Stanford Tuck had a Spam, onion, & potato soup served to him by a Russian soldier when he escaped late in the war.

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If they were looked after first, 10% doesn't seem much, does it
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I think I see what you mean Za.

That figure of 10% applies "only" to lend lease food going to the Soviet military, Russia could comfortably feed the Red army from their own resources for as long as the war lasted.

In other words lend lease food, although the numbers look very impressive, [and were impressive] was in no way vital for the Red army.

About aluminium, it's true that USSR found a way to make planes using the smaller quantity of aluminium possible, the program which gave birth to the Lagg-3 was clearly oriented toward this objective, but it was nevertheless an issue for the Soviet warplane industry, I believe.

For example, the Pe-2 medium bomber/attack plane/dive bomber production suffered some delays and had to be reconsidered, the Tu-2 could not be mass built until Soviets were supplied with enough aluminium from their allies, and as soon as sufficient amount of aluminium flowed in, it replaced "plywood" whenever possible in plane construction (I believe the last Yak generations were all metal for example, but I'll check this).

The impregnated wood used by Soviet was a very good material though, but as Za said, it was a second choice.

I'll post some sources later on, but I really think the aluminium supplies were more important than the food supplies for the Red Army

Edit : here's the text

"Vladimir Gorbunocv was chief of one of the departments of the People's Commissariat of the Aircraft Industry (...). Hi concept, forwarded in 1939, was an aircraft having an all-wood structure, realising the necessity of greatly increasing the output of combat fighters asap, and the limitations that might be imposed on this process by lack of aluminiuù. 'Even if only one small grove of trees is left in Russia' thought Gorbunov,'even then we shall be able to build fighters'."

From Gordon and Khazanov Soviet Combat Aircraft of the 2nd World War

[ 27. October 2006, 02:23 PM: Message edited by: chocapic ]

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Children of rape and incest must live, their fathers must fry on the electric chair.
21st century FTW !

Nuther interesting angle on this.

http://www.wargamer.com/articles/lldocefx.asp

The Allies supplied 317,000 tons of explosive materials including 22 million shells that was equal to just over half of the total Soviet production of approximately 600,000 tons. Additionally the Allies supplied 103,000 tons of toluene, the primary ingredient of trinitrotoluene (more commonly known as TNT) while Soviet manufacture totaled 116,000 tons. If the Allies had not shipped these amounts of explosive materials, the Soviets undoubtedly would have had even more serious ammunition problems in addition to all their other shortcomings. The Soviet's ammunition shortages, mainly early in the war, caused them to be conservative with artillery shells and reinforced the use of their field guns in direct fire mode. This was done even though it brought greater risk to the artillery crews and their guns.

The Allies shipped, in addition to explosives and ammunition, 991 million miscellaneous shell cartridges to speed up the manufacturing of ammunition.

On explosive materials....

This was largely a question of optimal division of labor between Allies. In 1941-42 US industry was not quite ready for war-time production yet - there was little engineering experience in producing tanks and combat aircraft. However, US chemical industry was [with the Germans]the best in the world and production of explosives does not require all that much special expertise. So production of explosives was much easier for US to handle at the time then production of armored vehicles etc. E. Stettinius, writes about it to the tune of "We could not do everything Soviets wanted, but we tried to do what we could".

mmmm....don't mess with the freepers

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Children of rape and incest must live, their fathers must fry on the electric chair.
21st century FTW !

Probably true though.

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There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.

I agree to some extend, but I think lend lease program had its stronger impact on the course of operations from the very end of 41 to mid 42, not after 1.5 years of war.

Maybe this guy is talking about lend leased trucks in the great 43 and 44 summer/spring offensives.

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Children of rape and incest must live, their fathers must fry on the electric chair.
21st century FTW !

Chocapic, the problem is that lend lease didn't kick in really until post Stalingrad, if you look at the figures they bear this out. As I posted elsewhere, the RKKA truck park in 1941 stood at 272k, by the end of the year with vehicles taken out of the civilian sector, new production and despite losses this had risen to 318k with 0.4% being imported models. Even on January first 1943 the number of lend lease trucks stood at 6.1% of the total, how could they have had as massive an impact early on as people suggest if this is the case?

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There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.

Yes, that's why I said lend leased trucks had an impact later on, like in 43 and 44.

(BTW I thought that, during the whole war, USSR was delivered more or less as many trucks as it produced on its own.)

But if you consider planes, for example, even if only a few have been delivered in early 42, they were direly needed and in some places of the front (Leningrad area, Murmansk area), they represented a very significant part of the planes available at these time and places, and these lend leased planes were as good if not better than the then widely used polikarpov or migs.

This wasn't true anymore in 1943.

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Children of rape and incest must live, their fathers must fry on the electric chair.
21st century FTW !

Actually if im not mistaken I am pretty sure that there were a few very brave French pilots that flew along with the Russians in the Siege of Leningrad to help reduce the Luftwaffe threat.

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

Nope, by the end of the war 77% of trucks in Soviet service were domestic production, 4% captured and 19% imported.

Aircraft etc I can't find statistics for.

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There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.

@Sloniksp : I think you are refering to the Normandie Niemen squad, I'm not sure they were flying for the VVS as early (I don't know much about their operational history - shame on me)

@ Stefan : according to my source USSR was delivered 470.000 non armored vehicule which represented more than USSR production, but I'm inclined to believe you are knowledgeable on the subject and my source is wrong and you are right.

Have you got the sum numbers for the entire war ?

About plane, my source says 14.000 and 12.000 for tanks, which is supposed to represent about 10% of soviet production, but now you make me doubt of my source (old 1970 strategy and tactics - I was a wargamer in my youth [img]smile.gif[/img] )

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Children of rape and incest must live, their fathers must fry on the electric chair.
21st century FTW !

Chocapic,

I believe they might be the ones I will however try to find more.

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

Take a look over here:

http://www.1jma.dk/articles/1jmaarticlelendlease.htm

Even provides breakdown by type of truck.

According to another source the soviets got 20,000 AFV's (excluding those lost at sea) and that includes personnel carriers and so on. Data from:

http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=5275

Wikipedia agrees with you're source on aircraft, I'll check with Overy and a few other sources when I get home. I'd always be dubious of any book written during the 70's concerning the USSR as the Soviets were very careful what they actually told the west about their wartime production, tactics etc. Most of it comes from German intelligence documents captured by the US at the end of the war, making them dubious at best.

EDIT: Now isn't this interesting, Free French pilots did serve in the USSR:

http://www.1jma.dk/articles/1jmafrenchrussia.htm

[ 11. December 2006, 02:16 PM: Message edited by: Stefan ]

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There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.

Thanks alot for links.

In the first link I don't understand why the first chart mentions no imported trucks until 1943 when the 3rd chart shows 17.400 dodge, ford etc trucks and 9.200 towing vehicules delivered in 1942

Anyway my source giving an overall domestic prodction below 500.000 looks way off.

In the 2nd link, the last chart gives a sum not to far(more like 13-14.000 I guess) from the 12.000 I mentioned.

About the Normandie Niemen, looks like they did not fought before 1943 http://www.acesofww2.com/Normandy-Ni...die-Niemen.htm

BTW one of their Yak3 is still on display near Paris and in a pretty good shape, I saw it few years ago, she's a beauty [img]graemlins/rachel.gif[/img]

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Children of rape and incest must live, their fathers must fry on the electric chair.
21st century FTW !

That seems to fit in with what my link says, created December 4th 1942. This probably deserves a thread of it's own.

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There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.

yeah, or we could merge the 2 subject by saying these French pilots, when given the choice of their weapons, favored the Yak over lend leased Spitfires or Airacobras.

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Children of rape and incest must live, their fathers must fry on the electric chair.
21st century FTW !

Indeed, good point. One of these days I'll put together a uniform for one of these chaps.

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There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.

Good link Chocapic you beat me to it

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

the yak was a very sturdy and stable platform, i would choose it as a "workhorse", but i still am attached to the spitfires

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"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." -Winston Churchill