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.
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.