Lend Lease to Russia

[Stalins Organ]

The most complete list of items I've seen yet, including quantities of materials such as exposives, tolulene and 100-octane avgas:

http://www.wargamer.com/articles/lldocefx.asp

Mike

[Grisha]

Yes, it is a very good list, though I cannot agree with their conclusions.

[offtaskagain]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Grisha:

Yes, it is a very good list, though I cannot agree with their conclusions.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If lend lease didn't win the war, then how would Koniev have launched the offensive on Berlin with only 3000 home-grown trucks for an entire Russian front? And where the raw materials for half of those trucks come from?

[Stalins Organ]

Hmmm...which conlucion(s) do you disagree with:

-that the russians generally didn't like western tanks

-that the 2/3rds of trucks used by Russia that were of western origin were important to the final victory

-that the timing of most lend lease in 1942 was opportune

-or that the 50+% of Russian explosives sourced from the west prevented ammo shortages that might have proved "embarassing"?

[JasonC]

The items in the list that the author of the article does not seem to appreciate, is the amount of railroad transportation equipment, and the raw industrial products - steel, copper, aluminum, rubber.

The Russians lost large portions of their rolling stock and locomotives in 1941. The railroad network the Germans used was a different gauge, and they systematically tore up and relaid the rail lines through captured areas - quite a slow process.

Logistical "leap" distances set the limits on sizes of advances in the east. Only rail provided efficient bulk supply on an east-west axis. The rivers could suppliment it, but only north-south for the most part. There were not nearly enough roads in Russia to make complete dependence on trucks an adequate solution, and trucks burn fuel in large quantities compared to the loads they can carry, if operated over large distances.

The trucks ran from railhead to units. When the front line was far from the railhead - as it always was for an advancer after an advance - the fuel demand just to truck forward other forms of supply skyrockets. That leaves little in the way of fuel for gas-guzzling tanks, which get 1/2 to 1 mile per gallon.

More trucks could indeed stretch the "tether", by providing more "thruput" to the front - though less and less as the distance increases. But they could not supply an new offensive, with its need for full refuelings, reserve stocks, dumps of millions of shells, etc. Only rail could, and the lines had to be reworked close to the new fron before another "step" could be taken.

And rebuilding massive rail networks (more than 12000 miles relaid, and 6000 new miles of completely new track), and running hundreds of trains over them, is not an easy or cheap thing to do. It would have taken a significant portion of Russia's industrial capacity. By providing so much of the equipment and materials for this, Russian industry was freed to concentrate on tanks and aircraft. And the steel and aluminum for that, was also provided in quantity.

The thing to understand overall, is the fungibility of most goods to an industrial economy. It does not make much sense to say, "if they didn't get this, they wouldn't have had trucks", for instance. They would have had less, but they would have decided where that "less" fell.

It makes more sense to look at the total wealth, assuming that it is in a useful form and replaces other equal efforts. Conversions of wartime outputs are not perfect, but an economist's estimate of the value of Russian armament expenditure for the war is on the order of $90 billion, in US dollars at the time, out of total government expenditure of about twice that amount, $180B. US armaments expenditure was $185B, out of a total war program expense of $316B. UK armaments output was on the order of $50B, the whole war program higher, again.

The biggest lend-lease trade was between the US and the UK, rather than between those and Russia. Britain provided ~$5.5B in transfers to the US (especially ship repairs, and oil); about $20B went the other way (some to other parts of the commonwealth, direct). The US sent around $10B to Russian direct. Britain then transfered some to Russia too, of course. Net, around $25B left the US, and around half of it stayed in the UK while around half went to Russia. That was around 8% of US war output.

Now, all told that means the Russians only got around 7% of their wartime government budget, by value, from lend-lease. Some of the other expenses in their budget were hardly optional. It is likely that all of the value transfered in lend-lease went straight to added armaments, which would put the proportion at more like 14%, or 1/7th.

It is unlikely the Germans would have held out simply because the Russians made 6/7ths as many tanks and planes and shells. "But the west supplied half the ammo". Yeah, but you can make a lot more ammo if your aren't putting your effort into making so many tanks. They would have had less ammo and fewer tanks, both. But not, "half".

It is possible some of the items were of considerably higher value to the Russians than to the US and UK - perhaps enough more valuable, that 1/5 of Russian armament output was involved, by value. But that is the range we are talking about - 14-20%.

Incidentally, economists have estimated the amount of their government expenditure the Germans got from exploitation of occupied territories, at about 7% of their whole war program. A similar figure to the boost Russian got from lend-lease.

Now, if Germany had mobilized her own economy fully in 1941, that is a different story. But they didn't. And that had as big, or bigger an impact than lend-lease.

If you take German armaments production and shift a year to the left, then level off at the 1944 level, the net result of 1 year sooner mobilization, is to add 1 year at the 1944 rate of output, and drop one at the pre-mobilization rate of output. You pick up 1 year's worth of the difference. In armaments overall, German production rose 3.3 times over that period, so the pick-up is 2.2 times the pre-mobilization output for a year. German output would have been around 20% higher if she had mobilized a year earlier. In fact, full mobilization did not occur until after Stalingrad, which was 18 months after the invasion, 2 years after the war decision, and 1 year after the failure to take Moscow the first year.

In Germany had mobilized a year earlier and Russian didn't get any lend-lease, then Russia probably would have lost. The two things are comparable in effect, and lend-lease is actually probably somewhat smaller. Just one of them, I think a stalemate in 43 or 44 would have been possible, but with Russia having the upper hand, slightly. That part is admittedly a guess.

[Mr. Johnson--]

Anyone ever see that made for HBO movie that was a what if Germany and Russia had a war going for 15 years on the eastern front and the other allies signed a peace treaty?

[Pvt.Tom]

No, sounds cool, what's the name of the movie? The funnest part of the Lend Lease info is that we sent them our crappy torpedoes, Hee Hee Hee.

[offtaskagain]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Pvt.Tom:

No, sounds cool, what's the name of the movie? The funnest part of the Lend Lease info is that we sent them our crappy torpedoes, Hee Hee Hee.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If they thought our tanks sucked, I would really love to hear their opinions of our torpedoes if they ever used them. Probably just took out the explosives and fuel for other uses and recycled the bodies.

[russellmz]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Pvt.Tom:

No, sounds cool, what's the name of the movie? The funnest part of the Lend Lease info is that we sent them our crappy torpedoes, Hee Hee Hee.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

fatherland

[Stalins Organ]

Jason you post some interesting "what if's", well reasoned and cogent, but they are still speculation.

The author of the article looked at what DID happen, and how much lend lease helped that along.....so he's got in infinite advantage over your own position IMO!!

[WWB]

One thing I have read is the one item which the Russians appreciated most was waterproof telephone wire. Apparently they had quality control issues (big suprise), and with telephone wire, either it is or is not waterproof. The American stuff was.

WWB

[Maastrictian]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mike the bike:

Jason you post some interesting "what if's", well reasoned and cogent, but they are still speculation.

The author of the article looked at what DID happen, and how much lend lease helped that along.....so he's got in infinite advantage over your own position IMO!! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Both Jason and the author make a lot of deductions from the facts. I think Jason makes some very good arguements.

Any discussion of how much effect something had is inherently speculational and judgemental. You have to, as Jason did, think about how things would have been had the given factor not been present and attempt to judge how much affect the given factor had. I would remind you that correlation is not caustation and just because the western powers gave equipment to the USSR doesn't mean that that equipment had any effect, let alone that it was decisive (I would obviously argue for a middle ground).

So, in other words, I don't think your critisisms are valid.

--Chris

[Stalins Organ]

Chris the best that yuo can say about speculation is that it is...well....speculative.

The original author, and 2/3rds of its truck and significant amounts of rail resource weer obtained from the West. He says that these weer extremely important to the final result. These are facts andcannot be argued with - because there IS a causal relationship and we can see it.

IMO Jason's speculation is one person't opinion as to what might have happened if things had been otherwise. It is very interesting and thought provoking, but it's like comparing some of the WW3 novels of the late 1980's with the actual history of the world through the 1990's - interesting but fantasy.

Mike

[The Commissar]

What makes me wonder is how the authors says at the end of the article, and I quote, "without Lend-Lease the Soviet Union would probably have only been able to liberate its own territory by the time the Allies eventually defeated Germany."

If Soviets finished with the war business after they liberated their territory, which would probably consist of everything up to the half of Poland which they gained before the war, how successful would the Allies be?

Now I need a historian on this (that's your que, Jason ) to tell me how much men Germany lost/would have probably lost by that time.

Im not guessing it would have been as much without those massive Soviet offensives. Furthermore, if Soviets did not push on, Germany would not have been pressured, and this would have allowed it to relocate men and material to the West.

Also, Berlin would have not been sacked and Hitler would not have killed himself this early. In fact, morale in Germany would be much higher then it was originally.

Im thinking the Western allies would have a hard time with D-Day if this was the case. Im guessing an extra, oh I dont know, 50 German devisions in Europe (all with experience fighting the Russians) would have shifted the balance and pushed the US/Brit forces back into the ocean.

Also, can someone tell me 2 dates:

1) When do you think the USSR would have regained its original territory?

2) When were the Axis finally pushed out of Africa?

Im thinking if the Soviets stoped fighting soon enough, Rommel would have gotten some much needed aid.

All in all, I dont completely agree with this author either. Sure, lend lease was important, but I still think offensives would have been made and the war continued. The Soviets would not just stop fighting all of a sudden. Their industry would have been sufficiently strong by that time.

If they did, the rest of the Allies would have been screwed. I dont think the Allies would have the "balls" to invade mainland Europe if Germany had more troops there then it did in real life.

Of course this is all "what if?" bulls@it, so Ill stop now.

My 2 cents.

[Runyan99]

Considering that the Russians never developed a good handheld anti-tank weapon, I find it very curious that we never sent them the bazooka.

Can you imagine how much tougher the Russian infantry would have been with bazookas? Can you guess how many tanks they could have knocked out in Stalingrad with bazookas?

Why didn't we send them??

[Grisha]

As Jason & Chris have stated, it really is just speculation as to whether Lend Lease was a decisive factor in the Soviet victory over Germany. While Greg & Ralph have put together a fine article that was well researched it is impossible to state conclusively <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Was Lend-Lease the factor that enabled the Soviets to win their war with Germany? A qualified yes.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I have read from well respected historians like Glantz and Overy who have pretty much stated doubts as whether Lend Lease had this level of decisiveness. Also, when one reads more about Soviet operational art and how it had matured in WWII, one comes away with a sense of awe at the depth of their combat abilities. In the end, all that can be said conclusively is that the Soviet Union was better at their method of war than the Third Reich.

[ 05-08-2001: Message edited by: Grisha ]

[K_Tiger]

I say it again....the most important thing was Lend-Lease food...The germans held the most and best farmland of russia...and that was the reason why stalin send two times diplomates with a peace "threatment"?? <..hmm right word?? but AH sayed no....If he accept it...the war would be over..

Runy@

No Baz in 42....the other point was, the russians decide, they hade enougth tanks...so they dont need em.

Grisha@

I dont think so..without any help from outside, russia would lost the war...her luck was AH...the worst leader of all times..

The space here isnt enougth to list all mistakes he made. For example: Stalingrad was a true win... 9/10 was in german hands. Dunno who asked (Paulus??) about 2 good or 4 normal divisions to conquer the rest but AH was thinking that the allied land in 42 in france. 39 Divisions were deployed in france 4 of the best divisions too. We must say, this was a indirekt help from the allies.

And to the superior T34 Tanks...did someone know, that they was build with german machines? or early at guns up to the 45mm..direkt copys from the 37mm.

[Paul Lakowski]

according to Dunns Soviet Economy and the Red Army 1930-1945,

Total track in use

1941 74,000 km track

1942 62,900 km track

1943 81,646 km track

1944 106,000 km track

1945 112,868 km track

In 1941 German captured only 15% of the rolling stock but most of the locomotives escaped.About 25,000 locomotives were thought to be in use in late 1941 and 3/4 million freight cars.This explains why they were able to spirit away the industries to the east of the urals. Through out the war the stock of locomotives and freight cars remained more or less the same ...so the production and lend lease replaced most losses.

It seems the locomotive factories were converted to tank production so most of the replacements came from America.But this total is only 1981 trains and 11,155 freight cars. While in 1943 Russians produced 2000 trains and 56,000 freight cars in 1943 by themselves.

So in this area Lend Lease was a help but they could have managed with out it.

Trucks 379,903[65% of total ] plus 35,170 cars and 35,170 motorcycles sent along with 12,755 tanks [ 11% total ]and 22,206 planes [20%]

Russian total truck production was only

205,000..... so this represented only 1/3 of the total trucks sent to them [205,000/584,900]

The truckage was important since wagon based covoys could only average 60km between depot [rail head] and destination [ divisional]truck based convoys could average 300kms from the rail heads.

As the Russians pushed back to their boarders it became increasingly difficult to rely on trains as these had to be converted back from German to Russian gauge.

In the end Lend lease didn't alter the out come of the war it shortened it for the Russians...how ever as they are inclinded to point out a "second front" would have shortened the war a whole lot faster!

[JasonC]

"The author of the article looked at what DID happen"

He engages in speculation about "what if they didn't have lend-lease", and has to in the nature of the case, to arrive at his conclusion about its importance. Nothing wrong with that. Your finding a difference on that subject between him and me seems rather forced. We are both doing the same thing.

I hardly recognized my own comments in your comment on them, incidentally. I spent at least half my post discussing the reason the rail aid was important, as things happened.

But it seems to me the rest of your "objection", if that is what it is, is a simple denial or avoidance of a point every economist recognizes. I stated it thus -

"The thing to understand overall, is the fungibility of most goods to an industrial economy. It does not make much sense to say, "if they didn't get this, they wouldn't have had trucks", for instance. They would have had less, but they would have decided where that "less" fell."

It is saying what did happen, to say the Russians only received 7% of their government budget during the war, by value, in lend-lease. Nothing in the least "what-if" about it.

If anyone wants to conclude from their getting 400,000 trucks by lend-lease, that if they hadn't received lend-lease they would not have been able to launch large-scale offensives, then they are the ones engaging in what-if speculation. They are speculating that the Russians wouldn't have had enough trucks, in a hypothetical situation that did not actually occur.

And in that situation many things would change. One thing that would change, is fewer trucks rolling off ships in Murmansk. Another thing that would change, is more trucks rolling out of factories in Gorki. Why? Because the usefulness of another "N" trucks would have been higher, compared to the usefulness of another light tank made in Gorki, than was the case in the actual event, with more lend-lease trucks available. To trace out how fewer trucks arriving would have effected the Russian war economy, is a hypothetical "what-if" any way you try to slice it.

The statements "getting so many US trucks made it easier for the Russians to launch large offensives", is a statement about an "easier". That "easier" refers to a "harder". The harder is a hypothetical. It is as much a "what if" conclusion as anything I talked about. And formally, it is about the same thing to say, "the Russians would have had to build more trucks themselves, so they would have had less of other things like tanks and airplanes", as to say ""harder".

The only difference is that one or two ordinary economic points - fungibility of output in an industrial economy, and diminishing returns of value according to prior quantity in hand - have also been noticed in the "what if", comparison case, that any "harder" or "easier" claim tacitly makes use of.

In fact, you can't make claims about causes, without use of such comparisons. The only estimate of the effect of a cause is how something "runs" with it operating, and would "run" without it operating. In history, that always involves hypotheticals (or comparisons to similar but not identical cases), because one thing happens.

Back to the economic point. Everything that went into the existing Soviet war program was useful to them. They planned the things they made, to mesh with the other things they made, received; the allocations of personnel likewise, between farming and factory work and riflemen, etc. They picked a mix of things, partially by making requests about what to receive in lend-lease or setting priorities there, mostly by their own production decisions.

From their point of view, requesting something from the Allies was a substitute for the resources needed to make some copy or substitute domestically. Every such delivery therefore freed capacity, which they could apply to the next most urgent task in their mix or plan.

Deciding how much of each thing is needed, to free capacity for other urgent tasks, is exactly what planning is in the first place. It is how economies are directed (by consumers through a price system, or boards in a war-economy situation - both are directed at exactly that problem).

The article writer's conclusion is that the Russians would only have "cleared their territory", if they had 7% less government output available by value (perhaps 14% or slightly more of armaments). Which obviously means he too thinks the Russians would be winning by 44-45, in order to do that much. He does not say, at all, that they would have lost, and I quite agree with him on that.

I added the war mobilization point, because it is the most notorious and massive error in the whole German conduct of the war. I am hardly the first to point this out. I simply showed by reasoning that it was a bigger effect than lend-lease or its absence - comparable in magnitude, somewhat bigger.

I do not doubt that some will instantly jump down the throat of anyone who says so, over anything they can find to disagree about. Because, of course, it implies that German arrogance and the sort of stupidity that stems from excessive pride, had more to do with their defeat in the east, even than western aid to Russia.

This offends anyone who thinks pride isn't a weakness; also those interested in contempt toward the Russians (which was the exact error in question); also defenders of Germany against charges of idiocy in strategy; or those committed to the "overwhelmed by 10:1 odds worth of ignorant peons" fantasy.

Incidentally, in my opinion Germany would not have won the war even if they had held out in Russia, achieving a stalemate there in 1943-44. They still would have lost the air war in the west, as they did. And the atom bombs would still have been ready by August or around then. Germany wasn't anywhere near getting them. If the Russians hadn't taken Berlin, it would have been incinerated, instead of Hiroshima. The whole war might have had a far ghastlier ending, but hardly a different one as to the eventual winners.

[JasonC]

"So in this area Lend Lease was a help but they could have managed with out it."

Useful info, and pretty darn convincing on the trains. I notice of 25k "stock", +2k each homebuilt and imported, the imports wind up ~7% of the total. About the same as the portion of the whole Russian government budgets added by lend-lease. I agree, that is not anything like a decisive amount.

I did not know they had so many locomotives operating, and without serious loss in 1941. I was under the impression the rolling-stock losses were serious, but on your figures for the amount they had, it could not have been.

Rebuilding track, you don't really address though. The totals relaid are, in your figures, 10s of thousands of km. And in addition, gauge changes were needed over track that changed hands. Overall, though, I accept your general conclusion, "useful, but could have done without it."

I also agree with the "shortened" point, about the overall effect.

[Stalins Organ]

Jason I didn't try to argu your facts or conclusions because I don't know the facts, and I thougth your conclusions interesting.

However I dislike "what if" scenarios being used for argument against history because the "what if" can never be proved.

As for the 7% figure that's been reached - yuo argue that it's just dollars and therefore a $ provided by the west for, say, explosives, freeed up a $ for the USSR to spend on, say, tanks.

Is this true?

For example the report notes that the USSR simply didn't have the natural resources to produce some of the material required - they could not produce water-proof telephone cable apparently (for example), and were short on the raw materials for explosives.

So it seems to me that one of the effcts of this is that it allowed the Russians a bit of lee-way to pick and choose where they would put their productino effort.

For example if they didn't have thousands of tons of western rail for thier tracks they might have had to produce not only fewer tanks, but perhaps those they did make would ahve to be smaller - many more T-60's or T-70's instead of T-34's perhaps (which is exactly the sort of speculation I hate, because it's unproveable and unarguable!)

Also it seems to me that 7% is quite a huge amount - it would be a national disaster if production of any state fell by 7% in a year, let alone a sustained loss of so much over 4 years.

And lastly you make no effort to address the point that much of the aid came in 42 and 43 when the Russians weer NOT ramped up as much as they weer later on, and was therefoer a higher % of the total in the years when it was really needed.

[JasonC]

"the most important thing was Lend-Lease food"

Food was useful, especially because much of what was sent was in imperishable form, and thus useful as army rations. But the total amount was ~5 million tons, and the population of Russia was ~150 million people, while the war lasted 4 years. Do the math - that is 16 2/3rds pounds of food per person per *year*. 5 oz a week. While a useful suppliment, especially given the quite real scarities the Russians faced, it is not like lend-lease feed the Russian population.

Otherwise put, it might feed 5-10% of the population, and thereby lift much of the direct burden of feeding the army off the economy's back. But it did not feed the whole population.

Not that anything else did, either - near famine conditions were indeed widespread. The point is, yes the food situation was critical, but no, lend-lease food was not abundant enough to come near making up for the huge falls in Soviet farm output occasioned by the war.

Incidentally, while the Germany thought they would get great quantities of food from the Ukraine, in practice the methods used to enforce collections reduced output enourmously, feed the occupying army, and yielded little in the way of net exports to Germany. Germany got more food imports from Russia in 1940 under the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact than it got under occupation in 1941 or 1943; in 1942 the amount sent to Germany was 42% above 1940 trade levels. The average for 1941-1943 was 7% lower than the voluntary imports of 1940.

Denmark supplied more food to Germany regularly, than the Ukraine did under occupation. So did France, where the method used was payment in inflating currency instead of direct requisitions. Italy was also close, at least at the exchange rates given them. Germany's own harvest was 7 times as large as the total extracted in the Ukraine in each of the full harvest under occupation, including that used by the occupying German troops, rather than exported to Germany.

[JasonC]

"As for the 7% figure that's been reached - you argue that it's just dollars and therefore a $ provided by the west for, say, explosives, freed up a $ for the USSR to spend on, say, tanks. Is this true?"

Sorta, but not quite. The LL aid was 7% of the total of the Russian government budgets for the war period. I allowed a higher impact - I estimated 14-20% - on armaments or relevant war potential, and I gave 2 reasons why.

First, some of the expenses were fixed, immoveable, not truly related to the war directly. Armaments expenditure was half the bugdet. All of LL wasn't armaments - raw materials and industrial products were a fair portion - but that might double the impact, I allowed.

And I also allowed about, "maybe ~half again", effect, for the higher value the goods might have had to the Russians, than their own output might have had. That is a general "trade-related gains", sort of point. It is a general rule that swapping what somebody really wants will help him a big more than just giving him an indefinite "anything".

The reason it isn't a huge number, though, is if he doesn't get it he can decide among of lot of different things to give up, and try to choose the least important one. So, maybe he picks 10% fewer Yak-9 fighters, because he thinks those are less essential than tanks, or whatever.

As for waterproof cable, I think that is being overblown a tad. If you look at the figure the guy gave, it was 2 million feet - not miles, the usual measure for commo wire, but feet. In miles that is less than 400. For high priority things - HQ to HQ e.g.? - maybe it helped them. It couldn't have been anything like enough to string from FOs to batterys in lots of places.

"it seems to me that 7% is quite a huge amount - it would be a national disaster if production of any state fell by 7%"

Um, the invasion of the USSR by the Germans was a national disaster on a scale we can scarcely dream about. Overall economic output fell 34% between 1940 and 1942. Armaments production doubled, anyway. How? They shifted priorities; output of consumer goods ceased; they ran off capital - not replacing worn or used up things, eating the livestock, etc; civilians went barefoot; the old and infirm starved to death. In the areas still under Russian control - in the occupied areas it was even worse. They got another 27% increase in armaments production out of the economy by 1944, by which time they had recovered from 2/3rds of the initial fall in output. 20 million people died. Russian output in some sectors did not reach pre-war levels until the 1950s.

It wasn't a recession. It was victory or death.

[GriffinCheng+]

Jason,

So you are pointing that the whole Hitler's obsession of Ukraine throughout the whole war was such an stupid mistake. Interesting pov. To me, the whole invasion of Soviet Union was a stupid mistake, the polices to the Salvs made it worse and the failure to take Moscow in 1941 spelled the doom.

I agree German would eventually lose the war against the Soviets, with or without the LL. What I think if US-British was not "colaberating" with Stalin, the Cold War might not have started, or may be postponed.

Griffin.

[Stalins Organ]

Only the 50's Jason? that's not bad - the UK had rationing until the 50's I believe - maybe there are some lister's who could confirm that?

I'm not hung up on the cable issue - I use it only as an example of items that the USSR simply may have had to do without - as you say, the western equipment may have been of higher quality and s simply not available if it wasn't given under LL.

the next most complete list I've sen lists a steel rolling mill and aluminium smelters (I think - haven't looked at it for a while) among the lend lease that are not included here (at least I didn't notice them).

Also I wonder whether the decision would have been to cut back on Yak-9's - the extra plywood wouldn't help make tanks or sub-machineguns, and the engine plant couldn't turn out tank engines anyway (steel block vs Aluminium). Maybe the savings would have been not to start work on the Yak 9 at all, and make do with Yak 7's (or alternatively not to start the LaGG-3 or -5, or the Yak-3 which came later than the 9, etc).

You say that LL may have had a "real" value of 14-20% of Russian economy......so now 1/7th to 1/5th isn't important? When does a fraction become important?

Lastly I don't understand your point about the invasion being a disaster. Of course it was...but I don't see that taking another 7 or 14-20% of production out of the Soviet System can be written off as having no great effect because of that?

[ 05-09-2001: Message edited by: Mike the bike ]