the US & UK merely assisted Russia in WW2

[deadb_tch]

Originally Posted by smc

It would not with Churchill, however, during the debacle at Dunkirk there was one last attempt by a group of appeasers who coalesced around the figure of Lord Halifax to seek terms and exit the war. This all happened at a two day stormy cabinet meeting in May 1940. Halifax lost and would become British ambassador to the US later that year, a typical British maneouvre where Halifax would not lose face in being givien this post but at the same time be far enough away from any other attempts to be used as a focal point for the remaining appeasers.

thnx smc, so, we became to point where we can say that UK could not accept the truce with Churchill wich means for me that UK could not accept the truce at all. Can we put in this question a dot?

[4th wilts]

i knew there were lots of trucks sent via lend-lease,i have been looking at my lads old school atlas today,although its metric.difficult to work out how far stalingrad to berlin is,but i reckon the soviets were very glad they got those trucks.i never knew they were given that many,my god.yours,lee.

[freebird]

Originally Posted by Gotthard Heinrici

Well said., with one exception. In 1941 the spring was an unusually wet one. The invasion would have been caught up in the Spring thaw in which roads were mud rivers etc. It couldnt have gone any earlier than it did. But a fine post nonetheless!!!

I believe that March and April were wetter, but May and June were typical, is this correct? Hitler had originally planned an invasion about 2 months earlier, it was the Balkans affair that disrupted this. I think an invasion even 6 or 7 weeks earlier would have been devastating, as with more troops & aircraft the first 3 months would have been even worse for the Russians. It took about 4 months for the Germans to approach Moscow/Leningrad/Rostov, (late June - late October) so if the Germans could get this far in 3 months, (with the extra troops etc), if they launched early May, they could approach Moscow/Leningrad/Rostov in mid August instead. Big difference!

[freebird]

Originally Posted by deadb_tch

First of all guys I am becoming to idea to consider such threads like provocation and u know what have been done with provokers at war. Sorry if I have offenced someone but I'm little bit tired of this discussions that have no end and have no future.
The second is that how could UK accept the truce with Churchill, ah? Please explain me.

Yes I believe his attempt may have been provocation, however most of us do not get offended easily (I hope). I have asked him how he thinks Russia could have survived with No help from UK/US, including tying down a 40% of the German/Italian divisions in 1941. He seems to be unable to answer me....

Originally Posted by smc

It would not with Churchill, however, during the debacle at Dunkirk there was one last attempt by a group of appeasers who coalesced around the figure of Lord Halifax to seek terms and exit the war. This all happened at a two day stormy cabinet meeting in May 1940. Halifax lost and would become British ambassador to the US later that year, a typical British maneouvre where Halifax would not lose face in being givien this post but at the same time be far enough away from any other attempts to be used as a focal point for the remaining appeasers.

Originally Posted by deadb_tch

thnx smc, so, we became to point where we can say that UK could not accept the truce with Churchill wich means for me that UK could not accept the truce at all. Can we put in this question a dot?

No Db_t, it is not the same in UK as in Russia, (or even in the USA). In the US the President stays in power for 4 years (barring impeachment). In the UK (Canada, Australia, NZ too) if the Prime Minister (ie Churchill) loses a confidence vote in the house even by one vote that is the end of the Government. It does not seem possible now, but at the time Churchill's position was far from secure.

There are at least 3 scenarios that could result in a neutral UK in 1941

1.) {worst case} The Nazi's successfully invade Britain in 1940, removing them as a threat to Nazi Europe (perhaps UK might have a "vichy" government, Churchill flees to Canada)

2.) The Commons votes to accept a truce with Germany, even over Churchill's objections.

3.) A German attack against the south coast is repulsed, however with huge losses to the Royal Navy. The House might realize that the Germans could try again, but the Navy can't be easily replaced. Many in the Commons would not want to fight it out with Hitler, if it meant an end to Britain's Navy & colonial empire.

[Trincomalee]

The thought that has been going through my head as I read on this thread , is that I heard someone say somewhere , that Churchill and the British generals , because of their WW1 experiences , couldn't bring themselves to contemplate the sort of casualty numbers that the Russians suffered .
Yet there were still so many men lost , for example , on the Arctic convoys . And throughout the world .

Just everlasting gratitude to everyone who did fight and prevail .

[Christos]

I would actually like to post my two cents worth.....


Looking at the figures of vehicles and weapons, raw materials and supplies that went to aid the Spviets, I can come to no other conclusion than that it was a team effort.....just look at the number of willys Jeeps (63,000....fully 10% of total war output)....and 465,000 six wheeled prime mover trucks......amongst others.....What these prized equipment consignments did was to allow Russian factories to pull out all stops and continue to produce armoured fighting vehicles at the eventual rate of over 2,000 units a month (the T-34)....This is production on a scale that German factories, lacking fully automated production techniques at this stage, just could not match, (something Speer tried to rectify without succeeding.)..

It is highly questionable whether Russia's industrial output could have coped with having to build all these other ancilliary vehicles as well as the massive amounts of tanks and SP guns they turned out....highly questionable...

And that leads me to conclude that Soviet victory was NOT POSSIBLE WITHOUT LEND LEASE.......you may throw tomatoes, but the figures speak for themselves....and don't forget, the Allies were supplying Russia in the Winter of 1941, when their own factories were being relocated and turning out NOTHING......

SO...CONCLUSION......TEAM EFFORT to beat the Germans.....This was a scenario that Imperial Russia tried to see to conclusion in the Great War....Failure at Gallipoli changed all that, and resulted in Russia's surrender....in fact Norman Dixon in his book attributes Russian Great War collapse and Revolution to a failure to provide sufficient rolling stock to tranport food for the civilian population, taken up as it was by the immence FODDER consumption for the many cavary units the old Imperial Army operated....and they were a spent force by late 1916....

TEAM EFFORT FOR WWII....maybe some of you have other figures for numbers of tanks and vehicles delivered mto Soviets, and raw materials....and the 150 TONS of officers Gold Braid that they requested in early 1943.....all these things could NOT be supplied by native Russian industry......comments?

[Christos]

Alex.....where are you?

[BulgarianSoldier]

Firstly, Hello again to everybody :P
Secondly as a bulgarian, and a man who LOVE russian people and Russia, i should say that soviet red army did the biggest damage to the german army. The Reich didn't like slavianinc race at all so they killed, rape etc. while there advance deeper in Soviet Union.So the war betwen Russia and Germany become personal.
But the other allies have fought really hard and pay with millions of human lives.I aways hate when somebody says someting a bit like that " We won the war not our allys, they just fight there but we were the main power", T-34 such words are disrespectful to any of the veterans in the forum who risked there life, its offending for people who have grandfathers or fathers who were fighting against the nazis.

Dani

[Harry Ree]

The 465.000 six wheeled prime mover trucks included as I have seen the statistic as "over 400.000 US General Motors 24 ton lorries supplied to the Soviet Union under Lend Lease.This vehicle became the mainstay of supply logistics of the Allies on the Western and Eastern fronts.

The German thrust into Russia depended on the usual road supply lines but there was a distinct lack of metalled roads in prewar Russia. Moreover the use of the Russian railway system had a disavantage to the invader in that the Russian railway gauge was wider than the German, meaning that conversion operations had to be introduced in order for German forces to use the railways as part of a supply chain.

But these are single elements in the overall contribution to the defeat of German forces on the Eastern Front.

Incidentally Speer 's reorganisation of German war industry on his intial appointment of liaison between German industry and the High Command exceeded US output at one stage.

[Christos]

I think I did emphasize the word TEAM effort.....One of Stalin's comments provided by an earlier person have already made the point.....

But TEAM EFFORT , in my view, is the key...