When the Germans invaded Russia Winston Churchill immediately promised aid. War material was sent by convoy and later in the war the U.S. also supplied weapons. Just how much diference did this aid make or was it merely symbolic?

It must have been HUGE! Imagine when that first M3 Lee tank rolled on to the docks. The Russian tank engineers took one look and proclaimed "We now know what NOT to do!".

Lol

I too am interested in the real answer though.

Jim

I think it did have some impact in the early years, Just enough to keep up tank numbers instead of having to rely on the factories in cities that were under seige like Leningrad and Slatingrad to produce vehicles.
Jim in all seriousness the russian engineers may have copied the allied tank designs to use in the own AFV's

the aid that Churchill sent was probably miniscule from a Russian point of view the aid that the U.S. sent was not i believe there were entire divisions in the southern sector that fought with only U.S. equipment.however if some of the British equipment had been sent to say Malaya with a few spitfire squadrons and a general who was'nt afraid to fight the result there might have been different.another example of this is Hong Kong should have been declared an open city after Dec 7 and troops withdrawn into Chinese interior.

I would have to say that British supplies were meager compared to U.S. shipments. But in my opinion (and correct me if I am wrong) what the Reds lost in supplies from the U.K. (little amounts that were sent) they made up for in their own factories. The ones that were farther in the country of Russia.

~Chip

Guys, when comes to aid to russia in WW II, I tend to think at two prespective rather than think how many shermans or spits or P39s were sent.

1) The trucks and jeeps, this helps the ruskies to fight the war with logistical possibility

2) All the Luftwaffe and Kreigmarines unit that was tied up in the northern seas to hoping for interdicting PQ convoys, ot otherwise they could be useful elsewhere.

i dont think the ammount of equipment sent by britain was so small,

almost the entire stock of canadian built valentines was sent, as well as a good number of matildas, churchills etc.

oh yeah, the russians liked british tanks better than american ones! they just thought they needed bigger guns,
grants/shermans were a laughing stock to most soviet tankies!

cheers

joe

Dave is right, the West sent a BUNCH of trucks...

"Lend-Lease: Lifeline for the USSR
American, British and Canadian Lend-Lease made a significant difference in the progress of the Soviet armies against Hitler's armies. However, the USSR tried to keep this information limited and the role of Lend-Lease is generally not well known although it constituted about 15 per cent of the total equipment used by the USSR, particularly almost one-half million American trucks. It was said that the only thing that moved through the mud towards Germany were the Ukrainian T-34 tanks with their wide tracks and the American Studebaker trucks.

The USA supplied the USSR with 6,430 planes, 3,734 tanks, 104 ships and boats, 210,000 autos, 3,000 anti-aircraft guns, 245,000 field telephones, gasoline, aluminum, copper, zinc, steel and five million tons of food. This was enough to feed an army of 12 million every day of the war. Britain supplied 5,800 planes, 4,292 tanks, and 12 minesweepers. Canada supplied 1,188 tanks, 842 armoured cars, nearly one million shells, and 208,000 tons of wheat and flour. The USSR depended on American trucks for its mobility since 427,000 out of 665,000 motor vehicles (trucks and jeeps) at the end of the war were of western origin."

Lifted from the website below...

Shaun


http://www.infoukes.com/history/ww2/page-09.html

Thanks for supplying those figures Shaun, I never knew that such a large amount of war aid was given, especially by Britain and Canada, hardly "symbolic" as in my original question.

We also contributed to their war effort by training aircrews to fly out of Alaska into Russia---B-25s, C-47s and the P-39 Airacobra which, I believe we redesignated the P-400. They used the last one quite effectively as a ground support aircraft. Our valiant attempts to ship supplies to Murmansk were disasters. We shipped more to Russia through Persia (Iran) and from Alaska. Also, we provided them training and the ships to enlarge their fledgling navy. So, I believe we materially assisted their efforts (food, ammo, vehicles) and as I also recall never got paid back a dime.
DJ

They paid us back, DJ, by copying a B-29 that landed in Vladivostok...

Shaun

http://aeroweb.lucia.it/~agretch/RAFAQ/Tu-4.html

The numbers are bigger than mentioned in previous entries. The following is US production for USSR thru Persian Corridor, ONLY:

- 63,173 cargo trucks and 15,454 other vehicles were assembled at Truck Assembly Plant I, Andimeshk, Iran ffrom March 42 to December 44 for issue to the USSR
- 81,579 cargo trucks and 1,639 other vehicles were assembled for USSR at the Truck Assembly Plant II, Khorramshahr, Iran, January 43 - April 45.
- The total truck production for all of Perisan corridor was 191,075 of which 184,112 went to USSR!!!!!
- 4,874 aircraft: 1,269 A-20 LT Bombers and 2,030 P-39s (both of which the Russians really liked), plus 1,091 P-40s ans small numbers of DB-7 (British designation for A-20), B-25, P-47, and AT-6.
- 408,460 tons of general supplies were hauled by thruck to UUSR thru Iran from JAN 43-DEC 44 & 2.9 miliion tons of supplies went by rail from AUG 42 - May 45
- 70,407 combat vehucles were shipper thru Iran from NOV 41-NOV 44

this was not all - A large number of trucks and supplies were rquired by US and British forces operating the Corridor.

Additonally, tonnage by route from Western Hemisphere to UUSR is as follows:
Persian Gulf - 4.2 million long tons (33.8%)
Soviet Far East - 8.2 million long tons (47.1%)
North Russia - 4 milliom long tons (22.7%)
Black Sea - 680,700 long tons (3.9%)
Soviet Artic - 452,000 long tons (2.5%)

The information comes from the tables at end of the official US Army History concerning the operation of the Persian Corridor.

Just a funny little note: I remember reading that the number of boots sent by allies to russia was in the millions. And to think the canucks in Italy were trading bully beef and cigs for boots from the civvies.

I just noticed that I no longer have any rank!! I hope it is not an omen for my career!!!

We meant to say something to you about it.

I went back and found the instructions for the site and fixed the problem. Amazing what you can do when you read th einstructions!!

Jeff-- much better, now tell us if Bin Laden goes to Gitmo or will he never be taken alive?
DJ

I knew we sent them tons of equipment, just didn't realize the true extent. Of course Soviet History didn't acknowlege any of this, I wonder if they've revised some of thier history books in the last decade.