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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Soviet grain was not enough to keep soldiers fit to fight.

Yes it was. As you yourself observed (and I pretty much stated), the lend-lease provided things like fats and oils. But these were supplemental to the Soviet diet, not staple. Your assertion that it would not be enough is not true. I can't find a yearly breakdown of the average for Soviet rations but I can find the average for the entire war: 3,450 calories for active combat units, 2,954 for active duty at the rear, 2,822 for those not assigned to the field army, 4,712 for those in the VVS, and 3,243 in hospital (page 127). Fats and protein make up roughly 22% of the daily rations in grams, with the rest coming from carbohydrates.

Even if we, for the moment, accept the 38% number (which could be true, I'm not fully informed on how much protein and fats contribute in calories as opposed to carbohydrates. The numbers aspect of science were never my strong suit, even though I can grasp concepts decently. My parents are doctors, probably could ask them)... well, the daily minimum of recommended daily caloric intake is a maximum of 1,500 calories. Grabbing the active combat units figure, 38% of that is 1,311. 3,450-1,311 leaves us with 2,139... more then 600 calories over the daily recommended minimum and nearly a thousand calories more then Japanese soldiers, who were able to fight and kill just fine.

So Soviet soldiers would be hungrier, yes, but not so hungry as being unable to fight.

And the rest of your statistics are for lend-lease as a whole, the massive bulk of which arrived after Stalingrad had been decided. The Soviets are probably still able to survive and even push back the Heer... what they probably won't be able to do is break the Heer in 1943-44 and given how important said breaking is, that has massive repercussions for the war as a whole.

According to Krivosheev the RA had 20 600 tanks+spgs on 1st January 43 of which 8100 were in the ToO.

You must be misreading Krivosheev somehow because I have a hard time believing that the Soviets would have a pretty big majority of their tank park not deployed in the European Theater despite that being the only place they are deployed in major combat. I mean, I recall something like ~2,500 AFVs deployed with the Far Eastern Forces at this time, so that would leave ~10,000 AFVs inexplicably doing nothing.
 
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Deleted member 1487

Are you sure? He survived defeats of summer 1941 after all.
Sure, but accepting those defeat as permanent is something entirely different, which is what a separate peace would effectively be saying. It's admitting failure. I may be wrong though, Stalin was quite savage and might have preemptively purged just to be safe.
 

Deleted member 1487

Yes it was. As you yourself observed (and I pretty much stated), the lend-lease provided things like fats and oils. But these were supplemental to the Soviet diet, not staple. Your assertion that it would not be enough is not true. I can't find a yearly breakdown of the average for Soviet rations but I can find the average for the entire war: 3,450 calories for active combat units, 2,954 for active duty at the rear, 2,822 for those not assigned to the field army, 4,712 for those in the VVS, and 3,243 in hospital (page 127). Fats and protein make up roughly 22% of the daily rations in grams, with the rest coming from carbohydrates.

Even if we, for the moment, accept the 38% number (which could be true, I'm not fully informed on how much protein and fats contribute in calories as opposed to carbohydrates. The numbers aspect science were never my strong suit, even though I can grasp concepts decently. My parents are doctors, probably could ask them)... well above the daily minimum of recommended daily caloric intake is a maximum of 1,500 calories. Grabbing the active combat units figure, 38% of that is 1,311. 3,450-1,311 leaves us with 2,139... more then 600 calories over the daily recommended minimum and nearly a thousand calories more then Japanese soldiers at the peak of their daily rations, who were able to fight and kill just fine.

So Soviet soldiers would be hungrier, yes, but not so hungry as being unable to fight.

And the rest of your statistics are for lend-lease as a whole, the massive bulk of which arrived after Stalingrad had been decided.
Saving studied nutrition a fair bit 22% from fats and protein is tiny for a very active person. Its a pretty poor diet to be getting 78% of calories from carbs. For small, thin people that might be enough protein, but at a minimum an active soldier should really be getting over 30% of calories just from protein and carbs as energy shouldn't be more than 50% of the diet. So while on paper you can survive on just sugar, as it would theoretically provide you all the calories you needed, you're missing major macro nutrients. That's not even getting into the mirco nurtient requirements. Doctors have little training with nutrition, so don't rely on their at best 2 weeks of training on it their entire medical education (at best).
Sure the majority of LL arrived after 1942, but until then it was pretty critical in terms of things like high capacity machine tools, fuels, and other raw materials. So Stalingrad is unlikely to end in a Soviet victory without it.

Now of course that presupposes the US and UK aren't selling to the USSR. Depending on whatever actual Soviet gold and silver stocks were they could have probably purchased a fair bit of what they got and ship it in via the Vladivostok route, but the Persian Route won't be open until the Allies agree to invade it and set it up as an entrepot for Soviet purchases and whether the Soviets could cash and carry themselves to Murmansk (hint they couldn't do to lack of escorts). Likely the Soviets would have been mostly limited to Vladivostok and then only could bring in things the Japanese considered non-contraband (they enforced that rigorously until 1944 IIRC).
 
Saving studied nutrition a fair bit 22% from fats and protein is tiny for a very active person. Its a pretty poor diet to be getting 78% of calories from carbs. For small, thin people that might be enough protein, but at a minimum an active soldier should really be getting over 30% of calories just from protein and carbs as energy shouldn't be more than 50% of the diet. So while on paper you can survive on just sugar, as it would theoretically provide you all the calories you needed, you're missing major macro nutrients.

Except Soviet soldiers did survive on that much, fought on that much, and won on that much. In addition, we have another major combatant (Japan) whose soldiers were able to survive, fight, and even sometimes win battles on even less then that... much less then that. Yes, the Soviet soldiers diet was poor and will still be so. But it wasn't ever a diet that compromised their ability to resist nor do the numbers suggest that it would be without lend-lease.

Sure the majority of LL arrived after 1942, but until then it was pretty critical in terms of things like high capacity machine tools, fuels, and other raw materials.

No it was not. The bulk of what arrived in 1941-42 were actually weapons. In terms of raw materials, fuels, and machine tools, the Soviets were overwhelmingly relying on their internal stocks or substitution there-of.

So Stalingrad is unlikely to end in a Soviet victory without it.

There is little reason to believe this. The weapons involved in Uranus were all Soviet produced as were the gross majority of the vehicles and ammunition. The bulk of WAllied material aid still lay in the future when Uranus was launched.

(they enforced that rigorously until 1944 IIRC).

No they didn't. Japanese enforcement was pretty poor throughout the war, with a big drop occurring in the latter part of 1942 as a function of Midway making Japan really not want to have to deal with the Soviet Union right now. It's no coincidence this was when the Pacific route began to pick back up.
 
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Deleted member 1487

Except Soviet soldiers did survive on that much, fought on that much, and won on that much. In addition, we have another major combatant (Japan) whose soldiers were able to survive, fight, and even sometimes win battles on even less then that. Yes, the Soviet soldiers diet was poor. But it wasn't ever a diet that compromised their ability to resist nor do the numbers suggest that it would be without lend-lease.
Yeah with it, which was not really good enough. Without it though?

No it was not. The bulk of what arrived in 1941-42 were actually weapons. In terms of raw materials, fuels, and machine tools, the Soviets were overwhelmingly relying on their internal stocks or substitution there-of.
http://www.o5m6.de/LL_Routes.html
Doesn't seem to be the case. Metal, fuel, food were significantly more than vehicles and other categories.

There is little reason to believe this. The weapons involved in Uranus were all Soviet produced as were the gross majority of the vehicles and ammunition.
Which may be true, but the many of those were made with US/UK metals, US/UK machine tools, fueled by US petroleum products, and equipped with US explosives among other things.

No they didn't. Japanese enforcement was pretty poor throughout the war, with a big drop occurring in the latter part of 1942 as a function of Midway making Japan really not want to have to deal with the Soviet Union right now. It's no coincidence this was when the Pacific route began to pick back up.
Do you have a source on this? I'm looking through my LL sources and cannot find any reference to the Japanese ATM.
 
Yeah with it, which was not really good enough.

Except it was good enough. The Soviets not only survived, but also inflicted the most devastating and important defeats of the war upon the Germans before carrying the war into the German capitol. That is most certainly "good enough".

Without it though?

I already provided the math for that:

Even if we, for the moment, accept the 38% number (which could be true, I'm not fully informed on how much protein and fats contribute in calories as opposed to carbohydrates. The numbers aspect of science were never my strong suit, even though I can grasp concepts decently. My parents are doctors, probably could ask them)... well, the daily minimum of recommended daily caloric intake is a maximum of 1,500 calories. Grabbing the active combat units figure, 38% of that is 1,311. 3,450-1,311 leaves us with 2,139... more then 600 calories over the daily recommended minimum and nearly a thousand calories more then Japanese soldiers, who were able to fight and kill just fine.

So yeah, even without L-L food the diet is still good enough.

Doesn't seem to be the case. Metal, fuel, food were significantly more than vehicles and other categories.

Your link doesn't say that. It just gives the tonnages shipped, but it doesn't break those tonnages down.

Which may be true, but the many of those were made with US/UK metals, US/UK machine tools, fueled by US petroleum products, and equipped with US explosives among other things.

In 1942 they were made with mostly Soviet metals, Soviet machine tools, fueled mostly by Soviet products, and equipped with Soviet explosives. Furthermore, there is nothing about lend-lease which determined the Soviets ability to outfight the Germans in the defensive battle at Stalingrad as they did OTL and outgeneral them for the offensive battle as they did OTL. The big changes due to the lack of lend-lease lay in 1943, not in 1942.

Do you have a source on this? I'm looking through my LL sources and cannot find any reference to the Japanese ATM.

I recall Beevor mentioning it in the Second World War, as does Hastings in Inferno. It does line up with the numbers if you look in your link: first protocol shipments (which ended around Midway) came in from the Atlantic routes are about ten times more then from the Pacific. Then in the second protocol the numbers for the Pacific route jump up and overtake the Atlantic ones.
 
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Deleted member 1487

Except it was good enough. The Soviets not only survived, but also inflicted the most devastating and important defeats of the war upon the Germans before carrying the war into the German capitol. That is most certainly "good enough".
With LL, we're talking about without it.

I already provided the math for that:
Yeah you only talked about calories, not the loss of the 22% of fat and protein provided by LL. You cannot feed an army solely on bread and maybe potatoes.

So yeah, even without L-L food it's good enough. It's in logistics, communications, and economics the Soviets will suffer the most... not weapons.
Weapons were made with foreign raw materials, machine tools, and supplies with foreign explosives and metal to make the ammo, plus of course fuel and trucks.

Your link doesn't say that. It just gives the tonnages shipped, but it doesn't break those tonnages down.
Scroll down it breaks tonnages down.

In 1942 they were made with mostly Soviet metals, Soviet machine tools, fueled mostly by Soviet products, and equipped with Soviet explosives. Furthermore, there is nothing about lend-lease which determined the Soviets ability to outfight the Germans in the defensive battle at Stalingrad as they did OTL and outgeneral them for the offensive battle as they did OTL. The big changes due to the lack of lend-lease lay in 1943, not in 1942.
Most, but not all. Especially as the majority of aluminum and explosives, as well as almost all of the high octane avgas and most of the trucks and vehicles the Soviets used came from LL even having enough steel doesn't mean they have enough of the critical bottlenecks or that Soviet raw materials would have gone as far without high capacity US machine tools that the Soviets could not make and were labor and raw material saving. Fight defensively...the Soviets could survive 1942, but their ability to make enough to go on the attack successfully is questionable.

I recall Beevor mentioning it in the Second World War, as does Hastings in Inferno. It does line up with the numbers if you look in your link: first protocol shipments (which ended around Midway) came in from the Atlantic about ten times more then from the Pacific.
Right, during the period when the Japanese were enforcing contraband rules. After that though breakdowns of tonnage in the link I provided show that they mostly put the non-weapons through the Pacific Route.
 
Yeah you only talked about calories, not the loss of the 22% of fat and protein provided by LL. You cannot feed an army solely on bread and maybe potatoes.

Well, the loss probably won't be 22% to begin with. The Soviets won't lose all of their fats and proteins and substitution with stuff like, say, salted herring, can bring back some of what is lost. It's impossible to say precisely, as I can't find that information in Bread of Infliction, so until someone goes through the relevant archives and publishes the data (or if one of us stumbles across it assuming it's already been published), all we have to indicate the results is caloric intake.

Weapons were made with foreign raw materials, machine tools, and supplies with foreign explosives and metal to make the ammo, plus of course fuel and trucks.

Once foreign raw materials came in, yes. Until then, the Soviets made do with internal stocks, improvisation, and substitution. A good example is in aircraft manufacturing: where they could they made airplane parts out of wood instead of aluminum so as to stretch out their aluminum reserves and production as much as possible.

Scroll down it breaks tonnages down

Oh, quit being obtuse. We've been over this same data before and you know that I mean "break down by type" and not "break down by year". The only point he gives numbers by the type of shipment at all is in motor vehicles at the beginning there.

You probably could, if you were willing to sit down and dig through all the sources and do the math, eliminate the tonnage of weapons and vehicles from the list. Let's see... 32.9 thousand trucks delivered in 1941-42, assuming every one of those is a 2.5 ton truck (which they probably aren't, but, eh, shouldn't give us too much margin of error given the size of the numbers we're dealing with here), comes out to 82.25 thousand tons. So there's that slotted out of the way. Now just add up the tonnages on the aircraft, tanks, small arms, and ammunition for the aforementioned weapons shipped in 1941-42, add it to the 82,250 number, and subtract that from the given 1941-1942 totals of 2,813,875 tons and there you go.

Most, but not all. Especially as the majority of aluminum and explosives, as well as almost all of the high octane avgas and most of the trucks and vehicles the Soviets used came from LL

Again, your being obtuse: not in 1942, which is when I'm talking about, they didn't. I can particularly nail you on the motor vehicles claim here with your own source: ~32.9 thousand motor vehicles shipped over for 1941-1942. The Soviet truck pool in November 1942 was ~300,000 motor vehicles. Only ~10-11% of Soviet motor vehicles by the end of 1942 were lend-lease. That is not remotely "most".

.the Soviets could survive 1942, but their ability to make enough to go on the attack successfully is questionable.

Not for November of 1942 at Stalingrad it isn't. Mars will be a bust, but then that isn't a change. It's when we get to mid-'43 that the prospect of successful Soviet offensives become questionable.

After that though breakdowns of tonnage in the link I provided show that they mostly put the non-weapons through the Pacific Route.

No it doesn't. There is no breakdown between cargo types, much less "weapons" and "non-weapons". It just gives "tonnage shipped". I don't know why you keep repeating this dishonesty when anyone can click the link and see it for themselves.
 
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Deleted member 1487

No it doesn't. There is no breakdown between cargo types, much less "weapons" and "non-weapons". It just gives "tonnage shipped". I don't know why you keep repeating this dishonesty when anyone can click the link and see it for themselves.
I clicked the link, if you scroll down passed the map there is a breakdown titled this:
Lend-Lease Shipments from the Western Hemisphere to the Soviet Union by Cargo Type, Protocol Period, Route and Tonnage
 
I clicked the link, if you scroll down passed the map there is a breakdown titled this:
Lend-Lease Shipments from the Western Hemisphere to the Soviet Union by Cargo Type, Protocol Period, Route and Tonnage

Oh, you mean under the protocols? And here I was looking at the years. We still have the problem that it doesn't give us a full picture for 1942 (as the second protocol goes over into 1943, where the average shipments were much higher) nor does it put in context relative to the rest of Soviet war production in 1942. But at least you can get me to withdraw the claim over weapons (even if 20% is a pretty healthy chunk). We can pretty well rule out much impact on Red Army logistics until 1943, though, given the total lack of railway shipments until the third protocol and the paucity of vehicle shipments.

For what it's worth, neither Adam Tooze, Richard Overy, nor Harrison think that lend-lease made much difference to the Soviet war production in 1942 and of all historians (particularly Harrison) they would know.
 
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perfectgeneral

Donor
Monthly Donor
IMO, yes, but not to the degree they 'won' in OTL. They'll still get rid of the Germans, but there'll be no Warsaw Pact, and they may not even get the Baltic States back.
Back? I suppose they did take them briefly at the start of the war.

Yes, but no winter 1942 LL from Britain makes this much more costly. Street fighting in Moscow sort of costly.
 

Daniels

Banned
You must be misreading Krivosheev
Oh "must" I?
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So using the official Soviet numbers - which are quite questionable btw but lets use them - the Soviets had 8100 tanks and spgs on the frontlines in early 1943. If all of these 8100 were operational then the 1000 LL tanks would represent 12.5% of active Soviet tank stock - if only half of these 8100 tanks were operational then the number increases to 25%. In both cases the number is far from trivial.
 
Robert Forczyk in Tank Warfare on the Eastern Front asserts that the distribution of operational tanks at the start of July '42 was 12% LL, 40% light tanks (T-60/70) and 48% medium/heavy (T-34, KV-1)
These figures correlates with Glantz's figures for the eve of Operation Blau for Soviet forces commited in that theater. Which sums up to about 10%, 45% 45% respectively.


Another, more difficult number to quantify, would be the how much the knowledge that massive LL deliveries were coming in '43-'45 had on existing Soviet production in '42.
After all, building up production capacity usually takes quite some time.
And it's probably fair to assume that they would have been forced to invest less in tank production capacity, and more in producing other stuff they now would be forced to aquire themselves.
 
Why? No LL and support for country which tied 75% German land troops we can see separate peace.



Unless the soviets are on the edge or in the process of collapse Stalin will not want "peace".

If the soviets are on the edge or in the process of collapse Hitler will not want "peace".
 

jahenders

Banned
They would not sink soviet ships it would be an act of war even if they were sending oil to japan

There'd be some serious hesitation, but the US isn't going to stand idly by while the Russians send oil to a US enemy when the war (in a way) started over oil and the US worked for years to deprive Japan of oil.

If Russia's still allied:
- The US will halt the ships and turn them around
- The US will pointedly tell Stalin, "If you have spare resources to send to our enemies, don't expect a single bullet, loaf of bread or dollar more in Lend Lease. Your supply of our enemies will also mean that we have to devote more attention to that front, so don't cry to us about wanting a 2nd Front."

If Russia were totally neutral, the US would impose a Cuban Crisis-like blockade, block the ships, etc. It's not like Russia would suddenly ally with Germany and/or Japan.
 
Oh "must" I?
View attachment 281766

So using the official Soviet numbers - which are quite questionable btw but lets use them - the Soviets had 8100 tanks and spgs on the frontlines in early 1943. If all of these 8100 were operational then the 1000 LL tanks would represent 12.5% of active Soviet tank stock - if only half of these 8100 tanks were operational then the number increases to 25%. In both cases the number is far from trivial.

Except not, because even accepting your number is true, for some reason the Soviets have 10,000 tanks sitting around doing nothing (which is the main reason my eyebrows are going up at this number... it's basically claiming that the Soviets do not have the majority of their armor committed to the war. How does Krivosheev define "theater of operations"?), they could easily make up for the lack of lend-lease tanks by taking just 1/10th of that. So yeah, no effect there.

Another, more difficult number to quantify, would be the how much the knowledge that massive LL deliveries were coming in '43-'45 had on existing Soviet production in '42.
After all, building up production capacity usually takes quite some time.
And it's probably fair to assume that they would have been forced to invest less in tank production capacity, and more in producing other stuff they now would be forced to aquire themselves.

Harrison actually has a chart on this: the Soviets basically terminated longer term investments in 1942 and only picked it back up in 1943. In '42, they were dumping pretty much everything into guns while cutting butter down to the bone.
 
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Except not, because even accepting your number is true, for some reason the Soviets have 10,000 tanks sitting around doing nothing (which is the main reason my eyebrows are going up at this number... it's basically claiming that the Soviets do not have the majority of their armor committed to the war. How does Krivosheev define "theater of operations"?), they could easily make up for the lack of lend-lease tanks by taking just 1/10th of that. So yeah, no effect there.

Number of tanks/sp listed as being out of theater

1/1-42: 5,5k
1/1-43: 12,5k
1/1-44: 18,6k
1/1-45: 27,1k

The note to the data table also informs us that unservicable arms and equipment are included in the numbers.

I wouldn't be suprised if the majority of these vehicles were damaged (beyond easy repair) or obsolete.
Which would go a long way in explaining the rising number of vehicles out of theater.

Harrison actually has a chart on this: the Soviets basically terminated longer term investments in 1942 and only picked it back up in 1943. In '42, they were dumping pretty much everything into guns while cutting butter down to the bone.

Yup. And I don't think they would be able to so heavily slant their economy towards guns absent an allied commitment to provide for some of the butter.
 
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