How Important Were the Arctic Convoys?

I'm not remotely an expert on WWII, so I'm wondering how important were the Arctic Convoys to sustaining Russian fighting capacity, demonstrating inter-allied cooperation, and tying up German resources?
 

Anaxagoras

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IIRC, more Lend-Lease supplies actually came into the Soviet Union through Persia than the Arctic convoy route. Still, the materials and equipment that came through Murmansk and Archangel were crucial.
 
Persian route was constricted by the low capacity railway, until rebuilding was completed mid 1943. The Pacific route was temporarily shut down when the Pacific war started. It did not return to significant volume until 1943. This site shows the deliveries by year for 1942 & month for 43 & 44.

For 1941 & 42 the Arctic route was the main game
 
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I'm not remotely an expert on WWII, so I'm wondering how important were the Arctic Convoys to sustaining Russian fighting capacity, demonstrating inter-allied cooperation, and tying up German resources?
I wouldn't say it prevented a Soviet collapse, but the resources brought in via the Arctic Route were critical to Soviet fighting abilities, especially early in the war. In 1941-42 not having that route would have been very painful for the USSR, but not fatal. The end result of not having it, the measure of how important it was, would have been to force the Soviets to bleed a lot more for victory.
 
IIRC, more Lend-Lease supplies actually came into the Soviet Union through Persia than the Arctic convoy route. Still, the materials and equipment that came through Murmansk and Archangel were crucial.

Persian route was constricted by the low capacity railway, until rebuilding was completed mid 1943. The Pacific route was temporarily shut down when the Pacific war started. It did not return to significant volume until 1943. This site shows the deliveries by year for 1942 & month for 43 & 44.

For 1941 & 42 the Arctic route was the main game

I wouldn't say it prevented a Soviet collapse, but the resources brought in via the Arctic Route were critical to Soviet fighting abilities, especially early in the war. In 1941-42 not having that route would have been very painful for the USSR, but not fatal. The end result of not having it, the measure of how important it was, would have been to force the Soviets to bleed a lot more for victory.
Thank you all for your info.
 
I've heard it said that the Russians may have been first to Berlin but they were riding in American trucks.
 
Heres a bit of info on LL to the USSR. No idea how accurate any of the numbers of statements are.

Weapons
http://wio.ru/tank/ll.htm

Amounts sent via which route. Charts are broken down by year & month & to some extent by type of material.
http://www.o5m6.de/Routes.html

Note that a portion of the material sent to the Soviet Pacific ports was not used in Europe. Some stayed there to equip Soviet far eastern forces being created & modernized to guard the Japanese. As I understand virtually all material sent from latter 1944 via the Pacific route remained in the far east to prepare for possible war with Japan.
 
I'm not remotely an expert on WWII, so I'm wondering how important were the Arctic Convoys to sustaining Russian fighting capacity, demonstrating inter-allied cooperation, and tying up German resources?

It depends who you care to believe but with more access to Russian Archives in recent years it would appear that During the defense of Moscow that a fairly large fraction of the Medium/Heavy tanks defending the capital were Matilda II/Valentines

Some have quoted the numbers present might have represented as many as 30-40% of the Medium/heavy tank strength in the region.

I did one hear that the Russians liked the Valentine as it was very low and could very easily go hull down or even hide in a slight depression etc.

Also much in the way of modern machine tooling as well as some critical materials was sent fairly early on and this allowed several more factories to be opened east of the Urals earlier than would otherwise have been the case.

The problem is that for years the Russians played down the role LL (Both British and American) played in the defence against and ultimately the defeat of the Axis in the East - which is really bloody annoying as much could have been done with those tanks by the British in other theatres - a couple of Hundred Valentines in Malaya might have been useful!
 
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