No Russians lend lease

Would russia be able to win against germany in ww2 without lend lease from England and U.S?

  • yes

  • no

  • maybe


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Don't forget Wally invasion of Italy in 1943. That's what forced Hitler to abandon Kursk.

A decision which ironically benefited the Ostheer, as it allowed the Panzer Corps time to pull back and regain some wind before the Soviet counter-offensive broke. How Kursk turns out IATL (assuming it happens) is interesting. The defeat of the German offensives will likely be similar to OTL, if somewhat harsher on the Soviets. It's in the Soviets own offensives that we'll see the biggest changes.

If the Soviet onslaught is weakening, is Hitler's response going to be to sensibly husband his resources and to bolster defenses on the quiet Western "Front",?

Or is he going to push for massive and costly counter offensives in an attempt to WIN the war against Russia so that he can turn ALL his forces to the West?

If the WAllies have landed in Normandy while the Soviets are still beyond the D'niepr, then yes Hitler will divert a significant proportion (maybe not a majority, but even more significant then OTL) of his forces to try and throw them back into the sea. Their liable to still fail in that, but they'll still represent a more significant block then what was dispatched OTL and pay upon the WAllies additional time and casualties they would rather not take.

The details of how much more difficult the bogged Soviet advance makes the WAllies own war actually is rather unimportant from the WAllied perspective. All the WAllies care about is that it makes it even more difficult. If not supporting the Soviets means even one additional British or American soldier dies, then that is unacceptable to the Western Alliance. They are not totalitarian dictatorships like the Soviets or Germans... they care about their people.

They'll also have to tell this to their own people, which will be fun. Good luck keeping the Anglo-American public supporting the war effort when you are telling them that keeping the Soviets out of Eastern Europe is more important then defeating the Germans and saving Anglo-American lives. Sounds like a sure-fire way to get voted out of office if you ask me.

And all of this is even assuming the Soviets don't collapse which, while the odds are still long, does become more likely without lend-lease.

Meanwhile the tens of thousands of planes sent to SU, will be bombing and strafing everything grey in Western Europe.

Leaving aside that this puts a mythical stock in the capabilities of air power, only a small proportion (less then 1/3rd) of the aircraft sent to the Soviet Union were actually modern models in service with the WAllied air forces and even those were only sent to the Soviet Union once the Western Allies had massive surplus stocks of their own. The rest were obsolete or designs that had seen limited production runs before finally being rejected by the USAAC. And this is pretty much the entire story of lend-lease weaponry: they were either obsolete weapons the US didn't need (the Lees in 1942-43 were sent to the Soviets as they were replaced by Shermans) or excess production after the Anglo-Americans had already produced more then they needed (the first Shermans were sent to the USSR in November 1943, by which point the US had thoroughly equipped their armored forces with them and amassed a decent reserve stockpile).

When it came to the decision between sending supplies to the USSR or using those supplies themselves, the Western Allies sent what they could not use. They did not supply the Soviets at the expense of their own forces. I'm not sure where people got this impression, but it seems to be something that crept in here. What the Soviets got was most the excess production. Adding it to the Western Allies stocks just means a whole bunch more equipment that sits in the warehouses gathering dust. Except for the obsolete stuff, which just gets junked with no opportunity to make any contribution to the war effort.

There is simply no military benefit to the Western Allies in not aiding the Soviet Union and some pretty harsh drawbacks.
 
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Without Lend-Lease, I see the USSR liberating itself, but not Eastern Europe beyond its 1940 borders.

While East Prussia is likely to end up the same as OTL, where would that leave ATL Poland? In a similar situation to OTL post-war divided Germany with a West Poland and East Poland?
 
While East Prussia is likely to end up the same as OTL, where would that leave ATL Poland? In a similar situation to OTL post-war divided Germany with a West Poland and East Poland?
Maybe divided along the Vistula, or perhaps even with a Curzon line border, possibly allied to the West, or potentially neutral.
 
Maybe divided along the Vistula, or perhaps even with a Curzon line border, possibly allied to the West, or potentially neutral.

How likely is it that the Eastern part of the Vistula or Curzon line simply ends up incorporated into an expended Belarus with access to the Baltic Sea?
 
The rest were obsolete or designs that had seen limited production runs before finally being rejected.

If you look at the lists of Soviet WWII aces, you see a lot of P-39 drivers. US aircraft filled a needed role.
equipment that didn't was refused.

So they liked Valentines, hated Matildas. So said, 'send no more of them'
 
If you look at the lists of Soviet WWII aces, you see a lot of P-39 drivers. US aircraft filled a needed role.

I meant rejected by the United States, not the Soviet Union. Guess I should edit that in for clarification.

I wouldn't be surprised if those pilots did just as great if you put them in La-5/7s or Yak-3/7/9s. The skills that make aces stand out from the more ordinary pilots are stuff like superb situational awareness, excellent eyesight, and good aim... of these, only the last would at all be affected by the kind of machine they are flying and only minorly so. Overall, it really isn't armaments where the Soviets are hurt by the lack of lend-lease, at least not directly. It's in logistics, communication, and economics.
 
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Without Lend-Lease, I see the USSR liberating itself, but not Eastern Europe beyond its 1940 borders.
Why not? If they liberate itself and Germany collapse or even capitulated Soviets would be able to grab some eastern territories of Poland, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia...
 
Why not? If they liberate itself and Germany collapse or even capitulated Soviets would be able to grab some eastern territories of Poland, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia...
The Russian advance is much slower without lend-lease, so I'm suggesting that the Red Army never gets to occupy any meaningful amount of Eastern Europe.
 
The Russian advance is much slower without lend-lease, so I'm suggesting that the Red Army never gets to occupy any meaningful amount of Eastern Europe.

Kinda ignores that the WAllies advance is also going to be slowed by the extra forces the Germans will throw in front of them. Although whether they'd be slowed enough for it to cancel out is doubtful.
 
Kinda ignores that the WAllies advance is also going to be slowed by the extra forces the Germans will throw in front of them. Although whether they'd be slowed enough for it to cancel out is doubtful.
The Germans were fighting harder in the East when the tide started turning against them. Here, that does not change, but Allied air supremacy in the West mitigates any German advantage in the West resulting from a weaker USSR in the East.
 
The Russian advance is much slower without lend-lease, so I'm suggesting that the Red Army never gets to occupy any meaningful amount of Eastern Europe.
But firstly allies need to lend somewhere, overcome problems with casualties replacements and start pushing Germans back. With that going on Soviets will have more room to operate. Soviets may even increase production of trucks as they started to do in 1944/45. Or be less bolt and more considering to save lives of soldiers.
Even without L-L they still can buy more important material.
 
Here, that does not change, but Allied air supremacy in the West mitigates any German advantage in the West resulting from a weaker USSR in the East.
Would it? If Soviets are doing worst Germans will be more inclined transfer more ground troops to west. How good campaign went in Italy we already now. So how well it will go with few extra divisions in France? Or how well it will go in some Arden alternatives with few extra divisions if as proposed Soviets will be still somewhere on their own borders?
 
Would it? If Soviets are doing worst Germans will be more inclined transfer more ground troops to west. How good campaign went in Italy we already now. So how well it will go with few extra divisions in France? Or how well it will go in some Arden alternatives with few extra divisions if as proposed Soviets will be still somewhere on their own borders?
The fighting in France will be bitter, agreed, but the Allies were gaining a lot of experience with close-air-support and bombing logistical target, so the ability of the Germans to repulse the Normandy (assuming they head to Normandy) landings in those critical first days will be somewhat muted IMO. As for an Ardennes Offensive, given Hitler's 'not one step back' attitude, such an offensive may turn out better for the Allies, because instead of facing an American force that had mostly until then managed to avoid altercations with German armoured units, they might well be facing off against an American force that has significant experience in facing an enemy with heavy armour, thus reducing their ability to actually overwhelm the Americans.

Also, if the Allies are slowed down, they actually get the time to sort their logistics out, which they didn't quite do OTL.
 
Also, if the Allies are slowed down, they actually get the time to sort their logistics out, which they didn't quite do OTL.
Didn't they had problems with suitable ports? So problem very likely stay there. Especially with necessity to put more troops in the field to face larger German force.
It is interesting that wile Soviets will be doing worst without L-L, Germans which would be not bled white on Eastern front would be doing worst against Western allies.
 
Without L-L, the Germans will still need millions of troops for the Eastern Front, as the Soviets will still have millions of troops without so many trucks and airacobras, but still a very dangerous force.
If the Germans aren't being pished back, Hitler will order them forward to finally kick down that rotten Shack. He will still want the Oilfields
 
A decision which ironically benefited the Ostheer, as it allowed the Panzer Corps time to pull back and regain some wind before the Soviet counter-offensive broke. How Kursk turns out IATL (assuming it happens) is interesting. The defeat of the German offensives will likely be similar to OTL, if somewhat harsher on the Soviets. It's in the Soviets own offensives that we'll see the biggest changes.



If the WAllies have landed in Normandy while the Soviets are still beyond the D'niepr, then yes Hitler will divert a significant proportion (maybe not a majority, but even more significant then OTL) of his forces to try and throw them back into the sea. Their liable to still fail in that, but they'll still represent a more significant block then what was dispatched OTL and pay upon the WAllies additional time and casualties they would rather not take.

The details of how much more difficult the bogged Soviet advance makes the WAllies own war actually is rather unimportant from the WAllied perspective. All the WAllies care about is that it makes it even more difficult. If not supporting the Soviets means even one additional British or American soldier dies, then that is unacceptable to the Western Alliance. They are not totalitarian dictatorships like the Soviets or Germans... they care about their people.

They'll also have to tell this to their own people, which will be fun. Good luck keeping the Anglo-American public supporting the war effort when you are telling them that keeping the Soviets out of Eastern Europe is more important then defeating the Germans and saving Anglo-American lives. Sounds like a sure-fire way to get voted out of office if you ask me.



I think in the absence of pro-soviet propaganda, it would be unremarkable that America and the UK were NOT sending supplies to the, until fairly recently, Nazi Allied Stalinist Soviet Union.

if the question came up in a setting that was not suppressible with war time censor ship, citing fears of a WWII part b, with a Soviet Union that was just as expansionist as the Nazi prior to the war, (if more sane.)



And all of this is even assuming the Soviets don't collapse which, while the odds are still long, does become more likely without lend-lease.


A later Soviet collapse leads to a Nazi advance and MORE territory to occupy and larger fronts to protect and longer supplies lines.


If they take Moscow, then they have to hold it vs counter attacks.


If Stalin or his successor comes to terms, then yes, large forces will be transferred West.

But all of these result in any post war divide between West and East being hundreds of miles further East, if there is a Cold War at all.







Leaving aside that this puts a mythical stock in the capabilities of air power, only a small proportion (less then 1/3rd) of the aircraft sent to the Soviet Union were actually modern models in service with the WAllied air forces and even those were only sent to the Soviet Union once the Western Allies had massive surplus stocks of their own. The rest were obsolete or designs that had seen limited production runs before finally being rejected by the USAAC. And this is pretty much the entire story of lend-lease weaponry: they were either obsolete weapons the US didn't need (the Lees in 1942-43 were sent to the Soviets as they were replaced by Shermans) or excess production after the Anglo-Americans had already produced more then they needed (the first Shermans were sent to the USSR in November 1943, by which point the US had thoroughly equipped their armored forces with them and amassed a decent reserve stockpile).
....

There is simply no military benefit to the Western Allies in not aiding the Soviet Union and some pretty harsh drawbacks.


I wasn't trying to exaggerate the impact of Air Power, but I was thinking about an interview I saw on a documentary with a German who was transferred from East to West.

And he discussed how, even though they were losing ground on the East that they still had contempt for the Russians.

And how different and even demoralizing it was for them to even approach the Western Front with the constant air attacks.
 

Deleted member 1487

I wasn't trying to exaggerate the impact of Air Power, but I was thinking about an interview I saw on a documentary with a German who was transferred from East to West.

And he discussed how, even though they were losing ground on the East that they still had contempt for the Russians.

And how different and even demoralizing it was for them to even approach the Western Front with the constant air attacks.
I've seen this again and again how devastating the impact of Wallied air attacks were. They were so concentrated and overwhelming that the Germans pretty much collapsed under them. Allied artillery too. The Soviets could lay down a WW1 style bombardment on fixed positions quite well, but no one could match US or UK artillery in flexibility and no one the US for its Time on Target (enhanced by VT fused shells) effect that smothered any enemy force with sudden and devastating firepower. When facing the rather inflexible Soviet artillery they could evade it by maneuver once the breakthrough phase was over, but the Wallies could call in artillery at will, while air attacks were constant and crippling in daylight. Not even the Soviet IL-2 was as ubiquitous as the Wallied fighter-bomber. Over and over in interrogations the Germans said they could simply not operate by day in a coordinated fashion against Wallied troops due to the threat from the air.
 
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