World War 2 without lend lease for USSR

So two opposing views:
1. Soviets bleed more, but end result is the same
2. Soviet Union falls apart due to famine without LL
Actually, I generally plump for the middle-ground, the Soviets fight on, but without the assistance are only able to score a draw.
 
Educate me please. In Lend Lease Britain leased various bases etc. to the USA after becoming almost bankrupt selling off it's foreign exchange and assets buying US arms, in return for the loan of assorted armaments which were required to be returned after the war. Look at the 1940s RAF post war. No US aircraft, with very minor exceptions. The British Army did without Sherman tanks (again with minor exceptions) and so forth. Many items the USA did not want returned were burned, buried or thrown into the sea. The Continental picture is varied and different. The Dutch bought surplus Canadian tanks. The French seemed able to get almost unlimited free US tanks and so forth and were never asked to give them back.

What did the Soviet Union lease for Lend Lease? What loaned items did they give back after the war? If nothing then it might be more accurate to describe the process as Gifting rather than Lend Lease.
 
Educate me please. In Lend Lease Britain leased various bases etc. to the USA after becoming almost bankrupt selling off it's foreign exchange and assets buying US arms, in return for the loan of assorted armaments which were required to be returned after the war. Look at the 1940s RAF post war. No US aircraft, with very minor exceptions. The British Army did without Sherman tanks (again with minor exceptions) and so forth. Many items the USA did not want returned were burned, buried or thrown into the sea. The Continental picture is varied and different. The Dutch bought surplus Canadian tanks. The French seemed able to get almost unlimited free US tanks and so forth and were never asked to give them back.

What did the Soviet Union lease for Lend Lease? What loaned items did they give back after the war? If nothing then it might be more accurate to describe the process as Gifting rather than Lend Lease.

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/pearl/www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/lend.html
 
Educate me please. In Lend Lease Britain leased various bases etc. to the USA after becoming almost bankrupt selling off it's foreign exchange and assets buying US arms, in return for the loan of assorted armaments which were required to be returned after the war. Look at the 1940s RAF post war. No US aircraft, with very minor exceptions. The British Army did without Sherman tanks (again with minor exceptions) and so forth. Many items the USA did not want returned were burned, buried or thrown into the sea. The Continental picture is varied and different. The Dutch bought surplus Canadian tanks. The French seemed able to get almost unlimited free US tanks and so forth and were never asked to give them back.

What did the Soviet Union lease for Lend Lease? What loaned items did they give back after the war? If nothing then it might be more accurate to describe the process as Gifting rather than Lend Lease.
You're misunderstanding. Lend-Lease equipment was sold on credit to be paid for later which Britain did (last payment made in 1997), but which the USSR didn't. What you're talking about is the 'Destroyers for Bases Agreement', which was a completely separate thing that happened months before Lend-Lease began.
 

Deleted member 1487

He makes remarks about it throughout Wages of Destruction which make pretty clear what his views are.
I'll check and see the comments in that book, but it was not about the USSR and to my knowledge he has done little research into the Soviet economy.

Harrison attributes the stabilization of Soviet economy to victory at Stalingrad both in that book and elsewhere more then he does to lend-lease. Indeed, he notes in his article on the Soviet war economy in The Soviet Union at War that stabilization of the Soviet economy was necessary to make effective use of lend-lease, not the other way around. He draws a direct comparison to US foreign aide to modern developing countries, much of which is similar in scale to lend-lease, and how it tends to get wasted because of those countries dysfunctional systems and hence has little impact on what their trying to alleviate. Just having the aid provided isn't enough, the aid also has to be effectively utilized. That effort rests on the political-economic system of the receiver.
Sure, LL without a functioning Soviet economy would have gone nowhere, but a functioning Soviet economy without LL has too many holes to function for long. Harrison is right in that the greatest part of the Soviet economy in 1942 was not LL and liberation of territory in the winter of 1942-43 took the immediate pressure off the economy, but the reality that others authors have pointed out is the Soviet economic recovery was a function of LL filling in the gaps left by the invasion and then 1942 campaign. The Soviet economy could not have continued to function and sustain mobilization at necessary levels in 1942 without that external support, which means the margin that allowed for the Soviets to get to the point of being able to win at Stalingrad and in the winter of 1942-43 was directly related to the 2.5 million tons of LL aid received in 1942. The loss of that would have caused a melt down in the Soviet economy despite their best efforts.

Your words were, and I quote:
This in a post about 1942.
Yes, I meant over the course of 1942, not on January 1st 1942.

Except the increase in lend-lease came after 1942, not during. Lend-lease actually declined in mid-'42, as a result of the northern route being shut down.
LL did not decline over the course of 1942, one convoy via the Northern Route was badly disrupted in the Summer, but it still remained the primary route in 1942 while despite it being shut down supplies still came in via that route for all if Summer; LL in Summer 1942 continued at full pace and other routes compensated for the attack on that one convoy (of which 5 ships still arrived). Overall Lend-Lease dramatically increased in 1942 compared to 1941 and the 1943 increase was significantly lower than the 1941-42 increase. In fact the Northern Route in 1943 was lower than in 1942 despite less effective German interdiction efforts.
Actually looking at the numbers for the months that the Northern Route was at the lowest in Summer, the US and Canada sent replacement convoys to the Soviet Arctic, which was via Alaska and the Pacific. So really for those months in which the Germans were most successful in disrupting the Murmansk convoy the Allies sent replacements via other routes and the Soviets experienced no significant losses to promised supplies for those months.

And Moscow was wrecked, Leningrad was put out of commission, and Kharkov-Orel was occupied. And only a portion of the defense industry in all these regions made it out.
Moscow was not wrecked, it continued to produce throughout 1941. Bombing of it was minor; some industry was evacuated in 1941, but was brought back. Leningrad was disrupted, but it continued to produce throughout the blockade, even in 1941. Kharkov and Orel were occupied in 1941 after industry was evacuated. Most of the defense industry made it out of their, Leningrad lost none of it's industry and in fact evacuated a lot of it or continued to produce onsite, while no industry in Moscow was lost and even the stuff that was temporarily lost in Operation Typhoon was liberated in December-January.

Whether it would be worse enough to cause a collapse you have not at all proved.
You have talked about millions of deaths IOTL due to hunger. What do you think missing out on millions of tons of food would mean from 1941-43 (before agricultural land was liberated)? From the 1st and 2nd LL protocols (October 1st 1941-June 30th 1943) 1.3 million tons of food were shipped to the USSR. How many millions more would have starved? Even assuming agricultural land was liberated without LL seeds and other means of bringing it back under cultivation the Soviets would have a hard time bringing it back under cultivation under their own resources...and wouldn't be able to harvest until Autumn 1943 anyway, so there is a big gap between recapturing it and turning it into consumable food production.

None of which you have demonstrated to be enough
Enough for what? It was the additional margin between survival and collapse. On it's own it wasn't enough for the Soviets to run an economy on, but then neither was their own resources by Autumn 1942. It was the combo of LL and their own mobilized economy that kept them alive.

Wrong. There are reports of armaments plant workers starving to death at their canteens as late as 1943, something Harrisson talks about. Instances of soldiers dying of hunger in '42 also appear.
So what do you think is going to happen when they miss out on 1.3 million tons of LL food from October 1st 1941-June 30th 1943? How many more would have starved?

These are historians writing in the 90s, 2000s, and 2010s with full access to Soviet archives. I've named them and you have used them in the past (and even in this thread) fully confident that they are not simply using the Soviet propaganda line. Trying to play "it's just Soviet propaganda card" isn't going to cut it.
Full access to the Soviet archives is impossible, the Russians do not allow that to foreign historians, Glantz has talked about how things changed in the 1990s especially after he wrote a book critical of Zhukov's Mars Offensive. Some access is still possible and several historians focusing on Lend-Lease specifically, including Russian historians who I've linked interviews with, have criticized the traditional Soviet narrative about the impact of LL on the Soviet economy. Modern scholarship even in Russia is overturning the idea that it's impact was only minor and proving that it was in fact the margin between victory and defeat. Zhukov himself in a 1960s interview that I already quoted specifically said the Soviets would have lost the war without Lend-Lease and that equipping reserve armies would have been impossible without it.

https://perspectivesofthepast.com/e...d-soviet-victory-during-the-second-world-war/
In a confidential interview with the wartime correspondent Konstantin Simonov, the famous Soviet Marshal G.K. Zhukov is quoted as sayin g “Today [1963] some say the Allies didn’t really help us…But listen, one cannot deny that the Americans shipped over to us material without which we could not have equipped our armies held in reserve or been able to continue the war.”[12] Marshall Zhukov according to Weeks even goes on further to state that the Soviet government engaged in the calculated use of propaganda to systemically demean the importance of the Allied Lend-Lease Program, believing that it distracted from the heroism and sacrifice of the Soviet soldier and people.

[12] Albert L. Weeks The Other Side of Coexistence: An Analysis of Russian Foreign Policy, (New York, Pittman Publishing Corporation, 1974), p.94, quoted in Albert L. Weeks, Russia’s Life-Saver: Lend-Lease Aid to the U.S.S.R. in World War II (New York: Lexington Books, 2010), 1

Even with Japanese entry, the Soviets would still get their L-L. Overall throughput would fall, but not by 50%. The allies used Vladivostok so much because it was the safest route, as well as the closest to the American west coast. Had Vladivostok been closed they'd have delivered the cargo through the Indian ocean, or the northern route. Longer and more perilous but the allies would have a surfeit of transport. The most likely result is the US puts their shipping in through the northern route to keep it open, with the extra ships more then offsetting any losses. It would have been inconvenient and probably cost them a few more ships and sailors, but it would hardly be fatal to either lend-lease efforts or the Soviet Union.
That is highly debateable. If the US thinks the Soviets are going to collapse due to being invaded on two sides it is very possible they wouldn't have provided it. That is a different discussion for a different time though. The Persian route was maxed out throughout the whole war due to limited infrastructure that the US had to spend Billions of dollars upgrading to push through more. It simply could not compensate for the loss of other routes. Murmansk too was too difficult prior to 1943 to put more supplies through and as it was the Allies used it FAR less in 1943 than in 1942 because of the danger of that route.

Plus, if Lend-Lease in 1942 was relatively unimportant compared to 1943, then lend-lease via the Pacific route was even more so constituting only 1/3rd of shipments in 1942 compared to the roughly 1/2 in 1943-45.
Who said it was unimportant ever? The Pacific route was quite important and losing 1/3rd of LL in 1942 would have been very painful for the USSR.

GDP isn't what matters in the military contest. What matters is the industrial output of the defense industry.
Since we are talking about the economy being able to support that level of military production the fall in GDP and mobilization level of the economy is very pertinent. Harrison point out that even with 1942 levels of LL the 1942 levels of economic mobilization were unsustainable and it was increased LL and liberation of territory that took the pressure off. Cut out LL and the wheels spin off before liberation of territory is an option and even then LL is not there in increased amounts to aid recovery and keep up a minimum sustained economy.

Several million dead in three years is on a level comparable to the 1933-34 famines. It definitely is not "skirting the edges".
Got a source that it was that specifically due to starvation? As I understand it it was hunger related illnesses. But let's assume you're right. What do you think having 800k tons of food less in 15 months is going to do to that situation? If there is already millions dying of nutrition related reasons cutting calories in 1941-42 is going to turn that into several million more deaths that will get worse going into 1943 because liberated farmland is not cultivated yet.
 
"Although Allied aid was used directly to supply the armed forces with both durable goods and consumables, indirectly it probably released resources to households. By improving the balance of overall resources it brought about a ceteris paribus improvement in the payoff to patriotic citizens. In other words, Lend–Lease was stabilising. We cannot measure the distance of the Soviet economy from the point of collapse in 1942, but it can hardly be doubted that collapse was near. Without Lend–Lease it would have been nearer. Stalin himself recognized this, although he expressed himself more directly. He told Khrushchev several times that the Soviet Union had suffered such heavy losses that without Allied aid it would have lost the war."
-Mark Harrison, The Economics of Coercion and Conflict, pages 117-18
"There can be little doubt that if the Soviet Union had had to fight on two land fronts simultaneously, the Germans would have won the war on the Eastern Front." -Alvin Coox, Nomonhan: Japan Against Russia, page 1079
 

GarethC

Donor
If Britain doesn't send aircraft and armor to the USSR, and doesn't run convoys to Arkhangelsk in 1941, then those free hulls can take additional units to North Africa and the Far East.

If Operation Crusader's ATL equivalent launches a month earlier as that shipping arrives in Egypt instead of Russia, how will that affect Rommel's defence? What was the situation for supplies and fixed defences for the Axis forces?

If Malaya has a hundred tanks and a hundred and fifty more Hurricanes in December, then Percival is energised in the application of his own defence plan, doesn't have a nervous breakdown, gets more defences in place on the peninsula, and launches an armor-led Matador into Thailand, destroying bridges and fighting a short meeting engagement before withdrawing. Air cover prevents the destruction of Force Z though both capital ships are reported sunk by the bomber crews.
Percival then retreats south through a series of prepared positions in a controlled withdrawal while still under a defensive air umbrella that preserves the bulk of his forces and their equipment, while costing Yamashita more time, casualties, and supply than OTL, until the ATL Johore equivalent sees Yamashita stop and withdraw in turn due to a shortage of ammunition, especially for artillery. The remaining armor enables a number of small encirclements where retreating IJA forces are encircled and destroyed, and the OTL invasion of Burma is postponed so that the forces involved can be diverted to Malaya.
PoW requires IJN capital units to play escort to the invasions of the DEI, but they are available and at some point in the spring the RN will withdraw back to the Indian Ocean.
I would say that the additional 50 aircraft and tanks per month (conservatively) that can be sent to Malaya will probably mean it is held, and that the Burma campaign and loss of Rangoon is butterflied away. That, and the continuing use of Singapore as a submarine base, will ultimately cripple the IJN through a lack of fuel oil to the point that by Dec 1942, they are unable to meaningfully oppose the US advance through the Solomons.

At that point, Japan ought to sue for peace, leading to a Versaiiles-like disarmament, with an independent Korea and Formosa, while in 1943 with no CBI theatre, continuing Solomons campaign, or central Pacific carrier operations, the Allies can focus on Germany, with Torch and an earlier Husky.
 
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Thomas1195

Banned
But what if the US did not provide things that seemed to be small like radios, telephones, radars or high quality fuel? Just big things like tanks or trucks, as well as food?

Besides, Britain should have send the OTL Soviet aid to reinforce the East?
 
You're misunderstanding. Lend-Lease equipment was sold on credit to be paid for later which Britain did (last payment made in 1997), but which the USSR didn't. What you're talking about is the 'Destroyers for Bases Agreement', which was a completely separate thing that happened months before Lend-Lease began.
Actually I read Britain repaid in December 2006. As for Russia they repaid 4 month before British. Both countries got huge discounts.
 

Deleted member 1487

Actually I read Britain repaid in December 2006. As for Russia they repaid 4 month before British. Both countries got huge discounts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease#Repayment
While repayment of the interest-free loans was required after the end of the war under the act, in practice the U.S. did not expect to be repaid by the USSR after the war. The U.S. received $2M in reverse Lend-Lease from the USSR. This was mostly in the form of landing, servicing, and refueling of transport aircraft; some industrial machinery and rare minerals were sent to the U.S. The U.S. asked for $1.3B at the cessation of hostilities to settle the debt, but was only offered $170M by the USSR. The dispute remained unresolved until 1972, when the U.S. accepted an offer from the USSR to repay $722M linked to grain shipments from the U.S., with the remainder being written off. During the war the USSR provided an unknown number of shipments of rare minerals to the US Treasury as a form of cashless repayment of Lend-Lease. This was agreed before the signing of the first protocol on 1 October 1941 and extension of credit. Some of these shipments were intercepted by the Germans. In May 1942, HMS Edinburgh was sunk while carrying 4.5 tonnes of Soviet gold intended for the U.S. Treasury. This gold was salvaged in 1981 and 1986.[citation needed] In June 1942, SS Port Nicholson was sunk en route from Halifax, Canada to New York, allegedly with Soviet platinum, gold, and industrial diamonds aboard.[68] However, none of this cargo has been salvaged, and no documentation of it has been produced.
 
I'll check and see the comments in that book, but it was not about the USSR and to my knowledge he has done little research into the Soviet economy.

They were indeed mostly passing remarks that he does not go too deep anywhere because the book is mainly focused on the Germans. They still give a pretty good idea of what his views are.

Sure, LL without a functioning Soviet economy would have gone nowhere, but a functioning Soviet economy without LL has too many holes to function for long.

Then it wouldn't have even managed to become functional in the first place.

Harrison is right in that the greatest part of the Soviet economy in 1942 was not LL and liberation of territory in the winter of 1942-43 took the immediate pressure off the economy, but the reality that others authors have pointed out is the Soviet economic recovery was a function of LL filling in the gaps left by the invasion and then 1942 campaign.

Except none of them have presupposed said gaps would be fatal to the Soviet effort. You've just read that into there.

LL did not decline over the course of 1942,

Specifically it declined in mid-1942, dropping by half from it's previous peak of 400,000 tons a month in early-1942, and not recovering back up there until mid-1943

Moscow was not wrecked,

Yes it was. Or to be more precise, it partially was. You see, the Moscow Industrial Region encompasses a lot more then the city of Moscow. There were industries in Smolensk, Rzhev, Kalinin, Vyazma, Kaluga, Tula, Kalinin, and so-on and so forth. Some of these were evacuated, some were disrupted, some were total losses.

Leningrad was disrupted, but it continued to produce throughout the blockade, even in 1941.

Large portions of the Leningrad industrial region were physically occupied by the Germans.

Kharkov and Orel were occupied in 1941 after industry was evacuated.

The Kharkov-Orel industrial region was only partially evacuated. Orel in particular was captured while it's industrial machinery was still being loaded at the local train station. Kursk, Belogorod, Sumy, and Bryansk also fell, with remaining industry irretrievably lost.

Most of the defense industry made it out of their,

Most Soviet defense industry in the territory occupied by the Germans in 1941 was actually captured or destroyed. Even a significant minority (~40%) of those defense industries slated to be evacuated didn't make it out. What the Soviets did manage to evacuate was a lot in absolute terms, and even in relative terms it was quite significant, but it was not "most". The best descriptor was that it was "enough".

Leningrad lost none of it's industry

Yes it did. Pskov and Novgorod were both significant industrial centers in their own right within the Leningrad industrial region and both were captured by the Germans. An industrial region is not just the city it is named after.

even the stuff that was temporarily lost in Operation Typhoon was liberated in December-January.

The stuff that was lost in Operation Typhoon was lost permanently because if the Soviets couldn't evacuate it, they destroyed it to deny it to the Germans. And then the Germans also destroyed what they couldn't evacuate when they were forced out.

You have talked about millions of deaths IOTL due to hunger. What do you think missing out on millions of tons of food would mean from 1941-43 (before agricultural land was liberated)? From the 1st and 2nd LL protocols (October 1st 1941-June 30th 1943) 1.3 million tons of food were shipped to the USSR. How many millions more would have starved?

Probably quite a few. Would this have been enough to actually undermine the Soviet war effort? That is the real question which and neither of us can actually say with 100% certainty on the issue.

Enough for what?

Enough to collapse every time, duh. You know, the assertion that you've been making throughout this whole thread?

Full access to the Soviet archives is impossible, the Russians do not allow that to foreign historians, Glantz has talked about how things changed in the 1990s especially after he wrote a book critical of Zhukov's Mars Offensive. Some access is still possible and several historians focusing on Lend-Lease specifically, including Russian historians who I've linked interviews with, have criticized the traditional Soviet narrative about the impact of LL on the Soviet economy.

Modern scholarship even in Russia is overturning the idea that it's impact was only minor

Yes, that is an assertion no-one has ever made in this thread.

and proving that it was in fact the margin between victory and defeat.

Except in none of your articles is that assertion made. In the first link you posted, the historian talks a lot in numbers about what the WAllies provided and how that was useful and such (although some of his assertions, like those about WAllied tank provisions at the start of 1942 replace Soviet tank losses three times over, are numerically disprovable). But at no point does he go so far as to say "we would have certainly collapsed without it". Your second link is a discussion on the historiographical debate, but it still does not make the absolutist claim that the Soviets would have collapsed, for sure, 100%. Your third link is a book I already own and haven't read yet, but I'm pretty sure it would wind up saying something similar.

That is highly debateable. If the US thinks the Soviets are going to collapse due to being invaded on two sides it is very possible they wouldn't have provided it.

The US provided aid even when they thought the Soviets were going to collapse due to being invaded on one side. They provided aid when they thought Moscow was going to immediately fall. The US provided aid to Britain even when they thought the British were going to quit the war any day now. The US kept aiding the Chinese even when it became manifestly obvious that the Chinese were incapable of actually defeating the Japanese. The idea that the US won't aid an ally because it's in an adverse situation may have some basis based on US actions in other wars, but in the context of WW2 it would be an extraordinary claim to make. And you know what they say about extraordinary claims.

The Persian route was maxed out throughout the whole war due to limited infrastructure that the US had to spend Billions of dollars upgrading to push through more.

Then the US would spend sooner and upgrade it faster.

Murmansk too was too difficult prior to 1943 to put more supplies through and as it was the Allies used it FAR less in 1943 than in 1942 because of the danger of that route.

And ITTL, they'll use it far more because the Japanese blockade and/or capture of Vladivostok means that the danger of the Murmansk route is now less then the danger of the Vladivostok route. If they have to cut more escorts and take more measures to keep the route open, then they'll do so, because the WAllies recognize the strategic importance of the Soviet Union. As I already said, the Vladivostok route was the most used because it was the most convenient. Japanese intervention means it becomes the most inconvenient... too inconvenient too use. So instead, the shipping now goes down the other routes and most of the LL gets in that way. Some of it invariably gets lost due to German action (in the case of the Murmansk route) or infrastructure issues (in the case of the Persian route), so there is a decline. But it isn't a 50%.

Who said it was unimportant ever?

I did, just now. The Murmansk and Persian routes were more important in 1942 then the Vladivostok route.

The Pacific route was quite important and losing 1/3rd of LL in 1942 would have been very painful for the USSR.

Except, to even assuming it was important, the loss would not be 1/3rd as the WAllies would just send that aid through other routes.

Harrison point out that even with 1942 levels of LL the 1942 levels of economic mobilization were unsustainable

Except Harrison says that the increased LL came in 1943, not 1942, and that the stabilization of the economic mobilization happened before the increased LL.

What do you think having 800k tons of food less in 15 months is going to do to that situation?

Make it worse. Duh. The question is whether it would make it worse enough.

"Although Allied aid was used directly to supply the armed forces with both durable goods and consumables, indirectly it probably released resources to households. By improving the balance of overall resources it brought about a ceteris paribus improvement in the payoff to patriotic citizens. In other words, Lend–Lease was stabilising. We cannot measure the distance of the Soviet economy from the point of collapse in 1942, but it can hardly be doubted that collapse was near. Without Lend–Lease it would have been nearer. Stalin himself recognized this, although he expressed himself more directly. He told Khrushchev several times that the Soviet Union had suffered such heavy losses that without Allied aid it would have lost the war."
-Mark Harrison, The Economics of Coercion and Conflict, pages 117-18​

Yep, that quote also appears in Harrison's article in the Soviet Union at War. You'll note that he says that Harrison ultimately concludes that collapse would have been nearer. That is not the same as saying that it would have been guaranteed. Unlike Wiking, Harrison does not make an absolutist assertion.

"There can be little doubt that if the Soviet Union had had to fight on two land fronts simultaneously, the Germans would have won the war on the Eastern Front." -Alvin Coox, Nomonhan: Japan Against Russia, page 1079

That assertion has two big holes in it. The first is that it rather glaringly contradictory to the previous chapter where Coox spends several pages highlighting the inadequacy of Japanese preparations for war with the USSR in 1941 and ultimately concluding that an actual attack would have been a long, painful thing that Japan could barely support. To suddenly turn around and say that it would suddenly ensure victory is a pretty big about-face. The second is that defeat in the Far East in August-December of 1941 wouldn't have had any physical impact on the Battle for Moscow (the psychological impact, OTOH, is unknowable), and the Japanese had no means to push further west against areas that would have actually mattered for the Soviet Union (that is, absent the whole "having to fight the Germans"). The same barren terrain and limited lines of communication the Japanese were counting on to prevent large-scale Soviet responses would also have allowed relatively small Soviet blocking forces to prevent further movement west by the IJA. The Soviets could economize in forces in the area until they were ready to drive the Japanese out. Beyond Vladivostok, there is nothing the Japanese can take that would hurt the Soviets in any form.
 

Deleted member 1487

Then it wouldn't have even managed to become functional in the first place.
No, it can have holes and coast on resource stockpiles, but as those are used up the gaps in the economy will overheat it, especially as the German 1942 campaign pushed the Soviets to the brink.

Except none of them have presupposed said gaps would be fatal to the Soviet effort. You've just read that into there.
You yourself acknowledged millions of people died IOTL of hunger related issues, what do you think happens when 1.3 million tons of food are denied to the Soviet people in the critical late 1941-mid 43 period? Beyond that the lack of machine tools, fuel, finished weapons, raw materials, etc. will severely compromise the war effort at the critical moment.

Specifically it declined in mid-1942, dropping by half from it's previous peak of 400,000 tons a month in early-1942, and not recovering back up there until mid-1943
Cherrypick much?
http://www.o5m6.de/LL_Routes.html
It reached 400k tons in 1 month (April) in all of 1942 and the convoy action in question, PQ-17, happened months after the decline (July). The yearly average was around 200k tons for the entire year and substantially less pre-peak in April. The shipping situation in 1942 was much more likely the culprit than any convoy battle, as German Uboats were massacring shipping on the US East Coast and Carribbean, plus the US had to organize it's wartime shipping properly and factor in the impact of convoys and the Pacific on shipping supplies abroad.

Yes it was. Or to be more precise, it partially was. You see, the Moscow Industrial Region encompasses a lot more then the city of Moscow. There were industries in Smolensk, Rzhev, Kalinin, Vyazma, Kaluga, Tula, Kalinin, and so-on and so forth. Some of these were evacuated, some were disrupted, some were total losses.
Smolensk is not part of the Moscow Oblast. The rest of the cities you mention were liberated within a couple of months (minus Rzhev and Vyazma, which was not a big industrial area). Tula was a significant industrial town, but was not captured and the Germans ejected from the area by January. During the fighting it was producing weapons for the front. The Germans did not actively destroy industry in areas held in October-December around Moscow, so the vast majority of industry in the Moscow-Upper Volga area (Gorki, Yaroslavl) were never touched and stayed in production, though evacuations did initially occur until industry came back later.

Large portions of the Leningrad industrial region were physically occupied by the Germans.
Can you show what industries were captured? AFAIK the industry was concentrated in the city and none of it was ever taken by the Germans, including none of the weapons industry, while the KV tank facility was mostly evacuated via Ladoga and reactivated in the Urals.

The Kharkov-Orel industrial region was only partially evacuated. Orel in particular was captured while it's industrial machinery was still being loaded at the local train station. Kursk, Belogorod, Sumy, and Bryansk also fell, with remaining industry irretrievably lost.
Can you provide some numbers about what was captured? The Kharkov tank facility escaped intact.

Most Soviet defense industry in the territory occupied by the Germans in 1941 was actually captured or destroyed. Even a significant minority (~40%) of those defense industries slated to be evacuated didn't make it out. What the Soviets did manage to evacuate was a lot in absolute terms, and even in relative terms it was quite significant, but it was not "most". The best descriptor was that it was "enough".
Can you provide numbers/sourcing supporting that? Based on numbers provided on another forum in a discussion we both participated in a Russian poster posted numbers that indicated that the vast majority of defense industry did escape and was just disrupted to varying degrees. But let's assume a significant portion of defense industry was lost. Lend-Lease machinery made that industry whole again, no lend-lease means huge gaps in Soviet production come 1942. As it was about 1.25 million tons of machinery was imported by the Soviets from the Brits and US to build up their industry. Roughly 10% of that came between 1941-mid 1943 and filled in the gaps in Soviet industry. The mid-1943-1945 wave of machinery then built up Soviet war production to extreme new levels that enabled them to bury the Axis in war materials.

Yes it did. Pskov and Novgorod were both significant industrial centers in their own right within the Leningrad industrial region and both were captured by the Germans. An industrial region is not just the city it is named after.
Got a source on what was there and what wasn't evacuated? I have no doubt that you're right that they were major industrial areas, but the question is what did they produce, what was or was not evacuated, and what did the Germans capture.

The stuff that was lost in Operation Typhoon was lost permanently because if the Soviets couldn't evacuate it, they destroyed it to deny it to the Germans. And then the Germans also destroyed what they couldn't evacuate when they were forced out.
Ok, the question is what was lost.

Probably quite a few. Would this have been enough to actually undermine the Soviet war effort? That is the real question which and neither of us can actually say with 100% certainty on the issue.
That is the indeed the real question, but millions more deaths would impact the workforce and military and severely undermine morale. People can't work or fight if they are too weak, so even if they don't die they may not be able to do as much as IOTL, nor do their jobs at all depending on the situation.

Yes, that is an assertion no-one has ever made in this thread.
In past threads you've quoted the official Soviet line that it was only 4% of Soviet GDP, which has been disproven and I've posted articles to that effect already in this thread. It has also been asserted here that it was not the margin between victory and defeat, which is a notion challenged heavily by recent scholarship on Lend-Lease to the USSR specifically, including by Russian historians.

Except in none of your articles is that assertion made. In the first link you posted, the historian talks a lot in numbers about what the WAllies provided and how that was useful and such (although some of his assertions, like those about WAllied tank provisions at the start of 1942 replace Soviet tank losses three times over, are numerically disprovable). But at no point does he go so far as to say "we would have certainly collapsed without it". Your second link is a discussion on the historiographical debate, but it still does not make the absolutist claim that the Soviets would have collapsed, for sure, 100%. Your third link is a book I already own and haven't read yet, but I'm pretty sure it would wind up saying something similar.
Zhukov made that assertion himself post-war that it kept the USSR from being defeated.
https://rbth.com/business/2015/05/08/allies_gave_soviets_130_billion_under_lend-lease_45879.html
The historian in this article says the value of LL cannot be overestimated and was critical in several categories.


The US provided aid even when they thought the Soviets were going to collapse due to being invaded on one side. They provided aid when they thought Moscow was going to immediately fall. The US provided aid to Britain even when they thought the British were going to quit the war any day now. The US kept aiding the Chinese even when it became manifestly obvious that the Chinese were incapable of actually defeating the Japanese. The idea that the US won't aid an ally because it's in an adverse situation may have some basis based on US actions in other wars, but in the context of WW2 it would be an extraordinary claim to make. And you know what they say about extraordinary claims.
Lend-Lease did not start until October when everyone assumed it was too late for the Germans to really threaten Moscow (correctly), which was the basis of the assumption that it was safe to issue Lend-Lease and not have the Soviets collapse. Japan stayed out of the war, the Soviets were able to hold out until the Autumn muds and the Germans were desperate enough to attack despite that. So the Americans and Brits thought it was a safe bet to start giving the Soviets everything they needed. That was the same situation with the Brits in 1940, Lend-Lease only came in 1941 AFTER the Brits demonstrated that they could hold out into 1941 and in the face of the Blitz and were willing to fight to the bitter end. Aid to the Chinese only came AFTER it was clear the Japanese could not defeat them and supplies to the Chinese would lock down the bulk of the Japanese army and wear them down in an endless attrition war with hundreds of millions of Chinese. Defeating the Japanese outright in decisive battles was secondary to US strategy at the time, it was about wearing Japan down until they quit. The entire history of US LL was predicated on first determining that the ally in question wasn't going to be quickly defeated and was willing to continue to fight to the end, then they got LL.

Then the US would spend sooner and upgrade it faster.
There were a lot of practical reasons that it could not be:
http://www.history.army.mil/books/70-7_09.htm
Each of these routes had its definite limitations. The northern route around Norway was the shortest but it also was the most vulnerable to attack by German submarines and land-based aircraft. Moreover, winter cold and ice frequently blocked Soviet harbors and rendered sailing conditions for Allied merchantmen scarcely tolerable even without the German threat. The route to Vladivostok ran directly past the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. Ships flying American or British flags could not proceed through waters controlled by the Japanese once Japan had gone to war against Britain and the United States. And even in Soviet flag shipping, a very scarce commodity in 1941-42, the United States did not dare risk supplies and equipment definitely identifiable as for military end use. Moreover, the rail line from Vladivostok to European Russia had initially a very limited capacity. The southern route via the Persian Gulf was the only one relatively free of the threat of enemy interference, but in 1941 it possessed an insignificant capacity. Iranian ports were undeveloped and the Iranian State Railway running north to the USSR was rated in October 1941 as capable of transporting but 6,000 tons of Soviet aid supplies monthly, hardly the equivalent of a single shipload.

In August 1941, by joint agreement with the USSR, the British moved into control of southern Iran while the Soviet Union took over the northern portion of the country. This joint occupation, regularized by treaty arrangements between the two powers and a new Iranian Government, secured the land area through which supplies transported by sea over the southern route could be carried on to the USSR. The question of the effort the British and Americans should devote to developing the necessary facilities in Iran to make any considerable flow of aid through this area possible was therefore a basic one from the moment the Western Allies committed themselves to a large-scale Soviet aid program. For a year after the initial occupation, preoccupation with other tasks in a period of scarcity of men and materials combined with Soviet intransigence to delay any positive decision or practicable plan. During that year the major effort was devoted to forwarding supplies to the USSR over the more vulnerable northern route. Only after the Germans had demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that they could make the northern route prohibitively costly, did the United States and Britain decide on a concentrated effort to develop the Persian Corridor as an alternate route.

Early Failure of Develop the Persian Gulf
American and British transportation experts in September 1941 freely predicted that the southern route would eventually provide the best avenue for the flow of supplies to the USSR, but there was little immediate follow-up on this prediction. The Russians insisted on the use of the northern route, evidently both because it promised quicker delivery of supplies closer to their fighting fronts and because they feared the establishment of a strong British or American position in Iran so close to the Soviet border. The British, faced with the necessity of developing adequate supply lines for their own hard-pressed forces dispersed through the Middle East from Egypt to India, lacked resources to devote to developing facilities for Soviet aid. On the borders of Egypt and in Libya, the British Eighth Army was engaged in a seesaw battle with the Afrika Korps; in Syria and Iraq the British Tenth Army stood guard against a German drive southward through the Caucasus to the oilfields of Iraq and Iran whence the very lifeblood of the Commonwealth war effort flowed. Immediately after entry into southern Iran, the British prepared a plan for developing transport facilities through their zone to a point where they could carry by the spring of 1942, 72,000 long tons of Soviet aid supplies in addition to essential cargoes for British military forces and the Iranian civilian economy, but this plan proved to be more a hope than a promise. Soviet insistence on the use of the northern route left the British with no strong incentive to push developments in Iran when the limited manpower and materials available to them were sorely needed to develop supply lines more vital to their own military effort in the Middle East.

Initially the American position in Iran was anomalous and it remained so even after Pearl Harbor. The United States was not a party to the agreement with the Iranian Government. The American Government therefore had to limit its actions in Iran to supporting the British. And before American entrance into the war against Germany, this support had to be rendered through lend-lease channels in such a way as not to compromise the neutrality of the United States. At the urgent request of the British, two missions were dispatched to the Middle East in the fall of 1941, one to Egypt under Brig. Gen. Russell L. Maxwell and the other to Iran under Brig. Gen. Raymond A. Wheeler, with the justification that they were necessary to make lend-lease aid "effective." These missions were instructed to aid the British in the development of their lines of communication, under conditions where British desires as to projects to be undertaken were to govern. Projects were to be financed with lend-lease funds and carried out by civilian contractors.

The British plan for development of Iranian facilities was conditioned on the expectation of the assistance of Wheeler's mission as well as of large-scale shipments of American lend-lease supplies and equipment. Elaborate plans were drawn up but Pearl Harbor completely disrupted them. Mission projects were shoved far down the scale of priorities while the United States carried out its initial deployments to the Pacific and the British Isles. Mission personnel and materiel waited at dockside for shipping that could not be allocated. And even when initial U.S. deployments were completed, these priorities were advanced very little. Under arrangements made by the Combined Chiefs of Staff shortly after Pearl Harbor, the whole Middle East was designated a British area of strategic responsibility just
as the Pacific was designated an American one. American strategic plans placed their emphasis on concentration of resources for an early invasion of Europe and Army planners sought to keep their commitments in support of the British Middle East to a minimum. In the running argument between the British and American Chiefs of Staff over a peripheral strategy versus one of concentration, the Americans won at least a temporary victory in April 1942. In a conference in London at that time, it was agreed that preparations should be made for both an emergency entrance onto the Continent in 1942 to prevent Soviet collapse (SLEDGEHAMMER) and for full-scale invasion in 1943 (ROUNDUP). The build-up in the British Isles for both these purposes (designated BOLERO) was placed at the top of the American priority scale from April through July and the Middle East missions continued to be treated as poor relatives.

A War Department decision in February 1942 that the missions should be militarized served only to produce additional delays and confusion. Requisite numbers of service troops to perform the tasks planned for civilian contractors were simply not available under the priority the missions were granted. Against a request for something over 25,000 men submitted by General Wheeler as the requirement to carry out projects planned, the War Department decided it could allot but 6,950 in the troop basis and only 654 of these could be moved to Iran before 1 September 1942. This decision, predicated on continuing use of contractor personnel, gradual rather than immediate militarization of contractor projects, and utmost use of indigenous labor, meant that the great bulk of Wheeler's projects had to be placed in a long-deferred second priority. Few even of the contractor personnel had arrived in the Persian Gulf by April 1942. During that month General Wheeler himself was transferred to India to become head of the Services of Supply there and was succeeded as head of the Iranian mission by Col. Don G. Shingler.

Without the extensive American assistance expected, the British were unable to devote sufficient resources to the development of Iranian facilities to increase significantly the transit capacity through their zone in Iran. Almost inevitably they concentrated their resources in the area on supply installations and facilities and the port of Basra in Iraq, designed to serve their own Tenth Army. The few American contractor personnel who did arrive were assigned the task of developing the port of Umm Qasr in Iraq, designed as a subsidiary port in the Basra complex. Thus the first opportunity to develop Persian Gulf facilities went largely by default.

While the Persian Gulf languished, the Americans and British devoted their main energies toward forwarding supplies over the difficult northern route, basically in accordance with Russian desires. This effort mounted to its crescendo in April and May 1942, when the Americans, having completed initial deployments and finally found supplies and ships to transport them to the USSR, attempted to make up previous deficits in their commitments under the First Protocol. During April some 63 ships cleared American ports headed for north Russia, and plans were laid to send almost as many in May. For the long pull, the President proposed that some 50 American ships be placed in regular monthly service over the northern route from March through November each year, 25 from November through the following March. The Persian Gulf was given but a small role. The Russians indicated they wanted only trucks and planes delivered via this route. In accordance with their desires, the goal for the southern route was set, in January 1942, at 2,000 trucks and 100 bombers monthly, these to be shipped knocked down, assembled in plants to be operated by contractor personnel under the Iranian mission, and driven or flown to the Soviet Zone; only small additional quantities of general cargo were to be forwarded over the Iranian Railway and in the assembled trucks. [5]

Shipping for one thing was highly limited, the Soviets wanted Murmansk/Archangelsk to be used, Iranian infrastructure was very weak and couldn't allow in a lot of equipment and supplies until it was built up, the US didn't have a lot to spare to that effect in 1942 due to needing to mobilize it's industry and build up it's military first, plus actually ship LL and conduct their own campaigns. Plus the Pacific Route was not preferred IOTL anyway and efforts to build up Persia was pretty maxed out as it was. The Allies would have tried to use the Northern Route more, which was much closer than having to route around Africa to the Middle East to an area with little infrastructure and would require all the shipping their initially to be used to build up infrastructure. Shipping and manpower limits were a severe problem in 1942, so the Northern Route was the only option until the Germans made clear in July 1942 that that route was too dangerous to rely on. Later in 1942 enough shipping and resources were available to both build up Iranian infrastructure and reopen the Northern Route. The issue with the Pacific Route was that IOTL it relied on Soviet flagged shipping anyway, so wasn't a major Allied route of shipping; with Japan in the war against the USSR, then even Soviet flagged shipping isn't an option for that route, but would end up getting used for the Northern Route, as the Soviets wanted.

And ITTL, they'll use it far more because the Japanese blockade and/or capture of Vladivostok means that the danger of the Murmansk route is now less then the danger of the Vladivostok route. If they have to cut more escorts and take more measures to keep the route open, then they'll do so, because the WAllies recognize the strategic importance of the Soviet Union. As I already said, the Vladivostok route was the most used because it was the most convenient. Japanese intervention means it becomes the most inconvenient... too inconvenient too use. So instead, the shipping now goes down the other routes and most of the LL gets in that way. Some of it invariably gets lost due to German action (in the case of the Murmansk route) or infrastructure issues (in the case of the Persian route), so there is a decline. But it isn't a 50%.
Read all the above. The Soviets did not want to use the Persian Route, they wanted full use of the Northern Route regardless of losses. It was the Wallies that eventually forced the Persian option because losses were too much to handle via the Northern Route. In 1942 there were just too limited resources to make the Northern Route work until late in the year, while there was not enough to build up Iran either. It required most of 1942 for the US to be mobilized enough to have the spare resources to put into Iran AND keep up the Northern Route. In a TL where Japan attacks the USSR and the US isn't in the war it is officially neutral and cannot help build up Iran; if it is in the war then they put their resources into the Northern Route per OTL and eventually have to shift South, but there are practical limits into how much they can get through to Murmansk in 1942 and there are all the same constraints on building up Iran as IOTL,

I did, just now. The Murmansk and Persian routes were more important in 1942 then the Vladivostok route.
The Persian Route was actually the least important route in 1942 because of it's practical limitations on infrastructure. It cannot really be built up faster for the reasons listed above, so any options to replace Vladivostok would have to go via Murmansk with all the problems that came from that (which led to it being the least important route in 1943).

Except, to even assuming it was important, the loss would not be 1/3rd as the WAllies would just send that aid through other routes.
Again there are major practical limitations on that. The Pacific route was done in 1942 entirely via Soviet flagged shipping, so that would just get folded into a Northern Route effort, as the Soviets wanted that route exclusively used due to the limitations of the Persian route. Which means a lot more losses in 1942 and less getting through than IOTL.

Except Harrison says that the increased LL came in 1943, not 1942, and that the stabilization of the economic mobilization happened before the increased LL.
LL increased in 1942 compared to 1941, increased in 1943 compared to 1942 and so on. It was increasing throughout the year on average (but for the one odd month in April where it was double any other month). LL was increasing as the Soviet economy stabilized and helped it survive the additional disruptions of the German 1942 campaign. The 1943 economy stabilization happened as LL was increasing to new highs AND there was strategic success that rolled back the German invasion. The thing is the strategic success reopened transportation routes and thus took pressure off that sector of the economy, but the liberated territories were largely destroyed and did not yield resources until Summer 1943 at the earliest (and didn't really offer much additional food until harvest in Autumn). So liberated territory really only offered some of the manpower that was captured in 1942, pressure taken off of logistics, and limited resource access...but the big change was the increase in LL that was reaching new highs thanks to the Persian Route finally becoming a major supply route, while Vladivostok also become a huge import center (the Northern Route declined to it's lowest importance of the war in 1943), so Lend-Lease 'popped' in terms of importance to the Soviet recovery. The big change then in the Soviet economy from 1942-43 was the increased LL which had at least doubled. The damage inflicted to the Soviet economy in 1942 had not been made good by liberating territory, the worst impacts on transportation had been relieved as the primary effect. So that 1943 economic stabilization and end to the overheating of the economy came primarily from increased Lend-Lease with a more limited impact from the liberation of territory, as that territory was not yielding resources in significant quantities after liberation until damage could be repaired to a degree over the course of 1943.

Make it worse. Duh. The question is whether it would make it worse enough.
Given that millions died and millions more had their health and labor abilities impaired IOTL? Yeah because then you have millions more young healthy men and women that were the prime labor and military manpower dying off, morale impacted, and millions more that IOTL were well fed enough to work or fight more now victims of malnutrition without that LL food. The Soviet food situation was balanced on a knife edge in 1942 and missing the 800k tons of food that came in via LL in 15 months would be enough to push things over the edge for many millions of people and start the process of social collapse in a lot of areas of Soviet society, including the military.

Of course all of this said it is very hard to get a situation where the US is in the war and LL not provided. It would be beyond stupid for the US not to extend LL to the Soviets.
 
For some reason, the first portion of the post quoted below appears as glitched, which I have been unable to correct.

Yep, that quote also appears in Harrison's article in the​
Soviet Union at War
. You'll note that he says that Harrison ultimately concludes that collapse would have been nearer. That is not the same as saying that it would have been guaranteed. Unlike Wiking, Harrison does not make an absolutist assertion.​

At the minimum, he implies that it would have been probable, "it can hardly be doubted that collapse was near." He then mentions that Stalin himself stated on several occasions that the USSR would have lost had it not been for the assistance.

That assertion has two big holes in it. The first is that it rather glaringly contradictory to the previous chapter where Coox spends several pages highlighting the inadequacy of Japanese preparations for war with the USSR in 1941 and ultimately concluding that an actual attack would have been a long, painful thing that Japan could barely support. To suddenly turn around and say that it would suddenly ensure victory is a pretty big about-face.

This is in the context of a country which is already very near to collapse. In such a situation, even pressures which are relatively small in an absolute sense can make a big difference.

The second is that defeat in the Far East in August-December of 1941 wouldn't have had any physical impact on the Battle for Moscow (the psychological impact, OTOH, is unknowable),

Nor does Coox say so. He says that Japanese entry would have resulted in German victory on the Eastern Front at some point, not victory in the Battle of Moscow specifically.

and the Japanese had no means to push further west against areas that would have actually mattered for the Soviet Union (that is, absent the whole "having to fight the Germans").

Yes, which is why the quote states "if the Soviet Union had had to fight on two fronts." No one's claiming Japan could have defeated the USSR on its own.

The same barren terrain and limited lines of communication the Japanese were counting on to prevent large-scale Soviet responses would also have allowed relatively small Soviet blocking forces to prevent further movement west by the IJA. The Soviets could economize in forces in the area until they were ready to drive the Japanese out. Beyond Vladivostok, there is nothing the Japanese can take that would hurt the Soviets in any form.

This strikes me as somewhat questionable, given that the IJA did historically manage to advance quite rapidly in rather forbidding terrain against blocking forces which actually outnumbered it during the 1941-2 offensive against the Wallies in the Pacific.
 

Telakasi

Banned
LL delivered roughly 15% of the tanks and aircraft used by the Soviets in the 42-43 period, roughly 20% of the food of the Red Army, around 10% of aviation fuel, and around 20% of all aluminium. Also by early 1944 1 in 3 vehicles came from LL. Without these deliveries the Soviets do worse in the 41-43 period: They have more casualties and they produce less weapons. A lack of LL might very well make a German victory at Kursk possible leading to a stalemate or even cease fire on the Eastern Front.

If the Soviets win at Kursk then they will slowly crawl towards the German border - with casualties that make OTL look like a cake walk. By May 1945 the Soviets are probably where they have been in May 1944 OTL.
 
Probably my last reply in this thread because, as always, when the stuff starts getting this extensive I start getting headaches trying to keep track of it all. If you guys want the last word, you can have it and I'll incorporate it for future discussions best as I can remember.

At the minimum, he implies that it would have been probable, "it can hardly be doubted that collapse was near."

"and without it, it certainly would be nearer". Yes, I can read. That is still not the same as declaring "it would have happened for sure". Even "it would have probable", if that was the implication, is not the absolutist statement that Wiking makes.

He then mentions that Stalin himself stated on several occasions that the USSR would have lost had it not been for the assistance.

And Stalin's word is not definitive, as the fact that Harisson still didn't believe that Soviet collapse is a certainty indicates.

This is in the context of a country which is already very near to collapse. In such a situation, even pressures which are relatively small in an absolute sense can make a big difference.

And what such pressure would that be?

Nor does Coox say so. He says that Japanese entry would have resulted in German victory on the Eastern Front at some point, not victory in the Battle of Moscow specifically.

And if the Japanese fails to have any impact upon the Battle of Moscow, then that's pretty much it for the impact they'll have on the front against the Germans. After 1941, they'll have to cut back on operations as the inevitable US embargo (which, at the latest, would be imposed as a result of a Japanese attack on the USSR) means their strategic reserve will be too exhausted by summer of 1942 for any large-scale operations. By 1943, it will have been completely exhausted. So Coox still doesn't have a supportable point.

Also, Japan plunging into Siberia would have meant no pressure on the British in South East Asia, so the British would have been able to commit additional forces from India against the Axis in the Mediterranean in 1942, so there's a tradeoff there.

Yes, which is why the quote states "if the Soviet Union had had to fight on two fronts."

Actually, I misplaced that parenthetical statement. It was supposed to be in the part where the Japanese were counting on the isolated condition and distance of the Soviet Far East to protect them from rapid Soviet reinforcement. They had already found out that this was quite wrong for several reasons.

Firstly they assumed a USSR caught by surprise, with the Japanese being able to steal a one month march of mobilization and preparations in secret. However Soviet's immediate detection of the "special maneuvers" in 1941 to strengthen the Kwangtung Army showed that the Japanese could not count on gaining this advantage. This would immediately have shaved up to a month off all the Japanese estimates.

Secondly, and specifically as regards the Hailar Plain, the Japanese underestimated the Soviet ability to concentrate and move forces through the region, while overestimating their own capacity to support their own forces. This posed serious problems for the western holding action - a problem that was clearly revealed by Nomonhan. The Japanese didn't really have any good solutions for this. The massive western offensive of Hachi-go Concept B would theoretically have solved this problem, cutting off the Soviet forces in the east, and then decisively defeating those in the west, but the Japanese never actually built the forces necessary to execute Concept B nor could they have until 1943 (by their own estimates).

Thirdly the Japanese likely underestimated the capacity of the Trans-Siberian railroad. They assumed that an offensive concentration of some 30 divisions in the west would take the Soviets about three months to gather. Yet the Soviets would ultimately show the ability to mass two to three times as many forces in only two months.

However, and the reason I intended to put the parenthetical statement down there, in the autumn of 1941 the Soviets were fighting for their life in the West and had no reinforcements to send East, which would influence things in the opposite direction, so if the Japanese went then, any mistakes they made in calculating the Soviet ability to send reinforcements would be academic because none would be coming in any event.

This strikes me as somewhat questionable, given that the IJA did historically manage to advance quite rapidly in rather forbidding terrain against blocking forces which actually outnumbered it during the 1941-2 offensive against the Wallies in the Pacific.

There is no example of the Japanese doing so over the distances they would have to advance in order to reach anything important to the Soviets other then Vladivostok, which measure in the thousands of kilometers. Furthermore, those examples were in climates and supply conditions (no sea supply in the Siberian interior and the railways would have been wrecked) that were actually far more favorable then those they would experience in Siberia in the autumn-winter of 1941. The Japanese would be in a even worse shoestring then they were over in those other examples. As it was, they only had supplies for three months (by their own, optimistic estimates) of combat by 20 divisions in Manchuria and pushing over the vast wastes of the Far East would have sorely taxed them.

Plus, it's not just my conclusion. It's also the IJA's. Coox himself also mentions it and it also pops up in Japanese Operational Planning Against the USSR.

No, it can have holes and coast on resource stockpiles, but as those are used up the gaps in the economy will overheat it, especially as the German 1942 campaign pushed the Soviets to the brink.

And then the Soviets managed to recover, despite still having those holes until into 1943.

You yourself acknowledged millions of people died IOTL of hunger related issues, what do you think happens when 1.3 million tons of food are denied to the Soviet people in the critical late 1941-mid 43 period?

More people die. Duh. Prove that enough more people die.

Beyond that the lack of machine tools, fuel, finished weapons, raw materials, etc. will severely compromise the war effort at the critical moment.

Prove it. Your the one making the assertion that these holes were the absolutely vital ones the Soviet economy could not function without, it falls upon you to provide the evidence that was the case.

Smolensk is not part of the Moscow Oblast.

Oblast =! industrial regions.

The rest of the cities you mention were liberated within a couple of months

With their industrial facilities annihilated.

Tula was a significant industrial town, but was not captured

Correct. It was shelled, bombed, and fought in. All of which damaged the cities industry quite severely. That it still nevertheless managed to output some weapons is really a testament to how big the Tula arsenal works was, not an indication that it didn't suffer from destruction.

The Germans did not actively destroy industry in areas held in October-December around Moscow,

Yes they did. They destroyed everything they could as they retreated in December so as to deny it to the Soviets. Just as the Soviets did in October. Scorched earth was common practice for both sides throughout the war.

The Kharkov tank facility escaped intact.

And you honestly think the Soviet tank factory was the only factory in the entirety of Kharkov?

Can you provide numbers/sourcing supporting that?

Based on numbers provided on another forum in a discussion we both participated in a Russian poster posted numbers that indicated that the vast majority of defense industry did escape and was just disrupted to varying degrees.

Actually he gives no indication of that. Perhaps you confused it with the part where he noted that most of the industrial plants slated for evacuation specifically in the month of October managed to make it out. Even then, he qualifies by noting that "Others were probably still to be cleared for evacuation and not every factory was evacuated in full".

Now, probably the majority of defense industry in the entirety of the Soviet Union escaped destruction. I stated was the majority of defense industry in the areas occupied by the Germans in 1941 that were destroyed. Most stuff I've read stated this territory constituted 60% of Soviet defense industry, which obviously means that 40% of Soviet defense industry lay outside of that territory. Combine that with the percentage of industry successfully evacuated from the pre-war territory and you probably get a majority of the entire Soviet Unions defense industry.

Lend-Lease machinery made that industry whole again,

Soviet defense industry was recovering before the winter of 1941/42 even ended, before much of the lend-lease machinery for 1942 even arrived, much less the lend-lease machinery for the entire war. As I said, enough machinery was saved to ensure that the whole apparatus could continue to operate. It's just that "enough" isn't necessarily the same as "most".

Got a source on what was there and what wasn't evacuated?

Only specific thing with number I ever saw was in Keegan's book about the 2nd World War, where he states specifically that approximately 500 tractor factories of varying sizes which could have been used for AFV or motor-vehicle production were irrevocably lost to the Germans.

Ok, the question is what was lost.

Tractor factories, steel mills, chemical plants, aluminum processing, motor vehicle manufacturing, machine tool shops, and so-on and so forth.

That is the indeed the real question, but millions more deaths would impact the workforce and military and severely undermine morale. People can't work or fight if they are too weak, so even if they don't die they may not be able to do as much as IOTL, nor do their jobs at all depending on the situation.

In past threads you've quoted the official Soviet line that it was only 4% of Soviet GDP,

5% actually, in 1942. 10% in 1943-45. The 7% figure across the entirety of the war seems to be an average of those two, although probably 8-9% of those is more accurate.

It has also been asserted here that it was not the margin between victory and defeat, which is a notion challenged heavily by recent scholarship on Lend-Lease to the USSR specifically, including by Russian historians.

Except you haven't shown where those guys have actually challenged it yet...

Zhukov made that assertion himself post-war that it kept the USSR from being defeated.

Good for him. And while he has some knowledge of the subject, his word is not definitive.

The historian in this article says the value of LL cannot be overestimated and was critical in several categories.

Yeah, and I talked about it here:

In the first link you posted, the historian talks a lot in numbers about what the WAllies provided and how that was useful and such (although some of his assertions, like those about WAllied tank provisions at the start of 1942 replace Soviet tank losses three times over, are numerically disprovable). But at no point does he go so far as to say "we would have certainly collapsed without it".

Lend-Lease did not start until October

Lend-lease does not consist of the sum whole of British and American aid to the USSR. Both countries were offering aid to the USSR as far back as June in the British case and July in the Americans. If they decide to aid the Soviets, then LL naturally follows.

when everyone assumed it was too late for the Germans to really threaten Moscow (correctly),

No one made that assumption until December 1941, as they lacked hindsight to tell them that the Germans could not take Moscow until then. Mid-1942 triggered a second wave of worries that the Soviets might fold, yet the determination to aid them still never wavered.

Even if we accept that argument, though besides, this means that aid is still extended in October 1941, as the WAllies would be able to see by then that the Japanese invasion had not triggered a Soviet collapse and that the Soviets have actually halted the Germans outside of Moscow and then taken the offensive.

Japan stayed out of the war, the Soviets were able to hold out until the Autumn muds and the Germans were desperate enough to attack despite that.

And the WAllies was providing aid even before any of that became apparent.

Aid to the Chinese only came AFTER it was clear the Japanese

The entire history of US LL was predicated on first determining that the ally in question wasn't going to be quickly defeated and was willing to continue to fight to the end, then they got LL.[?quote]

The entire history of US aid was to provide it as rapidly as they could get the political-physical elements in place, regardless of the condition of those they were helping. This includes LL.

Shipping for one thing was highly limited,

Good thing there is no requirement for extra shipping then, merely the use of shipping that was in one area in another.

the US didn't have a lot to spare to that effect in 1942 due to needing to mobilize it's industry and build up it's military first, plus actually ship LL and conduct their own campaigns.

And yet they shipped a good 1.8 million tons to the USSR in that time period anyways. ITTL, they'll still be shipping it... it will just be going down different routes.

Plus the Pacific Route was not preferred IOTL anyway

Which is why a full half of all lend-lease went down it. :rolleyes:

Later in 1942 enough shipping and resources were available to both build up Iranian infrastructure and reopen the Northern Route.

And ITTL, the Northern Route never closes and the Iranian route opens up faster because the resources and shipping that was put into the Pacific Route are put into work there. Same for 1943, 1944, and 1945.

but would end up getting used for the Northern Route, as the Soviets wanted.

And so you admit it. It gets sent, much of it arrives, and the Soviets put it too use. So how does Japan in the war defeat the USSR again?

It was the Wallies that eventually forced the Persian option because losses were too much to handle via the Northern Route.

The losses on the Northern Route were eminently handleable, particularly when reinforced by the shipping drawn in from the Pacific. Aberrations like PQ17 were... well, aberrations.

The Persian Route was actually the least important route in 1942

So less important then the Pacific Route that it generally handled more during the first half of 1942 then the Pacific route did.

(which led to it being the least important route in 1943).

And ITTL, it will be the most important.

Which means a lot more losses in 1942 and less getting through than IOTL.

Yes, and I acknowledged that throughput would fall by having to take the Murmansk and Persian routes. But it would not be a 50% loss and not enough less to cause a Soviet collapse. So in the end, the Japanese blockading/taking Vladivostok does not cost the Soviets the war like you keep pretending it would.

LL increased in 1942 compared to 1941, increased in 1943 compared to 1942 and so on.

I'm not talking comparative on a year-year basis. I'm talking within the year.

It was increasing throughout the year on average (but for the one odd month in April where it was double any other month).

After the decline in May, the tonnage does not start to consistently increase until December on. So no, it clearly was not increasing on average.
 
@ObssesedNuker
I think what @wiking is trying to say is that the Soviets were like a ship with several holes in it during 1942. Lend-Lease was the stopgap that allowed the Soviets to enact more permanent repairs so that their ship would not sink. There's no doubt that the Soviets made most of their own stuff, and that their contribution to the Eastern Front was paramount, but all that is being said is that LL gave them the time needed to become strong enough to stand on their own.
 
@ObssesedNuker
I think what @wiking is trying to say is that the Soviets were like a ship with several holes in it during 1942. Lend-Lease was the stopgap that allowed the Soviets to enact more permanent repairs so that their ship would not sink. There's no doubt that the Soviets made most of their own stuff, and that their contribution to the Eastern Front was paramount, but all that is being said is that LL gave them the time needed to become strong enough to stand on their own.
Well initially wiking basically claimed that without LL the USSR would inevitably collapse whereas ObsessedNuker disputed that. Never did ObsessedNuker say that LL wasn't important and didn't prevent a lot of casualties, only that the collapse of the USSR's war effort wasn't inevitable.
 
Which is exactly what I said - the loss of Lend Lease will greatly hurt the Soviets but will not necessarily cost them them war. As I also said the Germans were at the end of very long and bad supply routes; at some point it's more than likely a stalemate would form without Lend Lease. It's possible a truce would be made to give both sides time to recover before one side breaks it...
 

Deleted member 1487

@ObssesedNuker
I think what @wiking is trying to say is that the Soviets were like a ship with several holes in it during 1942. Lend-Lease was the stopgap that allowed the Soviets to enact more permanent repairs so that their ship would not sink. There's no doubt that the Soviets made most of their own stuff, and that their contribution to the Eastern Front was paramount, but all that is being said is that LL gave them the time needed to become strong enough to stand on their own.
I'm actually saying the Soviets never could stand on their own without LL due to the damage inflicted to their economy; it was always a vital part of their war effort at least until 1945 when enough accumulated LL had helped the Soviet economy recover enough that they could survive it being cut off, plus obviously the liberation of territory. The thing is LL allow for that liberated territory to be repaired, agriculture, mining, and industry. Remember too the Soviets also looted all the captured territories in Central Europe, so they took home a bonanza of industry in 1945 that aided recovery, plus millions of PoWs and skilled labor/personnel that they put to work for years from pretty much every nation they set foot in. Eventually standing on their own when LL was cut off in September 1945 was possible due to how much they got over the course of Lend-Lease and the occupation of Central Europe and how much was taken there.

If LL was cut off totally by the start of 1944 then a stalemate in the East is conceivably possible because of how much the Soviets would be missing out on to help their economy recover, plus of course the heaps of weapons and food while the economy was still maimed from the German invasion and scorched earth retreat. But no LL at all is pretty much fatal to the Soviet economy.

I'll get to ON's points later.

Which is exactly what I said - the loss of Lend Lease will greatly hurt the Soviets but will not necessarily cost them them war. As I also said the Germans were at the end of very long and bad supply routes; at some point it's more than likely a stalemate would form without Lend Lease. It's possible a truce would be made to give both sides time to recover before one side breaks it...
Germany supply line issues happened in 1941-42 when they advanced too quickly before the rail lines could be upgraded; that wasn't remotely the serious issues the Soviets suffered. They suffered a lack of food, raw materials, some vital industry, weapons, explosives, high performance fuels for aircraft, etc. The types of things missing from the economy were the sorts of things that would say cause famine, as ON already pointed out there was mass starvation IOTL in the Soviet side in 1942 with millions dying from malnutrition related issues, including soldiers and workers. Remove LL food and what do you think happens?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease#British_deliveries_to_the_Soviet_Union
Between June 1941 and May 1945, Britain delivered to the USSR:
  • 3,000+ Hurricanes
  • 4,000+ other aircraft
  • 27 naval vessels
  • 5,218 tanks
  • 5,000+ anti-tank guns
  • 4,020 ambulances and trucks
  • 323 machinery trucks
  • 2,560 Universal Carriers
  • 1,721 motorcycles
  • £1.15bn worth of aircraft engines
  • 600 radar and sonar sets
  • Hundreds of naval guns
  • 15 million pairs of boots

In total 4 million tonnes of war materials including food and medical supplies were delivered. The munitions totaled £308m (not including naval munitions supplied), the food and raw materials totaled £120m in 1946 index. In accordance with the Anglo-Soviet Military Supplies Agreement of 27 June 1942, military aid sent from Britain to the Soviet Union during the war was entirely free of charge.[53][54]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease#US_deliveries_to_the_Soviet_Union
In total, the U.S. deliveries through Lend-Lease amounted to $11 billion in materials: over 400,000 jeeps and trucks; 12,000 armored vehicles (including 7,000 tanks, about 1,386[37] of which were M3 Lees and 4,102 M4 Shermans);[38] 11,400 aircraft (4,719 of which were Bell P-39 Airacobras)[39] and 1.75 million tons of food.[40]

Roughly 17.5 million tons of military equipment, vehicles, industrial supplies, and food were shipped from the Western Hemisphere to the USSR, 94% coming from the US. For comparison, a total of 22 million tons landed in Europe to supply American forces from January 1942 to May 1945. It has been estimated that American deliveries to the USSR through the Persian Corridor alone were sufficient, by US Army standards, to maintain sixty combat divisions in the line.[41][42]

The United States gave to the Soviet Union from October 1, 1941 to May 31, 1945 the following: 427,284 trucks, 13,303 combat vehicles, 35,170 motorcycles, 2,328 ordnance service vehicles, 2,670,371 tons of petroleum products (gasoline and oil) or 57.8 percent of the High-octane aviation fuel,[24] 4,478,116 tons of foodstuffs (canned meats, sugar, flour, salt, etc.), 1,911 steam locomotives, 66 Diesel locomotives, 9,920 flat cars, 1,000 dump cars, 120 tank cars, and 35 heavy machinery cars. Provided ordnance goods (ammunition, artillery shells, mines, assorted explosives) amounted to 53 percent of total domestic production.[24] One item typical of many was a tire plant that was lifted bodily from the Ford Company's River Rouge Plant and transferred to the USSR. The 1947 money value of the supplies and services amounted to about eleven billion dollars.[43]
 
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Well initially wiking basically claimed that without LL the USSR would inevitably collapse whereas ObsessedNuker disputed that. Never did ObsessedNuker say that LL wasn't important and didn't prevent a lot of casualties, only that the collapse of the USSR's war effort wasn't inevitable.

I once again bring up the ship analogy, where the Soviets used LL to keep afloat until they could complete their repairs. It doesn't say either viewpoint is wrong.

I'm actually saying the Soviets never could stand on their own without LL due to the damage inflicted to their economy; it was always a vital part of their war effort at least until 1945 when enough accumulated LL had helped the Soviet economy recover enough that they could survive it being cut off, plus obviously the liberation of territory. The thing is LL allow for that liberated territory to be repaired, agriculture, mining, and industry. Remember too the Soviets also looted all the captured territories in Central Europe, so they took home a bonanza of industry in 1945 that aided recovery, plus millions of PoWs and skilled labor/personnel that they put to work for years from pretty much every nation they set foot in. Eventually standing on their own when LL was cut off in September 1945 was possible due to how much they got over the course of Lend-Lease and the occupation of Central Europe and how much was taken there.

If LL was cut off totally by the start of 1944 then a stalemate in the East is conceivably possible because of how much the Soviets would be missing out on to help their economy recover, plus of course the heaps of weapons and food while the economy was still maimed from the German invasion and scorched earth retreat. But no LL at all is pretty much fatal to the Soviet economy.

I'll get to ON's points later.

See above.
 
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