An incident would not have been needed-Pearl Harbour still would have happened, just without Hitler declaring war on the US. The Battle Of The Atlantic would still have been won by the Allies, it just would have taken longer without the US fully committing to it. US participation would still have increased though, and if Germany did not declare war (which they should not, to make this scenario more likely), the US would have declared war on Germany in 1943. It might have been a different situation with a truce though.
Lend - Lease and the impact upon the Eastern Front
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Impressive quotes. Hadn’t heard some of those. I’m motivated to look their sources up now :) German Lines of Communication were quite challenging. Idk, but if that’s what Stalin and Zhukov believed, one can’t really argue against it.
Agree Stalingrad was a major turning point. Sounded as if Turkey was ready to jump in with the Axis had Germany won there. It also seemed that Stalin was just feeding enough troops in to keep Germany from winning. Some close calls for sure, but overwhelming Russian strength in reserve.
“When Titans Clashed” by David Glantz is a pretty good read on the German/Russian part of the war.
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I never heard of the Turkey part before. That to me is interesting. Stalin was just feeding enough to keep from a German victory. I think the Russians lost more there than the Germans even though it was a victory.
I will take up your recommendation on the book, Thanks.
I completely understand why you believe the Russians saved themselves, because in a way they did, Morale would have plummeted if the Capital was lost. Russia is huge, they probably would have moved back into Siberia, and if the Japanese attacked, thats the end of it. There was almost no units in the Far East. So yeah, we have differing views on this. The thing about history is that it is debatable, mostly. The Eastern Front is a fickle thing, we will truly never know what really happened to some. The mostly part is there for events we know happened, like the D-Day landings, and the Manhattan Project. The little details are debatable.
The Allies would not have won if even one of their 3 major powers wasnt in the war. The US needed British Intelligence and the Russians who were sadly used as a bullet sponge in the name of peace. The Russians needed Allied Supplies from the US and British Intelligence, and the US needed the British intelligence and the Russian Bullet Sponge in the East.
They all needed each other. Anyone who says that they didnt need the other 2 major power’s help doesnt know history. Each country could not stand alone.
The Russians did save themselves just long enough for help to arrive. If it didnt they would have been doomed. Smashing an entire army group is good enough to say that they saved their nation. So in a way, they did save themselves.
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Lend Lease did nothing to stop the German advance in 1941. Russia stopped them on her own. Japan would never have attacked Russia and LL did aid Russia, but the real cause of German defeat was Russia alone because it tied up about 80% of the total German war machine allowing the western allies to overwhelm the Germans in all the other theaters of war. Russia got lots of trucks, but compared to Germany-Russia was more mechanized even in 41 before LL aid benefited them even more.
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That you are correct on. Lend lease did nothing in 1941. However, the Russians needed boots, cotton, arms,etc. as they could not mass produce cotton and boots own. Saying Lend Lease did nothing is a drastic understatement. And yes, I did not manage to get around to the point of tying up most of the German Forces in the East. How else would they have with out those supplies coming in? They didnt have enough to supply their reserves that were used later on in the war.
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@Hunter:
- Funny story about this, During WW2, Stalin would repeatedly ask for the US Built B-24. He didnt get any, until 3 landed right in his lap in Vladivostok during the war. The crews were held in the USSR because at the time, the Soviet Union was not at war with Japan. The crews were eventually released. The Soviet Union kept the planes, and copied the planes piece by piece, even the patches.
Actually, it was the B-29 Superfortress, which the Soviets reverse-engineered into the Tu-4 Bull.
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@CWO:
@Hunter:
- Funny story about this, During WW2, Stalin would repeatedly ask for the US Built B-24. He didnt get any, until 3 landed right in his lap in Vladivostok during the war. The crews were held in the USSR because at the time, the Soviet Union was not at war with Japan. The crews were eventually released. The Soviet Union kept the planes, and copied the planes piece by piece, even the patches.
Actually, it was the B-29 Superfortress, which the Soviets reverse-engineered into the Tu-4 Bull.
Thanks Mark! I accidentally put B-24 instead of B-29.
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@Hunter:
Thanks Mark! I accidentally put B-24 instead of B-29.
No problem. I have a supplementary question about this part:
- Railroad equipment
- During WW2, the Soviet Union produced less than 500 locomotives, in fact less than a 100 were built during the 3 year period of 1942 to 1945. The war basically halted the production of railroad equipment. This was to prove vital as the Soviet Union used rail as their primary mode of transportation.
- The US and the UK sent about 2,000 locomotives to supplement the USSR along with about 11,000 rail cars equaling to about 92% of Soviet rail cars and locomotives being provided by the Western Allies. <<
I don’t have any information about those figures one way or the other, but I do have a question. If I’m not mistaken, Russian railroads in WWII used a broad gauge which differed from the narrower gauge conventionally used by British and American railroads. This would presumably mean that the British and Americans could not ship “off the shelf” locomotives and cars to the USSR. Did the British and Americans therefore set up special manufacturing plants to build locomotives and trucks specifically designed for Soviet tracks?
- Railroad equipment
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@CWO:
I don’t have any information about those figures one way or the other, but I do have a question. If I’m not mistaken, Russian railroads in WWII used a broad gauge which differed from the narrower gauge conventionally used by British and American railroads. This would presumably mean that the British and Americans could not ship “off the shelf” locomotives and cars to the USSR. Did the British and Americans therefore set up special manufacturing plants to build locomotives and trucks specifically designed for Soviet tracks?
The Wikipedia article on the Ye class locomotive mentions that such locomotives were initially produced as early as World War I, but could not be delivered after the Russian Revolution:
Due to the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, 200 locomotives were stranded in the United States; these were fitted with wider tires (locomotive driving wheels had iron tires which were heated to expand them, then driven over the wheels so that they shrank into place. By fitting wider tires with a deeper tread width, the effective wheel gauge could be decreased from the Russian standard of 5 ft (1,524 mm) to 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm), (the US standard) to fit the American gauge and were sent to various railroads. The locomotives were nicknamed “Russian Decapods.”
So apparently, they had indeed been originally produces according to Russian specifications. According to the same article, this line of locomotives was then revived for Lend Lease during World War II, with some improvements but mostly unchanged. So it seems like they were indeed built for the Russian gauge.
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Ah, okay – thanks for the information, Herr KaLeun.
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The research I did just said locomotives, nothing about gauge or russian models being built in the US. Then again, Austria - Hungary had different gauges during WW1,its one of those things that I forget.
@Herr:
@CWO:
I don’t have any information about those figures one way or the other, but I do have a question. If I’m not mistaken, Russian railroads in WWII used a broad gauge which differed from the narrower gauge conventionally used by British and American railroads. This would presumably mean that the British and Americans could not ship “off the shelf” locomotives and cars to the USSR. Did the British and Americans therefore set up special manufacturing plants to build locomotives and trucks specifically designed for Soviet tracks?
The Wikipedia article on the Ye class locomotive mentions that such locomotives were initially produced as early as World War I, but could not be delivered after the Russian Revolution:
Due to the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, 200 locomotives were stranded in the United States; these were fitted with wider tires (locomotive driving wheels had iron tires which were heated to expand them, then driven over the wheels so that they shrank into place. By fitting wider tires with a deeper tread width, the effective wheel gauge could be decreased from the Russian standard of 5 ft (1,524 mm) to 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm), (the US standard) to fit the American gauge and were sent to various railroads. The locomotives were nicknamed “Russian Decapods.”
So apparently, they had indeed been originally produces according to Russian specifications. According to the same article, this line of locomotives was then revived for Lend Lease during World War II, with some improvements but mostly unchanged. So it seems like they were indeed built for the Russian gauge.
Thanks for the extra info!
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another interesting detail on the Tu-4 is that the engineers copied not just the patches but even BULLET HOLES as if they were pre-drilled bolt holes but then when they assembled the planes they couldn’t figure out what was supposed to be run through them…
HLK pointed out a great article, that was very interesting re-US built Russian export locomotives.
there is also a bunch of railfan stuff about this on line -
That plane story has to be one of the funniest stories to come out of the war.
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