The importance of Lend lease to the Soviet war effort

Hi all,
This is a question which has been getting at me lately.
Whats your opinion on how important lend lease aid was to the Soviet war effort and was it decisive in winning the war?

Ive heard many arguements on this and half say that without lend lease, the continuation of the soviet war effort would have been impossible and they would have sued for peace with Germany.

The other half ive heard say that when lend lease started to arrive at the SU in large enough quantities the greater part of the war had been won without it.

My impression has always been that lend lease aid was more of a comfort factor rather than anything decisive. i.e the supply of food and boots etc. Since many of the tanks and aircraft that were given to the soviets were rejected since they were either obsolete or inferior to soviet designs.
Ive also heard from various sources (ill try to confirm these)that lend lease aid contributed to around 4 - 14% of total soviet war production.

Thoughts?

 

Hello Kaiser Heer!

here´s something to read first:

http://www.ww2forums.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=000503#000000

Personally I think the Russians with their huge reserves probably would have won in the end but without the Lend lease help it definitely would have lasted a much longer time- then again the west helped itself by giving Lend lease as well.

 

Any U.S. "front-line"fighter aircraft go or just the P-39's we did'nt use? Interesting side note.In '44-45 when it looked like nothing could stop the Russians, Stalin was still afraid of pissing off Japan by letting B-29's land there.So when one landed there anyway they simply "copied" one.Presto! Instant "front-line" bomber.

 

LL was important to the Soviets, but not "The reason they woon the war"

I believe that , even if not first rate equipment, it meant that the Soviets could put a higher percentage of their better weapons into the front and the lesser rated equipment on the periphery.

It allowed their production to specialise as they knew the Western Allies would fill the gaps. (Especially in Heavy Military standard Trucks)

But, the Soviets did widely use Allied weapons, The P-39, used as a ground attack weapon was loved by them, they also used B-25 & A-20 widely and respected the Matilda II & Valentine though rued their small guns. (The Lee/Grant was called 7 Graves for 7 Brothers)

A bigger question was the effect on the British Forces of the weapons sent, especially in 1941-42. Britain couldnt equip its Eastern Air Forces with a modern Fighter, but sent up to a thousand Hurricanes to Russia, Hundreds of Valentines went to Russia, while Indian Armoured Units used Ford Trucks, a second Armoured Bde in Burma or 1 in Malaya may have made the Japanese task so much harder. The Australian Armoured units could not get modern tanks until the US entered and Grants were provided.

??

 

Is that the way that the Russians got hold of the B-29 model. I heard that it was because a damaged B-29 had to land there and the Russians wouldn't let it leave for awhile, in the process copying it's design and planning for another model of their own.
This site gives the account of how it happened, it seems that Stalin never gave us permission to land in Russia but we did on an extreme emergency thus the story unfolds... http://www.rb-29.net/HTML/03RelatedStories/03.03shortstories/03.03.10contss.htm

 

Could it be that Stalin planned this? [1] It would keep the neutrality with Japan by impounding the planes. [2] He could "examine" our bombers as he wished.

 

I would think it definetly possible for Stalin to have that in mind. I believe he always knew that war would come with the states and he didn't want us to be too far ahead of him so he used this to investigate our bomber (B-29) with the capability to carry an atomic bomb.

 

As is often the case, the truth lies somewhere between the extremes of retoric on this issue. Was lend lease critical to the Soviet war effort? Yes. Aviation fuels, fuel addititves and other high grade POL products were an exclusive lend lease item for them. Without these their aircraft would have performed substancially worse than they did.
The P-39 and P-63 were, by Soviet standards, good performing aircraft. Certainly the A-20 was a good attack bomber for them as well.
In electronics the lend lease contribution was critical too. Radar, radio, telephones and, tubes were just a few items that overwhelmingly were lend lease. In a mobile war these were critical to success.
The bottom line is that it was many of the seemingly mundane items that lend lease provided enmass to the Soviets that permitted them not only to stop the Germans but, win. Without these items the Soviets likely would still have fought Germany to a standstill but they probably couldn't have carried the war to Germany.

 

And the consequence for the Western Allies war efforts would have been in this (or a even worse) case?

Any gallon fuel, every locomotive, pair of boots , spam, nail, the U.S. gave to the Soviets helped to save an G.I.'s life.

Cheers,

 

That is a valid point AndyW, but sometimes I wonder if the western allied ever thought that they might be fought with supplies and weapons (they sent) by Russians??!

I remember reading somewhere that it was wished that the last German and Russian soldier would die fighting each other....

 

Certainly the Lend & Lease's importance to the Soviet War effort was immense, but not decisive. The Soviet Union did win the war nor didn't lose it because of it.

Planes, light weapons and above all, jeeps and lorries were most appreciated by Soviet crews; even if tanks and armoured vehicles were not as appreciated...

But the food and fuel supplies were a tremendous relief to the civil population during those harsh years, specially in winter.

At least more than 3 million German and 6 million Soviet soldiers died in this way, didn't they?

 

The P-39 being used as a ground-attack plane is a common western misconception that lingers to this day. I do not know where this myth originated, but it is repeated in "serious" texts more often than you can shake a stick at. It probably stems from the fact that western sources failed to comprehend that it was an excellent fighter for the conditions where the Soviets used it, ie at low altitude without a need for a supercharger (the main problem in western conditions).

In fact the P-39 was used to a very large degree as an air superiority fighter, and with a great degree of success at the low altitudes of the Eastern Front. Looking at a list of the top ten scoring Soviet (and hence Allied) fighter pilots reveal a high proportion of P-39 pilots and kills. As an example, number 2 ace Aleksander Pokryshkin scored 48 out of 59 kills, and number 3 ace Grigory Rechkalov 44 out of 58 kills, in the P-39.

On the original topic I'll note that the Soviets considered the Hurricane rather useless, and the banged-up, used and out-dated Spitfires they received rather poor as well.

The Sherman tank should also get a mention I think, as quite a few served in Mech Corps and were appreciated.

 

But what about the Hurricanes and Spitfires delivered by the British to the USSR being considered 'too delicate' for the eastern front?

Hurricanes and Spitfires were designed or at least used to operate in British or French home bases, with well-built air strips, not flat fields and flat clears in the middle of the Russian stepes... Thus, the planes operating in the Soviet Union recquired a very unpractical amount of manteinance time to be fully operative.

Too fine machines for the rough conditions of the war in the east.

 

Actually, Hurricanes and Spitfires often operated from grass airstrips.

 

Some contributions from the Lend-Lease to Russia certainly helped them, like the aircraft and supplies, but then there were others that, well..not so usefull, such as the M3Grant..completly outclassed by Axis armor.

In the end, it helped the Russians, but I don't think it would have stopped them from winning the war.

 

This is exactly what I meant, but I find that my mediocrity in English grows everyday.

 

P - 39 was a good fighter ONLY comparing with LaGG -3 or Yaks (no to mention biplane Polikarpovs)

BTW - Soviets during WWI managed to construct 'outstanding' prototypes but when came to mass production miraculously engin power wasn't as prototype and max speed decreased and so on... And instead a good plane pilots received 'Lacquered
Coffin' (as they called LaGG - 3)

Soviets claimed the whole Lend Lease was insignificant in their war effort while was VITAL.

source: German Aces of the Russian Front by John Weal p. 12 - 13

 

The early Soviet Yak-1, Yak-7 and LaGG-3 fighters were roughly equal to the Hurricane and P-40, ie sturdy and reliable but not sufficient performers to go one on one with the Bf-109, but still sufficient to inflict casualties, albeit at a heavy price.

Overall I'd say the P-39 was better than these Soviet and Lend-Lease aircraft, indeed it served with distinction in upgraded models for the most part of the war as far as I know. While not an outstanding aircraft by mid to late war, it did a good job and the Soviet pilots I've seen have never expressed any doubts about going up against the Luftwaffe in it. The same can NOT be said about Spitfires, Hurricanes and P-40s!

The first production aircraft were often low-performers. However, once these kinks had been sorted out the Soviet had some of the best fighters of World War II.

A good example is the La-5 which had quite a lot of problems in the beginning of the production cycle, things like the cockpit being filled with smoke from the engine(!). By the time it had been upgraded to the La-5FN standard it was a great fighter. In the mid-1943 timeframe when the La-5FN went into service it clearly outperformed the Bf-109s in service at the time, and slighty outperformed the Fw-190 at typical Eastern Front conditions.

The later version Yak fighters, the Yak-9 and especially the (Spitfire-on-steroids-with-climb-of-a-109) Yak-3 are also clearly contenders in any comparison for "best fighter of World War II". I am not aware of any aircraft beside the Yak-3 that has been issued with a "do not engage" warning by the Luftwaffe, even if it was only for lower altitudes.

Insignificant is clearly an overstatement in one direction, while VITAL is the same in a completely different direction.

 

Found an article entitled "Controversies of the Russo-German war",

From www.wargamesdirectory.com

has a section entitled "How instrumental was lend-lease in the soviet victory?"

Personally I think it helped the Soviets in as much as they could specialise their industrial output to produce more tanks and use US trucks instead of producing vast amounts of their own. If nothing else it helped them drive into Europe...

 

La 5 outperformed FW 190? Possibly but...

Check names like major Horst Ademeit - on his Fw 190 A-5 (W.Nr. 5960) downed totally 7 La 5's and on 15.1.1944 between 9.10 and 9.20 downed 3 La 5 and one Pe 2.
http://www.luftwaffe.cz/ probably one of the best site (if you looking for accurate informations) about the LW.

First which wersion of Focke Wulf do you want to compare? A-8 maybe...lol

And didn't you forgot about something, someone? Name Kurt Tank does it ring the bell? Ta 152!

In my opinion Me 109 (BTW diffrences among 'Emil' 'Friedrich' 'Gustaw' are huge) wasn't a good plane at all. So it's very easy to pick up La 5 and compare it with say 'Friedrich'. It's prove nothing, however.

Ok, check this out http://www.btinternet.com/~fulltilt/Comp.html and say what do you think about comparisions by the site's author. (It going to be an off - topic maybe we should start a new thread ' La5fn & La7 vs other planes)

Back to the Lend Lease....how about aviation fuel? Which was quality of above mentioned produced by Soviets?

PS You said:

Rather very very roughly
http://www.btinternet.com/~fulltilt/deshist.html#LaGG-3

PS.

from: http://www.virtualpilots.fi/hist/WW2History-GuntherRallEnglish.html

[ 23. May 2004, 10:12 AM: Message edited by: Fredd ]