enough to "take advantage" of perceived (if
not always existant) Soviet weaknesses as things were !
> Agreed, except that I don't think the Allies could reliably choose
> a victory without the Soviet Union before maybe August 1944.
I'm not sure how the Allies could choose a victory without the Soviet
Union after August 1944 either.
What do you have in mind ?
David Thornley
>> tempo of war had picked up tremendously since the last wars of
>> annihilation, one of the two was going to win before too many years
>> had gone past. However, that's not necessarily going to help in the 1940s.
>
>I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you mean here.
>
time.
>My point was that Hitler attacked in 1941. He attacked in 1942. He
>attacked in 1943. Each attack was weaker than the previous one. In 1944,
>he didn't attack because he hoped to beat back the US/UK first.
>
True. So, if Hitler really needs to fight the West, and the Soviets
are not in shape to attack, for whatever reason, there isn't a lot of
action. I've been wondering what would have happened if Hitler had
not attacked at Kursk: the Soviets were waiting for the Germans to
go first. There could have been months of relative quiescence.
>So we're talking very short term here. Say the Soviet Union doesn't pull
>off the Stalingrad counter-attack because there's no lend-lease, Germany
>is in a vastly more favorable position come 1943.
>
Right.
If the Soviets lose the Stalingrad counterattack, or aren't able to
launch it, then they're likely to lose much more in 1943, and the
Western Allied situation becomes very tricky. If they survive that,
and start taking heavier than historical losses in the second half
of 1943, and don't have Western support, they may hold back while
Hitler sends more forces to Italy and, later, France. This also
isn't good for the West.
>...so there's not much point in not letting Stalin have lend-lease after
>all.
>
Right. That's what I've been saying all along.
>If he wants to have more Shermans in which to blow up Soviet troopers
>(as opposed to GI's) , more power to him !
>
Precisely. From the US standpoint:
Say it will take 6000 Shermans being fielded (among other things)
to defeat Germany. If all of these are manned by US soldiers, then
all the losses are US, all the support is US, and so on. If some
are manned by Soviets and Brits, then the cost of fighting the war
becomes less to the US, *and* the US can look generous. (Consider
the book title, "The Most Unselfish Act".)
>> So, it depends on when that opportunity arises. If the Soviets are
>> just too weak, and can't afford to attract another major German effort,
>> and the Germans are busy elsewhere, it could last a while.
>
>My problem with that is I can't see a situation in which the Soviets are
>too weak to attrack the amount of effort which the Germans are likely to
>devote to a given theater, but the Germans don't take advantage of that
>weakness. They were quick enough to "take advantage" of perceived (if
>not always existant) Soviet weaknesses as things were !
>
That last point brings up an interesting thought.
Throughout the war, the German "Foreign Armies East" department
consistently provided gross underestimates of Soviet strength
and capabilities. You see in in Barbarossa, but even under Gehlen
there's a lot of it. So, if the Germans constantly underestimated
the Red Army, there'd be a long list of nonexistent Soviet weaknesses
to exploit.
Suppose somebody in the German high command actually realizes this,
and starts being more cautious. This could lead to a slower tempo
of war, if the Soviets weren't pushing hard.
>> Agreed, except that I don't think the Allies could reliably choose
>> a victory without the Soviet Union before maybe August 1944.
>
>I'm not sure how the Allies could choose a victory without the Soviet
>Union after August 1944 either.
>
Not really, but some of the speculation seems to indicate that the
Allies could have won the war without supporting the Soviet Union.
It seems to me that losing the Soviets before August 1944 would be
very risky, as the Germans might be able to hold out for a *long*
time. After the exploitation across France, I think the Western
Allies were going to win no matter what happened on the Eastern
Front, although with considerably greater time, expense, and
casualties. This likely also greatly slows the war against
Japan.
Geoffrey Sinclair
>"Geoffrey Sinclair" <gsinc...@froggy.com.au> wrote:
>
>>The offensive seems to be more justified in forcing the Red
>>Army to fight in the hope its command would remain poor and
>>therefore take large losses. This did not happen.
>
>in 1942 than 1941, but still mediocre at best, and troop
>quality was still very ragged.
The point I would make is the PoW count dropped
dramatically from June 1942 until the end of the year,
really until Manstein's February 1943 counter attack.
The Red Army was not allowing itself to be encircled
even if it was outfought.
>The opening phases of the 1942 campaign saw some pretty
>hefty Soviet losses: 150,000 in the Kerch Peninsula,
>240,000 in the Izyum pocket, 100,000 at Sevastopol. That's
>half a million casualties even before the Germans started
>their main offensive to the east.
Kerch and Izyum were the losses that appears to have
finally convinced Stalin that he had really better listen
to his generals in the future.
Sevastopol was a hard place to take and it did cost the
Germans both time and troops to take the place.
According to Halder as of 30 June 1942 the cumulative
German losses, killed, wounded and missing in the east
were 1,332,447. The German summer offensive had
started on 28th June. As of 28th February the figure had
been 1,005,636. Of the 326,811 casualties reported
between the two dates 245,793 were wounded, the rest
killed or missing. The armies in the east were generally
recording 2 to 3,000 casualties a day.
The casualties reported to 10 September were 1,637,280,
and in August the daily casualty rate had gone into the 4 to
5,000 a day range. This was still below the 8 to 9,000 a
day recorded in the previous August but the army was not
as able to take casualties as well in 1942.
Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.
--
Louis Capdeboscq
> Louis Capdeboscq wrote:
>>My point was that Hitler attacked in 1941. He attacked in 1942. He
>>attacked in 1943. Each attack was weaker than the previous one. In 1944,
>>he didn't attack because he hoped to beat back the US/UK first.
>
> True. So, if Hitler really needs to fight the West, and the Soviets
> are not in shape to attack, for whatever reason, there isn't a lot of
> action.
If the Soviets are "not in shape to attack", then it's 1941-43 in which
case Hitler doesn't "really needs to fight the West".
That's my problem with the stalemate scenario, you see. Germany is going
to beat up the Soviets in 1941-42. If it looks as if the Soviets are
reeling, then Germany's best bet is to finish them off and only then to
turn against the West. That was, after all, the whole strategic idea
behind attacking the Soviet Union in the first place !
> I've been wondering what would have happened if Hitler had
> not attacked at Kursk: the Soviets were waiting for the Germans to
> go first. There could have been months of relative quiescence.
No. Kursk is a perfect example of the opposite: by that stage, the
survival of the Soviet Union is no longer in doubt. No stalemate.
Evidence 1: Hitler DID, in fact, attack at Kursk.
Evidence 2: Stalin had planned to attack in 1943. It took lots of
persuading from Zhukov and Vassilevski to talk him off that idea and
into the notion of waiting out the German offensive (which the Soviets
knew was coming). If Soviet intelligence indicates that no German
offensive will be forthcoming, then Stalin will conclude that the time
is ripe to attack.
Again, no stalemate. After Barbarossa had started, there no longer was
an equilibrium point which would satisfy both Hitler and Stalin. In any
given situation, either or both - as happened during the first winter,
in Spring '42, and in '44 - dictators would decide that it was going to
win the war so there was no point taking a compromise - and therefore
necessarily unsatisfactory - peace as opposed to victory.
> If the Soviets lose the Stalingrad counterattack, or aren't able to
> launch it, then they're likely to lose much more in 1943, and the
> Western Allied situation becomes very tricky. If they survive that,
> and start taking heavier than historical losses in the second half
> of 1943, and don't have Western support, they may hold back while
> Hitler sends more forces to Italy and, later, France. This also
> isn't good for the West.
My point here is that Hitler will not necessarily send more forces to
the West, as opposed to finishing the Soviets off once and for all.
The Germans deliberately accepted a temporary (at least so the plan ran)
inferiority in the West in order to destroy the Soviet Union. Hitler
only sent forces back West - and the bare minimum at that - when he
could no longer avoid doing so. For instance, it was known that the
Allies would land somewhere in the Summer of 1943, yet the Germans still
concentrated their production for Kursk.
> So, if the Germans constantly underestimated
> the Red Army, there'd be a long list of nonexistent Soviet weaknesses
> to exploit.
That is basically the story of the Eastern Front from the German point
of view: existent and nonexistent Soviet weaknesses that the Germans
tried to exploit.
> Suppose somebody in the German high command actually realizes this,
> and starts being more cautious.
His assessment will be dismissed by Hitler as total rubish. Late-war
assessments of Soviet strength were much closer to the truth, but Hitler
no longer listened to them.
Organizations have their own dynamics. In neither Germany nor the Soviet
Union did it pay dividends to be right when the boss held a different view.
>>>Agreed, except that I don't think the Allies could reliably choose
>>>a victory without the Soviet Union before maybe August 1944.
>>
>>I'm not sure how the Allies could choose a victory without the Soviet
>>Union after August 1944 either.
>
> Not really, but some of the speculation seems to indicate that the
> Allies could have won the war without supporting the Soviet Union.
Possibly. It depends on a lot of factors, including their ability to
raise enough manpower to replace the Soviet front. It's not completely
impossible, but it would be much more difficult and certainly not a
preferable strategy from the Allied point of view.
> It seems to me that losing the Soviets before August 1944 would be
> very risky, as the Germans might be able to hold out for a *long*
> time. After the exploitation across France, I think the Western
> Allies were going to win no matter what happened on the Eastern
> Front, although with considerably greater time, expense, and
> casualties.
Yes, but by that time whatever victory was going to happen would be
shared with the Soviet Union. There is no "victory without the Soviet
Union" by Summer 1944, as the Soviets are poised to do Bagration,
Lvov-Sandomir and Iassy-Kishinev anyway so even if lend-lease is
discontinued at that moment, the Soviets are still going to end up in
possession of a sizable chunk of Central & Eastern Europe. This *may*
push back the iron curtain a few miles here and there, but there will
still be an awfully large Red Army in 1945.
Geoffrey Sinclair
>Geoffrey Sinclair wrote:
>
>>>Absent lend-lease, it's unlikely that the Soviets can really hurt the
>>>Wehrmacht. In that case, Hitler will most likely keep pushing - as he did.
>>
>> I presume you mean hurt the Germans in 1942 or later.
>
>Yes, I do.
>
>After all, the Germans did take the bulk of their losses after 1943.
Yet it is the case the losses in the USSR in 1941/42 badly hurt the
pre war army, the veterans from Poland and France. Just like the
battle of France and Britain badly hurt the Luftwaffe's pool of pre
war trained aircrew. At very heavy cost the Red Army was reducing
the effectiveness of the Heer, even if the Heer's numbers looked
about the same and in fact historically, despite reinforcements,
the strength dropped.
Also the encirclements are the best way to destroy an army but
the prisoner count then contains a large number of service troops.
Most of the German losses in 1941/42 were combat, in particular
infantry.
Using John Ellis' figures for divisional numbers the Germans hit the
USSR with 121 divisions in June and had 136 in action by the end
of July 1941.
In July 1942 there were 169 divisions in combat, this was after 13
divisions had been withdrawn since the start if the campaign, most
of which have been badly hurt.
In June 1941 the manpower strength was 3,300,000 and had declined
steadily to 2,700,000 by July 1942. So the divisional slice in June 1941
was around 27,300 or 24,250 depending on whether the divisions
committed in July, which were largely designated reserves in June, are
included in the manpower strength.
In July 1942 the divisional slice was around 16,000 and much of the
decline was in the infantry.
The cumulative effect of large numbers of wounded add up, in the
US army the average "non effective days", spent mainly in hospital,
per wounded man was 117.8 for 599,724 wounded men. By the
end of the war, with more cases still to be processed some 140,667
of the wounded had been invalidated out of the army, or around 23%
of the wounded. The US army also had around 16,145,000 hospital
admissions for non battle injury and disease, with 19.8 non effective
days per admission. All up the Army lost 390,402,603 man days 1942
to 1945 to wounds, injury and disease. Living out in the open, often in
the dirt with often inadequate sanitation and food is not a good idea.
>Effective German strength is part of the story, another part is that
>after mid-43 that strength still declined despite more reinforcements
>being poured into the system.
Given the German ground forces increased its size until late in 1944
(Heer, SS and Luftwaffe) the declines from 1943 onward in the
strength in the east have much to do with western allied activities as
well as Soviet actions. Things like the need to replace Italian troops,
the need to garrison the west. Without the resources sent to the
USSR the western pressure could presumably have been
increased earlier.
(snip)
>Hitler was going for the kill and was not going to stop at a compromise
>peace. He was going to throw everything he could at the Soviets. The
>only thing that would stop him trying to achieve total victory would be
>recognizable, i.e. total, defeat.
>
>Which was my point.
I am not disputing the point Hitler was in all or nothing mode.
What I am trying to work out is whether he had the ability to
force an all or nothing battle in 1942 and my conclusion is
no, unless he had help from Stalin, and possibly no again
even if there was minimal or no lend lease, which is the point
I am trying to work through. The Germans made the decision
the defences of Moscow were too tough.
Given the Nazi "peace terms" why cannot the Red Army
keep retreating past Moscow if pushed? What was the
benefit in stopping the fight before the Urals or at least
the end of the next winter? The Germans had enough
supply problems handling the historical 1942 advance.
What I am also looking at is whether lend lease actually
would have been more important in 1943 given the
Germans were able to up the quality of the eastern army
in 1943, mainly in equipment terms. The troop strength at
citadel was 95% of the Barbarossa strength and the tank
quality had really gone up, artillery parks were back towards
authorised strengths.
In 1941 the amount of lend lease was too small to make
the vital difference. In 1942 lend lease picks up and the
Soviet economy is probably at its highest stress level as
it copes with the dislocation and exhaustion of stocks,
but the German army is also at a very low point, it lacks
the ability to mount the sort of offensive needed to force
a surrender. The war in the east was a relatively low
resource per man war, navies and air forces are much
more expensive per man. The USSR could economise
by giving up a navy and keeping the air force small.
As an aside the British Armoured division fuel consumption
figure I quoted, 1,000 gallons to the mile, was probably
administrative movement, combat would double that.
In essence did lend lease (and UK supplies) save the USSR
or like the UK it helped enable them to take the offensive earlier
and therefore hurt the Germans earlier, to the benefit of all. I am
tending to the idea it was not needed to enable survival.
You can make the case a Nazi Germany in control of
Europe like it was in June 1941 could have eventually
defeated the UK and the USSR one at a time, but that
was not the case.
(snip)
>> The USSR was a wheat exporter pre war, not a huge amount but it
>> was exporting.
>
>Yes, by squeezing everything out of grain-producing regions which were
>largely lost in the Barbarossa / Blau offensives (Ukraine, Kuban, etc).
Yes, and there was little ability to feed Leningrad in 1941 and
I doubt those ethnic groups Stalin deported were in line for
large food allocations. Which "saved" food.
Apart from Leningrad I do not know of mass starvation in the USSR
in WWII, widespread hardship and malnutrition, but not famine.
> > As to the idea the USSR was close to breaking point
>> what was the missing resource that would force the USSR into
>> armistice or surrender?
>
>Manpower & territory ?
The prompt pull outs when threatened post June 1942 denied
the Germans large bags of prisoners, the area the Germans
took in 1942 was mainly agricultural, not a lot of other resources.
>> Given the Germans kept fighting until nearly completely occupied I think
>> you need to assume the same for the USSR, given the similarities in the
>> systems of Government.
>
>I don't have a problem with that asumption.
>
>My point is that Hitler would keep trying until something broke, either
>German or - preferably from his point of view - Soviet resistance. I
>added that absent lend-lease there's a fair chance that he could have
>succeeded.
In trying to find out what lend lease did for the USSR, and it clearly
did a great deal, I find I need to note the effect the USSR had on the
Wehrmacht and the withdrawals the western allies forced on Hitler
in 1942 (mainly Luftwaffe) and 1943.
The German army in mid 1942 was in real trouble, it had lost a great
deal of its offensive power, thanks to a combination of casualties
and low equipment production rates. Also it was clear the western
allies were coming.
What were the objectives of the 1942 German offensive that really
threatened the USSR? Nothing north of Rostov. In spreading the
divisions out so widely to try and hold territory to the oilfields the
Germans were playing into the Soviet manpower advantage. If
your division is policing 30 to 60 miles of front you do not have a
lot of men near any one particular location, same for equipment,
you are vulnerable to a side that has more manpower but less
firepower as your firepower is too dispersed.
I really doubt the Wehrmacht was in a position to defeat the USSR
in 1942 unless Stalin repeated his no withdrawal behaviour of 1941
and early 1942. The one reservation I have is Soviet ammunition,
but then you have the poor quality of the German supply system,
could it actually take advantage of a Soviet ammunition supply
problem? Was the USSR simply too big and the German military
effort too small, something like the western allies in France in 1944,
they needed more supplies and troops to make the advances after
September 1944, despite the significant weakening of the German
position. The allied attack on the German oil industry had also cut
ammunition production, via loss of nitrogen supplies, there are
reports of German shells in 1945 largely filled with rock salt for example.
It was still a tough fight to break into Germany.
>As the figures you provided, particularly for ammo, which I edited out,
>show.
It would be good to see the USSR explosives production to see how
important lend lease explosives were.
Louis Capdeboscq
> Yet it is the case the losses in the USSR in 1941/42 badly hurt the
> pre war army, the veterans from Poland and France.
Yes. The Germans lost a lot of trained infantrymen, tank crews, and most
of their non-replaceable looted vehicle park.
However, with due acknowledgment of how weak they were, the fact is that
they were still better off in 1942 than the Soviets.
If I understand your position correctly, we are in agreement that the
Germans would push as hard as possible, your point being that they could
probably not defeat the Soviet Union in 1942. I don't disagree, however
if the Soviets are pushed over the edge they will be all the easier to
defeat in 1943, until at some point they ARE defeated.
The problem with fighting without Ukraine, without Moscow, without
Stalingrad, without the Caucasus & Kuban, isn't just a question of will.
At some point it begs the question "with what ?".
> The cumulative effect of large numbers of wounded add up,(snip)
...which is true for both sides of course.
Compounded in the Soviet case by low morale absent a friendly success at
Stalingrad.
> Given the German ground forces increased its size until late in 1944
> (Heer, SS and Luftwaffe) the declines from 1943 onward in the
> strength in the east have much to do with western allied activities as
> well as Soviet actions. Things like the need to replace Italian troops,
> the need to garrison the west. Without the resources sent to the
> USSR the western pressure could presumably have been
> increased earlier.
(snip the rest of the post with which I mostly agree, to focus on what I
perceive to be the core of the argument)
1. I'm away from my sources for a few days, but my understanding is that
the Germans did deploy more forces against the West in 1942 and
particularly in 1943, however losses increased very substantially in
1943 and most of that increase came from Russia. My point being that
this factor might have something to do with the decline in German
strength *despite* a greater level of mobilization in Germany.
2. It is of course interesting to wonder how much better off the Allies
would be had they kept lend-lease for their own use. For 1941-42 it
might make a difference in tanks and places for the Middle East, keeping
in mind that part of the lend-lease shipments robbed Singapore & Malaya
rather than Egypt. That being said, the Allied problem was doctrine and
tactics more than lack of equipment in the desert. From Barbarossa to
June 1942, the Allies supplied some 4,000 tanks to the Soviet Union
(note: this is a guesstimate, explained in the post where I answered
Andrew Clark). Not only was it rather important, i.e. roughly a third of
the tanks received by the Soviets in the first year after Barbarossa
came from lend-lease, but what use would the Allies have of 4,000 tanks,
assuming they could transport them ?
3. The underlying assumption between greater Allied progress seems to be
that the iron curtain would change. I disagree. Historically, the
Germans pulled forces from the East in response to increasing Allied
pressure. If your assumptions are true that no lend-lease = Soviets
survive and West attacks earlier, then this means approximately the same
frontline as historically (the Germans can pull more forces out of
Russia and get away with it) except that the West does a greater share
of the fighting. But ultimately as I wrote in another post, Hitler was
the one who decided where the iron curtain would fall.
Louis
--
Remove "e" from address to reply
--
Drazen Kramaric
wrote:
>Given the dynamics at work, particularly but not solely on Hitler's
>side, I simply don't see how an intermediate peace could happen. Germany
>wasn't going to settle for less than full victory until it was too late.
If not a peace, a sort of war that eventually developed in Korea
(1951-1953) or Iraq-Iran war looks to me as realistic possibility in
the alternate universe where the West reduces L-L. It looks like a
situation German generals contemplated in the aftermath of Kursk. Even
Hitler did not talk about general offensive in the East in the
foreseeable future as long as West was in the field.
Drax
Drazen Kramaric
>True. So, if Hitler really needs to fight the West, and the Soviets
>are not in shape to attack, for whatever reason, there isn't a lot of
>action. I've been wondering what would have happened if Hitler had
>not attacked at Kursk: the Soviets were waiting for the Germans to
>go first. There could have been months of relative quiescence.
Stalin wanted to attack. It was Zhukov who persuaded them to wait the
German offensive which Soviets were informed about. Stalin feared
whether Red Army was capable of stopping the full scale German attack
in Summer, but Zhukov managed to convince him.
Had Germans stayed put, Soviets would have attacked instead. However,
neither Hitler nor Manstein thought Stalin was going to do them any
favour by attacking.
Drax
Drazen Kramaric
wrote:
>My point was that Hitler attacked in 1941.
With the intention to win by KO.
>He attacked in 1942.
With the intention to capture Caucasian oil necessary for prolonged
war.
>He attacked in 1943.
To destroy Soviet strategic reserve in order to prevent Soviet
offensive.
>Each attack was weaker than the previous one.
Not only weaker, but with more limited goals. Regardless of long term
Hitler's strategy that was eventually more and more removed from the
reality, German strategy in Russia was more and more oriented towards
defense of conquered territory (to borrow the term from the Pacific
theatre, a "perimeter") where Soviet offensives are going to be
broken. No German general dreamt about capturing Moscow or Leningrad
during the planning of Zittadelle.
>So we're talking very short term here. Say the Soviet Union doesn't pull
>off the Stalingrad counter-attack because there's no lend-lease, Germany
>is in a vastly more favorable position come 1943.
Rumanians were doomed regardless of L-L. 6th Army avoids total
destruction but its position is untenable anyway.
>My problem with that is I can't see a situation in which the Soviets are
>too weak to attrack the amount of effort which the Germans are likely to
>devote to a given theater, but the Germans don't take advantage of that
>weakness. They were quick enough to "take advantage" of perceived (if
>not always existant) Soviet weaknesses as things were !
From 1942 onwards, Axis were numerically inferior from Soviets.
Soviets were capable of replacing their losses up until 1945. If they
lose more men in 1943 and 1944, Germans cannot pull any significant
numbers from the East, because if they do, it would put them in the
same situation as historically. In order to avoid historical defeat,
Germans must inflict more losses (and not lose much ground) using the
same ammount of men and material as historically.
Drax
Geoffrey Sinclair
>Geoffrey Sinclair wrote:
>> Yet it is the case the losses in the USSR in 1941/42 badly hurt the
>> pre war army, the veterans from Poland and France.
>
>Yes. The Germans lost a lot of trained infantrymen, tank crews, and most
>of their non-replaceable looted vehicle park.
>
>However, with due acknowledgment of how weak they were, the fact is that
>they were still better off in 1942 than the Soviets.
Agreed, the Germans undertook the offensive in mid 1942 and
industry at home was gearing up. However you have to allow the
Red Army its winter counter attack, when the lack of movement,
aircraft support and minimal daylight negated much of the German
advantage, before the issue of cold is considered.
In July the German replacement army had some 321,600 men
for replacements, and these were meant for the losses for July,
August and September, by 13 August the total losses in the
east were 373,348 including wounded.
The Heer weapons inventory actually held up quite well between
1 June 1941 and 1 January 1942, the hand held weapons
numbers went up slightly, as did machine guns, mortars, anti tank
guns, tanks and SPG numbers were about the same, field artillery
suffered the biggest percentage losses. Of course much of the
new production was channelled into new units or depots in Germany,
not to the east and losses in the east took time to bring to book.
Ammunition stocks showed the greatest changes, all down, infantry
weapons -27%, tank and AT -12%, artillery -30%.
Interestingly while the infantry weapons kept going up in 1942 the
AT gun park rose then fell, and the artillery park basically trended
down, from 10,589 to around 9,900 pieces. It was not until mid
1943 the artillery park started to go up, and reached 11,418 by
the end of 1943, by July 1944 it was 14,134, it was down to
10,720 in October 1944. As of 1 June 1941 the artillery park was
11,377.
>If I understand your position correctly, we are in agreement that the
>Germans would push as hard as possible, your point being that they could
>probably not defeat the Soviet Union in 1942.
Yes.
>I don't disagree, however
>if the Soviets are pushed over the edge they will be all the easier to
>defeat in 1943, until at some point they ARE defeated.
To me the question becomes could the Germans push hard enough
in 1942 to set up to cripple/defeat the USSR in 1943. Given the
Red Army's ability to avoid losing large numbers of prisoners during
the 1942 German summer offensive the answer appears to be no,
the Germans could not force the Red Army to fight badly enough.
Information from Germany and the Second World War,
The control of the new Nazi empire, the need to watch Britain and
the building of new or rebuilding of existing divisions meant as of
December 1941 the forces in the east had 149 divisions, plus 7
of the 13 in the "north" theatre, out of 216 divisions, and 19 out of
a nominal 24 panzer divisions were in the east. If the British had
ceased fighting and disarmed then it is probable around 30
German divisions could have been sent east, at least 2 panzer.
Effective strength of the Ostheer, excluding troops in Finland and
allies, 3,000,000 down from 3,300,000 on June 22.
In June 1942 the divisional count was 233, 179 in the east. So in
divisional terms this was the greatest percentage concentration of
troops. Effective strength of the Ostheer, excluding troops in
Finland and allies, 2,750,000.
July 1943 effective strength of the Ostheer, excluding troops in
Finland and allies, 3,138,000.
In November 1943 in terms of field army deployments, the east
had 2,683,368 men (including German forces in Finland), the
Balkans 324,539, Italy 143,141, south France 145,159, west
558,362, Norway 174,952. Effective strength of the Ostheer,
excluding troops in Finland and allies, 2,579,000.
In April 1944 the east had 138 divisions, the north 19, of which
8 were in Finland, out of 238 divisions. Italy had 20 divisions,
the Balkans 19. Effective strength of the Ostheer, excluding
troops in Finland and allies, 2,245,000.
One warning, the Ostheer figures may exclude the Luftwaffe
and SS ground formations, making the overall decline seem
larger than it was but highlighting how badly hurt the Heer was.
>The problem with fighting without Ukraine, without Moscow, without
>Stalingrad, without the Caucasus & Kuban, isn't just a question of will.
>At some point it begs the question "with what ?".
As far as I am aware the area between the Ukraine and the Urals,
and for that matter Moscow and the Urals, was largely undeveloped,
few key raw materials. The Ukraine and the area to the west of
Moscow, including the city, was where the industry had been along
with much of the raw material production.
Losing Moscow is a blow, but there is not much industrial output
gained/lost between the city and the Urals. More population and
food production is lost though and this must hurt.
What would definitely hurt is if the Caucusus oil fields were cut
off, this would require a drive to Astrakahn at least, to be able
to interdict traffic on the Caspian sea.
>> The cumulative effect of large numbers of wounded add up,(snip)
>
>...which is true for both sides of course.
Yes, but the encirclement battles meant more PoW than wounded, so
the Soviet problem in 1941 was not wounded. If the US figures are
taken as a guide, 1 in 4 of the wounded were not fit for further military
duty, and by 30 June 1942 the German forces in the east had suffered
around 1,000,000 wounded.
>Compounded in the Soviet case by low morale absent a friendly success at
>Stalingrad.
I do not think lend lease made the difference between Stalingrad
being a Soviet success or failure. It was German command
decisions to fight for the city with weak flanks and to disperse many
troops to the south to try and capture the oil fields.
Now if the German high command had recognised the new Soviet
abilities and concentrated on building a highly defensible line for
the upcoming winter, as part of an advance, then this should set up
the 1943 offensive, especially if the Germans can repeat their
success against the Soviet attacks around Kharkov (I incorrectly
said Kursk in an early post) from early 1942 in 1943.
Given Hitler was into all or nothing then the small solution was not
going to happen. In which case the Romanians, Italians, Hungarians,
and one strong German army are going to take major losses as per
history.
>> Given the German ground forces increased its size until late in 1944
>> (Heer, SS and Luftwaffe) the declines from 1943 onward in the
>> strength in the east have much to do with western allied activities as
>> well as Soviet actions. Things like the need to replace Italian troops,
>> the need to garrison the west. Without the resources sent to the
>> USSR the western pressure could presumably have been
>> increased earlier.
>
>(snip the rest of the post with which I mostly agree, to focus on what I
>perceive to be the core of the argument)
>
>1. I'm away from my sources for a few days, but my understanding is that
>the Germans did deploy more forces against the West in 1942 and
>particularly in 1943, however losses increased very substantially in
>1943 and most of that increase came from Russia. My point being that
>this factor might have something to do with the decline in German
>strength *despite* a greater level of mobilization in Germany.
As far as the Luftwaffe was concerned it appears losses in the
west exceeded losses in the east for the first time since
Barbarossa in October 1942 and, apart from December 1942,
it stayed that way for 1943 and I would expect the rest of the war.
Up until Tunisia the Heer had been able to only need a corps in
combat in the west and in a low intensity situation, since 1940
anyway. The same basically applies in Sicily. Tunisia was the
first time a German army, 8 divisions including 3 Panzer, was
in combat in the west since 1940. The allied invasion of Italy
meant the deployment of two weak armies in Italy in combat, each
about the size of the Tunisian force in divisional count.
I doubt the forces sent to Tunisia would have enabled the relief
of Stalingrad but the transport aircraft would have been very
useful in prolonging the resistance by 6th army.
>2. It is of course interesting to wonder how much better off the Allies
>would be had they kept lend-lease for their own use. For 1941-42 it
>might make a difference in tanks and places for the Middle East, keeping
>in mind that part of the lend-lease shipments robbed Singapore & Malaya
>rather than Egypt.
The fighters would have been useful in the far east but that could
not change the problems with poorly trained troops thanks to the
rapid expansion the armies were undertaking. Then add the
overall underestimation of the Japanese.
>That being said, the Allied problem was doctrine and
>tactics more than lack of equipment in the desert. From Barbarossa to
>June 1942, the Allies supplied some 4,000 tanks to the Soviet Union
>(note: this is a guesstimate, explained in the post where I answered
>Andrew Clark).
The Oxford Companion to World War II, for Soviet tank and
SPG supply,
period beginning 1 June 1941, 4,090 domestic, 0 foreign
beginning 1 December 1941, 7,767 domestic, 1,678 foreign,
beginning 1 May 1942, 12,960 domestic, 2,904 foreign
beginning 1 November 1942 15,708 domestic, 2,413 foreign.
The next period starts 1 July 1943, the figures are from
"Soviet planning by Harrison, page 264"
>Not only was it rather important, i.e. roughly a third of
>the tanks received by the Soviets in the first year after Barbarossa
>came from lend-lease, but what use would the Allies have of 4,000 tanks,
>assuming they could transport them ?
The simple reality of 1942 was the western allies needed to defeat
the U-boats and contain the Japanese as the primary missions.
The US army was facing the dislocation of a major increase in
numbers, there is no doubt more equipment available early would
have meant the army could have been trained earlier. The reality
of the naval war in 1942 meant the western allies could not project
ground forces into Europe, at best they could clear North Africa,
given the situation with merchant and amphibious shipping. The
US allocated 3,032 aircraft to the USSR in 1942, up from 221
in 1941. The 1942 allocations included 1,712 fighters and 1,136
light bombers, not the sort of mix that would worry the Luftwaffe
in France in 1942 too much unless an invasion was underway..
>3. The underlying assumption between greater Allied progress seems to be
>that the iron curtain would change. I disagree.
(snip)
This is not my position, I expect that unless the USSR is defeated
the iron curtain will appear in mid Europe. I cannot see a German
army holding the Bug river, let alone the Vistula or the Balkans,
with a western allied force on the Rhine.
David Thornley
>to beat up the Soviets in 1941-42. If it looks as if the Soviets are
>reeling, then Germany's best bet is to finish them off and only then to
>turn against the West. That was, after all, the whole strategic idea
>behind attacking the Soviet Union in the first place !
>
if Germany was somewhat more successful, the Red Army could have been
wound down. There was no way the Germans were going to finish off
the Soviet Union in a lightning campaign in 1943 or afterwards, but a
long war of attrition, likely resulting in an eventual Soviet loss,
was a possibility.
> > I've been wondering what would have happened if Hitler had
>> not attacked at Kursk:
And have been informed. Thanks, guys.
>No. Kursk is a perfect example of the opposite: by that stage, the
>survival of the Soviet Union is no longer in doubt. No stalemate.
>
I disagree.
Hitler had planned to attack in 1941, collapse the whole rotten house
(or something like that), and occupy territory to the Archangelsk-
Astrakhan line. Given the continued existence of the Soviet Union,
he attacked in the south in 1942. Either of these offensives could
conceivably have won the war, and neither did. The question of the
impact of Lend-Lease on these years is debateable: the amounts supplied
were low, but Soviet production was disrupted, and the Soviet edge
was not all that great.
In 1943, there was no chance to destroy the Soviet Union in one campaign.
This does not mean that the Soviet Union was guaranteed survival, but
rather that it wasn't going down fast. As it was, the Red Army was in
a serious manpower shortage in 1945, when it really didn't matter that
much anymore. (It wasn't critical; the Soviets did mass about a million
and a half men in the Far East to attach Manchuria.)
So, assume Soviet attacks. Without exploitation ability, they cost more
than historically and achieve less. This shifts the attrition ratio
significantly in the German favor. If the Soviets run low on offensive
ability, but still look like they're defensively strong, Hitler may well
turn forces to face the West, hoping to defeat the West first.
>Again, no stalemate. After Barbarossa had started, there no longer was
>an equilibrium point which would satisfy both Hitler and Stalin. In any
>given situation, either or both - as happened during the first winter,
>in Spring '42, and in '44 - dictators would decide that it was going to
>win the war so there was no point taking a compromise - and therefore
>necessarily unsatisfactory - peace as opposed to victory.
>
I'm not convinced of that.
Suppose there's a 1943 standoff like I described. At this time, there
is a basis for negotiation. Germany continues to occupy lots of Soviet
territory, and isn't going to be pushed out any time soon. However,
Germany is now threatened by the West, and would like to move forces.
In the historical situation, in which the Grand Alliance held strongly,
this wouldn't apply. If Stalin thought Germany was going to have to
pull forces out to face the West, and that that would allow him to
resume the offensive, then there is no equilibrium point.
If Stalin has no faith in the West, then the Western threat to Germany
is not a guarantee of eventual Soviet victory, and it becomes much more
tempting to cut losses and negotiate.
Therefore, if Stalin has no good reason to count on Western support,
such as Lend-Lease or negotiations about the postwar period, and if
neither Germany nor the Soviet Union can launch decisive offensives,
there is a possibility of a separate Soviet peace.
>> Suppose somebody in the German high command actually realizes this,
>> and starts being more cautious.
>
>His assessment will be dismissed by Hitler as total rubish. Late-war
>assessments of Soviet strength were much closer to the truth, but Hitler
>no longer listened to them.
>
Historically, true. However, I don't think it was necessarily true.
I think Hitler could have been a bit more of a realist and still
accomplished what he did. This is in contrast to the "What if Hitler
was a nice guy? wasn't a racist? really wanted peace in Europe?" sort
of questions that mean that WWII would not have happened. (At least,
I think that.)
>Organizations have their own dynamics. In neither Germany nor the Soviet
>Union did it pay dividends to be right when the boss held a different view.
>
That depended on whether you could show results, to some extent. Of
course, it was easier to show results to Stalin, since Hitler rather
expected total victory.
>Possibly. It depends on a lot of factors, including their ability to
>raise enough manpower to replace the Soviet front. It's not completely
>impossible, but it would be much more difficult and certainly not a
>preferable strategy from the Allied point of view.
>
Completely agreed.
>> It seems to me that losing the Soviets before August 1944 would be
>> very risky, as the Germans might be able to hold out for a *long*
>> time. After the exploitation across France, I think the Western
>> Allies were going to win no matter what happened on the Eastern
>> Front, although with considerably greater time, expense, and
>> casualties.
>
>Yes, but by that time whatever victory was going to happen would be
>shared with the Soviet Union. There is no "victory without the Soviet
>Union" by Summer 1944, as the Soviets are poised to do Bagration,
>Lvov-Sandomir and Iassy-Kishinev anyway so even if lend-lease is
>discontinued at that moment, the Soviets are still going to end up in
>possession of a sizable chunk of Central & Eastern Europe. This *may*
>push back the iron curtain a few miles here and there, but there will
>still be an awfully large Red Army in 1945.
>
Right. Are we agreed that:
1. There was no certainty of a Western military victory without the
Soviet Union in the time span of June 1940-July 1944?
2. There was no way of having a Western victory without the Soviet
Union after the first half of 1944?
3. Trying to manipulate Soviet military capabilities through regulating
Lend Lease would be either pointless, or dangerous, or expensive, or
very likely all three?
Louis Capdeboscq
(snip points of agreement and go to the core)
> Hitler had planned to attack in 1941, collapse the whole rotten house
> (or something like that), and occupy territory to the Archangelsk-
> Astrakhan line. Given the continued existence of the Soviet Union,
> he attacked in the south in 1942. Either of these offensives could
> conceivably have won the war, and neither did. The question of the
> impact of Lend-Lease on these years is debateable: the amounts supplied
> were low, but Soviet production was disrupted, and the Soviet edge
> was not all that great.
The amounts supplied weren't all that low. The Soviet Union would have
had to reduce military production (tanks & such stuff) in 1942 without
lend-lease, in order to make up for what lend-lease provided.
Even in raw numbers, the Allies supplied 4,000 tanks until June 1942 vs
9,500 domestic Soviet production (which includes a third of T-60's).
That's not bad.
I think that without lend-lease the Germans still haven't won by 1942 -
Geoffrey's arguments are compelling - but on the other hand the Soviets
lack the strength to kick them back to their start line so it definitely
looks like the whole rotten apparatus will crumble after all, and this
time it can even be right.
At that point, I'm sure that Stalin might offer an armistice but Hitler
would be unlikely to accept.
> So, assume Soviet attacks. Without exploitation ability, they cost more
> than historically and achieve less. This shifts the attrition ratio
> significantly in the German favor. If the Soviets run low on offensive
> ability, but still look like they're defensively strong, Hitler may well
> turn forces to face the West, hoping to defeat the West first.
Yes.
(snip)
> Suppose there's a 1943 standoff like I described. At this time, there
> is a basis for negotiation.
No, because your initial point is the historical Soviet position in
1943, which itself depends on lend-lease. Without lend-lease, the
Soviets aren't in the same situation as they historically were before
Kursk, i.e. numerically stronger than the Wehrmacht but tactically
unable to break through on their own resources.
I will also note that there is no basis for negociation because Hitler
won't settle for anything less than total victory. Stalin's diplomatic
probes (whether they were sincere or not - as I think - doesn't matter)
came to nothing.
> If Stalin has no faith in the West, then the Western threat to Germany
> is not a guarantee of eventual Soviet victory, and it becomes much more
> tempting to cut losses and negotiate.
On the other hand
1. Either Germany feels threatened by the West, in which case Stalin
will notice it (he was just as keen as Hitler to discern weakness within
the enemy) and not settle for a "let's stop at the current frontline"
armistice which basically guarantees that his country loses when Germany
returns after beating back the West, or Germany doesn't feel really
threatened by the West in which case Hitler isn't interested in making
peace. That's my whole point, you see: I can't see a "middle ground"
situation. Either the Soviet Union looks really threatened in which case
Stalin is willing to negociate but Hitler isn't, or it doesn't look
threatened in which case Hitler *MIGHT* be willing to negociate but
Stalin has no reason to.
2. If the West doesn't send lend-lease, then one may assume that they
will exert stronger pressure on their front, e.g. all those tanks &
Hurricanes sent to Russia will come in handy in the desert (though some
will go to Singapore). Shipping not used sending stuff to Russia can be
used to transport the same or other stuff to Britain. In other words,
Stalin has better reason than historically to believe that the West is
going to try to win, unless the scenario assumes that Britain sits back
(which is a very improbable strategy politically, and doesn't sound like
a good idea strategically).
3. The whole point of the "exercize" was to discuss the notion that
lend-lease allowed the Soviets to control Eastern Europe. Now let's
assume for the sake of argument that Germany and the Soviet Union come
to an understanding in 1943. Let's further assume that Germany doesn't
defeat the Allies. What happens is that German cities are being bombed
to bits => the Luftwaffe goes back to the Reich, the fighters to shoot
down B-17's and the bombers to conduct retaliatory raids (in which they
will be destroyed). Then the Allies land somewhere, and, let's be
optimistic, they win. Germany will clearly send everything it can to
stop them getting to the Ruhr & other vital areas. At this point, the
German "front" in the East is held by various ill-equipped and -trained
Osttruppen units. What exactly is to prevent Stalin from deciding that
he no longer agrees with the clauses of the armistice after all ?
And in that situation, why should Hitler decide to transfer the bulk of
his forces guarding the Rhine to prevent the Soviets from overrunning
Poland & the Balkans ? The heart of the matter is that Hitler was the
one deciding where the iron curtain would be, and he wasn't interested
in fighting the Americans' Cold War for them, he had his own goals.
>>>Suppose somebody in the German high command actually realizes this,
>>>and starts being more cautious.
>>
>>His assessment will be dismissed by Hitler as total rubish. Late-war
>>assessments of Soviet strength were much closer to the truth, but Hitler
>>no longer listened to them.
>
> Historically, true. However, I don't think it was necessarily true.
> I think Hitler could have been a bit more of a realist and still
> accomplished what he did.
If Hitler had been the kind of person who listened to pessimistic
assessments and allowed himself to be convinced by them, he would
probably not have become Chancellor in the first place and would most
likely not have started WWII, let alone Barbarossa.
> Right. Are we agreed that:
> 1. There was no certainty of a Western military victory without the
> Soviet Union in the time span of June 1940-July 1944?
Yes.
> 2. There was no way of having a Western victory without the Soviet
> Union after the first half of 1944?
Yes.
> 3. Trying to manipulate Soviet military capabilities through regulating
> Lend Lease would be either pointless, or dangerous, or expensive, or
> very likely all three?
I would also add "unnecessarily cruel", but yes.
Rich Rostrom
>3. The whole point of the "exercize" was to discuss the notion that
>lend-lease allowed the Soviets to control Eastern Europe. Now let's
>assume for the sake of argument that Germany and the Soviet Union come
>to an understanding in 1943. Let's further assume that Germany doesn't
>defeat the Allies. What happens is that German cities are being bombed
>to bits => the Luftwaffe goes back to the Reich, the fighters to shoot
>down B-17's and the bombers to conduct retaliatory raids (in which they
>will be destroyed). Then the Allies land somewhere, and, let's be
>optimistic, they win. Germany will clearly send everything it can to
>stop them getting to the Ruhr & other vital areas. At this point, the
>German "front" in the East is held by various ill-equipped and -trained
>Osttruppen units. What exactly is to prevent Stalin from deciding that
>he no longer agrees with the clauses of the armistice after all?
1) It will be very late in the day before Stalin tries to get back
into the war. Once the armistice takes effect, Soviet effort will
be largely diverted to non-military activity. Stalin will no
doubt maintain a substantial army on the German front, but most
of the troops will be demobilized, and many war plants will
convert to peacetime work. There's lots of damage to repair,
and a huge labor shortfall.
The USSR probably will re-enter the war when it is clear that
Germany is beaten, but that will not happen until Allied troops
are on the Rhine in the West, or the Danube in the east. At that
point, the USSR may attack, but it's unlikely that they would be
able get more than the 1939 borders, or at best the 1940 border.
There may not be a lot of German force to resist them, but there
will probably be substantial blocs of 'osttruppen' of some sort.
2) Once Stalin is out of the war, Hitler's position in Germany
becomes weaker. The German people fought for the Third Reich
to the bitter end, because the alternative was surrender to
(in part) the Soviet Union, i.e. Stalin. The U.S. and Britain
refused to discuss any sort of surrender deal with the anti-
Hitler opposition, in large part to placate the U.S.S.R. and
avoid charges of betrayal, etc.
If the Soviets were out of the war, and then came in late,
there would be immense pressure in Germany to end the war
at once, before the Soviets could get to them.
--
Never consume legumes before transacting whatsoever | Rich Rostrom
even in the outermost courtyard of a descendant of |
Timur the Terrible. | rrostrom@dummy
--- Avram Davidson, _Dr. Bhumbo Singh_ | 21stcentury.net
--
Michael Emrys
rrostrom.2...@rcn.com wrote on 8/8/03 8:46 AM:
> Once the armistice takes effect, Soviet effort will be largely diverted to
> non-military activity....most of the troops will be demobilized, and many war
> plants will convert to peacetime work.
I'm not sure I buy that. There might be some slight demobilization for the
reasons you give in material I did not quote, but not much. What you might
see is slowed conscription from historic levels, but most of those troops
already under arms would likely have stayed there.
Further, I don't see much production being diverted from the military sector
into the civilian above that needed for mere survival, food for the people
and fuel for heating, cooking, and transportation having priority.
My reasoning is that Stalin trusted Hitler to about the same degree he would
have trusted a rabid dog in his house. He would have expected Hitler to
return to the attack as soon as it suited him. Consequently, he would have
been preparing to meet that attack and preferably stage one of his own. This
latter would have been about the time Germany got really involved with the
Western Allies. To that end, either to defend or attack, Stalin would have
been arming as fast as his economy could stand.
Michael
--
Louis Capdeboscq
originated from a contention that refraining from sending lend-lease to
Russia might make things better for the Allies in a postwar Cold War
perspective.
I understand from your last paragraph (which I snipped) that you agree
with that statement, i.e. as long as the Soviet Union, of whatever
military capability, is still around, the iron curtain will split Europe
roughly in the middle (as it did) because Hitler, and not Roosevelt or
Churchill, was the one who decided where German troops would go, because
he would rather defend the Rhine than the Vistula, and because Soviet
forces - assuming the Soviet Union was still around - would always be
enough to defeat Eastern European forces on their own.
So it follows that doing lend-lease was actually a good, not bad, idea.
And certainly not a missed opportunity. Which is the position which I
had wanted to debunk on entering this thread.
Now that that is out of the way, all that remains is the discussion of
what happens if the West keeps lend-lease to itself.
Apparently, we also agree that the extra equipment is not going to make
a big difference: the Japanese will still be on rampage in the Pacific,
and the Germans are not going to be kicked out of North Africa all that
sooner (the likely outcome is the British simply lose more equipment
when Rommel hands them their butt, but being optimistic I like to think
that the 1942 disasters would be less disastrous). Certainly D-Day
doesn't appear much earlier, i.e. a weak Second Front in 1943, and a
strong one in 1944.
So what remains is the effect on the Soviet Union.
Geoffrey Sinclair wrote:
> Louis Capdeboscq wrote in message ...
>>However, with due acknowledgment of how weak [The Germans] were,
>>the fact is that they were still better off in 1942 than the
>>Soviets.
>
> Agreed, the Germans undertook the offensive in mid 1942 and
> industry at home was gearing up. However you have to allow the
> Red Army its winter counter attack, when the lack of movement,
> aircraft support and minimal daylight negated much of the German
> advantage, before the issue of cold is considered.
Sure, on the other hand exactly how large was that winter counter attack
going to be without lend-lease ?
When one looks at Soviet operations, there seems to be a clear pattern
regarding Soviet losses, and both Moscow and Stalingrad have "unusually"
low losses with respectively 370,955 / 139,586 and 485,777 / 154,885
(all figures in this format are total losses / killed or missing, source
is Glantz & House "When Titans Clashed") from a starting strength of
about 1,100,000 each time.
Other Soviet winter offensives don't fare as well, though. Taking only
the highest numbers and not necessarily the highest ratios, I note
308,367 / 95,064 for the Liuban Offensive (Jan-Apr 42) from a starting
strength of 325,700, 245,511 / 88,908 at Demiansk from a starting
strength of just over 100,000, 776,889 / 272,320 out of 1,059,200 in
Rzhev - Viazma or, for the next winter, 760,000/260,000 for March,
115,082/33,940 out of 302,800 at Leningrad and 240,176/66,814 out of
390,000 at Krasnodar.
My point here is that the biggest Soviet successes took place after some
events which historically were rather close calls. Absent lend-lease,
there's no guarantee that the Soviets would have been able to mount the
same level of effort in terms of winter offensives, and they would be
starting from a poorer position as well.
> In July the German replacement army had some 321,600 men
> for replacements, and these were meant for the losses for July,
> August and September, by 13 August the total losses in the
> east were 373,348 including wounded.
...so the Germans couldn't replace their losses. On the other hand, they
were themselves inflicting very serious losses on the Soviets: 568,347
including 370,522 permanent losses for the Voronezh - Vorosh Defense,
another 193,683 / 51,482 at Rzhev, and a fraction of the million losses
(half of which permanent) taken during the defense of Stalingrad and the
Caucasus.
By that time, the Soviet forces were still slowly growing from a
frontline strength of 5.5 million in mid-June to 6.1 million during the
winter, however the losses of the winter campaign weren't made good
until Summer 1943 for the Soviets and that owed a lot to the
availability of lend-lease.
(snip)
> To me the question becomes could the Germans push hard enough
> in 1942 to set up to cripple/defeat the USSR in 1943. Given the
> Red Army's ability to avoid losing large numbers of prisoners during
> the 1942 German summer offensive the answer appears to be no,
> the Germans could not force the Red Army to fight badly enough.
I disagree on two counts.
1. The Red Army didn't avoid large casualties in 1942. My hand count
from "Titans" using operations started after May (i.e. no winter
offensive sequels) and until the Stalingrad counteroffensive comes at
2,430,964 total of which 1,366,750 were killed or missing. That the Red
Army managed to avoid large numbers of POWs in the Summer 1942 is not
evidence of strategic genius but rather of a command breakdown.
Basically, the troops ran away and the Soviets rather than acknowledging
that they had lost control validated the move retroactively.
2. The Soviet war economy was in a very perilous position in 1942.
There's a good article by Mark Harrison on the topic which is online and
available if you look for his name ("academic staff") and "working
papers" at the Warwick university website (must be somethink like
http://www2.warwick.co.uk - sorry if I can't be more specific for now),
the title of which is something like "why didn't the Soviet Union
collapse in 1942 ?". Basically, his conclusion is that it came really close.
> Information from Germany and the Second World War,
>
> The control of the new Nazi empire, the need to watch Britain and
> the building of new or rebuilding of existing divisions meant as of
> December 1941 the forces in the east had 149 divisions, plus 7
> of the 13 in the "north" theatre, out of 216 divisions, and 19 out of
> a nominal 24 panzer divisions were in the east. If the British had
> ceased fighting and disarmed then it is probable around 30
> German divisions could have been sent east, at least 2 panzer.
> Effective strength of the Ostheer, excluding troops in Finland and
> allies, 3,000,000 down from 3,300,000 on June 22.
I think that we can safely dismiss the possiblity that the British would
cease fighting as the scenario is what happens if they keep lend-lease
to themselves.
From "Titans", the Soviets had 5,313,000 troops at the front line,
pitted against 2,600,000 Germans and 620,000 allies, as opposed to
3,300,000 Germans and 150,000 Rumanians a year before.
That doesn't count 90,000 Germans in northern Norway and 430,000 Finns.
> Effective strength of the Ostheer, excluding troops in
> Finland and allies, 2,750,000.
Close enough.
> July 1943 effective strength of the Ostheer, excluding troops in
> Finland and allies, 3,138,000.
I show 3,403,000 + 150,000 Rumanians & Hungarians with an additional
80,000/400,000 Germans/Finns in the north against 6,724,000 Soviets.
> In November 1943 in terms of field army deployments, the east
> had 2,683,368 men (including German forces in Finland), the
> Balkans 324,539, Italy 143,141, south France 145,159, west
> 558,362, Norway 174,952. Effective strength of the Ostheer,
> excluding troops in Finland and allies, 2,579,000.
Titans for 14 Oct (good enough ?) says 2,498,000 Ostheer +
70,000/350,000 in northern Norway/Finland + 150,000 allies.
> In April 1944 the east had 138 divisions, the north 19, of which
> 8 were in Finland, out of 238 divisions. Italy had 20 divisions,
> the Balkans 19. Effective strength of the Ostheer, excluding
> troops in Finland and allies, 2,245,000.
Or 2,336,000 + 198,000 Rumanians & Bulgarians + 70,000 in northern
Norway + 300,000 Finns vs 6,394,000 Soviets.
Close enough.
> One warning, the Ostheer figures may exclude the Luftwaffe
> and SS ground formations, making the overall decline seem
> larger than it was but highlighting how badly hurt the Heer was.
Sure, and why is that ? Because the Soviets had managed to increase
their frontline strength which degraded the attrition ratio from the
German point of view.
In addition to the SS/Luftwaffe thing, the figures take into account the
fact that forces were transferred from the East to the West, or more
importantly that reserves which would have been sent East were kept in
Germany or in the West instead.
The point remains that the Soviet ability to attrite the Germans was
dependent on their not collapsing and on keeping their war economy up
and running, two things for which lend-lease was instrumental.
>>The problem with fighting without Ukraine, without Moscow, without
>>Stalingrad, without the Caucasus & Kuban, isn't just a question of will.
>>At some point it begs the question "with what ?".
>
> As far as I am aware the area between the Ukraine and the Urals,
> and for that matter Moscow and the Urals, was largely undeveloped,
> few key raw materials. The Ukraine and the area to the west of
> Moscow, including the city, was where the industry had been along
> with much of the raw material production.
As you noted, the Kuban was the last major food-producing region. The
Soviet war effort was really not at a sustainable level in 1942.
Lend-lease helped preventing it from being more unsustainable, and
victory allowed for improvements.
Without the extra resources and with a degraded victory (at best), I'm
doubtful that the Soviet historical 1943 war effort can be reproduced.
>>>The cumulative effect of large numbers of wounded add up,(snip)
>>
>>...which is true for both sides of course.
>
> Yes, but the encirclement battles meant more PoW than wounded, so
> the Soviet problem in 1941 was not wounded. If the US figures are
> taken as a guide, 1 in 4 of the wounded were not fit for further military
> duty, and by 30 June 1942 the German forces in the east had suffered
> around 1,000,000 wounded.
Compared to 4.3 million permanent Soviet losses, and another 3 million
wounded & sick, I'd say that the Soviets also had a problem with their
wounded.
They kept their frontline strength at the expense of productivity in
those sectors which lend-lease replaced.
>>Compounded in the Soviet case by low morale absent a friendly success at
>>Stalingrad.
>
> I do not think lend lease made the difference between Stalingrad
> being a Soviet success or failure. It was German command
> decisions to fight for the city with weak flanks and to disperse many
> troops to the south to try and capture the oil fields.
On the other hand, the Soviet forces were largely equipped from the
Persian lend-lease route in the area. I'm not saying that Hitler was a
great strategist and only overwhelming Allied numbers defeated him, but
without the help it's not obvious that the Soviets could have achieved
the victory that they did.
> Given Hitler was into all or nothing then the small solution was not
> going to happen. In which case the Romanians, Italians, Hungarians,
> and one strong German army are going to take major losses as per
> history.
Yes, but the Soviets may also take larger than historical losses, and
more importantly the Germans may manage to stabilize the front farther
east, which means that 1943 starts with more resources in German hands
and less resources in Soviet hands, as well as a lesser psychological
effect.
Just when German industrial mobilization is kicking in, while the Soviet
effort is running into problems.
>>From Barbarossa to
>>June 1942, the Allies supplied some 4,000 tanks to the Soviet Union
>>(note: this is a guesstimate, explained in the post where I answered
>>Andrew Clark).
>
> The Oxford Companion to World War II, for Soviet tank and
> SPG supply,
>
> period beginning 1 June 1941, 4,090 domestic, 0 foreign
> beginning 1 December 1941, 7,767 domestic, 1,678 foreign,
> beginning 1 May 1942, 12,960 domestic, 2,904 foreign
> beginning 1 November 1942 15,708 domestic, 2,413 foreign.
> The next period starts 1 July 1943, the figures are from
> "Soviet planning by Harrison, page 264"
I can't access "Soviet planning in war and peace", and did some quick
math to see if my guesstimate for the 4,000 lend-lease vehicles was
correct (I correllated with the number of ships arriving to Murmansk +
data from Persia) and arrived at around 3,500. Needless to say,
Harrison's figures about Soviet tank production can be trusted.
So I won't debate the figures and go on quoting your source, the Oxford
Companion "but during the critical year 1942 [Allied supplies] provided
the margin which allowed the USSR to have adequate aircraft and tank
forces".
(snip other points of agreement)
David Thornley
>Geoffrey's arguments are compelling - but on the other hand the Soviets
>lack the strength to kick them back to their start line so it definitely
>looks like the whole rotten apparatus will crumble after all, and this
>time it can even be right.
>
>> Suppose there's a 1943 standoff like I described. At this time, there
>> is a basis for negotiation.
>
>No, because your initial point is the historical Soviet position in
>1943, which itself depends on lend-lease.
Actually, I was exploring other possibilities. Andrew suggested that
the West could have cut off Lend-Lease at some given time, to move
the end-of-war Iron Curtain, and the end of 1942 would have been a
possible time. I'm interested right now in establishing the worst-
case scenario given that assumption, and figuring out how likely
it is.
>I will also note that there is no basis for negociation because Hitler
>won't settle for anything less than total victory. Stalin's diplomatic
>probes (whether they were sincere or not - as I think - doesn't matter)
>came to nothing.
>
There is no basis for a permanent peace because, as you say, Hitler
wants to utterly crush the subhuman Jewish Bolsheviks (an interesting
concept, that), and Stalin does not want to be utterly crushed.
There is a basis for a temporary peace. We do know that Hitler was
not averse to dealing with the Soviet Union and making agreements.
He was just averse to abiding by his treaties (and, to be fair, he
treated the Soviets very much like he treated the rest of the world
in that respect).
>1. Either Germany feels threatened by the West, in which case Stalin
>will notice it (he was just as keen as Hitler to discern weakness within
>the enemy) and not settle for a "let's stop at the current frontline"
>armistice which basically guarantees that his country loses when Germany
>returns after beating back the West,
Stalin was definitely interested in not fighting alone, and would
by this time have a very strong feeling that the Western policy
was (as it had been) "Let's you and him fight." In other words, he
might well have felt that the West would not exert itself as long
as he was fighting. This is a reasonable thing for him to think,
given the diplomatic history involved, and is very compatible with
what Andrew was thinking.
>peace. That's my whole point, you see: I can't see a "middle ground"
>situation. Either the Soviet Union looks really threatened in which case
>Stalin is willing to negociate but Hitler isn't, or it doesn't look
>threatened in which case Hitler *MIGHT* be willing to negociate but
>Stalin has no reason to.
>
I don't see this as definitive, because of the position. If the
Soviet Union is in no immediate danger of defeat, it still may not
be in a realistic position to reconquer parts of its own country.
There would be room for negotiation on the lines of an armistice
in which Stalin receives much of the prewar Soviet Union back and
Stalin provides resources.
>2. If the West doesn't send lend-lease, then one may assume that they
>will exert stronger pressure on their front, e.g. all those tanks &
>Hurricanes sent to Russia will come in handy in the desert (though some
>will go to Singapore).
At best, this means that Rommel is defeated in the first half of 1942,
and this is assuming reduced or no Lend-Lease in 1941 and 1942, which
you claim important for Soviet survival. Perhaps the Tunisia campaign
is wrapped up sooner, and perhaps the Allies can be invading Italy
a few months earlier.
However, the critical factor in the Normandy invasion was LSTs and
other amphibious assets, which had little to do with Lend-Lease,
and so I don't see Normandy happening before May 1944 at the earliest,
probably June as historically.
Shipping not used sending stuff to Russia can be
>used to transport the same or other stuff to Britain.
Which means that the Allies can build up faster once ashore, and
possibly maintain an attack in France while attacking seriously in
Italy, for whatever good that does.
>3. The whole point of the "exercize" was to discuss the notion that
>lend-lease allowed the Soviets to control Eastern Europe.
Right. I believe we are agreed that it didn't.
Now let's
>assume for the sake of argument that Germany and the Soviet Union come
>to an understanding in 1943. Let's further assume that Germany doesn't
>defeat the Allies. What happens is that German cities are being bombed
>to bits => the Luftwaffe goes back to the Reich, the fighters to shoot
>down B-17's and the bombers to conduct retaliatory raids (in which they
>will be destroyed). Then the Allies land somewhere, and, let's be
>optimistic, they win.
It is considerably less certain than in the historical case, but the
Western armies were very strong, and would be stronger than historical
in this scenario for reasons you have pointed out. (The main issue
is manpower, but Britain and the US can scrape up some more, although
not without cost.)
Germany will clearly send everything it can to
>stop them getting to the Ruhr & other vital areas. At this point, the
>German "front" in the East is held by various ill-equipped and -trained
>Osttruppen units. What exactly is to prevent Stalin from deciding that
>he no longer agrees with the clauses of the armistice after all ?
>
As you know, absolutely nothing. Stalin and Hitler seem to have
shared an opinion on treaties that had become inconvenient.
>And in that situation, why should Hitler decide to transfer the bulk of
>his forces guarding the Rhine to prevent the Soviets from overrunning
>Poland & the Balkans ?
Absolutely nothing.
The heart of the matter is that Hitler was the
>one deciding where the iron curtain would be, and he wasn't interested
>in fighting the Americans' Cold War for them, he had his own goals.
>
Completely correct. I have never argued otherwise.
What I have been considering is how bad the decision could be, not
how good it could be, since it isn't going to save Eastern Europe
anyway.
After the fall of France, it seems pretty much inevitable to me that
the countries of Eastern Europe would be mostly ruled by a brutal
foreign totalitarian state, and the only question is which one.
It seems to me that being ruled by the Soviet Union was much better
for most of them than being ruled by Germany. Therefore, it seems
to me that, given the situation in the third quarter of 1940, countries
like Poland came off about as well as they could have. It also
seems to me that the critical Allied decisions were not to provide
Lend-Lease, but the long list beginning with acquiescence to German
reoccupation of the Rhineland, and culminating in Munich, the Western
decision to stiff the Soviet Union in negotiations, and the inept
French deployment in 1940.
>> Historically, true. However, I don't think it was necessarily true.
>> I think Hitler could have been a bit more of a realist and still
>> accomplished what he did.
>
>If Hitler had been the kind of person who listened to pessimistic
>assessments and allowed himself to be convinced by them, he would
>probably not have become Chancellor in the first place and would most
>likely not have started WWII, let alone Barbarossa.
>
I disagree. He had his goals, and was willing to go after them even
when uncertain. He could have been a bit more realistic, I think,
and more willing to modify his actions to reality as long as moving
towards his goals.
>> 3. Trying to manipulate Soviet military capabilities through regulating
>> Lend Lease would be either pointless, or dangerous, or expensive, or
>> very likely all three?
>
>I would also add "unnecessarily cruel", but yes.
>
I agree with that.
Michael Emrys
thor...@visi.com wrote on 8/10/03 2:37 AM:
> (The main issue is manpower, but Britain and the US can scrape up some more,
> although not without cost.)
It also seems reasonable to me to suppose that under the conditions you
prescribe (no LL to the USSR), the Western Allies would have been able to
raise a small number of additional armored divisions, which would also have
helped a little with manpower. Also, there would have been a larger number
of trucks available to haul supplies and personnel. Presumably this would
have either given the Allied armies more tactical flexibility or allowed
them to operate farther from their bases, or both.
Of course, in this scenario they are also presumably faced with larger,
stronger German forces, so who knows what all this would have amounted to in
the end?
Michael
--
Louis Capdeboscq
>
> 1) It will be very late in the day before Stalin tries to get back
> and a huge labor shortfall.
There isn't in fact much damage to repair in that scenario, as all of
the damage lies in the area occupied by the Germans.
On the other hand, the Soviet Union in its new borders is barely viable
due to the loss of major population centers and agricultural lands. So
Stalin has a strong incentive to grab back territory as soon as possible.
It doesn't take very long to mobilize for war. About a month. The
Soviets can demobilize and then be ready to mobilize again, say, when
the Allies do D-Day.
> The USSR probably will re-enter the war when it is clear that
> Germany is beaten, but that will not happen until Allied troops
> are on the Rhine in the West, or the Danube in the east.
Stalin's interest is to beat the West to the Danube. I believe that the
Allied victory will become probable much before the Allies reach the
Rhine, as was historically the case. The Germans who mattered stopped
believing in victory when D-Day was not thrown back into the sea.
> There may not be a lot of German force to resist them, but there
> will probably be substantial blocs of 'osttruppen' of some sort.
...the fate of such troops against a fully mechanized Red Army is
well-known. The Germans managed to inflict substantial casualties on the
Soviets when fighting in good defensive terrain (e.g. Silesian mines),
but only at the price of being wiped out.
So let's assume, substituting fortifications for mines, that the Germans
are as good as inflicting casualties as their historical counterparts (a
doubtful proposition as the frontline which be much longer), they are
still wiped out and nothing lies between the Red Army and the Vistula.
> 2) Once Stalin is out of the war, Hitler's position in Germany
> becomes weaker.
I find that particularly difficult to believe. Hitler's grip on Germany
was extremely strong and never relaxed. As the war progressed the
Party's hold on the German population increased.
> The German people fought for the Third Reich
> to the bitter end, because the alternative was surrender to
> (in part) the Soviet Union, i.e. Stalin.
No. Because the alternative was destruction. Or so it was thought.
Unconditional surrender, German towns bombed to rubble, that sort of things.
Another powerful incentive is of course the fact that not fighting could
lead you to face a SS squad...
Louis Capdeboscq
(ruthless editing of points of agreement throughout the post to comply
with the 50% rule).
>>>Suppose there's a 1943 standoff like I described. At this time, there
>>>is a basis for negotiation.
>>
>>No, because your initial point is the historical Soviet position in
>>1943, which itself depends on lend-lease.
>
> Actually, I was exploring other possibilities.
My point: the historical line was not a stand-off line. It was a line
such that *both* sides considered that they should (and could) attack,
even though Hitler's planned offensive had more limited goals than
Stalin's. A ahistorical line will be more favorable to the Germans.
Hitler attacked in the historical situation. Ergo he will attack in a
more favorable situation. So there is no stand-off line.
> Andrew suggested that
> the West could have cut off Lend-Lease at some given time, to move
> the end-of-war Iron Curtain, and the end of 1942 would have been a
> possible time.
I missed the relevant post, the last more or less precise strategy which
I remember from Andrew was that the Allies should have cut off
lend-lease around the time of D-Day.
Why exactly should the Allies have done such a thing, when they were
glad that the Soviet Union had finally survived its second year of
blitzkrieg after all ? I mean after Stalingrad, the Allies were by no
means reassured that the Soviet Union could no longer be defeated. It
looked like a repeat of the previous year: during summer, the Germans
beat the Soviets to a pulp but they barely hang on, during winter the
Soviets hit back somewhat.
> I'm interested right now in establishing the worst-
> case scenario given that assumption, and figuring out how likely
> it is.
Worst-case for whom ?
Ok, let's imagine that the Allies withdraw lend-lease by the end of
1942. Stalin knows that he probably can't attack in 1943. A possible
strategy is that he'll sit back to build up (since he now can't both
build up and fight, he has to choose for a while). Another strategy, and
Stalin's historical preference, would be to consider that nothing can
resist a planned German attack so the best way is to attack the Germans
so as to preempt them. Zhukov and Vassilevski will talk him out of it of
course.
At that point, Stalin knows that he probably no longer can be beaten
(see the growth of the Red Army up to that point), so he's not going to
offer peace based on the current frontline, but based on the Soviets
getting back at least some territory (the 1939, and preferably 1940,
borders. Perhaps less). Now what exactly, from Hitler's point of view,
is the point of accepting such an offer ? I don't see any.
> There is no basis for a permanent peace because, as you say, Hitler
> wants to utterly crush the subhuman Jewish Bolsheviks (an interesting
> concept, that), and Stalin does not want to be utterly crushed.
But I don't even see a basis for a temporary peace, as opposed to a
nonofficial truce in which both sides refrain to attack. The Germans
have no reason to give up ground and make the bear stronger (they know
that Stalin is hostile anyway). The Soviets have strong incentives for
liberating key areas like the Ukraine, or lifting the siege of
Leningrad. Or perhaps they'll use the time to try and blast the Finns
out of the war...
> There is a basis for a temporary peace. We do know that Hitler was
> not averse to dealing with the Soviet Union and making agreements.
Yes, but that was before Barbarossa !
Two armed men can arrange a temporary and uneasy agreement, but once the
shooting has started and blood has been drawn, it becomes much harder. I
mean in such a situation (both people facing each other and shooting),
there is a very strong disincentive in lowering your gun !
> Stalin was definitely interested in not fighting alone, and would
> by this time have a very strong feeling that the Western policy
> was (as it had been) "Let's you and him fight." In other words, he
> might well have felt that the West would not exert itself as long
> as he was fighting. This is a reasonable thing for him to think,
> given the diplomatic history involved, and is very compatible with
> what Andrew was thinking.
The problem with this is that the West IS fighting, in this scenario.
Because I don't think that even Andrew can claim that Churchill and
Roosevelt would have gotten away with a "let's refrain from fighting and
see Hitler and Stalin slug it out first" strategy.
So in a worst-case scenario (from the Western point of view), Stalin
doesn't fight all the way to the Dnepr and beyond, he launches limited
offensives and spends more time between attacks. Eventually, the West
opens a "real" Second Front somewhere (which they are going to do no
matter what the Soviets do), and Stalin will know that not only is the
West pulling its weight, but he's now in a race.
> I don't see this as definitive, because of the position. If the
> Soviet Union is in no immediate danger of defeat, it still may not
> be in a realistic position to reconquer parts of its own country.
If the Soviet Union can't be defeated, then it can build up. On the
other hand, Germany is engaged elsewhere and will generally decline.
Therefore Stalin has no reason not to offer an "unfavorable" peace to
the Germans, i.e. one in which they have to give ground. Which the
Germans can't accept.
On the other hand, if the Germans recognize that the Soviet Union can't
be beaten with the resources at hand, an armistice won't improve the
situation.
> There would be room for negotiation on the lines of an armistice
> in which Stalin receives much of the prewar Soviet Union back and
> Stalin provides resources.
So exactly why should Hitler suddenly trust Stalin's word despite
Barbarossa having taken place ? Very un-Hitlerian if you ask his various
biographers...
(snip further points of agreement)
Geoffrey Sinclair
(snip)
>So what remains is the effect on the Soviet Union.
>Geoffrey Sinclair wrote:
>> Louis Capdeboscq wrote in message ...
>>>However, with due acknowledgment of how weak [The Germans] were,
> >>the fact is that they were still better off in 1942 than the
> >>Soviets.
> >
>> Agreed, the Germans undertook the offensive in mid 1942 and
>> industry at home was gearing up. However you have to allow the
>> Red Army its winter counter attack, when the lack of movement,
>> aircraft support and minimal daylight negated much of the German
>> advantage, before the issue of cold is considered.
>
>Sure, on the other hand exactly how large was that winter counter attack
>going to be without lend-lease ?
Given what Hitler had done with the disposition of the axis
armies in the east in 1942 it did not have to be too big. As
well Stalin had learnt from the 1941 winter and had allowed
limited objectives, then repeated his 1941 errors and
expanded the attacks just like in early 1942 until Manstein's
backhand blow.
What exactly did lend lease give the winter attacks that made
the difference between success and failure? Around 10 to 15%
of the tank park is very useful, was it absolutely vital? Compared
with Hitler's decision to fight for Stalingrad street by street with
hanging flanks and disperse much force throughout the Caucasus?
>When one looks at Soviet operations, there seems to be a clear pattern
>regarding Soviet losses, and both Moscow and Stalingrad have "unusually"
>low losses with respectively 370,955 / 139,586 and 485,777 / 154,885
>(all figures in this format are total losses / killed or missing, source
>is Glantz & House "When Titans Clashed") from a starting strength of
>about 1,100,000 each time.
I do not have easy access to the book at the moment, what
sort of time periods are being talked about?
>Other Soviet winter offensives don't fare as well, though. Taking only
>the highest numbers and not necessarily the highest ratios, I note
>308,367 / 95,064 for the Liuban Offensive (Jan-Apr 42) from a starting
>strength of 325,700, 245,511 / 88,908 at Demiansk from a starting
>strength of just over 100,000, 776,889 / 272,320 out of 1,059,200 in
>Rzhev - Viazma or, for the next winter, 760,000/260,000 for March,
>115,082/33,940 out of 302,800 at Leningrad and 240,176/66,814 out of
>390,000 at Krasnodar.
Yes, the general consensus is Stalin wasted his winter advantage
by trying to do too much, and the subsequent poorly supported
attacks lost large numbers of troops. I gather the above figures are
for 1941/42 until Rzhev-Viazma and the rest for 1942/43.
>My point here is that the biggest Soviet successes took place after some
>events which historically were rather close calls. Absent lend-lease,
>there's no guarantee that the Soviets would have been able to mount the
>same level of effort in terms of winter offensives, and they would be
>starting from a poorer position as well.
In the what if world the point that some of the offensives would not
have been launched because of fewer resources holds as well.
The early winter offensives worked quite well, Stalin expanded
them to what was a broad front approach and kept the attacks
up into the spring. So the Red Army lost far more heavily in the
latter part of the attacks than the former.
I come back to my point that Lend-Lease to the USSR and,
probably, to the UK in 1941 and 1942 was probably too small
to make a difference compared with the Generalship displayed
by the two countries and their opponents.
>> In July the German replacement army had some 321,600 men
>> for replacements, and these were meant for the losses for July,
>> August and September, by 13 August the total losses in the
>> east were 373,348 including wounded.
>
>...so the Germans couldn't replace their losses.
I should have made clear I was talking about 1941. The low point
of the Ostheer in 1942 was around 1 July 2,700,000 it then climbed
steadily to 2,900,000 on 1 October 1942.
>On the other hand, they
>were themselves inflicting very serious losses on the Soviets: 568,347
>including 370,522 permanent losses for the Voronezh - Vorosh Defense,
>another 193,683 / 51,482 at Rzhev, and a fraction of the million losses
>(half of which permanent) taken during the defense of Stalingrad and the
>Caucasus.
German cumulative losses in the east to 30 June 1942 1,332,447,
to 10 July 1,362,836, to 20 July 1,391,184, to 31 July 1,428,788, to
10 August 1,472,765, to 20 August 1,527,990, to 31 August
1,589,082, to 10 September 1,637,280. That is over 300,000
casualties, 67,188 permanent, in around 2 and a half months.
The above from Halder's war diary, unfortunately that is as far
as they go and I do not have another month by month tally.
>By that time, the Soviet forces were still slowly growing from a
>frontline strength of 5.5 million in mid-June to 6.1 million during the
>winter, however the losses of the winter campaign weren't made good
>until Summer 1943 for the Soviets and that owed a lot to the
>availability of lend-lease.
I presume what you are talking about is Red Army equipment,
rather than manpower.
It looks like March 1943 was the date the winter losses were
all brought to book in the Heer. By June 1943 the number of
rifles present was 85% of June 1942, machine guns 85%,
PAK 52% (some of this was the retirement of the 37 mm),
flak 167%, artillery 96%, panzers 65%, Stug 231%.
The Panzer story is interesting, as of June 1942 681 were
mark IV, 2,306 mark III out of 5,121 tanks, the rest were
lighter vehicles. In June 1943 mark III, IV, V, VI made up 3,072
out of 3,307 vehicles. On average it was a better quality
force, but the winter battles and obsolescence had cost
almost all the lighter tanks, mark I, II, 38t. I can understand
why Guderian authorised using Stugs in Panzer divisions.
Both sides were hurting each other. I do not doubt Lend Lease
enabled a better Red Army, and it seems what you are stating is
it made a real difference at Kursk.
>> To me the question becomes could the Germans push hard enough
>> in 1942 to set up to cripple/defeat the USSR in 1943. Given the
>> Red Army's ability to avoid losing large numbers of prisoners during
>> the 1942 German summer offensive the answer appears to be no,
>> the Germans could not force the Red Army to fight badly enough.
>
>I disagree on two counts.
>
>1. The Red Army didn't avoid large casualties in 1942. My hand count
>from "Titans" using operations started after May (i.e. no winter
>offensive sequels) and until the Stalingrad counteroffensive comes at
>2,430,964 total of which 1,366,750 were killed or missing. That the Red
>Army managed to avoid large numbers of POWs in the Summer 1942 is not
>evidence of strategic genius but rather of a command breakdown.
>Basically, the troops ran away and the Soviets rather than acknowledging
>that they had lost control validated the move retroactively.
One German count of PoWs taken to 20th March 1942 was 3,461,338,
plus 15,004 tanks, 1,042 aircraft and 27,814 artillery, AT and AA guns
captured. This is one of the lowest figures for PoWs I have seen, other
figures are a million or more greater. Then add the Red Army killed
and wounded.
The Soviet attack on Kharkov started on 12th May 1942, the Germans
counter attacked on the 17th, the fighting was largely over by the 30th.
The German attack in the Crimea started on 8th May and had cleared
the Kerch peninsula by the 20th. On 7th June the attack on Sevastopol
began and was largely over on the 30th.
The Red Army launched an attack to break the German encirclement
of 2nd Shock Army in the north on 10th June and managed a small
passage, by 25th June 1942 the fighting was over with large numbers
of Soviet casualties.
The commander of 2nd Shock, A A Vlasov would become the head
of the German controlled Russian army, his first manifesto was
written on 3rd August 1942. This had been the second time his
forces had been encircled and decimated.
I am not counting these, I am trying to concentrate on the losses
starting 28th June when the main German summer offensive began.
I note on 1 July Stavka actually gave permission for withdrawals to
the Bryansk and South West Fronts. In the first week of July
according to John Erickson "For the first time in the war, the Red
Army was visibly and definitely pulling out of a threatened
encirclement and the Stavka issued orders for further withdrawal."
Similar result when Hitler tried for an encirclement around Rostov.
Erickson notes the Luftwaffe played an important part in breaking
up Red Army formations during the opening of the offensive. It
does appear in 1942 the Luftwaffe was a major factor, it had the
mobility to help compensate the loss of army firepower, to tip the
battles in the German's favour, since the ground forces were that
much weaker. As a thought the fact the Luftwaffe could intervene
in battles hundreds of miles part with significant firepower could
be the major reason for the success of the advance. After all if
the USSR had lost more troops in the summer battles the weather
enforced withdrawal of a significant percentage of the German
firepower explains the change in the success of the ground
fighting between summer and winter. This also downplays the
Red Air Force as an important factor, I am not denying they
fought hard, but were still learning how to consistently hurt the
Germans.
I agree the Soviet losses in the summer of 1942 were substantial,
and that many of the troops were dispirited by the retreat, and that
some ran away. The point is running way usually does not get you
very far, you need vehicles to withdraw any distance and that means
organisation, running way usually results in you becoming a PoW
or operating behind enemy lines when the enemy are advancing.
At the same time the Axis armies were unable to clear all Soviet
forces from the south bank of the Don, the bridgeheads that would
later be used for the counter attack. Both sides had significantly
degraded the other. In the axis case the lack of equipment meant
the axis allied armies were underequipped even by current German
standards.
In the what if world Hitler allowing time to clear the bank of the Don
as part of a solid defensive line as the basis of the winter defensive
line would have set up a 1943 attack.
>2. The Soviet war economy was in a very perilous position in 1942.
>There's a good article by Mark Harrison on the topic which is online and
>available if you look for his name ("academic staff") and "working
>papers" at the Warwick university website (must be somethink like
>http://www2.warwick.co.uk - sorry if I can't be more specific for now),
>the title of which is something like "why didn't the Soviet Union
>collapse in 1942 ?". Basically, his conclusion is that it came really close.
http://www.warwick.ac.uk/ the paper totalwar.pdf. I did a search
for his name in the search box on the main web page.
It is obvious from his paper he is an economist, even before you
note his qualifications. I will suspend putting in the economist
jokes for now.
I have real trouble with his paper. His actual conclusion is
"We cannot measure the distance of the Soviet economy from the
point of collapse in 1942, but it seems beyond doubt that collapse
was near. Without Lend-Lease is would have been nearer."
Inevitably he cannot say just how close it was, in fact the conclusion
does not go so far as to state Lend-Lease in 1942, at around 5% of
Soviet GDP, was the difference. His statement is in fact an obvious
truth, but lacks the measurement of how close.
The people who obey the new wartime restrictions, do their duty, do
not cheat, are designated "mice". Which is an interesting term given
the "Are you a man or a mouse?" insult. Those that chose to cheat or
only act in their own, usually short term, self interest are "rats". It goes
on to state the obvious, all societies can tolerate a certain amount of
cheating with a loss of efficiency, but once enough people act in their
own interest alone the system collapses.
Rats steal what they think they need or can get away with. They are
credited with having a strategy for victory or defeat, since a new
system may let them keep some of their gains and they have avoided
much of the old system. Mice are credited with having only a strategy
for victory. This ignores the fact the new system likes people who
follow orders just as much as the old one and does not like too much
corruption. It assumes that the "rats" will be protected, or at least not
pushed back to their previous standard of living or be subject to
vengeance. Rats have the best chance if anarchy prevails during the
change over, not if one strong system replaces another, and it was
the latter situation in the east in WWII, something Harrison does not
seem to grasp.
In his words, "Citizens may choose to be rats or mice, their choice
depending on the relative payoffs. In other words mice are not better
people than rats: it is not a moral choice, just a choice between
payoffs. The choice is forward-looking, being based on the
probability of defeat."
This is an economist talking, since stealing is not a moral choice in
this view.
One of his examples of "rat" behaviour were the forging of food
ration cards and the theft of food. Also "Food crimes reached
the extreme of cannibalism in Leningrad in the winter of 1941".
Well yes they did, the city was also cut off and without much
food at the time thanks to encircling armies. The situation in the
rest of the USSR was nowhere near as bad. He does not seem
to note the fact when calculating his odds of collapse that around
1/3 of the people in Leningrad did die of starvation but the defence
of the city did not collapse. What does that say about the chances
of a collapse in the rest of the country? Also a lack of food reduces
the energy available for both work and rebellion.
He notes at times Red Army soldiers ran away, the Germans note
the examples of soldiers defending to the last.
The Soviet Union was a command economy, Stalin had spent
years crushing initiative. This is normally bad since it means
people watch things become worse rather than fix them without
orders. It does pay off when things become bad, less chance
of revolt, which requires initiative.
According to Harrison the Soviet GDP figures by year in
international dollars and at 1990 prices, in billions, are
1938 359
1939 366
1940 417
1941 359
1942 275
1943 305
1944 362
1945 343
So the loss of GDP in 1942 compared with 1940 is substantial,
down to 66% of the 1940 figure. Use the 1939 figure and the
figure is 75%. Noting that if the Oxford companion is correct
where around a third of the population had been captured by the
Germans the GDP per head of population has remained constant
since 1940 and maybe gone up since 1938. The point is the
1939 GDP figures are the pre war borders of the USSR and the
1940 figures the post war borders, the loot from taking Poland,
the Baltic states along with Bukovina and Bessarabia from
Romania. It seems unlikely those areas were well integrated
into the Soviet economy in the time available before Barbarossa.
So if you use the 1940 figures you are most probably exaggerating
the amount of decline. Harrison credits Lend Lease with giving
5% extra resources in 1942 and 10% in the next two years, so
adding 5% to 1942 gives us 299 or 79% of the 1939 GDP
figure, in 1943 335.5 or 92% of 1939 and in 1944 399 or 109%
of the 1939 figure.
In terms of area it looks like the Germans ended up with the
best third of pre war European Russia. If my pre war atlas figures
are correct Lwow (Lvov) had over 3 million people in it, around
half a million less than Moscow. The USSR probably picked up
around 20,000,000 new subjects in the 1939-41 period, and
the security services probably managed to move most of the
key people in those areas into the Gulags in the east, less those
executed. Those Polish PoWs, in fact the large prison population
in the USSR anyway, were an underused resource.
So it is not in output that a collapse can occur but rather the
unbalancing of the economy because of the resources lost
in the western part of the country, even then this is not a
collapse but a decline in output in certain areas. It is also the
case shortages can be worked around for a while, the steel
allocations to civilian sectors can be cut as an example. It
seems that almost all the resources in western Russia were
duplicated elsewhere in the USSR. The single point of failure
appears to be oil from the Caucasus. Also given the
communications situation most of the population would be
near their food resources. You need good communications
to concentrate people away from farms, lose the farms and
you lose a lot of the people depending on them. I wonder if
Lend Lease food actually was very important in the advances,
helping to feed the newly liberated areas, stopping the advance
being held back by widespread hunger.
In short I think Harrison's basic ideas are based on bad data and
the methodology he uses to explain a basic truth is flawed, it is
more him showing us his economist view of the world than
explaining history.
I would like to know his source for "millions of hunger deaths".
Things like the Commissar order made it clear there was not a
lot of benefit for middle or senior officials to swap sides. I wonder
if Harrison knows just how many German PoWs were working
for the US Army in France in 1944/45, it was hundreds of thousands,
48% of the COMZ workforce was PoWs, Italians and Yugoslavians.
Harrison claims Soviet resources were 70% of Germany's in the
critical years and notes this produced an army bigger than the
Germans. Part of the reason the Red Army was bigger was
the technology deployed. The USA could mobilise less than a
division per million people, partly due to becoming the free
world's major supplier and partly due to the amount of technology
deployed. Radar stations, large aircraft, leading edge warship
propulsion, leading edge fire controls, and so on. Look at the
ratio of army size to population in WWI. At the end of WWI the
US army had 47.3% of troops in combat units, at the end of WWII
the percentage was 33.0%, plus 4.3% in AA units, there were no
US Army AA units in WWI. Despite the WWI army strength being
58.7% the WWII strength in combat units it was 84% ignoring
AA units and 74% counting the WWII AA units. These sort of
numbers explain why the WWI trained Churchill was forever
complaining about overheads.
There is also the basic situation of the far east Red armies. Starting
with around 704,000 men with 3,200 tanks and 4,100 combat
aircraft they had 1,446,000 men with 2,600 tanks and 3,200
combat aircraft in July 1942. They were kept at between
1,100,000 and 1,200,000 men until the end of the war in Europe.
If Stalin felt really threatened here was around 500,000 men to
throw into the front line.
>> Information from Germany and the Second World War,
>>
>> The control of the new Nazi empire, the need to watch Britain and
>> the building of new or rebuilding of existing divisions meant as of
>> December 1941 the forces in the east had 149 divisions, plus 7
>> of the 13 in the "north" theatre, out of 216 divisions, and 19 out of
>> a nominal 24 panzer divisions were in the east. If the British had
>> ceased fighting and disarmed then it is probable around 30
>> German divisions could have been sent east, at least 2 panzer.
>> Effective strength of the Ostheer, excluding troops in Finland and
>> allies, 3,000,000 down from 3,300,000 on June 22.
>
>I think that we can safely dismiss the possiblity that the British would
>cease fighting as the scenario is what happens if they keep lend-lease
>to themselves.
Agreed, my point was the fact the British were helping the
USSR over and above Lend Lease.
> From "Titans", the Soviets had 5,313,000 troops at the front line,
>pitted against 2,600,000 Germans and 620,000 allies, as opposed to
>3,300,000 Germans and 150,000 Rumanians a year before.
Great battles on the Eastern Front gives the Soviet armed forces in
June 1941 as 5,373,000, made up of 476,000 air force, 344,000
navy, 170,000 air defence and 4,383,000 army.
>That doesn't count 90,000 Germans in northern Norway and 430,000 Finns.
Counting the Finns is not really useful given they basically did not
advance out of the 1938 Finnish borders.
In December 1941 the strength of the Red Army Air Force is
put at 5,493,000, of which 3,394,000 were on the western front
and 531,000 in Stavka reserve. The Air force had 563,000
and the navy 514,000, total 6,570,000. The German military
is put at 8,198,000, including 5,998,000 army, 1,710,000
Luftwaffe and 490,000 navy. (Great Battles)
>> Effective strength of the Ostheer, excluding troops in
>> Finland and allies, 2,750,000.
>
>Close enough.
>
>> July 1943 effective strength of the Ostheer, excluding troops in
>> Finland and allies, 3,138,000.
>
>I show 3,403,000 + 150,000 Rumanians & Hungarians with an additional
>80,000/400,000 Germans/Finns in the north against 6,724,000 Soviets.
Wonder if the difference is the security units.
>> In November 1943 in terms of field army deployments, the east
>> had 2,683,368 men (including German forces in Finland), the
>> Balkans 324,539, Italy 143,141, south France 145,159, west
>> 558,362, Norway 174,952. Effective strength of the Ostheer,
>> excluding troops in Finland and allies, 2,579,000.
>
>Titans for 14 Oct (good enough ?) says 2,498,000 Ostheer +
>70,000/350,000 in northern Norway/Finland + 150,000 allies.
Yes, it shows how it depends on what people are counting,
security troops, reinforcements and on what date.
>> In April 1944 the east had 138 divisions, the north 19, of which
>> 8 were in Finland, out of 238 divisions. Italy had 20 divisions,
>> the Balkans 19. Effective strength of the Ostheer, excluding
>> troops in Finland and allies, 2,245,000.
>
>Or 2,336,000 + 198,000 Rumanians & Bulgarians + 70,000 in northern
>Norway + 300,000 Finns vs 6,394,000 Soviets.
>
>Close enough.
Does look like one set is combat units and the other includes
rear area troops.
>> One warning, the Ostheer figures may exclude the Luftwaffe
>> and SS ground formations, making the overall decline seem
>> larger than it was but highlighting how badly hurt the Heer was.
>
>Sure, and why is that ? Because the Soviets had managed to increase
>their frontline strength which degraded the attrition ratio from the
>German point of view.
>
>In addition to the SS/Luftwaffe thing, the figures take into account the
>fact that forces were transferred from the East to the West, or more
>importantly that reserves which would have been sent East were kept in
>Germany or in the West instead.
>
>The point remains that the Soviet ability to attrite the Germans was
>dependent on their not collapsing and on keeping their war economy up
>and running, two things for which lend-lease was instrumental.
The final paragraph is obviously true except I would state Lend
Lease was useful, instrumental implies it was a major reason.
As far as I can tell the one product that could make the vital
claim is the powders and explosives shipped, they seem to
be a major percentage of wartime usage and much of the
Soviet chemical industry was captured in 1941.
The rest seems to be in the useful category in that it expanded
Soviet military power, both directly (weapons) and indirectly
(raw materials). With the note the raw materials were often
items the USSR would have difficulty setting up new sources
of supply, therefore they have a value over and above their
nominal tonnage sent.
>>>The problem with fighting without Ukraine, without Moscow, without
>>>Stalingrad, without the Caucasus & Kuban, isn't just a question of will.
>>>At some point it begs the question "with what ?".
>>
>> As far as I am aware the area between the Ukraine and the Urals,
>> and for that matter Moscow and the Urals, was largely undeveloped,
>> few key raw materials. The Ukraine and the area to the west of
>> Moscow, including the city, was where the industry had been along
>> with much of the raw material production.
>
>As you noted, the Kuban was the last major food-producing region.
The Kuban went a long way, the Germans would have to make
most of the distance to the Urals.
>The Soviet war effort was really not at a sustainable level in 1942.
This may be correct, but then we know you can produce a
maximum effort for a short while but then need to adjust. The
British war effort was not sustainable, thanks to deliberate
underinvestment in maintenance.
>Lend-lease helped preventing it from being more unsustainable, and
>victory allowed for improvements.
The question is what resources did the Soviets gain in the mid 1942
to mid 1943 period, in effect they lost then regained a section of land
with much damaged infrastructure and little incentive to fix it before
the end of 1943. Well at least until Kursk was won.
>Without the extra resources and with a degraded victory (at best), I'm
>doubtful that the Soviet historical 1943 war effort can be reproduced.
If we remove resources then by definition it is unlikely we will achieve
the same results. I am not disputing Lend Lease helped, nor claiming
it could/should have been increased/decreased. I am trying to figure
out what it did.
There is the symbolic, we are helping you, political effect.
There is the marginal increase in fighting power in 1941.
There is the increase in fighting and economic power in 1942,
and so on for the rest of the war. The increase cannot be
strictly measured by tonnage since deliveries included
important non ferrous metals for example. It may be the aid
in 1943 was more important than 1942 given the efforts the
Germans made to rebuild their eastern forces in 1943.
I think the Soviet victory at Stalingrad had little to do with Lend Lease.
It took months to convert raw materials to weapons, there was no
just in time inventory. Also raw materials sent via the Persian
Gulf were held up to a certain extent during the second half of
1942 by the German presence in the Caucasus. Then there was
the suspension of the Arctic convoys, PQ-17 was in June 1942,
PQ-18 was in September, JW-51A was in December. The US
army figure for supply tonnage delivered via the Persian corridor
to the USSR to the end of 1942 was 353,114 long tons. It includes
4,940 tons of aircraft, this was apparently 742 aircraft, 468 A-20,
150 DB-7, 103 B-25, 2 P-39 and 19 P-40. Some 39 aircraft were
delivered by the end of April, another 209 in May and June, 218
in the 3rd quarter and 276 in the final quarter, including 98 in
December. By the looks of it there were 8,239 trucks and 577
other vehicles delivered by the end of 1942.
All up according to the US Army the western hemisphere shipped
360,778 long tons of supplies to the USSR in 1941 and 2,453,097
long tons in 1942, 395,226 tons in the first quarter, 830,410 Q2,
578,245 Q3 and 649,176 long tons in the 4th quarter. Of all this
some 734,020 long tons went via the Soviet Far East. Given
shipping time, unloading and internal transport you can add
between 2 and 5 months between shipping and arrival at the
relevant depot or factory. It took around a month to sail from the
US to the USSR in the most direct way and around 3.5 months
to the Persian Gulf via South Africa, given delays like forming
convoys, the quickest way for ships was probably via the Soviet
Far East. Then add 1 to 2 weeks to unload after being given a
berth and at least that to ship from the ports. I wonder how much
of the aid sent to the far east was used there, to save transport
from European Russia. The supplies via the far east included
around half the food sent July 1942 to June 1944.
The 1943 figure for tonnage via the Persian Gulf was 4,794,545
long tons.
According to the figures in Roads to Russia the total Lend
Lease tonnage to the USSR to June 1942 included 429,180
long tons of metals and 60,733 long tons of chemicals and
explosives. In the July 1942 to June 1943 period this rises to
749,890 long tons of metals and 181,366 long tons of explosives.
Wartime deliveries of metals include over 400,000 tons of
copper, 57,000 tons of zinc, 9,000 tons of magnesium, nearly
16,000 tons of Molybdenum concentrates, nearly 15,000 tons
of pig nickel, 260,000 tons of Aluminium (ingots, bars and
fabricated). The latter would be very useful given how energy
intensive its manufacture is. Nearly 3,000,000 tons of steel
in various forms, including bars, wire, plates, sheets and rails.
Then add 4,457,000 tons of food. All up metals were 20%
of the US tonnage shipped, food over 25%.
The Commonwealth added another 32,000 tons of aluminium,
40,000 tons of copper, 28,000 tons of tin and 114,000 tons of
rubber. Also 8,210,000 pounds sterling worth of food.
All very useful items.
>>>>The cumulative effect of large numbers of wounded add up,(snip)
>>>
>>>...which is true for both sides of course.
>>
>> Yes, but the encirclement battles meant more PoW than wounded, so
>> the Soviet problem in 1941 was not wounded. If the US figures are
>> taken as a guide, 1 in 4 of the wounded were not fit for further military
>> duty, and by 30 June 1942 the German forces in the east had suffered
>> around 1,000,000 wounded.
>
>Compared to 4.3 million permanent Soviet losses, and another 3 million
>wounded & sick, I'd say that the Soviets also had a problem with their
>wounded.
It would be good to break the wounded figure away from the
sick, sending large numbers of men to go and live in the dirt
in all weathers ups the sickness rate, but sick people tend
to recover more quickly than wounded. US Army figures were
117.8 non effective days per wounded man, 18.6 days per
sick man, with a 27 to 1 ratio between wounded and the sick
and injured men categories. It is clearly not easy to compare
these figures to the Red Army forces, the US Army did not
engage in the same amount of fighting and the Red Army did
not move large numbers of mean out of their climate and
disease pool areas, Malaria in North African and the Pacific
for example.
>They kept their frontline strength at the expense of productivity in
>those sectors which lend-lease replaced.
If Harrison is correct productivity in the war industries went up
but went down in the civilian industries. I suspect the civilian
industries were left with the less able workers.
>>>Compounded in the Soviet case by low morale absent a friendly success at
>>>Stalingrad.
>>
>> I do not think lend lease made the difference between Stalingrad
>> being a Soviet success or failure. It was German command
>> decisions to fight for the city with weak flanks and to disperse many
>> troops to the south to try and capture the oil fields.
>
>On the other hand, the Soviet forces were largely equipped from the
>Persian lend-lease route in the area. I'm not saying that Hitler was a
>great strategist and only overwhelming Allied numbers defeated him, but
>without the help it's not obvious that the Soviets could have achieved
>the victory that they did.
The items through the Persian gulf gave the forces in the Caucasus
probably the best mobility and food of any Soviet force. The allies
did not ship many infantry weapons or artillery pieces. I agree the
southern forces were able to benefit but they still needed Soviet
supply. The other point is Stalingrad was launched by the forces
in the north Caucasus, supplies to them from Iran would need to go
via the Caspian sea. The forces in the south were unable to do much
more than follow the Germans north. It was the forces near Stalingrad
that threatened Rostov.
>> Given Hitler was into all or nothing then the small solution was not
>> going to happen. In which case the Romanians, Italians, Hungarians,
>> and one strong German army are going to take major losses as per
>> history.
>
>Yes, but the Soviets may also take larger than historical losses, and
>more importantly the Germans may manage to stabilize the front farther
>east, which means that 1943 starts with more resources in German hands
>and less resources in Soviet hands, as well as a lesser psychological
>effect.
In effect the start line for the 1943 summer attacks was
around the same as the start line for the 1942 attacks.
>Just when German industrial mobilization is kicking in, while the Soviet
>effort is running into problems.
Which is why I noted it could be that Lend Lease was maybe a
more important factor in 1943 than 1942, since it is clear the
numbers and equipment quality of the German army improved
markedly between mid 1942 and mid 1943.
>>>From Barbarossa to
>>>June 1942, the Allies supplied some 4,000 tanks to the Soviet Union
>>>(note: this is a guesstimate, explained in the post where I answered
>>>Andrew Clark).
>>
>> The Oxford Companion to World War II, for Soviet tank and
>> SPG supply,
>>
>> period beginning 1 June 1941, 4,090 domestic, 0 foreign
>> beginning 1 December 1941, 7,767 domestic, 1,678 foreign,
>> beginning 1 May 1942, 12,960 domestic, 2,904 foreign
>> beginning 1 November 1942 15,708 domestic, 2,413 foreign.
>> The next period starts 1 July 1943, the figures are from
>> "Soviet planning by Harrison, page 264"
>
>I can't access "Soviet planning in war and peace", and did some quick
>math to see if my guesstimate for the 4,000 lend-lease vehicles was
>correct (I correllated with the number of ships arriving to Murmansk +
>data from Persia) and arrived at around 3,500. Needless to say,
>Harrison's figures about Soviet tank production can be trusted.
>
>So I won't debate the figures and go on quoting your source, the Oxford
>Companion "but during the critical year 1942 [Allied supplies] provided
>the margin which allowed the USSR to have adequate aircraft and tank
>forces".
Thanks for the quote, I recorded the tank figures, not the text
in the article.
The interesting thing is on the information I have the Red Air
Force was largely ineffective in the south during the summer
and autumn of 1942, indeed much of the advance was helped
by the intervention of the Luftwaffe. The Red Air Force might
have been able to put up better performance aircraft but many
of them lacked radios and most of them well trained crews.
Harrison's figures are the USSR produced 24,400 tanks and
21,700 combat aircraft in 1942.
The figures in Black Cross Red Star claim Soviet combat
aircraft production was 3,301 in the first quarter of 1942
and 4,967 in the second quarter. By 25 July 1942 the British
had sent some 1,822 fighters (including Lend Lease types
passed on), of which 1,322 had arrived, 288 had been lost
and the rest were en route. In the period July 1942 to June
1943 the British shipped a further 2,444 aircraft (including
1,292 P-39 and P-40 from Lend Lease). The US had allocated
3,002 aircraft to the USSR in 1942, some of which would be
included above, and obviously not all delivered by the end of
the year. It looks like the British shipped around one tank for
every aircraft shipped from June 1941 to June 1943.
So it is quite possible the percentage increase in Red Air Force
numbers from Lend Lease was greater than that for tanks. Then
we run into the reality an air force needs more resources and
aircrew more training than an army.
So I disagree about the idea that Lend lease gave the Red Air
Force "adequacy". They were a useful addition, in particular
because they came equipped with radios, but putting a Hurricane,
P-39 or P-40 into the air against a Bf109F or Fw190A?
Similar comments on the tanks, especially about the radios. After
all what does adequate mean? To defend? To launch the counter
attack at Stalingrad?
Summary time,
1) The western Allies would not have been much better off keeping
the materiel they sent to the USSR, the major problem for them was
shipping - war, merchant and amphibious.
2) Lend Lease played a minor part in 1941, it played a more
significant role in 1942 and maybe even more significant role in 1943.
I think the quality of Generalship was more important in 1942. Harrison
claims the supplies sent added 5% to the USSR's resources in 1942
and 10% in 1943 and 1944.
3) I do not think the Lend Lease material made the difference between
the USSR staying in the war or not, but see point 7.
4) I doubt the Lend Lease material made a difference to the success
at Stalingrad. In particular I note the time lag between the supplies
being sent and their actual arrival at the correct place in the USSR
and the effect that has on the actual useable material in 1942.
5) The raw materials in particular were worth more to the USSR than
the tonnage sent, given they were often materials the USSR could
only produce for itself at disproportionate cost.
6) Clearly as the amount of Lend Lease went up its effect on the
overall success of the Soviet forces went up. Given the USSR stays
in the war then less lend lease will still mean an iron curtain in the
middle of Europe, but the western allies will have had to do more
fighting to arrive at the end of the war.
7) There is one candidate for "vital" supply, the propellants and
explosives supplied by Lend Lease.
8) Given how much pain and suffering Leningrad went through I
doubt the USSR was going to collapse easily.
9) I do not have all the information necessary to form a completely
solid idea of how the economy of the USSR functioned in the 1941
to 1945 time period. Even if I had every scrap of data the very
human decision to carry on or give up would be based on people's
perceptions, something the figures cannot tell.
Revolutions are hard, most countries have no more than 1 to their
name, not 1 per century.
It is quite possible in 1942 the Heer lacked the ability to force major
victories against the Red Army without the aid of the Luftwaffe. This
explains the shift in the balance of power in the winter of 1942/43,
and partially explains the further shift in 1943. The Red Air Force
could and did contest the airspace over Kursk.
Louis Capdeboscq
of Geoffrey's post. Not because I consider his data irrelevant, but
because I can't at the moment add a lot more data myself, so I will
answer some remarks regarding previous data which I posted and skip
directly to the "summary time" at the end.
Geoffrey, if you feel I have overlooked something important, please feel
free to point it out.
Geoffrey Sinclair wrote:
> Louis Capdeboscq wrote in message
>>Sure, on the other hand exactly how large was that winter counter attack
>>going to be without lend-lease ?
[This is about the 1942/43 one.]
> Given what Hitler had done with the disposition of the axis
> armies in the east in 1942 it did not have to be too big.
As you note, the initial Soviet counteroffensive was probably going to
succeed, due to Hitler's overextending of the Wehrmacht. Stalin shared
Hitler's tendency to push until something broke (generally a Soviet
army), as he demonstrated in the 1941/42 and 1942/43 winter general
offensives, or in later futile Soviet efforts to breach German positions
with exhausted armies, e.g. crossing of the Dnepr in late '43 and early
attack of Budapest a year later.
My points being that absent lend-lease 1/ The German position at
Stalingrad is going to be in trouble with or without lend-lease, 2/
Stalin will keep attacking longer than would be wise, 3/ when mud comes,
the 1943 frontline will settle farther east with the Germans holding
valuable resources which they had historically lost forever at that stage.
>>When one looks at Soviet operations, there seems to be a clear pattern
>>regarding Soviet losses, and both Moscow and Stalingrad have "unusually"
>>low losses with respectively 370,955 / 139,586 and 485,777 / 154,885
>>(all figures in this format are total losses / killed or missing, source
>>is Glantz & House "When Titans Clashed") from a starting strength of
>>about 1,100,000 each time.
>
> I do not have easy access to the book at the moment, what
> sort of time periods are being talked about?
Without bothering to look it up, this is a few months in late 1941 +
possibly January '42 for Moscow, and the Uranus part of the Stalingrad
battle.
>>Other Soviet winter offensives don't fare as well, though.
(snip)
> I gather the above figures are
> for 1941/42 until Rzhev-Viazma and the rest for 1942/43.
They are.
>>My point here is that the biggest Soviet successes took place after some
>>events which historically were rather close calls. Absent lend-lease,
>>there's no guarantee that the Soviets would have been able to mount the
>>same level of effort in terms of winter offensives, and they would be
>>starting from a poorer position as well.
>
> In the what if world the point that some of the offensives would not
> have been launched because of fewer resources holds as well.
I really don't know.
I agree with you that lend-lease did not save Moscow. The fighting until
at least mid-42 was waged almost uniquely with Soviet resources. It
appears that Stalin threw everything he could find at the Germans, and
assumed during the winter 1941/42 that the Wehrmacht was in
approximately the same state (i.e. exhausted) as his own forces, hence
his decision to launch a general offensive on the general idea that the
most ruthless would make the other break in the end (a point of view
which Hitler seems to have shared, including in 1944-45).
So without lend-lease, Stalin still launches the initial Moscow
counter-attack to save the capital, he still enlarges the offensive with
thoroughly insufficient resources because he believes he is reinforcing
success, he still tries to relieve Leningrad, he still does the Kharkov
counter-offensive with reconstituted tank brigades using new Soviet
equipment (and to the best of my knowledge very little lend-lease
input). In addition, the Soviets still get pounded when the Germans
launch attacks of their own, starting with the Crimea.
So with or without lend-lease, my opinion is that the Soviet position as
of, say, mid-42 is substantially the same and in particular Soviet
losses are nearly identical.
Lend-lease made a difference for 1942/43, not necessarily earlier. More
on this below.
(snip points of agreement)
> German cumulative losses in the east to 30 June 1942 1,332,447,
> to 10 July 1,362,836, to 20 July 1,391,184, to 31 July 1,428,788, to
> 10 August 1,472,765, to 20 August 1,527,990, to 31 August
> 1,589,082, to 10 September 1,637,280. That is over 300,000
> casualties, 67,188 permanent, in around 2 and a half months.
Fine, compare that to the Soviet casualties in the same period which I
had listed in my post. The Germans were badly hurting the Red Army. All
that remained to be seen was whether this would be enough to defeat the
Soviet Union, and in my opinion lend-lease played a very important role
here.
(snip some more as consensus is unseemly on usenet)
> I am not counting these, I am trying to concentrate on the losses
> starting 28th June when the main German summer offensive began.
My point: when the German summer offensive began, the Soviets had
already badly damaged their armed forces during previous Soviet attacks
or German preliminary attacks. So even if the Germans didn't realize it
immediately, they had already destroyed a fair bit of the Red Army
before their main offensive, which explains why Blau hit largely empty
air initially.
> I note on 1 July Stavka actually gave permission for withdrawals to
> the Bryansk and South West Fronts. In the first week of July
> according to John Erickson "For the first time in the war, the Red
> Army was visibly and definitely pulling out of a threatened
> encirclement and the Stavka issued orders for further withdrawal."
My point here, as I stated in my post and expanded in the previous
paragraph, is that immediately prior to Blau the Soviet forces opposing
it had been bled white by various things including the Kharkov offensive
and the fact that Stalin kept his reserves near Moscow. As a result, the
German attack shattered Soviet defenses.
As there was no possibility whatsoever of resisting, as the Soviets
still didn't know at that stage if the main target wouldn't be Moscow
which precluded sending Soviet reserves to be destroyed in the south (my
source is an article on operation Kreml, the German deception, by
Ziemke), and as STAVKA had as a result of all the above totally lost
control over the troops in the south, it "ordered" something which was
already taking place, i.e. general retreat. Please note that as soon as
the Soviets felt they had some (though by no means adequate) defenses in
place, near Stalingrad, Stalin's order reverted to his truer to form
"not a step back".
(snip)
> Erickson notes the Luftwaffe played an important part in breaking
> up Red Army formations during the opening of the offensive.
There's a good analysis in Hayward's "Stopped at Stalingrad", a book
which I would recommend on the German offensives in the south between
May 1942 and May 1943 (more or less) and specifically the role of the
Luftwaffe.
Briefly put, the Luftwaffe was extremely important as fire support, the
Red Air Force was generally unable to mount significant opposition. The
problems started with Stalingrad when available aircraft figures dropped
sharply, that and the necessity of supporting two diverging attacks
(Stalingrad & Caucasus) meant less effective air support. For the
Stalingrad air bridge, availability rates were very low. That, distance
and Soviet opposition (both AA and more and more skillful fighter
tactics against unescorted transports flying a predictable route - good
practice) led to heavy losses. Even then, withdrawing to air bases near
the Dnepr raised availability rates from 20-30% to 70% or so (this is
just memory, don't quote me) with immediate effect as demonstrated on
Manstein's counter-attack against overextended Soviet forces with
practically no air cover (due to distance).
Let me know if you want me to actually open the book and quote,
otherwise for someone like you who seems to have devoted a lot of time
to studying WWII in the air, I think you should take the time to read it.
(snip)
> I agree the Soviet losses in the summer of 1942 were substantial,
> and that many of the troops were dispirited by the retreat, and that
> some ran away. The point is running way usually does not get you
> very far, you need vehicles to withdraw any distance and that means
> organisation, running way usually results in you becoming a PoW
> or operating behind enemy lines when the enemy are advancing.
Not if all you do is run. Running away before the enemy (as opposed to
withdrawing from contact, especially when you're half-encircled) can
work well enough. After Falaise, the Germans successfully ran away from
France, for instance.
> At the same time the Axis armies were unable to clear all Soviet
> forces from the south bank of the Don, the bridgeheads that would
> later be used for the counter attack. Both sides had significantly
> degraded the other. In the axis case the lack of equipment meant
> the axis allied armies were underequipped even by current German
> standards.
I disagree that this was the result of the Soviets significantly
degrading Axis forces, as opposed to the latter simply being overextended.
The end result was the same, of course, i.e. Soviet bridgeheads across
the Don, but what it says on the Soviet ability to take advantage of it
in the future absent outside help is different.
> In the what if world Hitler allowing time to clear the bank of the Don
> as part of a solid defensive line as the basis of the winter defensive
> line would have set up a 1943 attack.
This is a different what-if world.
I started with the assertion that the Allies would have been better-off
without lend-lease, and the Soviets not significantly worse-off. This
means that everything else remains the same, and in particular Hitler
remains committed to total victory if he can get it, which means in turn
he will go "damn the flanks, full speed ahead" (which, to be fair to the
man, had worked well enough in 1939-41). Clearing up Soviet rabble from
Don marshes with the goal of wintering short of Stalingrad and victory
in the late 1940's is for wimps, not for true Aryan warriors !
>>2. The Soviet war economy was in a very perilous position in 1942.
>>There's a good article by Mark Harrison on the topic which is online
> It is obvious from his paper he is an economist, even before you
> note his qualifications. I will suspend putting in the economist
> jokes for now.
Being a former economist myself, I would be grateful if you could
refrain from posting all but the funny ones.
As an aside, to provide background on economists in general and this (or
other) papers in particular, economics are in the same position as
medecine in, say, the 16th or 17th century: our understanding of what is
actually happening and why is minimal, we don't always agree on the
definitions of what "good" (whether "rich" or "healthy" for the 16th C
physicians) is, some of the concepts we use are probably flawed (like
"ether" and "humors" for physicians of the time, and I will refrain from
posting my opinion as to today's economics), however there is a pressing
need for our services so we have to make ill-informed decisions now as
this is better than not doing anything at all.
In that regard, economics have much in common with military history: you
don't know exactly what is taking place, you can't really repeat the
experiment, and the objects of study, for various reasons, do their best
to deny you the information you need. So you have to start by
establishing general rules, e.g. "after it has taken enough losses, a
unit will break". What are "enough losses" ? It depends, and most often
we don't - and will never - know: see the controversy regarding such a
small event as Pickett's charge at Gettysburg which continues to this day.
> I have real trouble with his paper.
Re-reading it, I understand why. My own reading was colored by having
read more detailed analysis (with attendant figures) in "accounting for
war" and "economics of WWII" among other sources. But none of this is
online as far as I know...
> His actual conclusion is
>
> "We cannot measure the distance of the Soviet economy from the
> point of collapse in 1942, but it seems beyond doubt that collapse
> was near. Without Lend-Lease is would have been nearer."
>
> Inevitably he cannot say just how close it was, in fact the conclusion
> does not go so far as to state Lend-Lease in 1942, at around 5% of
> Soviet GDP, was the difference. His statement is in fact an obvious
> truth, but lacks the measurement of how close.
What he establishes is that the Soviet economy was over-mobilized in
1942 and could not sustain that position for long. Lend-lease allowed
the Soviet Union to remain at that point, in addition to artificially
expanding the Soviet resource pool.
More below on this, but suffice it to say that the 5% figure doesn't say
much. It is the only thing that we have to work with (i.e. take
lend-lease deliveries and count them not at their dollar value but at
their production value in the Soviet Union, except that all you have to
work with is the historical values, not the cost of producing the
additional items), that's all. I'll note that if I remove 5% of your
muscle mass you should be ok but if I remove 5% of your body water,
you'll be in serious trouble, so as you mention it depends which 5% we
are talking about.
(snip discussion about rats and mice - call them "red and blue" or
"daffodils and lillies" if you prefer)
> This is an economist talking, since stealing is not a moral choice in
> this view.
Actually, this view says that statistically, the crime rate will depend
on how much people expect to get away with it and not moral values.
Which is corroborated by what we know.
Given the behavior of people in defeated / occupied countries (of which
WWII offers prime examples including the Axis countries), I think that
looking at individual decisions from the point of view of common
interest before that of moral values is a better description of reality.
> One of his examples of "rat" behaviour were the forging of food
> ration cards and the theft of food. Also "Food crimes reached
> the extreme of cannibalism in Leningrad in the winter of 1941".
> Well yes they did, the city was also cut off and without much
> food at the time thanks to encircling armies.
The point being, the Soviet control system - which was exceptionally
strong in besieged Leningrad as this was a closed area - broke down
under sufficient strain.
The rest of the Soviet Union might not necessarily have needed as much
strain as there appeared to be a way out, party hold wasn't as strong,
etc. After all, many Soviet citizens served with the Germans as
volunteers (various legions, Hiwis, etc), something that Leningrad
citizens did very little. So being besieged works both ways: it
increases hardship but also increases cohesion.
(snip)
> He notes at times Red Army soldiers ran away, the Germans note
> the examples of soldiers defending to the last.
Until mid-42, there were rather more examples of the former than of the
latter.
(snip macroeconomics)
> So it is not in output that a collapse can occur but rather the
> unbalancing of the economy because of the resources lost
> in the western part of the country, even then this is not a
> collapse but a decline in output in certain areas.
Yes, however some of these certain areas can be critical. Food, fuel,
some raw materials, etc.
More to the point, the unbalancing has a cumulative effect. Drafting
more people in the armed forces and war industry degrades productivity
in supporting sectors. This means that the reduction in output from the
"civilian" sectors is even greater than raw numbers indicate. Look at it
this way: there are 10 workers with no mechanical tools (they only have
ropes and planks) whose job is to raise bronze statues (big heavy things
which need to be put upright). Say you remove half of them, the
productivity of the rest drops than more than half, not just because it
is the fittest who have gone to the army, but because it's much more
difficult to raise a statue when you are 5 than when you are 10. The
more workers you conscript, the greater the decline in "civilian"
productivity.
Assume the same is true of the military (a questionable assumption, but
which I believe is roughly true at the grand strategic level), i.e.
larger armed forces inflict more losses on the enemy and take less
losses themselves. Now here's a completely fictional example to
illustrate the principle that Harrison is referring to. Take your
initial team of 10. First you conscript 3, but lose the battle and 2 are
lost. From the 7 remaining "civilians", you conscript 4, leaving 5 in
the army and 3 in the economy. The problem is that at this stage, your
army more or less balances out the enemy's army (so you don't lose more
troops, but neither do you gain anything), but your economy is now no
longer able to support the armed forces. So unless someone provides you
with more men, your army is going to waste away after a while, which
means it will be beaten past the recovery point. At that point, someone
gives you one extra man, with the promise of 5 more to come shortly. So
what you do is send the extra man to the armed forces, in the knowledge
that your economy will soon pick up the slack. That in turn enables you
to capture extra territory, i.e. more men, and restore your civilian /
military ratio to sustainable results (historically the Soviets even
"demobilized" and started to rebuild in 1943, and especially '44) as
well as allocating yet more men to the armed forces so as to win the war
sooner and less expensively.
To go back to the Soviet Union, the Soviets as far as I can tell could
not continue in their situation as of October 1942. They had more or
less military parity with the Germans, i.e. not enough to score a
decisive victory, but that level of effort was unsustainable. Contrary
to WWII Britain, it wasn't simply a matter of low maintenance, it was
graver than that. Also Britain could (and historically did by 1944)
switch to a lesser level of effort without jeopardizing its chances of
survival, which was definitely not an option open to the 1941-42 Soviets.
(large snip)
>>That doesn't count 90,000 Germans in northern Norway and 430,000 Finns.
>
> Counting the Finns is not really useful given they basically did not
> advance out of the 1938 Finnish borders.
I only mention them because they tied down an equivalent number of
Soviet troops, and Glantz & House don't provide figures for Eastern
Front Soviet forces outside the northern sector, so I thought that
omitting the Axis northern component would make the Soviet numerical
superiority where it matter appear greater than it actually was.
(snip)
>>>July 1943 effective strength of the Ostheer, excluding troops in
>>>Finland and allies, 3,138,000.
>>
>>I show 3,403,000 + 150,000 Rumanians & Hungarians with an additional
>>80,000/400,000 Germans/Finns in the north against 6,724,000 Soviets.
>
> Wonder if the difference is the security units.
Possibly. The reason why in this and lated (edited out) instances I
posted another set of figures was not to contradict yours as much as to
offer corroboration.
(snip to the point)
>>The point remains that the Soviet ability to attrite the Germans was
>>dependent on their not collapsing and on keeping their war economy up
>>and running, two things for which lend-lease was instrumental.
>
> The final paragraph is obviously true except I would state Lend
> Lease was useful, instrumental implies it was a major reason.
...so that's where we part company.
(snip more)
> I am not disputing Lend Lease helped, nor claiming
> it could/should have been increased/decreased. I am trying to figure
> out what it did.
Here's my take, for what it's worth.
In 1941, lend-lease did very little: mostly moral support andkeeping the
frontlines in Karelia slightly west of where they would have been
otherwise. The absence of a 1941 Soviet collapse was the result of
Soviet and German actions, not lend-lease.
In 1942, the direct impact of lend-lease was higher, but still not very
significant. However, the indirect impact of lend-lease was key.
Specifically, it did two things: 1/ It provided resources which the
Soviet Union really lacked at a crucial time, and 2/ It allowed the
Soviets to stay mobilized, secure in the knowledge that they could leave
entire sectors of their economy unattended and that lend-lease would
make up for it. Your arguments about delays are well-taken, but they
work both ways: it takes time to set up production for a given item, at
least as long (and often longer) than it takes to ask for it and for the
stuff to be delivered to a Soviet city. Absent lend-lease
*and*the*knowledge*that*more*was*coming* (a key part, that), the Soviets
would have had to demobilize some of their war economy - or it would
simply have ground to a halt. Either way, the Soviet 1943 strength
levels could not have been attained. Combined, this means that
lend-lease assured that the Soviets would stay in the war in 1943, as
opposed to losing it in 1942.
In 1943, lend-lease starting having a significant direct impact, i.e.
deliveries at the front including weapons, ammo, etc. Indirect impact
picked up, too, and the Soviets demobilized their economy somewhat.
In 1944, much of the increase in lend-lease deliveries was used to
rebuild the Soviet economy, though the direct impact (including those
trucks, avgas, etc) also picked up.
My point: lend-lease may well have made the difference between Soviet
collapse or continued resistance in 1942/43, not only because of the
direct deliveries but because it allowed the Soviet economy to remain
functional (barely - only with a Stalinist command system could it
remain so) while bringing the Red Army in a position to win the war.
So absent lend-lease, the Soviets may win at Stalingrad, but they are
certainly not going to win the historical victory (i.e. push the Germans
back to their 1942 starting line with huge losses), and they are most
likely not going to be in a position to field such a large army in 1943.
(more snipping)
> Summary time,
>
> 1) The western Allies would not have been much better off keeping
> the materiel they sent to the USSR, the major problem for them was
> shipping - war, merchant and amphibious.
Agreed. But the one who originally made the claim has somehow slipped
out of the debate :-)
> 2) Lend Lease played a minor part in 1941, it played a more
> significant role in 1942 and maybe even more significant role in 1943.
> I think the quality of Generalship was more important in 1942. Harrison
> claims the supplies sent added 5% to the USSR's resources in 1942
> and 10% in 1943 and 1944.
That is where we part company. My opinion is that lend-lease played a
very important role as early as 1942, not just because of the raw
tonnages supplied but because it influenced the decisions which led to
the 1943 situation.
Without the 1942 lend-lease, there might not have been the opportunity
to make good use of the 1943 lend-lease.
> 3) I do not think the Lend Lease material made the difference between
> the USSR staying in the war or not, but see point 7.
I'm not very secure in what I think on the topic, as I'm only too aware
of how little we know.
That being said, I think that lend-lease may well have made the
difference between a German decisive victory in the East and its absence
(which meant a corresponding Soviet victory, there was no middle ground).
> 4) I doubt the Lend Lease material made a difference to the success
> at Stalingrad. In particular I note the time lag between the supplies
> being sent and their actual arrival at the correct place in the USSR
> and the effect that has on the actual useable material in 1942.
No, but it may have made a difference to the success in the 1942/43
winter offensive. However, I would have to look at the data much more
closely before I made a firm statement...
> 5) The raw materials in particular were worth more to the USSR than
> the tonnage sent, given they were often materials the USSR could
> only produce for itself at disproportionate cost.
Precisely.
In a similar fashion, the British deliberately went into an
unsustainable mode in 1940-43 because they knew that the US would back
them up, at least economically and hopefully militarily. In other words,
assuming a strictly neutral US attitude the historical British war
effort would not take place (which does not mean that Britain would lose
the war, but the Soviets lacked the benefit of a 30 miles anti-tank
ditch between them and the Germans), as British military outlays would
be reduced and British investment in the Commonwealth would probably not
yield the same amounts of military production as did the historical
investment in the US.
> 6) Clearly as the amount of Lend Lease went up its effect on the
> overall success of the Soviet forces went up. Given the USSR stays
> in the war then less lend lease will still mean an iron curtain in the
> middle of Europe, but the western allies will have had to do more
> fighting to arrive at the end of the war.
Agreed.
Slight exception for the first sentence: after mid-43, the Soviets had
some lattitude to squeeze their population a bit more and delay
reconstruction (source being Harrison & Dunn).
> 7) There is one candidate for "vital" supply, the propellants and
> explosives supplied by Lend Lease.
I would add various other raw materials, transport, etc.
> 8) Given how much pain and suffering Leningrad went through I
> doubt the USSR was going to collapse easily.
I don't know how easily the USSR was going to collapse, but agree it
wasn't going to be easy (or it would have collapsed in 1941). I disagree
that Leningrad is representative of the Soviet situation as a whole, in
particular Leningrad knew that there was the rest of the Soviet Union
outside it.
> 9) I do not have all the information necessary to form a completely
> solid idea of how the economy of the USSR functioned in the 1941
> to 1945 time period. Even if I had every scrap of data the very
> human decision to carry on or give up would be based on people's
> perceptions, something the figures cannot tell.
Same here.
> Revolutions are hard, most countries have no more than 1 to their
> name, not 1 per century.
Military collapses are much easier, I can think of lots of countries
which experienced more than 1 per country and per century.
Drazen Kramaric
> I've been wondering what would have happened if Hitler had
>not attacked at Kursk: the Soviets were waiting for the Germans to
>go first. There could have been months of relative quiescence.
My conclusion derived from Zhukov's memoirs is that the Stalin wanted
to attack, but was persuaded by Zhukov to allow Germans to strike
first. If nothing happened (i.e. no German concentrations around the
bulge noticed), I believe Stalin would have ordered an attack,
probably the one historically done, against Orel bulge followed by
breakout from Kursk bulge towards Kharkow.
Neither dictator was particularly thrilled about the prospect of enemy
attack. Hitler was nervous about Zitadelle, but thought Russians would
not do him a favour by attacking first.
Drax
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