Favorite ship of WWII

One does wonder why no effort was ever made by the Germans to capture either Murmansk or Archangel. Doing so would have forced the Allies to send all war supplies and equipment through Vladivostok, which would have overloaded the facilities there as well as requiring long runs over the Trans-Siberian Railway, causing even further bottlenecks.

 

i geuss the anser on that would be: "we just didn't thought of doing that"

 

i geuss the anser on that would be: "we just didn't thought of doing that"

 

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I think the greatest part of allied supplies for Russia came trough Persia, or am I wrong?

 

That was my understanding too.

 

is possible (i don't know) but if you count with that all the material wich had to goe by Murmansk i doubt if the transport would be smoothly

 

AFAIK, the bulk of the war materiel sent to the USSR went through Murmansk and Archangel.

 

so, if that all had to go through persia the russians would suffer some big logistic problems.

 

I think you'd better nail down some specific data before drawing any conclusions.

 

I'll try to find the info, but I think most of the material sent to the USSR went through Persia, and significant amounts through Vladivsotok, on Soviet flagged ships. Of course I could be totally wrong as well. Where to look?

 

no idea canambridge, it's hard to find something about logistics during WW2 unless it's about a convoy wich was sunk.

but i think most of the material went to murmansk. the Britisch needed their ships and it would be unlogic to sent them around Africa and have more chance that a u-boat blew them up then go for the short route witch was almost even dangerous but since it was a short traveltime and the RN could provide escorts for a long time they chance of losing ships was smaller and those ships were faster available for a new transport.
the americans did sent some material through Siberia but i think that was after they retook the aloetian islands

 

I know that there were two gaps where not a single convoy was sent.
This was between july and september 1942, and between march and november 1943.
This was because during the arctic summer, german planes could too easily attack the convoys.
On the other hand, the persian and siberian route worked the whole time, but I do not know where to find stats either.

 

everybody is always focust on the battles and nobody ever did take the time to archive the nformation of logistics on the internet.

 

I'm reasonably certain I have read something about the amounts of lend-lease sent to the Soviets via the different routes in one of my books. I just can't remember which one.

The material sent to the Soviets by the Pacific route went in Soviet flagged and manned ships. The Japanese didn't want to do anything to upset the Soviets, especially after 1942, so the ships went through untouched. The Japanese weren't as stupid as Hitler and never declared war on the Soviets.

I have read speculation that one reason Hitler declared war on the US, was in the hopes of getting a reciprocal response from the Japanese against the Soviet Union.

 

absoutly but the story is more funnier. before pearl, Hitler was constantly asking at hos japanese friends in germany (a general and a couple of diplomats) when japan was going to declare war against the sovjet union. after pearl that nice little general said that they might declare war if hitler first to declare war. and hitler was so stupid enough to beleve him. so hitler declared war against the US. japan did nothing and ws happy that the americans went after hitler first.

conclusions, never trust your ally dictators for they'll put a knife in your back as soon as they can

 

That's because logistics just aren't "sexy" in the eyes of many who study wars. As Nathaniel Greene once noted, no one ever heard of a great quartermaster general. Which is sad, given how vital supply is to any military effort.

 

You might possibly hear about one that screwed up but on the whole people think about logistics in the same way they think about their plumbing, ie only when it goes wrong.

 

Too true... :roll:

 

conclusion, there's no data about the amount of material sent through murmansk because it wasn't a srew up. so what are we going to do? now we don't know wich route was used to sent the most materials. so, are we going to flip a coin? :lol:

 

Nah, too chancy. I say we use the Force.