Scale of Fronts and Lend-Lease.

[Avimimus]

I've relocated these posts here (they were off-topic - in a thread for a campaign by CzechTexan - something which isn't fair to the campaign's author).

[Avimimus]

Post be Aapje:

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On 12/26/2025 at 6:58 AM, SWORD said:

But even among these campaigns (although the Soviet-German front was the main front of the Second World War, it was the Red Army that broke the back of fascism, it was on the Soviet-German front that the Axis powers, including the Wehrmacht and its military allies, lost up to 75-80% of their personnel and military equipment, it was the great Soviet Union that saved the countries of Europe from the brown plague, bringing countless victims to the altar of Victory, and it is natural that the campaigns of the Soviet-German front should be the most numerous compared to other fronts of the Second World War) there were many campaigns created by the author of CzechTexan.

Lend-lease. War is not just fought at the front, but also in the factories, and a lot of important Eastern front equipment came from American factories.

Also, this is a flight simulator, and the fighting in many other regions of the conflict involved relatively many planes compared to ground operations.

 

[Avimimus]

Post by SWORD:

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On 12/26/2025 at 1:15 PM, Aapje said:

Lend-lease. War is not just fought at the front, but also in the factories, and a lot of important Eastern front equipment came from American factories.

Верно, США оказывали большую помощь в рамках программы ленд-лиза, но общий объём поставленного вооружения и материалов (самолёты ,танки, грузовики "Студебеккер", "Доджи" взрывчатка, порох и т.д.) составлял не более 4% от объёма вооружений и материалов, произведённого СССР за годы Великой Отечественной войны.

Гораздо больший объём в процентном отношении от производимого СССР составляли поставки алюминия, легированной стали, высокооктанового бензина.

Безусловно, поставки союзников имели немаловажное значение для достижения общей Победы, но они не были решающим фактором в разгроме фашистской Германии.

Тем более, что за каждый литр бензина, за каждую "Аэрокобру" и "Валентайн" СССР заплатил золотом, а после войны вся не уничтоженная в боях боевая техника была возвращена США. Последние выплаты по ленд-лизу СССР выполнил в 80-х годах XX века.

Тем более, что оружие само по себе не воюет, мы платили не только золотом, но и кровью.

США с 1941 по 1945 год потеряли 450 тысяч убитых военнослужащих, СССР - 9 миллионов военнослужащих ( из них более 3 миллионов погибли в плену из-за невыносимых условий содержания. Немцев и их союзников погибло в плену около одного миллиона, хотя количество пленных с той и другой стороны было примерно одинаково ) и 18 миллионов мирных жителей от голода, холода, поскольку вермахт отбирал продовольствие, обрекая население на вымирание, зимой выгонял из их собственного жилья, проводил политику геноцида не только в отношении советских евреев, но практически всего остального населения оккупированных территорий.

Для обслуживания немецкой расы господ в живых должно было остаться не более 25% населения Украинской, Белорусской ССР, оккупированной части РСФСР. Все остальные должно были быть физически уничтожены.

После победы Гитлера такая же участь ждала народы Европы, Ближнего Востока, Индии, Африки Северной и Южной Америк. Только Советский Союз спас эти народы от уничтожения.

 

[Avimimus]

Post by Aapje:

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On 12/26/2025 at 1:29 PM, SWORD said:

Of course, Allied supplies were of no small importance in achieving the overall Victory, but they were not the decisive factor in the defeat of Nazi Germany.

You've already shifted your stance from 'the Soviet Union pretty much won the war on its own' to 'the war in the East was a mutual effort, but the Western support was not decisive.'

This opinion is reasonably in accordance with the beliefs of historian David Glantz, who believes that in particular the lack of logistical material (trucks and railroad engines/cars) would have resulted in a much more static war, resulting in an inability to take advantage of Hitler's resistance to withdraw from encirclement attempts, causing big losses on the German side. Most likely these losses would not have occurred to the same extent if the Soviets would have been unable to provide supply to fast advancing troops. Glantz estimates that the (Eastern) war would have taken 12-18 months longer without Western aid.

However, Khrushchev said that in discussions with Stalin, the latter claimed that the Soviet Union would have lost the war without Western aid. Stalin told the same to Harry Hopkins (FDR's emissary to Moscow) in 1941.

And Marshall Zhukov claimed that the USSR would not have been able to continue the war without Western aid.

Note that I'm not claiming that the people of the Soviet Union did not suffer or did not sacrifice to a very great extent, but that the Eastern front was not a solo effort by the USSR.

PS. A lot of food was supplied as well. The actual impact of a lack of food would be dependent on certain choices, but assuming that the goal of war is not just to win, but to have living civilians to win the war for, then this food probably at least had a significant impact on the total number of casualties due to the war (including civilians).

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Moreover, the USSR paid in gold for every liter of gasoline, every Airacobra, and every Valentine, and after the war, all military equipment not destroyed in combat was returned to the United States. The USSR made its final Lend-Lease payments in the 1980s.

This is factually inaccurate. A fairly small amount of goods was delivered before the first lend-lease agreement was signed (about 2% of the total supplies sent during the war). These goods were paid for with gold and such. The USSR did provide a fairly insignificant $2 million in lend-lease to the US, but this was mostly servicing planes that landed in the USSR. There was also an undisclosed agreement to sent gold and other minerals to the US, but there seems to be no public information about the worth of these shipments, so one cannot claim that everything was paid for with gold. This is pretty obviously not true, given that the USSR agreed after a war that a repayment was in order (but disagreed with the US on the amount).

Most equipment was not returned, and the USSR returned stripped hulls to the US, rather than the fully equipped ships that they got, so even that was not actually returned properly.

The US supplied almost $11 billion worth of goods to the USSR. After the war, the US gave a huge discount to allies, and they presented a $1.3 billion bill to the USSR, but after a dispute about the amount, the USSR eventually repaid about 25% of that.

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After Hitler's victory, the same fate awaited the peoples of Europe [...] Only the Soviet Union saved these peoples from annihilation.

No, the 'aryan' people of Europe would not have been exterminated. And most of Europe was actually occupied by the Axis, and the extermination programs were implemented in these countries, so the Soviet Union did not save Jews or Romani people from that fate.

 

 

[Avimimus]

I'll add a couple of thoughts:

1. When discussing how history could have gone differently, it is important to acknowledge that there is no way of knowing for sure.

2. The most basic quantitative analysis shows that most of the destruction of the Fascist armies, both in terms of soldiers and equipment, happened in Eastern Europe. A similar basic quantitative analysis shows that the cost of that Victory was exceptionally high in Eastern Europe, both in terms of absolute numbers and in terms of percentage of population.

3. Some lend-lease equipment was more important than others. We can acknowledge the benefits to logistics especially, and moreover some special supplies (e.g. shipments of rubber). The bombing of synthetic oil plants was also likely quite useful. A claim that victory might have taken place in 1946 without Lend-Lease, and been even costlier, is possible. It is worth noting that British planners estimated that victory would have taken until at last 1948 without the United States and the Soviet Union.

Similarly, it should be straightforward to recognise that casualties would have been much higher for the Western Allies if the Soviet Union hadn't killed over 5 million German Soldiers and captured another 4.5 million. We would have had a lot more dead if we'd had to fight through close to ten million more Axis soldiers. That is difficult to debate.

While history can be debated in its details - I think the overall take-away, is that we ought to be grateful for the support and the sacrifices made by our allies.

 

 

[Avimimus]

A reminder:

It is acceptable to discuss the history of the war here, including issues like logistics, and strategy, and decisions directly impacting on those things. It is also possible to express support for the ordinary people in these struggles. However, discussion of political ideologies and their broader effects on society would violate guideline 7 of the forum.