USSR Aid

He asked to have his username changed.

By the end of 1941 the soviets received 750 planes and 500 tanks.

Hi Imp,

I don't think that the two world war will be judged by history as "aggression against Europe".

It was more like the suicide of old Europe because the main culprits were not Russia/USSR or the USA. The USA was slow to declare war on both occasions. The USSR was attacked before it formally entered WWII and Russia was knocked out of WWI before the end and finished weaker and smaller than it began.

The strengthening influence of Asia and the New World were long term historical processes that were greatly accelerated by Old Europe tearing itself apart in two self-triggered world wars.

Cheers,

Sid.

Cf. The Russians receiving US and UK aid...
The Russians did get lots and lots of tanks and trucks, from both the UK and the US.
I think I read that the Russians did not really like the British tanks they received, however, they really liked Shermans, and, I think, some of their elite armoured divisions were equipped with them.
The explanation for the popularity of the Sherman might lie with the fact that it was a reliable vehicle. I have read about the T34 that it could be extremely unreliable, due to hasty manufacture, lack of skill and training among the crews etc. It would be interesting to see how many tanks were lost through mechanical failure during Russian offensives...
The trucks, oil etc. that the Americans sent were even more important in helping the Russians win the war in the East. But I imagine during the cold war this American contribution was played down in the USSR.

I think Sid is right about the USSR and the USA having little to do with provoking World War II: both were brought into the war by unprovoked aggressive attacks, and then Germany and Italy declared war on the USA without any real idea of the significance of what they were doing.
In the 1930s there was a lot written by right wing people about the corruption, weakness and decadence of both the democratic states (like Britain and France), and the weakness of the United States, because it was racially mixed and democratic. I don't think in that era anyone could have predicted what the world would look like after WWII...

Do not forget USSR attacked and occupied MANY teritories in Europe before the Germans attcked them. Can't this be considered an act that also lead to ww2 ? Romania, Finland, Poland, Esotnia, Latvia, etc. Romanians entered WW2 on Axis side because of Soviet agression in 1940, the finns started the war because of the soviet agression.. I think USSR must not be regarded as a peace loving nation who did not do anything to start ww2 - they did have a major contribution to it. Unless you consider the freedom of less powerfull states like Finland Romania, etc. do not matter in the overall picture ...

The soviets said they do not like allied materials and denied it played a major part in them holding off the Axis forces and later beating them, however they did use them extensvily - at Stalingrad they used soviet, british and american tanks, they also recieved MANY planes which were badly needed at some point, not to talk about all the trucks they recieved and without which they could not move troops/parts/fuels/ammo/etc. to fighting troops on such long distances. Did the allied aid matter for soviet front ? My guess is they did and they mattered a lot.
Did USSR help start WW2 ? Definately yes !

I don't know where you're getting this from. I agree about the Soviets not having much respect for the British tanks (mostly Valentines if my memory is correct) that they were given. But from what I've read they did not like the Shermans either. The Shermans that went to the Soviets had the short 75mm gun, and like all Shermans had armor that was too thin and badly sloped. Yes, the build quality was better than the Soviet tanks, but I think it's being charitable to call it as valuable as a T-34/76, and that is a tank the Soviets had at the start of the war. It's hardly a replacement for a T-34/85, or a match for a Pz IV G/H.

This is the American contribution that was truly valuable to the Russians. I would also include the planes, such as the P-39.

Indeed, the russian production of trucks for the whole war was 200,000 but they received 400,000 through Lend Lease.
The Soviets downplayed the help they received because financially it only amounted to 3-4% of the total effort of the soviets. But they ignored the opportunity costs involved.

take care

Thanks. I didn't have the figures at hand but I knew it was huge. I think they also received large quantities of electronic equipment, such as field telephones and radios.

The figures given by Imperialist are not correct. I remember there were some heated discussions 6-7 years ago on the defunct onwar.com forum on the very subject of Lend Lease trucks in Red Army use, with a guy Alex H being very passionate about it. I see that they still kept some data from that discussion on the follow-up site:
http://www.1jma.dk/articles/1jmaarticlelendlease.htm

The figures speak for themselves. At the end of the war, the number of US made trucks in Soviet use was about a third of the total.

My figures are taken from the Journal of Contemporary History, 1984. Looking at the footnote that I didnt check originally, it says "these figures include a number of jeeps and other vehicles", besides the trucks. However, even with that, that would make the russian production of trucks, jeeps and other vehicles limited to 200,000.
If you have problems with these numbers and are sure of Alex H's numbers, you can contact the author of the article I used:

http://www.uea.ac.uk/his/people/faculty/munting.shtml

My figures are taken from the Journal of Contemporary History, 1984. Looking at the footnote that I didnt check originally, it says "these figures include a number of jeeps and other vehicles", besides the trucks. However, even with that, that would make the russian production of trucks, jeeps and other vehicles limited to 200,000.
If you have problems with these numbers and are sure of Alex H's numbers, you can contact the author of the article I used:

http://www.uea.ac.uk/his/people/faculty/munting.shtml

The source for the figures on the link I mentioned is not "Alex H", but an article by V.F. Vorsin from the Sept. 1994 issue of the "Journal of Slavic Military
Studies". The article is 10 years younger than the one you mentioned and the author most likely had more access to Soviet archives. I tend to consider them more exact for these reasons. It is not my problem to correct something written 24 years ago, nor should it take it personally when someone else provides a source that contradicts what you posted.

The basic idea is that the majority of Red Army's wheeled transportation capabilities were domesticaly-produced and that, even though the US aid was important to some degree, it was not decissive IMO.

The author of the article I read also uses as reference E. Zaleski, Stalinist Planning when he states that the total soviet production of trucks and other vehicles for the war period was 200,000.

Your source argues that there were.... 2,000,000 trucks produced!!!

The discrepancy is too big, and I think mr. Alex H made some bad calculations. Looking at his table, my guess is he added the yearly number of trucks in service! So the data should have told him there were 272,600 trucks in use in 1941, 317,000 in 1942, 378,00 in 1943 etc. but he ADDED THE NUMBERS!!!

That is why I said if you trust the research of mister Alex H, do contact mr. Munting because he made a huge error, listing 10 times! as fewer trucks and vehicles than there were actually produced (according to Alex H ).

I didnt took it personally, but as I have shown, your source for those calculation (not numbers) is questionable.

take care

Oh, that is definetly the poor fellow's mistake. Look at the heading in that table -- Domestic number of trucks. So TOTAL number of trucks IN USE for those years, not PRODUCED!!! If it was about production, it would have said Domestic number of trucks produced.... Oh man, that's so funny.
And he also induced you in error, Victor.

This post has been edited by Imperialist on June 27, 2006 12:27 pm

http://www.o5m6.de/numbers.html

If you will bother to look at my intitial post that is exactly what I said. That the table shows the number of trucks in use and that US built trucks were never more than a third of the total truck park of the Red Army. This is a pretty good indicator of the impact of LL trucks, much better than the nulber of trucks produced.

Also, if you would bother to look at the tables below, you will notice that by adding up the number of trucks (including the towing vehicles) you obtain 266,800. To these we can add also the 40,600 Jeeps and other cars (which obviously don't qualify as trucks) and 4,900 special vehicles and still you don't arrive at the number of 400,000 trucks.