BluecherForward

I sure hope we see it.

Thanks Aragorn 2002, Very interesting. Here is an excerpt from an interview Sokolov gave a Polish blog in 2014 (B.S. is Boris Sokolov): N: Up until this day the Russian Historians use the work of Nikolai Wozniesienski called „The War Economics of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War”. It was published in 1947 – in it, the Lend-Lease was not even mentioned. It was only said, that it accounted for 4% of the total production. In the Russian textbooks it is stated, that the whole Allied help accounted for 2% of artillery, 7% of tanks, 13% of combat aircraft and only 6% in cars.Those numbers do not shock at all. B.S: They are not true, because in the USSR the home production data was inflated. The data that showed the success of the Soviet Economy during the war and that said, that this was crucial for the victory, were just a propaganda tool to illustrate the dominance of socialism over capitalism. A lot of those lies are now deeply rooted in the war discourse. Let's take the cars (motor vehicles) as the example. If we count honestly, it turns out, that the Allied shipments accounted for not 6%, but 32% of the whole Soviet car production during the war. For the airplanes that number reached out to 25% of the whole production. Even if the numbers you gave me were true, the myth is still busted, since there is no mention of products, that were not weapons. N: Such as the famous tushonka meat preserve – the delight of the Red Army soldiers? B.S: For example. The preserve shipments constituted 20% of the total Soviet meat production. However, the most important were the raw materials. Aviation fuel. In 1941 r. the home production covered only 4% of the needs. Allied shipments are nearly 51% of the aviation fuel used in the Great Patriotic War, nearly 53% of gun powder and explosives. Non-ferrous metals – the help from the West is nearly 82% of copper, 90% of aluminum, 75% of nickel, 50% of lead. Without those raw materials the wartime industry is flat on it's belly. Moving on: railroad tracks – 83% of wartime USSR production, tyres and rubber – 43%, and there is still things like sugar, radiostations, armor plates, lathes, medicine... To end this discussion the most vital is the fact, that the Lend-Lease shipments helped greatly to support the resistance in the hardest year - 1942, when the whole technical potential of the Red Army from before 22nd of June 1941 ceased to exist and the evacuated factories were just beginning to return to the full capacity or were only now starting to produce new types of equipment. Without a shadow of a doubt, the USSR would have collapsed had it not been for the Lend-Lease. https://forum.warthunder.com/index.php?/topic/154367-an-interview-with-boris-sokolov/

Thanks - some interesting posts. Just thought it important to mention that Zhukov and Stalin both stated that Lend-Lease was essential to Soviet victory - that's enough for me.

This is especially true in light of the fact that the vast majority of the losses suffered by the Soviet Union in the initial months following the onset of Barbarossa (as well as later) resulted from Stalin and his cronies gross incompetence - like "no retreat" orders in the face of the German Blitzkrieg. In fact, a strong argument can be made that the Soviet Union was an unmitigated disaster from start to finish. Here is an interesting read for those interested in broadening their horizons:

Interesting perspective, but I'm going to go with Stalin, Krushchev, and Zhukov on this subject: "I would like to express my candid opinion about Stalin's views on whether the Red Army and the Soviet Union could have coped with Nazi Germany and survived the war without aid from the United States and Britain. First, I would like to tell about some remarks Stalin made and repeated several times when we were "discussing freely" among ourselves. He stated bluntly that if the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war." Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeevich; Khrushchev, Serge (2004). Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev: Commissar, 1918-1945. Penn State Press. pp. 638–639. Soviet Marshal G.K. Zhukov is quoted as saying: “Today [1963] some say the Allies didn’t really help us…But listen, one cannot deny that the Americans shipped over to us material without which we could not have equipped our armies held in reserve or been able to continue the war.” The Significance of the Allied Lend-Lease Program and Soviet Victory during the Second World War "Now they say that the allies never helped us, but it can't be denied that the Americans gave us so many goods without which we wouldn't have been able to form our reserves and continue the war," Soviet General Georgy Zhukov said after the end of WWII. "We didn’t have explosives, gunpowder. We didn’t have anything to charge our rifle cartridges with. The Americans really saved us with their gunpowder and explosives. And how much sheet steel they gave us! How could we have produced our tanks without American steel? But now they make it seem as if we had an abundance of all that. Without American trucks we wouldn’t have had anything to pull our artillery with." https://www.rbth.com/defence/2016/03/14/lend-lease-how-american-supplies-aided-the-ussr-in-its-darkest-hour_575559

So true JulianJ.

I was merely pointing out that the Soviets did not accomplish their victory on their own - as the Soviet propagandists implied for many years. It is indisputable that the lion's share of German forces were always deployed in the east. And "Europe" was not really liberated (unless you are referring to the period 1989-91) - one occupying terror regime simply replaced another in eastern Europe. Ironic that the British Commonwealth went to war originally to prevent Poland from being subjugated by Nazi Germany, but ended up acquiescing to Poland's subjugation by Stalin's Soviet Union.

Without Lend-Lease the Soviets would have lost - regardless of a Second Front. "Now they say that the allies never helped us, but it can't be denied that the Americans gave us so many goods without which we wouldn't have been able to form our reserves and continue the war," Soviet General Georgy Zhukov said after the end of WWII. "We didn’t have explosives, gunpowder. We didn’t have anything to charge our rifle cartridges with. The Americans really saved us with their gunpowder and explosives. And how much sheet steel they gave us! How could we have produced our tanks without American steel? But now they make it seem as if we had an abundance of all that. Without American trucks we wouldn’t have had anything to pull our artillery with." https://www.rbth.com/defence/2016/03/14/lend-lease-how-american-supplies-aided-the-ussr-in-its-darkest-hour_575559 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "By the end of June 1944 the United States had sent to the Soviets under lend-lease more than 11,000 planes; over 6,000 tanks and tank destroyers; and 300,000 trucks and other military vehicles... We have also sent to the Soviets about 350 locomotives, 1,640 flat cars, and close to half a million tons of rails and accessories, axles, and wheels, all for the improvement of the railways feeding the Red armies on the Eastern Front. For the armies themselves we have sent miles of field telephone wire, thousands of telephones, and many thousands of tons of explosives. And we have also provided machine tools and other equipment to help the Russians manufacture their own planes, guns, shells, and bombs. We have supplied our allies with large quantities of food. The Soviet Union alone has received some 3,000,000 tons." https://www.historians.org/about-aha-and-membership/aha-history-and-archives/gi-roundtable-series/pamphlets/em-13-how-shall-lend-lease-accounts-be-settled-(1945)/how-much-of-what-goods-have-we-sent-to-which-allies This is not even including the immense amount of material sent by The British Commonwealth. *All this being said, I would also like to see an updated Barbarossa, just would like to see Afrikakorps first.

I view the games as all part of one set - World War II European Theater. I have every WWII title/add-on and I am sure that I will purchase any new one that comes out.

Thanks for bringing this thread back to the main point. Have you ever tried The Operational Art of War IV? They have a map and set up similar to the old Avalon Hill Africa Corps board game. I am waiting for a sale, but I used to play TOAW III and enjoyed the Africakorps scenario. How about this one?

I hope you visited the Imperial War Museum Duxford, while you were there, very educational. The American Military Cemetery in Cambridge (also known as the Madingley Cemetery) is also an eye-opener. Then, of course, there is the famous Eagle Pub in Cambridge. "During World War II, RAF and American airmen used candles to burn graffiti of their names and nicknames on the pub’s ceiling during their evenings out. The graffiti was preserved and tourists visit the pub to catch a glimpse of this wartime form of art."

Sorry, but I don't agree with this. The U.S. had the preponderance of for forces in Theater. It controlled the greater sea lanes, albeit in very close - and effective partnership - with the Royal Navy. It was bombing Germany in cooperation with RAF Bomber Command (ever been to East Anglia?). The U.S. fielded many times the number of troops that the British Empire deployed in Northwest Europe in 1944-45 and should have had an interest in directly controlling the logistical train to the Continent. Then there was the massive Lend-Lease support to the British Commonwealth forces and nations - making British forces more dependent upon the U.S., than the other way around. Ask Winston, he was quite aware of U.S. material dominance of the alliance. So what happened? Basically, the British senior military leadership was more practiced at the art of staffing things - and had all the answers, for the most part, when it came to key meetings. The U.S. wanted to win the war - period - and then go home. The British, especially under Churchill, were interested in the long-term grand strategic impact of military decision-making. Remember, the British Empire was about to go to the aid of Finland in the Winter War with the Soviet Union (that is what the Narvik operation was originally about). I think Churchill knew who he was dealing with when negotiating with Stalin. I am not so sure that Roosevelt did. "During the early stages of World War II, the British and French Allies made a series of proposals to send troops to assist Finland against the Soviet Union in the Winter War, which started on 30 November 1939. The war was a consequence of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, which put Finland into the Soviet sphere of influence. The plans involved the transit of British and French troops and equipment through neutral Norway and Sweden." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-British_plans_for_intervention_in_the_Winter_War So while the Cold War came as a great disappointment to the United States, I do not think the general outlines of that falling out with Stalin were a great surprise to Winston Churchill. He was always thinking several steps down the road.

Here's the summary from the entry on the Amazon website - FYI: As director of the elite Foreign Counterintelligence Activity, author Stuart Herrington was the U.S. Army's top counterintelligence officer. In this thrilling and informative account he details one of the most damaging and delicate cases of espionage ever committed against the United States. Between 1972 and 1988, thousands of highly classified documents were sold to the Soviet Union and her Warsaw pact surrogates. They were secrets so sensitive that had war broken out in Central Europe, our ability to defend our NATO allies would have been seriously compromised. It was up to Herrington and his team to root out the elusive spy ring responsible for this treachery. An intriguing page-turner with more twists and turns than a spy novel, Traitors Among Us guides us through the intricate spy catcher's world of Cold War Berlin, showing us how the "game" was played when the stakes were as high as national survival.

Ende Gut, alles gut. Happy reading Aragorn2002! Have you heard of the book - Traitors Among Us? Fascinating true story of uncovering of spy ring in U.S. Army in Germany during the Cold War.

I was thinking that someone in New York might be willing to order the book for her and she could pick it up and bring it back with her.

I found it on ecampus.com for $27.72. I am not familiar with this website, but it accepts paypal, so I am thinking they must be legit. Might just be for students, not sure. Maybe your wife can ask somebody to order it for her from this site. Also found the book at biggerbooks.com for $27.00. Not familiar with this site either. The book is also available used on Amazon.com for $60.00 - hefty price tag for a used book, but still cheaper than most other places.

Just picked that one up myself - looking forward to reading it next.

Winston was a rare grand strategic thinker. Here is a very good book abut him that I can recommend. To understand what was happening to the British Empire at that time (taking the long view), I recommend this excellent work: Cheers and happy reading!

My point is that the British took the position along the coast - the U.S. forces agreed to take the inland position - without control of ports (later the U.S. established a Cold War position in Bremen/Bremerhaven, but this was not part of the original plan). Thus, the British controlled the port areas and the U.S. was dependent upon that control - even post-war. This meant that the U.S. would have a strong strategic interest in British stability even after the war was won. This was typical of Churchill's grand strategic outlook - trying to get as much out of the post-war world as he could, in spite of the British Empire's debilitated condition.

And this positioning was determined by the British desire to "hug the sea" on the advance to (and later occupation of) Germany. It put the United States in a dependent position on the British, who controlled the critical port areas to the north. One might see this development in the tradition of British engagement on the continent of Europe (a hedge against possible disaster), as a balance to the increasing dominance of the United States in the alliance, and/or as a "Sword of Damocles" over the Americans advancing/occupying to the south - to ensure that the British (controlling the coast) would remain strong and supported (both during and after the war). I see a lot of Winston Churchill in this.

Here's a link to that same guy doing a briefing on the Sherman tank: https://www.c-span.org/video/?433629-2/design-history-m4-sherman-tank-world-war-ii I don't know how to post the whole video as danfrodo did above.

Can't recall where I picked up this tidbit. I am hoping someone else is aware of this requirement and can chime in. I will do some thinking over where I read this. The idea, as I recall, was that the development of the Sherman was heavily influenced by the ability to optimize their loading, transport, and off-loading onto/off of Liberty ships and/or LSTs, which were then also under development.

Very good points and let's not forget that the multiple airborne assaults had been planned and cancelled, because the Wehrmacht was retreating faster than the Allies could catch up after the Normandy breakout.

Thanks General Jack Ripper.

If I recall correctly, the armor on the sides of U.S. tanks (not just the Sherman) was not sloped so that the tanks could be loaded, fitted into place, and unloaded more efficiently on/from ships. This factor was something that land-powers like Germany and the USSR did not have to be concerned about as much.