Lend-Lease Considerations for When We Get Kursk

[John Kettler]

In reading Zamulin's excellent (but DU dense in info) Demolishing The Myth groundbreaking study of Prokhorvka, I came across quite the Lend-Lease bombshell. Though you'd never know it from the aggregate of Russian imagery taken during the battle, of Kursk, in some sectors, the LL contingent was enormous. Table 2 (page 42) shows 6th Guards Army's tank force was composed of 43% LL tanks, split 26.1% for M3 Stuart (44 tanks) and 20.2%for M3 Lee (32 operational & 2 in repair). By way of contrast, the T-34 was 38% (56 operational and 8 in repair). Recommend, therefore, that careful consideration be given when writing scenarios to depicting this massive LL tank fraction in situations where this and other units have LL tanks. Never in my wildest speculations have expected to see LL tanks constitute a higher percentage of the tank force than the T-34.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Aragorn2002]

6 hours ago, John Kettler said:

In reading Zamulin's excellent (but DU dense in info) Demolishing The Myth groundbreaking study of Prokhorvka, I came across quite the Lend-Lease bombshell. Though you'd never know it from the aggregate of Russian imagery taken during the battle, of Kursk, in some sectors, the LL contingent was enormous. Table 2 (page 42) shows 6th Guards Army's tank force was composed of 43% LL tanks, split 26.1% for M3 Stuart (44 tanks) and 20.2%for M3 Lee (32 operational & 2 in repair). By way of contrast, the T-34 was 38% (56 operational and 8 in repair). Recommend, therefore, that careful consideration be given when writing scenarios to depicting this massive LL tank fraction in situations where this and other units have LL tanks. Never in my wildest speculations have expected to see LL tanks constitute a higher percentage of the tank force than the T-34.

Regards,

John Kettler

Also read Myths and Legends of the Eastern Front: Reassessing the Great Patriotic War by Boris Sokolov. He has some interesting things to say about the Eastern front in general and LL in particular. Not all his arguments are convincing, but he makes some good points. His opinion is that without LL Soviet-Russia would have been lost.

[John Kettler]

Aragorn2002,

In the long LL thread, I produced a direct quote from Khrushchev: "Without Lend-Lease, the Red Army would've starved." He was in a position to know, since he was Stalin's special envoy to the Front commanders. Zhukov said the Red Army wouldn't have been able to produce the weapons it needed without US explosives, steel, machine. tools and other things I don't presently recall. Again, here is a person who would know.

Regards,

John Kettler