Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The claim: "When the Germans were stopped at Moscow in late 1941, there was no real influence on that battle from the British."
This is, of course, very artfully phrased, limiting the time to before "late 1941" and any influence to "from the British". While shipments from the British, for Soviet gold, "started shortly after the German invasion in June 1941", "the First (Moscow) Protocol" wasn't signed until October 1941 and the Soviet Union wasn't "formally added to the Lend-Leaselist" until November 1941. The quotes I've provided mostly reference aid provided before the start of 1943 by both the British and the Americans.
When the first aid programme was finally settled in October 1941, Maxim Litvinov, by then ambassador to Washington, leaped to his feet and shouted out, 'Now we shall win the war!' [citation] Yet after 1945 Lend-Lease was treated in the official Soviet histories of the war as a minor factor in the revival of Soviet fortunes. The story of Lend-Lease became a victim of the Cold War. Even in the late 1980s it was still a subject of which the regime would not permit open discussion. The significance of Western supplies for the Soviet war effort was admitted by Khrushchev in the taped interviews used for his memoirs, but the following passage was published only in the 1990s: 'Several times I heard Stalin acknowledged [Lend-Lease] within the small circle of people around him. He said that... if we had had to deal with Germany one-to-one we would not have been able to cope because we lost so much of our industry.' Marshal Zhukov, in a bugged conversation in 1963 whose contents were released only thirty years later, endorsed the view that without aid the Soviet Union 'could not have continued the war.' All of this was a far cry from the official history of the Great Patriotic War, which concluded that Lend-Lease was 'in no way meaningful' and had 'no decisive influence' on the outcome of the war.
Of course, that the Soviets "could not have continued the war" (Zhukov) doesn't necessarily mean a Russian surrender or a German victory, but could indicate what might be called the "Kutuzov option", or a Soviet disengagement and withdrawal. A ceding of the Leningrad-Moscow-Stalingrad defensive line, however, would not have altered that the Germans were already grossly over-extended.
The US response was pretty much a yawn. They felt that Tigers were deployed in such small numbers that countering with AT guns and artillery was more than sufficient.
The main killer of tank crews for most of WWII were towed AT guns or infantry with some sort of bazooka/panzerfaust/PIAT. Of course, the fighting in Western Europe was of a nature where a lot of German tanks were used as movable ambush pillboxes more than in maneuver warfare.
There must be a strategy term for "spending R&D resources on countering a very rare threat" and why it's kinda silly.
Quote:
As for the role of the MG42, it was a direct replacement for the MG34 at the squad level (as the MG34 proved unreliable in poor conditions).
The MG34 was also a much more expensive weapon to make. The MG42 looks like an ugly collection of slapped-together stamped steel parts, but it sure works. (Carried an MG3 for a while. I can criticize.)
Quote:
Ultimately, for as "advanced" as the Panther was for WW2, it had virtually zero influence on post-war tank design. It was ultimately the M4, T34 and PzIV which influenced future tank thought towards a universal design capable of both anti-armor and infantry support.
No love for the Comet? It begat the Centurion, which I think might count as a fairly successful design
I agree that the truth is "somewhere in between" - where remains an open question, it seems to me.
I personally align with the analysis presented by people like David Glantz and Martin van Creveld. That the aid greatly shortened the duration of the war, but was not responsible for determining the outcome.
Quote:
The Soviets were at pains to diminish and explain away any assistance they received, as well as cover up their and Stalin's incompetence at the start of the war, so the background here is much more of suppressing information than making it freely available. On the other hand, Russia Beyond the Headlines is a media organization owned and run by the Russian state, so might just be grinding a different set of knives (oligarchic rather than proletarian). I thought the oddly anachronistic reference to "the struggle against bourgeois falsifiers" to be quite interesting - in other words, it is largely the same people, just wearing new hats.
For the record, I do not share all of the views of the article I linked. I think we could take this as evidence that link/article spamming isn't going to solve anything. Ironically it seems that the British and not the Americans are at the forefront of the "they would have lost without LL aid" spin. In fact, most of the articles currently circulating on the topic all reference Alex Hill's book and so are multiple articles re-framing the same argument.
Quote:
Note that I specifically linked articles and quoted sections that referenced assistance early in the war (prior to 1943) in meeting crucial needs and overcoming critical shortages in that period. It wasn't just a handful of soon to be outmoded tanks (which was pretty much all tanks in the field at the time), and nothing else of any real importance.
...and as I have pointed out several times, one really needs to understand how the author is calculating what assistance was sent and when. A shipment sent in January of 1942 may not have seen the material reaching the front line until October of 1942. Many, many articles just reference the convoy departure dates and say that's when the aid was sent, since it is virtually impossible to know when the contents of that actually reached the front. Additionally, we have things like convoys departing that were later wiped out which led to others being cancelled or re-arranged. This was especially true in the latter half of 1942.
What we do know is that the aid was a trickle, which turned into a flood from mid-1943 on.
Quote:
I'm not making any final judgments. I don't think we can look at any one category of assistance and say that it wasn't needed (or "crucial"), or that without it there wouldn't have been dire consequences. While it is doubtful that Allied assistance made the difference between victory and defeat, based on German deficiencies alone, we also can't be sure what would have happened without it. Did Allied aid help stave off mass starvation and famine, for instance? We can't simply blithely assume that all the possible resulting chain reactions would simply have cancelled each other out, and made no difference. While we know that Stalin and the Soviet state survived and ultimately triumphed, we can't be sure that was in any way guaranteed. For all we know, in front of Moscow, both sides were on the verge of defeat.
Well, we do know that by 1944 at the height of LL aid the Soviet GDP was investing more in rebuilding civilian areas then it was receiving in LL aid. Most would have no argument stating that LL abrogated some of the suffering of the Soviet people and helped them accelerate their war effort.
I have just not seen any evidence that would support the belief that LL aid prevented a Soviet collapse or major calamity. If the final victory as well as the victory in the key battles, as you seem to agree, was not influenced by LL aid, then it comes down to the argument that LL aid made life easier either for the civilian population or in the execution of the war. I can agree with that. What I cannot do is attribute the Soviet victory to British and American aid shipments.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CrazyDonkey
The claim: "When the Germans were stopped at Moscow in late 1941, there was no real influence on that battle from the British."
This is, of course, very artfully phrased, limiting the time to before "late 1941" and any influence to "from the British". While shipments from the British, for Soviet gold, "started shortly after the German invasion in June 1941", "the First (Moscow) Protocol" wasn't signed until October 1941 and the Soviet Union wasn't "formally added to the Lend-Leaselist" until November 1941. The quotes I've provided mostly reference aid provided before the start of 1943 by both the British and the Americans.
I picked that time period for a very obvious reason as it covered the Battle of Moscow. Similarly your sources picked their time periods with a very clear agenda as well. Compare the shipment chart I posted earlier with a timeline of major battles on the Eastern Front. The simple fact is that the vast majority of aid arrived after Stalingrad. No one argues that the German war machine wasn't shattered by that point. Moving forward, we see a great increase in Soviet capabilities and I do believe that LL had a major impact during that time frame.
Quote:
Of course, that the Soviets "could not have continued the war" (Zhukov) doesn't necessarily mean a Russian surrender or a German victory, but could indicate what might be called the "Kutuzov option", or a Soviet disengagement and withdrawal. A ceding of the Leningrad-Moscow-Stalingrad defensive line, however, would not have altered that the Germans were already grossly over-extended.
Zhukov was never very precise in his quotes. He often references "sheet steel" and gunpowder. The simple fact was that the Soviet Union was already purchasing large quantities of steel, copper, aluminum and even gun powder prior to the war and they simply continued this practice during the war with the exception that it became switched to Lend Lease at some point instead of being paid for with reserves. There is no doubt that the US via LL raw materials allowed the Soviets to reach their lofty production numbers from 1943 onward and helped fuel their war machine.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dane_in_LA
t The main killer of tank crews for most of WWII were towed AT guns or infantry with some sort of bazooka/panzerfaust/PIAT. Of course, the fighting in Western Europe was of a nature where a lot of German tanks were used as movable ambush pillboxes more than in maneuver warfare.
Yep, tank vs. tank was not nearly as common as Hollywood pretends.
Quote:
There must be a strategy term for "spending R&D resources on countering a very rare threat" and why it's kinda silly.
Agreed. Efficiency was the name of the game.
Quote:
No love for the Comet? It begat the Centurion, which I think might count as a fairly successful design
The Comet definitely played a part as well as it was designed as a universal tank. That's really the macro point. It became about tanks that performed both the anti-tank and support role equally well, not specialized into one or the other as had been common for much of WW2.
Pardon me if this issue has already been addressed, but didn't the lack of fuel knock out as many, or nearly as many, German tanks as the actions of opposing armored forces?
I raise this point because I have been surprised at the proportion of American soldiers who lost their lives to the flu rather than as a result of combat in World War I. This always leads me to consider the number and importance of non-combat deaths in any discussion of large-scale warfare.
I raise this point because I have been surprised at the proportion of American soldiers who lost their lives to the flu rather than as a result of combat in World War I. This always leads me to consider the number and importance of non-combat deaths in any discussion of large-scale warfare.
750,000 soldiers died in the American Civil War (both Yankees & Confederates) - one third of those were actual battle deaths, the rest from accidents, diseases, sickness, & exposure.
In WWI the US suffered 290,000+ battle deaths and 113,000 from other causes (accidents & diseases).
Pardon me if this issue has already been addressed, but didn't the lack of fuel knock out as many, or nearly as many, German tanks as the actions of opposing armored forces?
I raise this point because I have been surprised at the proportion of American soldiers who lost their lives to the flu rather than as a result of combat in World War I. This always leads me to consider the number and importance of non-combat deaths in any discussion of large-scale warfare.
In a quick look, these are German losses by reason for Western Europe from US sources:
Gunfire.......................43.8%
Abandonment...............18.3%
Mechanical...................4.0%
Self destruction.............20.7%
Air Attack....................7.5%
Hollow-charge Rounds....4.4%
Mines/Miscellaneous.......0.9%
Here is the comparison for American tank losses:
Mines.............22.1%
AT guns..........22.7%
Tanks............14.5%
SP Guns.........24.4%
Handheld AT...14.2%
Other.............2.1%
"Gunfire" would include tanks, AT guns, SP guns and artillery. Abandonment is classed as when an otherwise operational vehicle was left. Self-destruction is self-explanatory. I would imagine that running out of fuel is covered under both of those conditions. So, it's around 43% of tanks lost for something other than enemy action.
The numbers are very hard to pin down because of the variability in what is considered a "loss" and the reporting on those losses. For instance, there are many examples of Tiger units having a reported operational strength of zero because all of their units were undergoing repairs. Those tanks however are not considered "losses".
A great example of that is the Falaise Pocket. The Germans considered all of their AFV losses from the pocket to be from "enemy action" aka destroyed in battle. In reality, large numbers of them were simply abandoned as the Germans retreated. The US records account for large numbers of abandoned vehicles that the Germans would classify as combat losses.
The Comet definitely played a part as well as it was designed as a universal tank. That's really the macro point. It became about tanks that performed both the anti-tank and support role equally well, not specialized into one or the other as had been common for much of WW2.
Agreed, and excellent points made throughout this thread.
Americas role in ww2 was rather small compared to ussr and britain. The stats for soldiers killed and and enemy kills made by those soldiers show the relative insignificance of americas involvement in europe.
The german army was destroyed by the ussr and by britain in africa and stalingrad, their tanks were destroyed there.
The german navy was completely destroyed by britain, on its own, with almost no american or soviet input.
The german airforce was again desyroyed by soviet and british forces. Many german planes never made it out of russia, the british airforce was too strong for germany and defeated it in the the battle of britain, in africa, and in the wholesale destruction of the german military production machine during the bombing war in which, again, the british achieved total victory over the german air force. America was politely invited by britain to join in on the daily bombings of germany that britain was conducting with total air superiority.
British war inventions like radar, the jet engine, sonar, and the first computer, which they used to break the german military enigma codes did more to win the war than any american imvolvment. Americas contribution was financial and equipment, the fighting was done by britain and ussr.
America waited until britain and russia had done all the fighting and stopped the german advance and pushed it back before joining the war themselves.
At the beginning when it looked like germany might win, it was britain alone who stopped the german advance and saved the world from a nazi victory, america were nowhere to be seen, had britain not done that germany would have won the war in 1941. Only when british and soviet forces had turned the tide of war against germany did america suddenly decide to join the winning side, to buy their way onto it.
Americas first battle against german forces showed their poor capabilities. The british had just defeated the german army in africa, and the remnants of the defeated, dying, captured german army with little ammunition, supplies, and badly injured with captured leaders, no direction etc, were on the run from the british. This half dead remnants of a army with barely 10% of supplies/soldiers remaining ran straight into the freshly arrived american forces, and in americas first engagement with german troops in world war two they were defeated by the dying remnants of a german army on the run from the brits, an embarrasing but foretelling event that was repeated throughout the war by american forces. D day was the same, american troops being carried by brits/canadians/australians
There were 4 major parties to WW2; Germany, Japan, US and Russia. Of the 3, Germany commands the lion share of interest with regards to weapons, planes, rockets, ships, subs tanks etc. If you browse the news stands you see cover story after cover story about German hardware as well as military tactics. The US side gets some coverage as do the Russians but virtually nothing Japanese. Can't think of a single Japanese light arm that impressed anybody. It is not explicit but you sense a certain admiration for the German military from the leadership on down even when they end up on the losing side of battles. For example, WW2 memorabilia is predominantly German.
I have noticed this as well. On AHC (formerly the military channel) it seems not a day passes where they don't have large blocks of programming that's Nazi this, Hitler that, Nazi secret weapons, The SS death machine, I'm actually pretty sick of it. Yes , Germany had a very advanced and efficient war machine. Their equipment was a cut above, and their troops were inarguably well regulated and trained.
But with the huge mount of programming dedicated to the flipping Nazis it's almost as if AHC doesn't realize there were other forces in the war. At any given time I can flip to that channel and inevitably whats on is about Nazi Germany. OK, they had cool stuff. They were very innovative, and had made advancement way ahead of the times. But they still lost, and we scooped up all that technology and made it even better.
I'd like to see more programming about what the modern military is using now. new battle suits that are being developed and tested in the spec ops arena, that enhance a fighters abilities into realms that only a short time ago was wild sci fi. I could do with a little less focus on the Nazis, personally.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
