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David Himmelsbach
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Comments by "David Himmelsbach" (@davidhimmelsbach557) on "Why determining the Impact of Lend-Lease is so complicated" video.

Lest anyone forget, a fantastic amount of 'Russian' gasoline was produced by British Petroleum out of Iranian crude at Abadan, a world-scale refinery at the time and for decades afterwards. It was crippled when Saddam invaded, and has never recovered. America actually didn't ship that much fuel to Russia, precisely because BP was RIGHT THERE... with a monster refinery. Most of America's fuel went to Britain and powered both the USAAF and the RAF and the RN. The need was intense. What the Americans did provide: Hughes Tool rotary drilling rigs. The Reds were two-generations behind the British and Americans. The tempo of drilling exploded up twenty-times over. The Russian technique can be seen in the film "There Will Be Blood." It was primitive. The Americans also tweaked the Russian refineries with new catalysts. The results were astounding. Keep in mind that statistically these forms of aid look like zeros on the ledger. They simply didn't weigh much. But they leveraged the Red's economy to a fantastic degree.
61
No, it DID save the USSR. Tungsten carbide tool bits increased tool production EIGHT TIMES OVER. Similar astounding increases occurred in oil drilling and refining. LendLease put the Red Air Force back in the air. PERIOD.
29
@Tethloach -- no, LendLease saved the USSR. It appeared in critical amounts no later than mid 1942. The actual details were so embarrassing that even until this hour the Russians make EVERY effort to obscure them. The UK and USA also have their skeletons to hide. But don't be deceived. Putin authorised a fresh film series on WWII. You can find it on YouTube. In it Case Blue is discussed at length. Even without exposing exactly how STAVKA out thought and out fought the Nazis, Putin was more than willing to expose the importance of American gear even in the SUMMER of '42. Said gear totally frustrated 1st Panzer Army. American and British aircraft proved ESSENTIAL as trainers. They had RADIOS. 1942 Soviet aircraft had no radios, especially trainers. They were critically short of radio tubes. There are NO END of Russian accounts from survivors about the details. Case Blue could've driven the USSR out of the war. It was CRITICAL that oil from Baku flow up the Volga come the spring. Otherwise Stalin's tank armies -- and air force would be shut down. It was a close run thing.
17
Moscow in 1941 was the CENTER of Russia's economy. It held war plants, unique ones, that if lost, would cost Russia the whole war. 1812 it was not.
11
The cited authors totally missed the reality that the FIRST stuff to go to Russia didn't weigh much, didn't consist of bulk at all. It was however the CRITICAL stuff. Top of the list would be tungsten carbide tool bits. Stalin thought the Swedes over-priced their stuff, so the USSR didn't have ANY. He had tungsten coming out his ears, but did not know how to manufacture tungsten carbide tool bits. TC speeds up a lathe or mill about eight times over! THAT'S the true source of the production miracle. Stalin wasn't building new factories, not in the way that most conceive of the idea. He was getting eight times as much stuff out of a given square meter of factory floor space. The rate limiting step for tank production at the time was the machining required for the turret ring. This process uses a (custom) monster machine. When it can be sped up eight times over, tanks start flying out the door. Stalin lost his ONLY radio tube factory. It was located on the western edge of Moscow. So the Americans started a panic shipment of radio tubes... in 1942. This Soviet crisis was of the deepest secrecy. That's why most authors are totally unaware of it. It's absurd to state that LL didn't kick in until 1943. LL decided Uranus, and crushed Case Blue. You must stop thinking in terms of bulk. Think in terms of CRITICAL.
8
The Nazis certainly thought so. The quality of soldiers that they were facing later in the war had seriously declined. Only elite formations, Guards, held high quality troops -- guys that could read and write, etc. Most of the Red army had been reduced to illiterates from Central and Far Eastern USSR. These were all second and third rate Soviet citizens, definitely not White Russians.
8
@simp Your nic is apt in the extreme. You're spouting official Soviet lies. The Hughes Tool rigs punched holes TWENTY-TIMES as fast as the ancient rigs Stalin had been using. The results were EMBARRASSING, hence kept state secret. Stalin even had a NKVD corps of 70,000 some odd souls strictly dedicated to re-labeling American and British aid. Stats like the follies you're posting here entirely explain why the Nazis so under-rated the Soviet state. They believed such utter BS, too. When the final end came, the CIA was revealed to be a stupid as you. Like the Nazis, the CIA bought hook line and sinker the Soviet economic statistics. Only past the end, they discovered they'd been off epic amounts all the way along. The Soviets NEVER, EVER published honest economic statistics. Lame try, though.
8
@Mercb... Nazi Germany lost the second they crossed the frontier. There was absolutely no way that a nation in a fuel crisis could ever beat the USSR.
7
@train... you don't put much weight on historical accounts from those then living, then....
6
@Phil... your erudition astounds all. If only any thing you write corresponds to facts. Thanx
6
@train ... the assault on Berlin used the best infantry formations in the Red Army. Endless Russian and German accounts detail the 'dregs' that followed behind them. It was as if there were two different armies. In Stalin's Russia, if you weren't a Georgian or White Russian you were absolutely second class. If you hailed from Siberia you were third class. Because of the language barrier, it was common for boot recruits to learn ultra simple Russian... say fifteen words... and march off to the front.
4
You're dreaming. The British aid came first, but still too late for Moscow's defense. The gear not only needed to arrive, the boys had to be trained on it. Parts WERE part of the deal. However, the Soviet supply system routinely threw them away! One example out of many, the US tanks came with steel tracks and rubber tracks. The steel tracks were left behind, and the rubber tracks proved rotten in the mud. The Soviets didn't have enough sense to swap tracks. There are countless tales from Russians complaining about the rotten American rubberized tracks from the period. Steel track would've torn the Liberty ships up, that's why they shipped with rubberized tracks. This is but one tale out of a novella of folly. The USA sent both locomotives and track in huge volumes. Entire rail lines were built with this stuff -- and ultra fast -- to the utter astonishment of the Germans. (out of Astrakhan, in particular) The Soviets simply built lines on bare ground and with half the sleepers missing. They were getting 15 km per day in expansion. It was all American rail, of course. The FIRST LendLease aid never shows up. It consisted of emergency purchases of Swedish tungsten carbide tool bits. These were FLOWN over Finland early in 42, paid for in American gold. These bits increased Soviet machining speeds 8 times over. That's the source of the Russian production miracle. Stop blathering and talk to a real machinist about TC bits.
4
@Rob -- what you're describing is the impact of highly aromatic gasoline. That stuff will even dissolve the average rubber, too.
4
Also, lest we forget, the Americans shipped no end of copper, wire and cables. These were behind the super victory of Uranus. The Americans supplied an astounding fraction of Stalin's TIRES. America and Germany had perfected synthetic rubber. So America had to ship astounding amounts of rubber so that Stalin could craft aircraft components. (fuel lines)
3
I would've been surprised if the Soviets wanted ANY Bazookas. The first Bazookas would've been virtually useless on the Eastern Front. They lacked sufficient penetration power. All too soon, the Ruskies were capturing German versions of the Bazooka that put it to shame. And who can dispute that the Russians perfected the hand-held RPG?
3
Harry Hopkins was a TRAITOR and a full on Stalinist Bolshevik. This is now known by way of his long suppressed personal diaries. He LOVED Stalin. Hence your quote. It was Harry Hopkins that authorized the delivery of America's atomic secrets to Stalin!!!! This was why the first Soviet A-bomb was absolutely identical to Fat Man! Beria had the technicians used American dimensions down to the very last detail. If the bomb failed to work they were told they'd be shot.
3
Completely wrong. The very first aid looks totally trivial, statistically. It was CRITICAL at the time. That's why it was first in the first place. It included purchasing Swedish tungsten carbide tool bits. These increased tool speed EIGHT TIMES OVER. These tool bits were old hat in Detroit. They didn't exist in Russia until America paid the Swedes in gold so that she'd FLY these tool bits across Finland into Russia. Germany destroyed ALL of Stalin's radio tube production. ALL OF IT. That meant that no radios for 1942's plane and tank production. (!!!!!!) America revolutionized Stalin's oil drilling speed and his refineries. None of these CRITICAL LendLease items looks more than a speck statistically. Hence everyone writing today is easily fooled.
3
@Plazmica -- It just kept building and building. The USSR received ALL of the critical materials to build a Hanford style plutonium production reactor in 1945. It was listed by a bunch of young college Russians when they ported the ENTIRE LendLease database up to the Internet not even realizing what was at the end of the list: the afore mentioned atomic materials. They would ONLY do any good if the USSR already had the blueprints. These were shipped out by the TRUCKLOAD, authorized by Harry Hopkins in FDR's name. Yes, he had that much authority, FDR was that ill. How can you possibly top that ?
3
@Mercb... his ONLY viable play was to kiss Stalin's hand, and FDR's too. He had to drive Churchill out of office. That meant that Barbarossa was INSANE. He should've been punching holes all over Libya hunting for oil. Both the British and Americans found oil and water underneath the deserts of the Middle East, why not Italy and Germany? Virtually ALL of Libya sits atop an astounding aquifer. DAK was hauling water thousands of kilometers, and that stuff didn't even taste good. Libya is estimated to have as much oil as the USA. (!!!) It is of the highest quality, brings the highest prices at the pier. Yet no-one inside the Axis thought to just punch holes in the ground... not even for water. Idiots.
3
@trevor.... you're seriously over-rating the Nazi atomic bomb effort. Forty some years ago I got the lecture from America's primary expert on the Nazi atomic program. He regarded the entire enterprise as a farce. The USA was ten-years ahead of the Nazis... and didn't know it. The atomic program B-29 + Manhattan sucked down 40% of the ENTIRE American war effort. Yep! The power bill was a fright. Since everything atomic was ultra-classified, even today most don't know a thing about its astounding expense. That enrichment plant at Oak Ridge sucked down electric power like you can't possibly believe. That's why it was co-located with the TVA.
3
@MrTang British aid to the USA is hugely famous in American histories of the period: penicillin, radar, crypto, Merlin engine, sonar, etc. so you're incorrect that it's hardly mentioned. Entire films have been dedicated to the topic. British atomic contributions were actually trivial, inconsequential. The Big Assist came from European genius refugees. The British delivered tanks in time, but the crews could not be trained in time for Moscow. So you have the weird situation where, on paper, it looks like British tanks were a serious factor; whereas they had crews so untrained that they scarcely knew how to start the engine. Keep in mind that Russia had NO motor culture. The boys were peasants. Horses they knew; motor vehicles they were absolutely clueless. This also included motor repair, maintenance. This factor was to dog them most of the war. The ultra high breakdown rate of the T-34 was hugely due to such ignorance. Many crews reported that they'd had a couple of laps around the training field and it was off to action. It was OJT all the way! During winter 41-42 it was common to see Russian tanks that had not even been properly painted white! They didn't even slow down to shoot white wash!
3
@simplicius Those HAVE TO BE cooked statistics. The USSR brought on an entirely new oil field off to the east. With Hughes Tool rotary rigs her drilling tempo simply exploded. One tip off: the number of planes, tanks and trucks using fuel EXPLODED by 1944 yet there was more than sufficient gas and Diesel for all. Transport was by FAR the largest consumer of crude oil. How does one explain the disparity, the contradiction? Soviet economic lies. They never admitted that they'd lost their radio tube factory. How's that for telling your allies the truth?
3
They couldn't even gas up the 1st Panzer Army, let alone fight at Baku.
3
@History Gaming -- you are quite incorrect. Stalin loved super-factories. His locomotive super-factory was inside LENINGRAD. Soviet production of steam locomotives went to ZERO. Baldwin Locomotive (USA) shipped out 1997 (mainline) locomotives to make up for the crisis short fall.
2
@simp -- Stalin converted all of his truck plants over to tank production. Again, you're spouting pure Soviet BS. Studebaker came to be known in the Russian army as 'truck' and the term is still used today!
2
@Algan... it's worse that your stats might indicate: the Studebakers were four-wheel drive. ALL Russian (surviving) trucks were pulled from front line service. They were used strictly in rear areas on decent roads... usually meaning that they never left Moscow. The locomotive count 1,997 by wars end. Rails, rolling stock, the works, all came up through Iran. The Baldwin locos were kept in service right into the 1960s. The Ruskies just loved them. By WWII the Americans had perfected freight steam locomotive design. What we have on this thread is a team of Soviet revisionists. You've got to love their screwball stats.
2
@Teth... The critical cables involved were Western Electric field grade communications cables. They permitted the Reds the ability to talk without being heard by the Germans -- in a major way -- for the first time in the war. STAVKA spoofed the Krauts by continuing to broadcast (fake) traffic while real commands started to travel by wire. It was this deception that triggered the super-success of Uranus. Naturally every aspect of this was kept ultra-top secret. The British pulled the exact same stunt in Africa, BTW. The American gear was a QUANTUM SHIFT in military capability. The Germans had nothing to match up with it. So your general thesis falls flat.
2
The German B'dienst teams were able to dope out Russian ( and English and American ) intentions WITHOUT ever decoding the signals. Their electronic interceptions were behind the success of Barbarossa -- as far as it went. The B'dienst teams could dope out which radios were Command sets, etc. The Germans never depended upon breaking into Allied codes. Unlike Bletchley Park, the B'dienst teams operated at a tactical level. When the British discovered just how much they were revealing to the Germans in North Africa via radio traffic, their commander was relieved and sent off to India. This discovery was the actual turning point of the whole war, not Stalingrad, not Kursk. The Krauts NEVER had decent success once the British plugged this hole. They also informed STAVKA as to what they'd learned. STAVKA promptly replicated the British moves and thus Uranus. You are entirely mistaken that the Krauts needed to break your codes. They didn't break the British codes, either. Neither mattered. The very location and actions of the command radio sets gave the entire game away. 1) Frequencies used revealed that this or that radio was a Front or Army command. 2) The activity reveals what's going on in the ranks. An army or front reading for the attack has its command radio sets squaking something tremendous. Between 1 & 2 the B'dienst teams doped everything out. Today ALL armies mimic the WWII German B'dienst teams.
2
The 26th Tank Corps... and all other advancing units had been notified to stay off the radio... PERIOD. The magic Western Electric cables came complete with trick deployment trucks that laid them down at about fifteen k/m! These same trick machines could pick the cables up at about ten k/m. The system also included bridging towers so that from time to time, a path could be set for cross traffic. Something like this set-up can be seen with P&H electric power shovels working open pit mines. All the while this was going on, the Ruskies were banging away with totally phony traffic as if no offensive were underway. The Krauts bought it hook line and sinker. THIS was the gambit that froze Paulus. He kept relying upon B'dienst intelligence until the Soviets bagged 6th Army. To top this off, the Russians captured the entire Enigma team that was deployed up with the Hungarians. With this in hand, STAVKA started trolling the Krauts with totally false Fuhrer orders! Most famously STAVKA got the Germans to stop the 29th Motorized Division from attacking south! EVERY German account points to this one act as being their doom.
2
@seth -- most of what I know comes from decades of listening to aged Ruskies spilling their guts about their own experiences during the war. Their tales are a fright. Other stories come from American GIs. In all cases, the tales come from the lowest ranks: privates, sergeants and the occasional officer cadet. The Western Electric signal cable system was ULTRA secret at the time. What was even more secret was that the American top brass ordered said cables to be rolled up and shipped off to Russia -- at the direct expense of their new owners. Yeah, they'd just arrived ten days earlier at the divisional signals battalion.(!!!) Absolutely no paperwork was permitted. Absolutely no record of the event was to be left behind. The loss of these cables was followed by the total diversion of Western Electric's output towards Russia -- on a total panic basis -- this went on for about a full year! All during this period Britain and Russia were getting ALL of W.E.'s output! This goes a LONG ways towards explaining why the USA had such a lame signals reputation early in the war. They were the least practiced specialists in the division. Most lamented that they didn't get to play with their gear until the division was notified that they had to pack up. By Stalin's orders, ANYONE caught publishing accurate production statistics into the public domain was to be shot. The garbage spewed led directly to the Nazi under-estimation of the USSR -- and directly contributed to Barbarossa. Hitler thought he had a chance, Ironic, no?
2
@hedge ... it was much, much more than honorary. The Guards units received ALL of the 'quality' replacements. They also quickly gained priority for equipment, too. The Soviet system was to back success and starve failure. This scheme was to last through to the end of the Cold War.
2
The Nazis were totally crippling the Russian war economy. The Reds only every succeeded AFTER American aid showed up in quantity, which was the middle of 1942 -- not any later. The Reds simply lied about LendLease. Being that dependent upon America was politically toxic to Stalin.
2
@saeronor.... you can't stop stupid.
2
@Dylan Lying is an essential craft skill for ALL generals. The fact was that an astounding fraction of Russia's war critical industries ringed Moscow. That includes ALL of her design teams. These all had to be relocated on a panic basis. Guderian's emphasis on Moscow was correct.
2
@Dwarov: ALL of Russia's critical factories and design teams were in Greater Moscow. No amount of crude oil could make up for their loss. They were pulled out on a panic basis to the East.
2
@TheKarofaar Those in Murmansk were absolutely no position to spread the tale. During the Great Patriotic War anytime more than 3 people stood together without Soviet specific authority -- they all were at risk of the GULAG. Years after the war, Russians would write of their experiences -- for the first time. Often on their death beds. Both the Nazis and the Bolsheviks ran totalitarian police states. The average citizen -- both nations -- was fed a steady diet of BS. Time and again moderns can read accounts of shocked civilians -- a the enemy appeared -- with no notice. During Barbarossa it was not at all uncommon for Soviets to assume that the tanks coming down the road were Soviet tanks. This impression was usually due to the Germans using captured Soviet machines in the front of their dusty columns. Yes, folks right on the front lines were not getting the word back to their peers in the next town to the East. Why? The NKVD had clamped down on the entire phone system. Anyone foolish enough to spread the word of Nazi advances was universally deemed a defeatist and a rumor monger. This is why so many folks were trapped and then murdered by the Nazi regime. BTW, internal movement inside Stalin's prison was flatly prohibited by the Bolsheviks -- going back to its beginnings. The Reds had merely picked up where the Tsar had left off. Serfs were prohibited from leaving their farms, too.
2
@Plaz -- I'm not in the oil business, but IIRC, it's located either in Kazakistan or just north of it. As you know by now, that entire region is loaded to the gills with natural gas and oil. You practically can't miss. It, the Russian field, IIRC is still in production. So if you can read Russian, it is sure to pop up in their industry publications. It is not a minor field by any means. IIRC it was able to go from zero to 1,000,000 bbl per day before the war was over. The wells only had to go down about 2,500 to 3,000 feet. By industry standards, that's about as easy as it ever gets. The American on the scene mentioned that each rig was cranking out TWO wells per week. The Soviet crews just about fried their brains at the new drilling tempo. These rigs were also driven 24hours per day, which is the American practice. Previously the Russians didn't know how to drill at night. They were just not set up for it. It requires much more illumination, wiring and portable generators than daytime drilling. Until the war, no-one saw the urgency. Drilling was previously run like the post office.
2
Atomic Bomb? Hello, anyone in there?
2
@Varis -- it's even stranger than that. Some of the East Texas crude oil contained xylenes and other aromatics as high as 25% straight out of the ground! All that the Americans had to do was distil it off! That stuff has amazing octane numbers. It's also the reason that the Americans could easily crank out exotic explosives, too. In contrast, Romanian crude is crappy.
2
Illya... it was the warhead... the shaped charge and the quality of its explosive. For the period this was new-wave technology. Today it's ultra-common. The tube and grip were simple-Simon. The Americans under designed it. These puppies kept being upgraded through the war by ALL nations making them. But this required making them bigger, which was always an issue for a man portable weapon.
1
@Illya... USA Bazookas were a joke on the Eastern Front. They would've been sent strictly as technology transfer... with the deliberate intent that the USSR would design something appropriate for themselves. Bazookas were quickly found to be TOO SMALL to fight German panzers. But they turned out to be quite handy with minor block houses and pill boxes. This was something that was a surprise at the time. Such a use was not in the training manual. They were quite fine against half-tracks, too. The German use of skirts hugely degraded hollow-charge weapons. Bazookas also revealed your fox hole... which was not advantageous. (!!!) They were a novelty weapon that had virtually no impact on the war. Here and there a guy would medal with one, but such accounts were way out of the ordinary. Hollywood loves the Bazooka, of course. So the average audience thinks far too highly of them. Hollywood always fakes the blast pattern, too. Real explosives don't have much 'flash' -- they are all 'bang.'
1
BINGO.
1
@install... are you a total moron? Truman on down was SICK of war. America had NO territorial desires in Europe, you sick, sick puppy. This was no cardboard wargame. Even today America has absolutely no territorial desires. It's the primary reason that Europeans trust America. She has no land desires whatsoever. No other power can say that. To show you how sick land grabbing can get, check out Red China's latest 'play' in the South China Sea. Every other nation wants to vomit. It's an IDIOT move, but what you'd expect out of Communists.
1
@install... the rest of your stats reads like a moron. FORGET VOLUME. Look at what's CRITICAL. The Critical stuff WENT FIRST you DUNCE. Volume wise, it doesn't look like ANYTHING happened. Spam and all the rest looks great on the stats. It was entirely too late to decide the issue. The stuff that did weighed practically nothing. The NKVD// KGB has led you around by the nose.
1
Tu-4 is the clone you're thinking of.
1
BINGO.
1
The first supplies were war CRITICAL. Statistically, they don't look like a hill of beans. This entirely misleads modern writers as to what was going on. 1) The very first aid came from Sweden. America paid for her tungsten carbide tool bits to be air flown to Russia --- in gold. These increased tool speed eight-times over. They don't even show up in LendLease stats. (!!!) 2) Russia had no radio tubes. Germany destroyed her only factory. These were also flown in. ( Alaska to Siberia) they also don't look like a hill of beans. They only saved the Red Air Force. 3) American oil drilling rigs sped up drilling twenty-times over. YES. The result was an extra 1,000,000 bbls per day by the end of 1944. Statistically, they don't look like a hill of beans. Everyone is looking at the WRONG ITEMS. They are focused on BULK. What was critical was what was critical. And that was not SPAM. Stop thinking in tonnages. To do so is all wrong.
1
That's pure blather. TC bits cost peanuts versus versus building a whole new factory. They also can be invoked in a SINGLE DAY. A full scale war plant, like the B-24 factory at Willow Run takes YEARS to spool up. Videos on the process on YouTube elsewhere.
1
And I should mention that list has been purged, once the Russian government realized what was in it. It was embarrassing, just too much stuff. It, the list, would make the denialists posting here look like total fools. A lot of the materials would end up proving embarrassing to the Truman administration. So that same list is not published in America, either. It shames the FDR administration and evidences that Hopkins was a traitor, the epic traitor of WWII. No-one else could possibly come close. Hopkins's Communist sympathies only really came out in the West when his diary was exposed. He was a full on Bolshevik true believer, no question about it.
1
@Plaz -- the Red Air Force defeated the Luftwaffe at Kursk by the simple tactic of having more avgas and more planes. Early in the battle the Nazis thought things were going pretty swell. However, at the peak, just when the SS broke through, things went totally sour. The Luftwaffe had just run out of avgas, just too many missions.The Reds destroyed the Luftwaffe on the ground. They literally couldn't fly. The Luftwaffe never recovered in the East. That victory in the air set the table for ALL of the Red army's subsequent successes. The Germans starting losing tanks and all else from air attack. They were on their back foot, and they stayed that way all the way to Berlin. The victory at Kursk was really due to the Red Air Force. The land armies were actually minor players. The same story held true in the West. The USAAF and RAF won the battle of France, not their buddy armies. Go back an take a look at the combat footage. In all cases, the air forces were the junior status players, even though they were the most expensive and decisive players. They just didn't get any respect. They were institutionally, too young.
1
@22steve5150 There is ANOTHER Lend Lease list that came out of Soviet archives that runs even longer. It was brought to the Web in the late 1990's by Russians, college students I'd say. At its bottom is a scary stack of revelations about materials sent such as to establish a Hanford-style plutonium production reactor. The trick carbon bricks and neutron shim was sent to Stalin! Hopkins simply sent the ENTIRE suite of materials such as to build an atomic reactor. And it's now obvious that Oppenheimer was a traitor, too. His entire family: brother and parents were members of the Communist Party of America. Oppenheimer would've also carried a Party Card but he was instructed to stay clear as his position required him to distance himself from Stalin. This decision was made long before the atomic bomb existed. Oppenheimer was ALWAYS building The Bomb for Bolshevism. He feared that a victorious USA would crush Bolshevism -- and on the cheap -- with sole possession of The Bomb. And it was Oppenheimer who INSISTED that the US fly testing aircraft over the North Pacific looking for radio nuclides -- evidence that the Soviets had detonated The Bomb. He did this when EVERYBODY was certain that any Soviet Bomb was years and years away. Moscow never announced their detonation, BTW. The US announced it for them. (!)
1
@Butts -- it is shocking to modern Brits, but the Soviet supply and training system of the period was so screwed up -- well you wouldn't believe it. What this meant was that British arms arrived -- and then largely sat -- either at the docks or at the depot. Keep in mind the Russians at this point were now CRITICALLY short of steam locomotives. This means that even critical LendLease aid from Britain usually stayed at the port for WEEKS if not Months. Britain had done more than her part, the Soviets were that weak and incompetent. That's why Russians keep telling everyone, truthfully, that British aid had no effect during the Battle of Moscow. It couldn't it was still sitting in the rear areas, with the dockyard of Murmansk famously CLOGGED with British aid. Even the weather conspired. The snow was constantly screwing up rail traffic, too. Top this off with Russian paranoia and their demand that all British aid be relabelled so as to hide its source. It was common for American and British aid to sit for weeks while it was relabelled. The only time this was not done: when it couldn't possibly work, couldn't fool anyone.
1
@TheKarofaar Lend Lease military equipment was re-labeled by an ENTIRE corps of NKVD troops into Russian primarily so that NO CREDIT would go to the West. Soviet draftees were simply told that this or that item was coming from a new production line someplace in Siberia -- it's a Soviet state secret. This re-labeling also extended to FOOD. From the beginning, US free food shipped out with a massive US label -- typically as a 'shield' in blue on un-dyed, un-bleached sacks. If you read around, Russians are STILL under the glow of illusion. The USSR was on the road to ruin because of Stalin. He started WWII quite deliberately because he reasoned that he could direct Hitler westward to engage in a years-long blood-bath: a repeat of WWI. This was openly discussed as a viable solution to their rival in Authoritarian-Leftism -- within the domains of the Party' elite. Hitler always wanted his war. But until Stalin initiated the Bolshevik-Nazi Pact, Adolf was totally boxed in. Few now comment that Poland was conquered by a Nazi Germany which was down to fumes... so to speak. Upon launch, all imports of oil into Germany stopped. Hitler was down to the pitiful amounts he could obtain within Europe -- by rail -- sending Germany into a horrific liquid energy deficit... draining its national reserves. BTW, the key reason why his generals rebelled over Case White was because Germany's tank farm was 'dry.' It would take months to re-fill it. For the period, Soviet imports (starting as a trickle) ended up being the decisive swing factor for 1940's drive West. BTW, right from the start, Adolf was expanding his strategic tank farm at a furious pace. It truly ran dry around October 1941. It was when the USSR and its Red Army kept fighting as this strategic reserve went to zero that caused OKH to freak out. It was this draining that created the belief that victory HAD to come RIGHT NOW in 1941. You might note that historians have simply not tracked the tank farm as THE decision maker for Hitler & Company.
1
@TheKarofaar Lend Lease butter went to Britain -- not the USSR. It would certainly spoil in the attempt. The logistical fiasco up in Murmansk has been well written of elsewhere. Stalin had a decision: leave men way up north at the port -- or send them to the front in front of Moscow. Take a wild guess as to his choice. BTW, for a time, the rail link to Murmansk was SHUT DOWN due to heavy snow. You can only imagine the chaos such a heavy snow did in Murmansk -- right up to the docks. Ice breakers were even used to keep the port active -- something still seen in the Baltic many years. Such ports are just not THAT warm.
1
Russian tanks were only very rarely returned for such repairs. The factory was very far away, and the Reds didn't have much tank recovery gear. Spitfires repaired in a British factory DID count as new production. Perhaps that's where you got your notion.
1
@simplicius11 It was a FELONY -- a trip straight to the GULAG if you EVER published correct statistics in the USSR. Anyone citing Stalin's stats is a FOOL. Doing so makes you as dumb as the CIA. Just don't do it. Stalin wouldn't let even a national census to occur after 1938. ALL numbers were deemed a Soviet State Secret.
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@SBroconis522 If you can find it, try and locate Hughes Tool's and Baker Tool's sales blurbs and advertising from before the war. This has got to be in some archive. My source for these stats was the VERY GUY that was the Tech Rep in the USSR for Hughes Tool during the war! He was given the floor for about an hour on the McNeil-Lehrer Report (PBS) during 1979. (c/b 1980) His information was so shocking that what was supposed to be the first interview became the ONLY interview. McNeil just shunted all other guests off the broadcast. He detailed how he had to physically operate the gear. The Soviet boys had never seen a 'Kelly' and had conception of rotary drilling. The Soviet style was to only drill during the day. The American style was to start and never stop -- drilling 24-hours a day -- until they hit depth. The field -- some dang Russian name -- straddled Kazakastan and Russia. It was shallow -- by American standards. A hole could be punched in well under three-days. For the Soviets, such a well took five-weeks. He brought only THREE rigs. They were out punching the entire Soviet drilling establishment. One reason that the Soviets only punched these holes so belatedly: the field was so deep that the Soviets didn't deem it economic. Until the Germans invaded, Baku was more than sufficient for the 5-year plan. As for the interview, he had gone back to the Soviet Union -- and discovered that the USSR was STILL using the technology that he, personally, had introduced in the war. The Reds were still generations behind the West. Heh. No surprise there. Russia has FAR more crude than KSA. But it's against their national interest to divulge its existence. In 1958 KSA released its stats... never to do so again, as the international price of crude immediately went DOWN. Just the knowledge that its vast, vast reserves existed was sufficient. The price drop triggered Venezuela and Iran to form OPEC. Yup. That's how it all started. The Arab immediately joined OPEC. The even established their own sub-cartel AOPEC. It was the latter that embargoed Holland and the USA in the mid-Seventies. BTW, you DID remember that Holland was embargoed, too? [ Holland was refinery central for Europe -- and still is a huge player -- think SHELL OIL.] ( The Dutch refused to suck up to the Arabs. -- Shell was one of the Seven Sisters and would not break ranks with its peers... a very wise decision. To do so would've infuriated Washington DC. )
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Tungsten carbide bits made ALL the difference in the world. Stop spouting off and talk to a real machinist. He'll point out that TC bits increase cutting speed EIGHT-TIMES over -- with the same machine. The Reds had NO RADIO TUBES. The Germans had destroyed their only factory. This meant that for a time, the Red Air Force had to train pilots in planes with no radios. It was a nightmare. This was why even second rate American planes had such an impact. They were TRAINERS. The tempo of pilot training EXPLODED. American oil drilling gear DOUBLED Russian production, almost overnight. It punched holes TWENTY-TIMES as fast as Russian equipment. And so forth. Post in ignorance, get spanked.
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@Manuel -- Wrong dope. Russia had tungsten out its ears but no tungsten carbide. Stalin didn't believe in it. It was originally developed by the Swedes and they priced their stuff to the Moon. They didn't share their production process but kept it highly secret -- for obvious reasons. These days everybody and his brother can make it, but in 1942 TC was an EXPENSIVE trick tool bit. Stalin eventually learned that some things you just have to pay up for. His same logic dictated why the USSR was still using ancient oil drilling methods instead of Hughes rotary bits. He didn't want to pay up for them, either.
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A tremendous amount of LendLease aid ended up as TRAINING equipment. This released front line T-34s etc by the thousand. British and American gear always came with radios. In 1942 the Soviets had no radio tubes, no radio sets. (!!!!!!!) They'd lost their only tube factory.
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