Eastern front : won from the start ?

You have said yourself, " there is a big difference in being aware of winter and being prepared for it "

The point that I was trying to make, is that the Germans were very familiar with the Russian weather, due to their own numerous experiences and the experiences of other European countries. The blame for Germany being very familiar with the Russian winter and not preparing herself for it, due to a belief that the country would crumble in 6 months lies solely with the German High Command.

Would you consider this as a simple miscalculation by the Germans??

 

"For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loseshis own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?"(Matthew 16:26)

 

"What profit a man if he bores others to tears by reciting religious tracts to them but contributes nothing of interest to the thread in question?" (Stefan 19:51 GMT)

 

Please bear in mind that workers in Canada, USA and Britain and Sailors from many nations (including my close family) contributed on the Soviet side. It was not a simple slugging match between USSR and Nazi Germany.

The velocity and force of the attack might have done in the USSR if they were alone. There are plenty of accounts of what Ivan thought of this materiel. (although it was published after the war and viewed trough communist lenses) However this equipment was delivered to make up for the gaugantian losses in the early phases of the conflict.

The Wehrmacht was a potent force. A prepared force. The only nation that had a clearcut commonly understood doctrine, and battleready units.
However they were not flawless. The doctine they used was not fitting with an attack on Russia. The infrastructure and space makes a quick and cheap victory difficult. Especially when you alienate the people living there with notions of them as sub humans.

The germans lost due to faulty doctrine, abysmal political skills on their own part, and that some of the greatest nations in the world rallied around the USSR. To add on that the political ruthlessness of the USSR pushed Ivan beyond the call of duty.

My personal view is that the Germans lost in the east from the start.
They lost the war when Britain did not surrender.

 

Interesting Jager, I am growing more and more dubious about the cold war idea that lend lease saved Russia just by looking at the statistics. Looking at truck production, 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.

One year later on 1 January 1943 it was just short of 405k, non-domestic production (captured and Lend Lease represented just 6.1% of the total)

It was after that date that LL trucks started to flood in. Domestic production simply kept pace with losses while all growth came from captured and Lend Lease types so by 01/01/45 of the 621k trucks in the truck park 395k were domestic production, 191k were imported and 35k were captured.

All this info and more can be found at:

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

So lend lease didn't save Russia even in the beginning, it simply gave them an advantage as the war went on.

 

Some figures I gathered back in 2003 from the books and net. This is in the earlier discussions on the lend lease.All are quotes from sites or books.:

The Soviet Union ended the Second World War by having over 650.000 trucks available for use. Of those, 58% were Soviet in origin, 33% British or U.S. and the remaining percentage captured from the Germans.

Lend-lease aid amounted to approximately 10-12% of the total Soviet war production effort. While this does not seem like a significant amount, having 10% more key supplies available could make the difference between holding the line to going on the offensive.

-----------------

Soviet historians have typically denigrated the Allied efforts to supply the Soviet Union with war material as paltry in comparison with her own production and that it was not essential to the Soviet victory. In armored fighting vehicles this is somewhat true, in aircraft less true and in raw and semi-finished industrial materials this is a bold-faced lie.

Railroad rails
Allied Proportion 92.7%

Aviation Fuel
Allied Deliveries 59%

Automotive Fuel
Allied Proportion 2.5%

Locomotives
Allied Proportion 81.6%

Rail cars
Allied Proportion 80.7%

Explosives
Allied Proportion 33%

Copper Ore
Allied Proportion 45.2%

Aluminum
Allied Proportion 55.5%

Tires
Allied Proportion 30.1%

Machine Tools
Allied Proportion 27.9%

Sugar
Allied Proportion 29.5%

Meat
Allied Proportion 15.1%

 

I remember the thread Kai.

I was reading up on the transport through Persia a few weeks back, and another thing popped up. The number of trained US personel involved in the logistics.

For me as a Norwegian, the Murmansk convoys come to mind when thinking of the support to the USSR. But the truth is that a lot of supplies came in the "other" end too.

Stefan.
Trucks alone is not sufficient to credit or discredit lend lease. The list that Kai puts forth is not enough either. But it shows enough.

Without aid the USSR would have been at a serious disadvantage. The list of various machine tools and rolling stock is interesting. Without it the USSR's own output would have suffered.

 

Without a doubt the Lend Lease was very helpfull, which saved lives and shortened the war. However out of the 10% which it accounted for, 7-8% came in after 1943, by which time the fate of Germany had already been sealed.

The bottom line is that from 1941 to early 1943 Russia pretty much fought by herself against numerous enemies which were at their prime and started winning after horrific looses. So to say that Russia won thanks to the help from Lend Lease may sound a little misleading.

 

Jaeger, Slon makes my point well, I am not saying that lend lease was not important at all. All I am saying is that if you look at the figures for when various materials began to arrive it becomes clear that lend lease kit did not 'save' the USSR as we are often led to believe.

The reason trucks provide a good example is that we have the breakdown over the whole war and since motor transport was so vital it provides a good indication for the extent to which supplies in general were getting through (i.e. if there weren't any trucks coming, it is probably safe to assume little of anything else was coming across either). Thus whilst lend lease materiel was of course important, the fact that it didn't arrive in 'war winning' quantities until at least after Stalingrad suggests that the emphasis placed on it in the west is, at least, a little exaggerated.

 

I consider the lend lease´s most important meaning being the fact that the Soviet industry could concentrate on the important products like T-34´s and planes etc. Not the "secondary" things. I might be wrong but I would consider that the main part.

Besides the British definitely needed all the weapons and planes and tanks they produced badly themselves so all that they could send must be seen as a very heroic deed indeed!

Just my opinion.....

 

Possibly true, though I do agree with Richard Overy that probably the most important lend lease contribution was the sheer quantity of radio gear sent over which helped build a comms infastructure for the RKKA which it wouldnver have had otherwise.

 

Stefan,

any knowledge how many people were sent to teach in using the gear? I mean if there was no know-how from before I´d suspect they would need alot of help otherwise the equipment would be useless?

 

That's a damn good question, next time I'm home I'll take a look but I'm not sure there are any stats for it. That said, looking at the kind of gear that went across it was generally stuff like field telephone cable (millions of miles worth), field telephones, switchboards, radio sets and so on. The USSR probably had enough telecom experts to teach people to deal with it (I met a St Petersburg telephone switch board op who wound up doing exactly the same job under fire in 1943), just not the basics to set up system.

Reminds me of the French General who wouldn't have telephones in his HQ.

 

Speaking of St. Petersburg, Stefan, have you ever had a chance to visit the 900 day siege memorial and the small museum underneath it?

 

Twice I've been and I still havent made it to that museum, maybe next time eh? Is it a good one? I've found Russian museums to be of more than slightly variable quality.

 

This memorial is at the entrance to the city, not very far from the front line. I think this was done for a reason.

The museum is not very large but holds artifacts both German and Russian at the time of the siege. Including weapons, tools used by the population to build defenses, actual footage taken of how they were prepared, banners and the most touching to me was what the citizens ate. A small piece of bread which was filled with saw dust along with some other crumbs amounting to 125 grams of food ( 1/4 of a pound ) which was destributed, really gives the viewer a first hand look of what the citizens of Leningrad endured for 900 days......

Till this day flowers are layed constantly and you can always see someone shedding a tear.

 

Yeah, I've driven past it a couple of times, it is a striking memorial. That said, the cemetary (the name of which escapes me, with the mass graves and the eternal flame) is incredible, impossible to see it without a tear in ones eye.

 

Despite taking huge losses themselves the Germans kept advancing until the winter weather affected their equipment and arms (to a much greater degree than weather affected the Russian weaponry) and caused terrible problems with supply. I've listed these facts before, Stefan. Lots of people have. And the Siberian forces that made up a good portion of the attacking force in the Soviet counterattack were better equipped for winter fighting than the Germans.

I haven't argued that, Stefan. Keep fighting your strawmen if you want. I'll respond if you take up the issues that I have raised.

 

You often see this figure and percentages quoted and it certainly looks impressive.............the truth however is that the US contribution to the Sovet rail system was tiny, something like 2% of rolling stock and 8% of locomotives.