WWII and Reality
 

Sorry to disagree brother Zee but it's the British who were mostly responsible for the indiscriminate bombing of German cities with their imprecise night bombings and use of incendiary and phosphorus bombs.The Americans with their day raids focussed on precision bombings and were interetsted in destroying Germany's war production, logisitics and fuels supplies not out of love for German civilians simply because they were pragmatic.They did a very good job especially in 1944 bringing German industry to its knees.....

As for the reduction in Germany's population I think Hitler and the National Socialists did a pretty good job on their own.

As for the Allies well they had their own skeletons in the clmoset so to spek, I mean the UK was the greatest colonialist of the dayt maintaining 100 of millions of people subjugated and indentured in their own countries, likewise the French and as for the Americans afte rimprisoning their fellow Japanese-Americans, they had a virtual Apartheid system against their black citizens and anti-semitic policies and quotas as well.Their alliance with Stalin was a pact with the Devil.So the when I hear WWII being callled the Crusade for Freedom and Democracy I try not to laugh too loud:D

That being said, no matter how horrendous and awful stalinist-communist crimes were one can not gloss over the horrible crimes committed by the Nazis in Germany's name pursuing ridiculous and idiotic racial policies nor the brutalities inflicted against the Slavic people of Eastern Europe in the name of Racial superirority.This is disregarding the fact that the German people itself is made up of various strains, Germanic, Celtic, Slavic etc and Hitler was probably the gretaest mongrel of all:). Being of German( Prussian) stock myself I firmly believe all Europeans are brothers and are so inter mixed anyway as to make racial theories preached by the NS as ridiculous as those propopagated in the Red paradise.

I think you missed my point about the US bombing of Germany. However the
bombing of Dresden is where the lies come bursting through concerning the
non-military nature of the senseless mass murder of women and children are
made so glaring. And on top of that, the whole "collective guilt" conspiracy
that was to be implemented on all Germans during the occupation
was authored by some sick minds to say the least. Of course we can't forget
about the "six million" in which all this slaughter of the German population
is used as justification now can we. Now, it must be said, that if you don't
get the numbers right or you have to many questions about certain aspects
of the official account can get yourself thrown in prison (for up to five years)
in the tolerant and enlighten EU. :o So I got to be careful!

ZW

I'm not going to argue about the whole Lend-Lease thing because people who have already made up their mind that lend-lease singlehandedly saved the incompetent Russians aren't going to be convinced by my internet ramblings. However, I will say the one thing which the numbers can prove, and this is that (As I said before) the amount of trucks received by the Soviets in Lend-Lease constituted a far smaller percentage than the amount of trucks that were produced by the Soviets themselves or received through other means. Therefore it couldn't possibly have been "We sent them so many trucks that they virtually mechanized their entire army over night!", since if anything they mechanized (Motorized, technically) themselves and Lend-Lease merely constituted a sizable help.

As for Operation Bagration, it could easily have happened. There were massive offensives conducted concurrently with Bagration in Karelia, Poland and Romania; a diversion of resources from any of these could have given Bagration the same amount of trucks as it had historically without Lend-Lease. While the destruction of the Germans on the Eastern Front would have certainly taken longer, it would still have been achieved.

EDIT: Also, apparently the majority of these trucks also arrived after 1944, with nearly half arriving after Bagration was already underway.

Raptor, your quite wrong as my mind is easily changeable with the facts.:yeah:

And this argument has gone on long enough that I shall do some research backed up with facts and draw a factual conclusion either for or against the argument. As most of what I am saying is based on what was read years ago, The thing with world war 2 is that things often written and parroted get debunked all the time so in fairness I will look deeply into this issue over the next few days and return with an unbiased conclusion backed up with sources.

That's the gentlemen's way or one could say "CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!":D

Freiwillige that is the mark of a noble character! :salute: Looking forward to
result of your research.

ZW

WWII
 

Raptor , I never said the Soviets were incompetent nor did I say that the land-lease single-handedly saved them from defeat.Their victory on the east front was sealed by blood and huge material losses. I was just quoting an article whcih showed comapring Soviet war production with their losses that the material supplied by the Allies during 1942-1943 allowed them to be able to conduct effective defence and offensive action against the Germans.Without this they would have been unable to prusue any offensive action in mid to late 1943 .The land-lease gave them a puff of oxygen that compensated for the catastrophic loss of industrial production due to the occupaiton of the Ukraine and parts of Russia where heavy industry was located and the additional loss of production caused by the relocation of the armement industry to the Urals and beyond.

However there has been for ideological reasons tied to Cold War politics to minimise the impact of the Allies assitance to the Soviet Union and its victory in the east.Likewise in the US,particularly,there has been an exaggeration of the US contribution to the victory in Europe to the point that the British and Soviet contributions are almost side-shows. The victory was not the result of the Soviet superman or Hollywood superhero as depicted by the propaganda of both sides.German errors often the result of of a National Socialist leadership who believed their own propaganda and disbelieved reality.

The outcome of WWII in Europe was a combination of many contributions( British decoding of enigma is one important and their mastery of the seas) , the Soviets massive human and material contribution and he Americans immensive logistical and material contribution to the British and Soviet war efforts.Remove any of the 3 and the outcome have been different or not so conclusive.

Interesting debate:up:

WW2- Tiger 1
Cold War- Russian T-55
Modern- As much as I want to say T-90 and like the looks of the Chinese Type 99, I think the Abrams is unbeatable in this category.

Somebody convinced on the internets? Ha, that'll be the day. :O:

Very well, I'll be quite interested to see any information which contradicts my conclusions.

Sorry, I deduced that from all the talk about Lend-Lease saving the Soviet's skins, but perhaps I misunderstood.

So this is what I initially dug up on the topic.

Lend-Lease as a Function of the Soviet War Economy

Lend Lease

The data on materials in the first link is just what I was missing, thanks!

Now, both sources seem to have fairly reliable numbers, but they are still somewhat problematic:

The second link clearly uses numbers sent, rather than numbers received, so it fails to account for units which were lost on the way or otherwise diverted. So it for example lists around 400,000 trucks and jeeps sent, but the number which actually arrived seem to be around 300,000.

About the first link, I don't know if it uses numbers sent or numbers received, so I'll have to assume that it is the latter. However, it clearly doesn't account for production before the German invasion, which is stated, and also doesn't account for stockpiles which existed from before the war. This is a very large difference in some cases; for example, the link shows that Allied locomotives account for some 81% of Soviet wartime-acquired locomotives, but when combined with the amount they had from before the war Lend-Lease locomotives only amount to some 6%. Of course this number is also lower than the effective contribution of the Lend-Lease locomotives since most of Soviet rail losses would have happened early in the war, before Lend-Lease, but it is still nowhere near 81%.

Great link Freiwillige but I think Raptor's point is well taken. In manufacturing
the soviets system was highly centralized and therefore under tight control from
Moscow. The amount of imports were factored in months before arriving and processed
for use in the war effort. This would have enabled preplanned diversion away from
what was promised. And if it became necessary, (due to non-delivery) the Soviet's
could have taken up the slack to keep supplies adequate at the front lines.
Although any help would have been appreciated the lack of material for a
sustained fight was not the only major problem facing Moscow.

ZeeWolf

You know Raptor, I imagine loading and shipping a locomotive must have been a real hoot, as heavy as they are!

Now most lend lease losses were actually English to Russia in the north sea, American lend lease was through Iran mostly (Something new to me) And our losses were at around 7%

Now in furthering my research I contend that (IF) Lend lease saved Russia it was in the 41' 42' time frame. But I am finding that there are so many variables that even experts cant agree.

In that period the Russians were still rebuilding their factory's that they uprooted and shipped east beyond the Germans rapid advance.

More research continues!:salute:

And Eddie, I would assume that those loco's were sent in pieces and assembled at destination.

American lend-lease went through both the North Sea and the Persian corridor, also through the Far East since the Soviets were still neutral in the Pacific war until August, 1945.

You might be right about the losses. Looking through it again, I see sources listing around 400,000 trucks and jeeps arriving until either the end of the war (September, 1945) or March, 1946, while other sources list around 300,000 until the end of the war in Europe. Though I don't think the amount sent after the end of the war in Europe could amount to so much...

Anyway, I agree that if Lend-Lease saved the Russians it was in 1941 and 1942, but don't forget that it wasn't just Soviet production that was rebuilding but Lend-Lease also didn't start arriving in large quantities until 1943 and 1944. Whatever the actual number of trucks that arrived were, only about 10%-20% of them arrived in 1941 and 1942, and over half of them arrived after 1944.