Extra History - Lend Lease

[Leckan]

Here's a good read on how/whether Germany was ever close to winning the Battle of Britain:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistori...iction_hitler_almost_destroyed_raf_by/cmyl10e

The conclusion:

In my opinion, the German error in the Battle of Britain was attacking an enemy that they had no way of knocking out of the war and who had greater aircraft production. Since neither the Kriegsmarine nor the Luftwaffe could make an invasion of the British Isles possible and there was no capability to starve the British, the Germans never had the capacity to defeat the UK. None of this should detract from the heroism of “the few,” but despite how desperate it seemed at the time the British were winning the Battle of Britain from the outset.

 

[ComradeCommissar]

I disagree with you. Without the Allies help the USSR would have surely fallen to the Axis.

And they didn't at the darkest days, when the Germans were at the gates of Moscow. Besides, most LL didn't arrive till after Stalingrad.

 

[Jongmaster]

Interesting, but again it shows an aspect that was always ignored in HOI, the Battle of the Atlantic.

At 3:38, it clearly specify: ''it wasn't just tanks and bombs, it was foodstuffs and...''

And it looks like it's gonna be ignored again...

It will be ignored because apparently people are of the opinion tanks and planes are more important than feeding people. If they admit that the foodstuffs sent to GB and the USSR are important, then they have to give up the idea that lend lease was useless.

 

[MGL 86]

I don't think Great Britain would have fallen without Lend Lease as well, at least not in 1940/1941 where these things just started to kick in. Land lease didn't had a major effect on british aircraft production as far as I know, and thats what made german invasion plans fail rather early.

I think the impacts on Land Lease for the Soviets were far greater, at least if the question is if it helped the country to survive longer than otherwise. Great Britain would have been able to hold out without US help as the threat of an invasion was never really there after 1940, but the Soviets would have been in a far worse state in 1942 without lend lease. Not saying they would have lost without western allied help, but at least taken another hundred thousands losses more for sure.

There were almost no land lease in 1942. Even author (James?) didn`t say Land lease saved Soviet Union in this video

 

[Sanny]

I personally don't like this Extra History series, I find the history to be too inaccurate, too much 'MURICA and the voice oh god.
But I still don't see what this has to do with promoting Hearts of Iron IV.. it's almost like going to a WW2 museum and putting up Hearts of Iron IV posters everywhere.

 

[Frosted Vert]

Just for clarity - We have seen in DD's that you can donate equipment to a country as Lend-Lease. Is it possible to buy foreign models?

France for example ordered American aircraft in Historically Significant numbers to make up for the sorry state of the French aviation industry. In 1940 15% of French aircraft orders were American types. While making up only 12.6% of the French Air Force single-seater fighter force, the H75 (Curtis Hawk) accounted for almost a third of the air-to-air kills during the 1940 Battle of France.

In May 1940, the French had 440 American aircraft, that number reached 550 in June. When France fell, American aircraft orders were sent to the UK instead, hence the P-40s in North Africa and brief service of P-39s.

I think it is important to allow the purchase of foreign equipment. If I understand the trade system, this would be done by using civilian factories in exchange for having foreign military factories produce the needed equipment.

French Aircraft Purchases March 1940

• 200 - P-40
• 200 - P-40D
• 200 - P-39
• 500 - P-38
• 250 - Martin GM 187 (Baltimore)
  
• 550 - Douglas DB-7 (Havoc; Boston I, II)
• 60 - B-24 Liberator
• 200 - Vultee Dive Bomber (Vengence)
• 174 - Douglas SBD-3 (Dauntless)

 

[LiamRiordan]

Always loved these guys, sponsoring them to do more good videos is welcome After all, the Total War guys did with the Carthage vs Rome series

 

[Mouts]

It will be ignored because apparently people are of the opinion tanks and planes are more important than feeding people. If they admit that the foodstuffs sent to GB and the USSR are important, then they have to give up the idea that lend lease was useless.

I know and this is absurd.

I hope that at least fuel exports will be considered.

 

[Axe99]

A great little vid . Not always entirely accurate as per my understanding, but history (like anything, really) is contentious, and it still got enough right to be broadly informative. Great little marketing tool as well.

On the lend lease and its importance in the Battle of the Atlantic, those 50 destroyers were very handy, and at just the right time (the UK lost a bunch of destroyers in the Norwegian campaign, and then more at Dunkirk, as well as other odds and sods in the general course of patrolling/fighting subs/Axis bombers - and their escort production program hadn't hit full steam at that stage). I'm not saying they were the difference between victory and defeat (I'd argue it's impossible for anyone to say that, too hard to tell), but they were significant in reducing merchant shipping losses at a time when they were a real concern.

 

[Number 7]

oh dear, the lend lease thread begins. i may as well throw fuel on the fire

"The USSR wouldn't have survived without american lend lease"

 

[Jongmaster]

oh dear, the lend lease thread begins. i may as well throw fuel on the fire

"The USSR wouldn't have survived without american lend lease"

You are a brave, brave soul

 

[Hikuran]

The Luftwaffe was sooo convinced by their arrogant leader Goerings that they could actually beat Brits just by air.

Just to think about the situation, Luftwaffe lacked capable strategic bomber so even they DID win they don't have a much of chance bomb many industrial regions to cripple British manufacturing, that's why they kept bombing London to kill civilians because they had no better targets. Their fighters. Bf-109, can only maintain about 45 minutes max of fighting time above British soil before heading back to refuel and that's on the condition their fueltank is still hole-less.

On the other hand, RAF have the full advantage of being the Home Players. They can easily head back to base for a new, refueled and rearmed plane. They could bail out almost any time if situation went bad without the concern being captured or beaten to death by angry patriotic citizens.

Germany could have won the western front, but Goerings ruined it all

 

[Axe99]

The HMS and other nations of Commonwealth kept UK fed so even with the Sub spam I don't think British would have any danger of starvation. There were difficulties but none were impossible to overcome.

Going from memory, it wasn't until after the US had got the liberty ships happening that merchant ship construction was out-pacing merchant ships being sunk. If the British and US can't turn that equation around in time, they'll run out of ships to send supplies on.

 

[Hikuran]

Going from memory, it wasn't until after the US had got the liberty ships happening that merchant ship construction was out-pacing merchant ships being sunk. If the British and US can't turn that equation around in time, there'll run out of ships to send supplies on.

Yes, there were only limited amount of support to UK from USA before they actually joined war.

And Subs was having a happy time in year before 1941 because Brits lacked effective countermeasure against them. But it would be too bold to suggest that they could bleed HMS or merchant-ships dry.

 

[wright1331]

As important as lend-lease is, EC portrayed it as necessary for winning the war, which it just wasn't. Hitler was hell-bent on attacking the Soviet Union, who alone would very probably win. In '41 they halted the Axis with little lend-lease aid. It's disappointing that they've completely ignored the Soviet role in the war, and to be frank this series seems to be poorly researched.

Lend lease accounted for about 30-40% of the medium and heavy tanks the Soviets had for the defense of Moscow. Im not saying they couldn't have done it alone, but thats a pretty sizable contribution...

 

[Murmeldjuret]

The main thing Lend-Lease contributed was in infrastructure. They did give numbers for locomotives as well. 2000 locomotives (no idea if correct), this along with the tens of thousands of trucks they shipped over might seem like unimportant. But the German warmachine had less than a thousand locomotives as well as just over 12000 trucks (if I remember my stuff). The USA donated more logistical throughput to USSR than Germany even had. Germany constantly lacked logistical throughput in the east, but USSR never did. The USSR on its own had a few tens of thousands of trucks and outproduced Germany in droves, but the US Lendlease was on the scale of the entire German warmachine in scale.

Both Barbarossa and Sealion are infeasible on paper. Barbarossa failed from a lack of German supplies as much as anything the Soviets or Lendlease did. Sealion would not work without a German navy that mattered. The British Empire could not be starved while the German could, and while Germany+annexations outproduced Britain alone, it did not outproduce Britain+Commonwealth. The German strategical position was getting worse and worse.

So while lendlease did not change the outcome of the war, it probably saved millions of lives as well as shortened the war by a year.

 

[Zoob]

I personally don't like this Extra History series, I find the history to be too inaccurate, too much 'MURICA and the voice oh god.
But I still don't see what this has to do with promoting Hearts of Iron IV.. it's almost like going to a WW2 museum and putting up Hearts of Iron IV posters everywhere.

It's cross pollination marketing. Hearts of Iron 4 posters in a WW2 museum sounds like a great idea.

 

[Tempestra]

Let's admit it, whatever the merits of the claims this video makes, nobody here really learned anything. The average HoI series fan doesn't need to have "What is lend lease" explained to them.

If the video makers were really interested in expanding our knowledge, they would host the kind of debate we're seeing here about its efficacy and necessity of lend lease. But unfortunately the 5-minute explanatory video medium isn't good at depicting debates, only at presenting a set of uncontested facts, and contested opinions presented as uncontested facts.

The problem with history, at least from the youtube content creator's p.o.v, is that the uncontested facts are already extremely widely known (seriously, was there anybody here who was unaware that lend lease happened?).

So I guess what I'm saying is, there's a very sharp limit to what one can learn about history from youtube videos.

 

[BjornB]

Let's admit it, whatever the merits of the claims this video makes, nobody here really learned anything. The average HoI series fan doesn't need to have "What is lend lease" explained to them.

If the video makers were really interested in expanding our knowledge, they would host the kind of debate we're seeing here about its efficacy and necessity of lend lease. But unfortunately the 5-minute explanatory video medium isn't good at depicting debates, only at presenting a set of uncontested facts, and contested opinions presented as uncontested facts.

The problem with history, at least from the youtube content creator's p.o.v, is that the uncontested facts are already extremely widely known (seriously, was there anybody here who was unaware that lend lease happened?).

So I guess what I'm saying is, there's a very sharp limit to what one can learn about history from youtube videos.

We did not ask them to make these videos to educate our hardcore Hearts of Iron fans. The goal is to trigger an interest to pursue deeper knowledge in those who previously only learned what could be considered the basics.

 

[Loke]

As important as lend-lease is, EC portrayed it as necessary for winning the war, which it just wasn't. Hitler was hell-bent on attacking the Soviet Union, who alone would very probably win. In '41 they halted the Axis with little lend-lease aid. It's disappointing that they've completely ignored the Soviet role in the war, and to be frank this series seems to be poorly researched.

Russia had lost a couple of wars just 20 years earlier, one vs Poland and one vs Germany.
So I think a Russia without LL would probably not have won vs Germany during WWII.