Lend Lease, how accurate is this?

Clint;
And you say the Soviet Locomotive factory had been overrun? Flash to 2010 and I see NAZI plantations all over European Russia with happy singing Slavic slaves under the "No LL" scenario. Heck I guess I could see myself shovelling sh** on a NAZI plantation right here in MN USA if such a mistake would have been made. Thanks for clearing this one up guys!

JeffinMNUSA

 

When this came up on another forum I think it was stated that they had more large locomotive than that. Wiki at: Lend-Lease - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
states:

But gives little info on the size or losses early war. Certainly they were useful. Will see if I can find the other thread that discussed this.

Found the discussion. It's at:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=132150

 

LW,
Here's the table of stats on some LL intems (it doesn't mention things like leather or food-the Frontoviks needed boots and food did they not?);
Lend-Lease as a Function of the Soviet War Economy

THe stats speak for themselves and the contention that LL was not vital is just so much nationalistic chest pounding on the Russian side (hey we have our share of nationalistic chest pounders too, and some live right in my neighborhood).

JeffinMNUSA

 

The number of 359 surviving locomotives was only directed at the "large" and "medium" types, not diesel electric shuttle, switch engines, nor the smaller steam types like the 0-4-0. If all of those are counted then the "wiki" number might be believable. Otherwise, not so much. And in reality the movement of large freight/long haul is all that I am pointing out.

After the evacuation of the Bryansk (BMZ) plant in late 1941, production of the larger locomotives like the 1-4-2, 1-5-1, and 1-5-0, was resumed at the new locations of Krasnoyarsk, Siberia. But the plants never got the production numbers up to the high rate of the old Bryansk and Lugansk plants as they only produced 83 new ones of all types in the Lend-Lease period.

The BMZ plant had produced about 630 of the 1-4-2 model in the nine years before it was overrun, and a great number of them were destroyed or captured by the Nazis and put into service with them. The Lugansk Plant east of Kiev was also overrun, but it had put out about 3,000 of the 1-5-1 version between 1928 and the early forties, and was modeled on an American design. A number of them were either destroyed or captured by the Nazis and put into their service as well.

The 1-5-0 model was also produced at the BMZ plant, but I don’t have production figures for that model pre evacuation, it was one of the more common designs however. The smaller 0-4-0 was produced at the Kolomna, Lugansk and the Bryansk facilities pre-war, both in normal and some later converted to the armored versions. The armored units cannot be included in the total though as they were devoted to protection of rail, not transporting freight (see attachment). There were about 4,100 of the 0-4-0 model made between 1901 and 1921, but no numbers on those that survived the original invasion are easily discovered.

This of course is only the "larger" and "medium" series of engines, the smaller and more numerous switch engines, shuttle engines and short haul engines would inflate the total number into the multiple thousands without doubt. However those would be less than useful during WW2 for moving freight on the long hauls needed. And it is only those I was drawing attention to.

And of course neither total number should include the Persian corridor units since even though they fed the USSR they were British and US produced. There were a number of the new Alco/GE diesel electric engines imported into the Persian Corridor (60?) to supply the USSR from the south. Starting in Bandar-Shapur and extending up to the Caspian Sea where the goods were either transferred to sea barges or in the case of trucks, assembled and driven to the front. But this route shouldn’t count in the Soviet Rail numbers discussed here.

So if you count locomotives that were too small, or converted to armored protection units, and include them all "wiki" might have a case. I just doubt its veracity at times is all.

 

Here is an interesting site concerning L/L shipments with both Soviet and Allied figures, and surprisingly they aren’t that far apart most of the time. The Soviet’s numbers are probably as close as any, since they would only be required to pay for what arrived and was put into use by them during the war, not what was shipped. That of course fell apart post-war when the Cold War erupted, but their numbers were accepted when they applied for US loans and IMF credits as the USSR was falling apart. They had to repay a portion of the old L/L debt to get the new money, or at least start making payments. I believe the CIS and the Russsian state fulfilled these obligations by the beginning of this century. I could be wrong on that however.

Goto:

Engines of the Red Army in WW2 - Numbers

The link at the top called Engines of the Red Army opens up the rest of the site, which contains much of the data I have accumulated over the years on the Soviet rail as well. It has lots of great images as well as numbers on stuff used by the Red Army during this period.

 

Nice link. Here's another a bit more inclusive ... Whoops can't reach it any more. Hope it's just temporary. It included a very detailed breakdown of a lot of the LL reaching the USSR.

I've never maintained LL wasn't very important, indeed just the opposite for the most part. The question here is just how vital the railroad aspect was and I think the verdict is still out on that.

 

Part of my questioning was I was unsure of just what was included in your number or where it came from and it tended to be at oods with the thread posted over on the axis history forum. That thread suggested more numerous large locomitves had survived. I'm far from an expert and at this point not really sure which numbers are best.

 

Those numbers came from; Accounting For War: Soviet Production, Employment, and the Defense Burden, 1941-1945 by Joan Beaumont, and Mark Harrison.

On different pages, but clustered on page 184.

 

Thanks, I rather expected the Soviet rail system to have suffered heavily in the initial phases of the war but lacked the proof and at least some on the axis history thread I linked to otherwise seemed to indicate otherwise. What was the date when the Soviet inventory reached that level? Might be interesting to see what developes over there if you post this information in that thread by the way.

 

Yep, I think that statment probably sums it up, Glantz for one, says that lend lease was very importent in shortening the war, but did not decide it.

One site says 4,400 of 1-5-0's were produced, which was widely deployed to frontal supply duties, that totals over 8,000 of those three models you mention alone, & a quick look around brings up more then 20,000 locos pre war.


The site says when the Soviet army succeeded in pushing back the German advance,in the wake of their retreat the Germans had surprisingly [perhaps leaving in a big hurry] left behind large numbers of Kriegslok 2-10-0 locomotives, about 2700 remaining in the Union after the war ended, & not surprisingly because of the heavy trains endemic in the USSR, there was not much call for small tank engines, the E series of 0-10-0 tender locomotives doing most shunting work even at depots.

Red Star Steam


Perhaps an idea of the number of loco & rail cars pre war, [Wiki says 25,000 locos & 600,000 rail cars,] can be understood by what the Soviet rail system achieved during Barbarossa, it was was simply enormous, one of the greatest migrations in history in what was little short of a second industrial revolution in the SU.

And they needed everyone of them, because without them the Sovs were cactus.

Erickson in 'The Road to Stalingrad''.......

In the first 3 months, two and a half million troops were moved to the front & 1360 heavy plants, [1523 altogether] were shifted behind the Urals, in addition to moving 150,000 railway men themselves and...''substantial numbers of loco's and rolling stock....''

The evacuation had used 1.5 million trucks by mid November 914,380 wagons had shifted 38,514 loads for the aviation industry, 29,044 for ammunition plants, 18,823 for weapons factories, 27,426 for steel plants, 15,440 for the tank industry & 16,077 for heavy industry, plus moving 5,915,000 workers beyond the Urals etc.



Then later in the war, G. Kravchenko, Dr of economic sciences....

...In the third phase, from early 1944 to the end of the war in May 1945, the Red Army rapidly extended the front westward, causing the distances between production facilities [in the Ural Mountains and Siberia] and military consumers to grow accordingly, thereby further straining railroad resources. The Red Army's Belorussian offensive, which was launched on June 23, 1944, required, during its buildup phase... ''440,000 freight cars, or 65 percent of Soviet rolling stock.''

About 166,000 freight cars were destroyed, and the number of locomotives decreased by about 1,000, although almost 2,000 were furnished by the United States as part of an agreement authorized by its Lend-Lease Law...

Plus as M Kenny says on post 78... none of lend lease rail cars were shipped before the second half of 1943, no locomotives were sent before 1944, you then have to add sailing time, debarkation time, transit time to the front, etc - before 1 July 1944. Perhaps someone can verify that, but this seems to back it up...

Engines of the Red Army in WW2 - Routes Overview

So although those lend lease loco & rail car figures were accurate, [80% Allied contribution] that was the figures for ''new''production, & going by the above numbers the Soviets already had enormous numbers of loco's and rolling stock at the start of the war, & still very substantial numbers in '44.