Interesring link about T-34 - NOT the best tank in the war?

[Opanashc]

62% of what? Tonnage? Again radios were arguably more important for the Soviets than tanks and they weighed a lot less.

Nice way to pay attention to only what you want to hear. Re-read the quote from Invader_Canuck in your post #321. The second one. Better yet, I will highlight the part that answers your question.

I think what the guy you're replying to meant, is that Lend Lease didn't really kick off in significant quantities until 1943. This is a factual statement. It's interesting that around ~62% of all Lend Lease by value was shipped in 1944 and beyond. This is even more interesting when you consider the lag time between shipping and arrival/cataloging and even when stuff starts to be actually put to use. If you consider that, well over 62% of all lend lease arrived in 1944 and beyond.

40 Hurricanes hardly helped in providing air superiority over Moscow, with amount of planes involved from both sides.

 

[fredgiblet]

40 Hurricanes hardly helped in providing air superiority over Moscow, with amount of planes involved from both sides.

How many modern fighter planes did the Soviets have in the winter of 1941? Serious question.

Edit: Specifically on the Western Front.

Yes, the dozen or so tanks that fought in the battle of Moscow were the deciding factor...

I didn't say they were, but there was more than that, the British shipment may have made up to 30% of the Soviet tank force in the theater at the point the german drive stopped. The Soviets lost almost everything in 1941.

It is not like people claiming without LL Red army would be immobile. They could have still produce trucks using light tank factories (Soviets could produce light tank in crazy numbers).

Immobile? No. Severely impaired? Yes. They quite famously moved their industry over the Urals, which means every bullet manufactured in the moved factories had to be shipped hundreds of miles to the front. Most of the bullets rode on American trucks, which were more numerous and BETTER than the Soviet trucks. No one is arguing that they couldn't produce trucks if they wanted to, however it would have required them to give up other production to do so, and giving up that capacity would also require retooling and retraining, resulting in lag time and lost productivity.

 

[Opanashc]

How many modern fighter planes did the Soviets have in the winter of 1941? Serious question.

In the Battle of Moscow, VVS fielded 545 planes, vs 780 of the Luftwaffe.

Immobile? No. Severely impaired? Yes. They quite famously moved their industry over the Urals, which means every bullet manufactured in the moved factories had to be shipped hundreds of miles to the front. Most of the bullets rode on American trucks, which were more numerous and BETTER than the Soviet trucks. No one is arguing that they couldn't produce trucks if they wanted to, however it would have required them to give up other production to do so, and giving up that capacity would also require retooling and retraining, resulting in lag time and lost productivity.

Someone never heard of rail-roads. Only the last leg of the journey was made in trucks (or horse-drawn carts), while 90%+ of the trip was on a train.

 

[hkrommel]

In the Battle of Moscow, VVS fielded 545 planes, vs 780 of the Luftwaffe.

By December 1941 699 LL aircraft were in service with the Soviets. Specifically referring to Moscow, 15% of the 6th Fighter Air Corps were Tomahawks or Hurricanes.

Nice way to pay attention to only what you want to hear. Re-read the quote from Invader_Canuck in your post #321. The second one. Better yet, I will highlight the part that answers your question.

Some people measure good value by ton when it comes to military equipment because dollar value is notoriously hard to estimate. Going back to quoting Zhukov from earlier, American gunpowder alone made a huge impact since the Soviets didn't have enough raw materials to manufacture the ammunition they needed. Gunpowder is cheap, but its impact was rather large.

Either way acting like this topic is settled by any stretch of the imagination is far too premature. We're only starting to get a glimpse of LL from the Soviet side of things and even then only a select few have done any substantial work on the subject. Furthermore, Soviet historiography may have made it difficult to ever get the full picture.

 

[Loke]

Most of the bullets rode on American trucks, which were more numerous and BETTER than the Soviet trucks. No one is arguing that they couldn't produce trucks if they wanted to, however it would have required them to give up other production to do so, and giving up that capacity would also require retooling and retraining, resulting in lag time and lost productivity.

And those "Soviet trucks" were also licensed older American models...

 

[steve213]

America is not called the arsenal of democracy for no reason. also Ford>BMW

 

[Gethsemani]

The jury is still out on that question. The field of study here is really quite small with only a few individuals like Glantz and Hill actually delving into the archives, but too little has been uncovered. Basically there aren't enough data points and Soviet propaganda/historical agenda throughout the Cold War may have sabotaged the truth in that regard. As far as the Soviets accomplishing what they did, there is far from academic consensus on that to be honest, just like some analysis doesn't take various things into account (like measuring by tonnage or dollar value)

Let's be honest enough here to acknowledge that while the Soviet Union/Russia likes to downplay Lend-Lease and its' importance, the USA loves to talk about how LL was vital to the Soviet war effort. The truth is probably somewhere in between "would have won no problem even without LL" and "would have been curb stomped without LL". LL did not arrive in significant quantities until 1943 which meant that the USSR had to rely mostly on its' own industry for the first two years of the war. On the other hand, the USSR did receive some LL and any aid was likely to alleviate some of the many dire shortages the USSR suffered during the war.

Whatever they could have won the war without it or not is largely an issue of semantics and personal opinion. The real problem with the discussion is that LL is often used as an argument for people wanting to downplay the USSR's role and accomplishments during WW2 by pretending as if the USSR would have been dead in the water without American aid (like how it was used in this thread initially). The response from people defending the USSR's contributions tend to be to pretend as if LL had no impact at all and was just some luxury that the USSR took because it could. It is a very black and white discussion on a very opaque topic that arguably has many nuances.

 

[Shatterfury]

Let's be honest enough here to acknowledge that while the Soviet Union/Russia likes to downplay Lend-Lease and its' importance, the USA loves to talk about how LL was vital to the Soviet war effort. The truth is probably somewhere in between "would have won no problem even without LL" and "would have been curb stomped without LL". LL did not arrive in significant quantities until 1943 which meant that the USSR had to rely mostly on its' own industry for the first two years of the war. On the other hand, the USSR did receive some LL and any aid was likely to alleviate some of the many dire shortages the USSR suffered during the war.

Whatever they could have won the war without it or not is largely an issue of semantics and personal opinion. The real problem with the discussion is that LL is often used as an argument for people wanting to downplay the USSR's role and accomplishments during WW2 by pretending as if the USSR would have been dead in the water without American aid (like how it was used in this thread initially). The response from people defending the USSR's contributions tend to be to pretend as if LL had no impact at all and was just some luxury that the USSR took because it could. It is a very black and white discussion on a very opaque topic that arguably has many nuances.

So no one really wants to from a honest opinion about the situation and what was the real impact of LL.
Everything is about showing off ?

No one underestimates USSR contribution, it was the biggest in terms of manpower and huge in terms of industrial production.

One thing to consider is that USSR produced double the number or tank and derivatives while having around 25% of Germany`s coal and iron.
Interpret it as you want but I think that this underlines USA`s importance.

 

[Axe99]

I went away for a few pages (too many to catch up on) and the tank thread's turned into a lend-lease thread, lol. Does this mean that in terms of contentious forum topics, lend-lease>tanks? What is the best forum topic to get a topic going, and what's the best topic to derail it? .

More on topic, what was the best lend-lease tank supplied - was it the Sherman (in seriousness, hard to say otherwise), the Valentine (go on, no one ever sticks up for the Valentine, maybe just this once....) or..... the Matilda II (It's everywhere! But even I'll admit the Sherman was better But if we were talking about the best lend-lease tank in 1941....)

Edit: Or the Tetrarch. Poor Tetrarch, so obscure I forgot it even after the Valentine. Give that tank a hug .

 

[fredgiblet]

Someone never heard of rail-roads. Only the last leg of the journey was made in trucks (or horse-drawn carts), while 90%+ of the trip was on a train.

We provided 3 times as many locomotives as the Soviets built and 10 times as many rail cars.

Let's be honest enough here to acknowledge that while the Soviet Union/Russia likes to downplay Lend-Lease and its' importance, the USA loves to talk about how LL was vital to the Soviet war effort. The truth is probably somewhere in between "would have won no problem even without LL" and "would have been curb stomped without LL". LL did not arrive in significant quantities until 1943 which meant that the USSR had to rely mostly on its' own industry for the first two years of the war. On the other hand, the USSR did receive some LL and any aid was likely to alleviate some of the many dire shortages the USSR suffered during the war.

Whatever they could have won the war without it or not is largely an issue of semantics and personal opinion. The real problem with the discussion is that LL is often used as an argument for people wanting to downplay the USSR's role and accomplishments during WW2 by pretending as if the USSR would have been dead in the water without American aid (like how it was used in this thread initially). The response from people defending the USSR's contributions tend to be to pretend as if LL had no impact at all and was just some luxury that the USSR took because it could. It is a very black and white discussion on a very opaque topic that arguably has many nuances.

For the record:

The Soviets would not have been curb-stomped without LL, though they would likely not have been able to push Germany back with nearly the speed that they did IRL.

The Soviet Union bore the brunt of the war and did the vast majority of the land fighting.

My personal opinion is that removing the US or UK from the equation probably results in failure for the Allies, removing the USSR DEFINITELY results in failure.

EDIT: But that's just like, my opinion man.

 

[fredgiblet]

More on topic, what was the best lend-lease tank supplied - was it the Sherman (in seriousness, hard to say otherwise), the Valentine (go on, no one ever sticks up for the Valentine, maybe just this once....) or..... the Matilda II (It's everywhere! But even I'll admit the Sherman was better But if we were talking about the best lend-lease tank in 1941....)

Stalin wanted the Valentine the most IIRC.

 

[Opanashc]

We provided 3 times as many locomotives as the Soviets built and 10 times as many rail cars.

So you are trying to say, that in 1945, after LL stopped, 75% of Soviet locomotives and 90% of their rail cars were built in USA? As was noted before, production for war had to come from somewhere. USSR had a large pool of locomotives and rail cars before the war, hence it stopped their production.

 

[Gethsemani]

One thing to consider is that USSR produced double the number or tank and derivatives while having around 25% of Germany`s coal and iron.
Interpret it as you want but I think that this underlines USA`s importance.

How exactly? The USSR had a lot of rare materials that Germany lacked, for one. They also used a much more efficient construction process then Germany when it came to tank production. An example here would be the estimate that one T-34 took 20,000 man hours to make, when the production time of all individual parts were factored in, as compared to the Panther tank that required 55,000 man hours to make. On top of that the Soviet society was entirely centralized and could literally demand that people go into the tank industry to build tanks, as well as convert all factories available to tank production (a curious side note here is that all Soviet tractor factories were required to have the ability to make tanks, just in case of war). Germany meanwhile had a (semi-)free industry, which produced according to its' own preferences and only took orders to make military equipment if the state requested it and payed well for it.

Furthermore, Germany also had to juggle the demands of the navy (a Type VII U-boat requires a lot of steel) and their air force, whereas the USSR had no significant investment in naval assets and made the strategic decision to make most of their aircraft out of wood instead of metal, something that significantly reduced the USSR's need for steel when compared to Germany.

In simple terms: When war came to the USSR it could instantly shut down all non-essential production and convert it to military production, because all industries were controlled by the state. When Germany went to war it still had to rely on sub-contracting to independent companies to produce what they needed and this meant that a comparatively large portion of their industry still produced luxury goods, because that was how the companies made the majority of their profits.
Germany also had a much higher demand for steel then the USSR, because of their strategic position and because the USSR was ready to compromise with some facets of their military in order to focus their limited steel production on other parts.

 

[Shatterfury]

How exactly? The USSR had a lot of rare materials that Germany lacked, for one. They also used a much more efficient construction process then Germany when it came to tank production. An example here would be the estimate that one T-34 took 20,000 man hours to make, when the production time of all individual parts were factored in, as compared to the Panther tank that required 55,000 man hours to make. On top of that the Soviet society was entirely centralized and could literally demand that people go into the tank industry to build tanks, as well as convert all factories available to tank production (a curious side note here is that all Soviet tractor factories were required to have the ability to make tanks, just in case of war). Germany meanwhile had a (semi-)free industry, which produced according to its' own preferences and only took orders to make military equipment if the state requested it and payed well for it.

Furthermore, Germany also had to juggle the demands of the navy (a Type VII U-boat requires a lot of steel) and their air force, whereas the USSR had no significant investment in naval assets and made the strategic decision to make most of their aircraft out of wood instead of metal, something that significantly reduced the USSR's need for steel when compared to Germany.

In simple terms: When war came to the USSR it could instantly shut down all non-essential production and convert it to military production, because all industries were controlled by the state. When Germany went to war it still had to rely on sub-contracting to independent companies to produce what they needed and this meant that a comparatively large portion of their industry still produced luxury goods, because that was how the companies made the majority of their profits.
Germany also had a much higher demand for steel then the USSR, because of their strategic position and because the USSR was ready to compromise with some facets of their military in order to focus their limited steel production on other parts.

True but as I said, Germany had far more iron and coal at it`s disposal.

Did the SU also made tanks out of wood because that iron and coal has to have been extracted by someone.

Maybe USA ?

I`m not trying to undermine USSR, just to highlight the importance of the Allied material aid.

 

[Temsayah]

I think everyone knows the T-34, at an individual basis, was most certainly not a good tank. But it filled the role the Soviets needed and thus helped them immensely with their victory.

It all depends on the attributes one gives to the word "best." Armor, speed, repair-ability, etc. Without a doubt, the Sherman and the T-34's 'won' the war because of the mass-production value. On the other hand, German tanks were by far, technically superior, but couldn't be mass produced (not on the American scale) and couldn't be repaired in the field. For example (artillery, not tanks) the main U.S towed 105mm howitzer had five moving parts, and the German had something like twenty-nine. You know the trope... it's not a fashion war....

 

[Denkt]

It was not really about mass production, I would say the quality of the soldiers was much more important. USA and UK took few casualties thus had very good soldiers on the field while the Germans divisions was of doubtful quality, their best soldiers had been spent long before 1944.

Don't think German tanks was much less suited for mass production, the Panther don't cost that much more then the Sherman and the T34 price likely include all reparations which the Soviets considered "new" tanks. The real price for a T34 should be much closer to the Sherman.

45 ton tank for 60000$ (Panther) vs 32 ton tank for 46000$ (Sherman).

To me they look about equal then it comes to mass production friendliness. Sure maybe 10 Shermans was built for each Panther but that more shows the ability to produce stuff.

Im pretty sure USA could have made 20000-30000 panthers instead of their Shermans.

 

[Opanashc]

It was not really about mass production, I would say the quality of the soldiers was much more important. USA and UK took few casualties thus had very good soldiers on the field while the Germans divisions was of doubtful quality, their best soldiers had been spent long before 1944.

When you can spend a ton of ammo for every pound your enemy can - you can keep your casualties low.

 

[fredgiblet]

It was not really about mass production, I would say the quality of the soldiers was much more important. USA and UK took few casualties thus had very good soldiers on the field while the Germans divisions was of doubtful quality, their best soldiers had been spent long before 1944.

That doesn't explain the earlier results though, the Germans had far better troops than the Soviets in '42 and probably well into '43.

 

[Mitsugi]

It was not really about mass production, I would say the quality of the soldiers was much more important. USA and UK took few casualties thus had very good soldiers on the field while the Germans divisions was of doubtful quality, their best soldiers had been spent long before 1944.

Don't think German tanks was much less suited for mass production, the Panther don't cost that much more then the Sherman and the T34 price likely include all reparations which the Soviets considered "new" tanks. The real price for a T34 should be much closer to the Sherman.

45 ton tank for 60000$ (Panther) vs 32 ton tank for 46000$ (Sherman).

To me they look about equal then it comes to mass production friendliness. Sure maybe 10 Shermans was built for each Panther but that more shows the ability to produce stuff.

Im pretty sure USA could have made 20000-30000 panthers instead of their Shermans.

But the Reichsmark didn't have a real exchange rate, because you couldn't buy stuff in dollars and sell them in RM. It's all funny money, with "value" set at will by the Nazis, and people under their control were required to officially accept them at that value or face the consequences. Note that their voluntary trading partners took gold, raw materials, or goods, and were not interested in RM. Further, even faker currencies were issued for the occupied countries that couldn't be exchanged for RM or spent outside their designated country, but were required to be exchanged for goods or the former currency at the official exchange rate. By contrast, the black market value (i.e. what people actually thought it was worth without a gun in their face) of a Reichsmark was considerably less than its official worth.

It's like, if I create a new "currency" called Awesome Dollars, and I take an Awesome Dollar (and a shotgun) to a bank and force them to "exchange" A$1 for US$300, in one sense one Awesome Dollar is now worth US$300. But really I've just committed armed robbery.

The only safe things to say about the Sherman and Panther costs is that the Panther required much more raw materials, and many more man-hours to construct, and those man-hours had to be on average much more highly skilled. That being said, I suspect that doubling or even quadrupling the Panther's cost in dollars is likely to be closer to the mark. I'd also point out that the Pershing, which was lighter, less complicated, and faster to produce than the Panther, was more like $84,000. Even with all the US advantages in industrial production.

 

[scroggin]

But the Reichsmark didn't have a real exchange rate, because you couldn't buy stuff in dollars and sell them in RM. It's all funny money, with "value" set at will by the Nazis, and people under their control were required to officially accept them at that value or face the consequences. Note that their voluntary trading partners took gold, raw materials, or goods, and were not interested in RM. Further, even faker currencies were issued for the occupied countries that couldn't be exchanged for RM or spent outside their designated country, but were required to be exchanged for goods or the former currency at the official exchange rate. By contrast, the black market value (i.e. what people actually thought it was worth without a gun in their face) of a Reichsmark was considerably less than its official worth.

It's like, if I create a new "currency" called Awesome Dollars, and I take an Awesome Dollar (and a shotgun) to a bank and force them to "exchange" A$1 for US$300, in one sense one Awesome Dollar is now worth US$300. But really I've just committed armed robbery.

The only safe things to say about the Sherman and Panther costs is that the Panther required much more raw materials, and many more man-hours to construct, and those man-hours had to be on average much more highly skilled. That being said, I suspect that doubling or even quadrupling the Panther's cost in dollars is likely to be closer to the mark. I'd also point out that the Pershing, which was lighter, less complicated, and faster to produce than the Panther, was more like $84,000. Even with all the US advantages in industrial production.

The cost in dollars or RM is really only the best way of comparing cost to produce different models within a country. For comparisons of costs between different countries man-hours is proably better. But even that isnt great. Cost of labour is far higher in the democratic countries than the USSR where workers had a very low standard of living or germany where a lot of forced labour was used. Really any comparison of costs between countries that didnt trade freely is just an educated guess