I must say that I find the following statement a bit dubious : "In general, military aid to the Soviet Union offered a great help in the 1941-43, but becomes insignificant ( my underlining ) at the end of war with the Soviet industry growing". Oh, and they left out all the raw-materials delivered to the Soviet industry of armament.
Of what I heard, the Russian production of tanks could rise to its enormous levels only because they didn't have to worry about building trucks, which were delivered from the US.
Here's a Russian site: http://www.wio.ru/tank/ll.htm and my favorite: http://english.pravda.ru/main/18/90/363 ... evelt.html
then try: Alan S. Milward: War, Economy and Society 1939-1945 (Penguin 1987) He writes: The whole lend-lease to GB was 13,842 million USD which was about 4.75% of the US GDP, and the lend-lease to the SU was about 9,478 million USD. He lists many items, if you want I can type it. For the lend-lease you should consider the followings: -these arrived lately, the first victories surely was achieved by SU alone -the lend-lease was the cheapest solution (regarding US human life) for contribution for the war, I think Stalin preferred second front, for this lend-lease the Soviet people killed million(s?) of German soldiers who are otherwise partly could be at the D-Day landing, so we can say it saved thousands (if not million) of American soldiers. Otherwise the help was really important as I see the victory was really decided in some little lucky events. So everything was important to win the war.
A sum of $50 billion was appropriated by Congress for Lend-Lease. The money went to 38 different countries with Britain receiving over $31 billion. this is from http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWlendlease.htm However I have several other documents which give similar figures.
Gp is correct. Brits/Commonwealth got the most at 31 Billion (a thousand million for you UK types) however the USSR got at least 11B and some sources state as high as 15B. These figures are in 1940 dollars as I recall. Here are some figures off the top of my head: USSR got 400,000 transport vehicles (trucks, jeeps etc) Over 2000 Locomotives Over 10,000 railroad rolling stock 15 million pairs of boots Over 200 million tons of oil Planes, tanks, food..etc. etc Forget planes and tanks..without these materials the USSR would have had to shift resources from building tanks and aircraft into many other areas. The difference would have been significant by anybody's estimation. Would they have been able to win without the aid? Nobody can answer that question since it's hypothetical but one thing is certainly apparent..it would have been a vastly different war. It's only natural that the Russians would like to attempt to minimize the importance of the aid from the US inasmuch as we were ideological opposites. Besides people who require aid usually resent those who provide it, rather than feeling grateful. It's a quirk of human nature.
It's only human to feel hurt in your pride when you know you can barely make it without help from another country, especially one you are profiling as ideologically inferior to your own, in a time of wild and free nationalism. Welcome to the forum, Grieg.
Thank you I had a post count similar to yours on the World War II Online forums, but I got burned out and am taking a break from there for awhile and will return to play (and post)at a later date. This site (Tanks in World War II) has some well informed posters also, I see.
On WWII photos of military equipment the US or British serial numbers are often removed by the soviet sensors, any theories as to why? The Soviets were not very impressed by much of the British equipment supplied to them eg Matildas, Valentines and early Churchill tanks but valued the trucks and carriers. They found the British greatcoats to be almost useless in the Russian winter. I'd been led to believe by some articles that they had an equally dim view of Shermans but an interview with a Soviet tanker on the web (sorry don't have site details) was complimentary about the reliability, comfort and sophistication of the Sherman when compared to the T34. Interestingly, he had also trained on and commanded a SU76 and didn't have a bad word to say about that either. Again, I'd been led to believe that the SU76 was hated by the Soviets, so much so that it was allegedly nicknamed 'the bitch'. Does anyone have further information on these discrepencies or figures for UK contributions to the USSR? Considering the loss of life and hardships of allied merchant sailors on the Arctic run it would be terrible if their sacrifice was made only to deliver unwanted material.
