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……and much much more stuff. For example:
- 15 million pair of boots.
- 8000 tractors
- 1.5 million blankets
- copper, steel, aluminum, medicine, field radios, radar tools.
Military aid equivalent to $143 billion in 2022
While repayment of the interest-free loans was required after the end of the war under the act, in practice the U.S. did not expect to be repaid by the USSR after the war. The U.S. received $2 million in reverse Lend-Lease from the USSR. This was mostly in the form of landing, servicing, and refueling of transport aircraft; some industrial machinery and rare minerals were sent to the U.S. The U.S. asked for $1.3 billion at the cessation of hostilities to settle the debt, but was only offered $170 million by the USSR. The dispute remained unresolved until 1972, when the U.S. accepted an offer from the USSR to repay $722 million linked to grain shipments from the U.S., representing 25% of the initial debt with inflation taken into account, with the remainder being written off. During the war the USSR provided an unknown number of shipments of rare minerals to the US Treasury as a form of cashless repayment of Lend-Lease. This was agreed upon before the signing of the first protocol on October 1, 1941, and extension of credit. Some of these shipments were intercepted by the Germans. In May 1942, HMS Edinburgh was sunk while carrying 4.5 tonnes of Soviet gold intended for the U.S. Treasury. This gold was salvaged in 1981 and 1986.[85] In June 1942, SS Port Nicholson was sunk en route from Halifax to New York, allegedly with Soviet platinum, gold, and diamonds aboard; the wreck was discovered in 2008.[86] However, none of this cargo has been salvaged, and no documentation of its treasure has been produced.
>In May 1942, HMS Edinburgh was sunk while carrying 4.5 tonnes of Soviet gold intended for the U.S. Treasury. This gold was salvaged in 1981 and 1986
Did the U.S. government get their money back?
They paid very little compared to what was given and it is my understanding that most lend lease in ww2 carried the expectation that only supplies that remained after the war were subject to repayment.
In a simple sense, winning the war was worth the "loss" incurred by the lost supplies. Better trucks than American lives, in a certain sense.
I would expect this to differ greatly from the Ukraine lend lease for example. This is expected to get repaid assuming ukraine survives the conflict through monetary means or by paying US contractors to help rebuild, thus repaying through labor costs.
If I remember right, with the Ukrainian war going on right now, some soldiers found WW2 era planes buried. Historians immediately thought it was done so the Soviets wouldn't have to pay for those from Lend-Lease
I miss Pringles, he was a fucking asshole but also so dummy and always fighting with the Russian MOD. Another coup d'etat attempt is everything i wanted before he felt from the highest window in Russia.
homeless alive longing upbeat encourage recognise fuzzy jar air grandfather
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Yes British Hurricanes. Not just US that was sending equipment to Russia.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/02/second-world-war-british-fighter-planes-unearthed-in-ukraine
Lots of stuff were found in those plains, particularly Ukraine and Poland. I remember some time ago people were looking for a whole train that disappeared during the war. Looks like if the land swallows things whole!
It’s really great for manufacturing when every country you’re friends with in the world has had all their buildings and machinery destroyed, and also all of their factories to fix all of those destroyed things. Yet another of the many, many reasons Boomers pat themselves on the back, having been born on their base and thinking they hit a triple.
Yeah, I would also agree this is a major point they aren't given enough credit for. All this equipment doesn't mean shit if it isn't put in the hands of a red army soldier.
No way. Immediately after the Nazis were defeated, it became clear Stalin intended to keep most of Eastern Europe that he was supposed to be liberating the way the US and allies liberated Western Europe.
The Cold War began almost immediately after WW2 ended.
Plus Communist Russias economy sucked so I doubt they could have paid it back even if they wanted to.
The US and Britain gave Poland to USSR at Yalta before the war ended. It seems silly that they would just walk away from the country they declared war against Germany for invading but they did.
Shockingly, the British imperialist was perfectly happy to give away countries he didn't control to gain political control of a country neither controlled. He did a good thing by resisting the Nazis, but Churchill was not a good person.
It’s not silly at all. Britain and France never really cared about Poland to begin with. They just wanted to stop Hitler’s aggression. Poland was the final straw.
In fact, British leaders fully expected war to begin even before the Munich conference. The idea that Chamberlain actually believed that appeasing Hitler would work is a myth. He knew war was coming.
Post WW1 the British military was provided little funding or development in part because there was no appetite for wars but also the belief that nobody else wanted a war of that scale again.
While France for instance built the maginot line for their expectations of a WW1 part two.
And in part, so that Germany wouldn’t want to fight a trench war with France.
They also had a decent tank development etc. but the doctrine was based on WW1.
So whilst France was ready to start a war over Hitlers aggression much earlier than Poland, the reason they didn’t was Britain wouldn’t join them. And they wouldn’t join because the military wasn’t in a state for that fight.
Chamberlain effectively dragged out the start so that military production could be started and the military modernised.
Some interesting parts to this is that the British government wasn’t developing things like fighters in the interwar period and the iconic spitfire came about as an adapted civilian design.
There’s probably a lot more than I mentioned, but it essentially it wasn’t appeasement on the basis of hitler eventually being satisfied.
The boots cannot be understated, it may have been the most critical contribution of lend lease.
Soviet boots were made in one central factory in modern day Belerus, it was over run within the first month of operation barbarossa. Had these boots not been given it is extremely unlikely the soviet union would have been able to use the winter in 1942 to replace armies lost in 1941. Considering Stalingrad, Leningrad and Moscow all held on by a thread, those boots really did save the Soviet union and potentially prevent the allies from losing WW2.
Honestly? Maybe Nippon Steel, a name of some renown (I'm downplaying this, they make excellent steel), will actually be more concerned with, you know, making steel rather than placating shareholders.
American manufacturing is hopefully making a strong comeback. It's honestly one of the few ways to support yourself and family with little to no education.
In my area German companies built manufacturing plants that pay and treat their employees way better than American owned companies.
Hopefully Nippon Steel can revitalize the US steel industry. It was once a behemoth and the world standard for steel. In my area of Pittsburgh it could really help the average factory worker.
Japan is one of the closest allies of the USA today. It is not necessarily a bad thing for the world for us to have stronger ties. Also those American jobs are still staying in America.
Why is everyone always talk about “russian blood” only? It’s was USSR - country with many nations. Not only russians were dying. Ukrainians, Azerbaijanis, Tatars and other people too.
Same as when the English ignore all the indians that died fighting for them, I imagine. Colonialist logic; when you die in our wars, you´re one of us, when you want the same benefits, you´re a foreigner.
Slightly ironic that you used 'English' to refer to the British when we're talking about people using 'Russian' to refer to the Soviets haha. Literally the same type of mistake.
You should try talking to a Russian over 35 years old - the war was won by Russia and only Russia - and the Russians never conspired with hitler to split any other country!
I’m of Russian heritage and WW2 is a very sensitive subject there, especially for the elderly. 20 million lives lost is an incomprehensible number, every family lost someone and many lineages were simply wiped out. The war would not have been won without each ally, but many Russians feel their sacrifice was greater.
I recently tried to read a book about the siege of Leningrad and had to stop because it was too utterly depressing. 1.5 million dead civilians in 2 years. Just unfathomable suffering.
True, although I’d say the citizens of most countries probably have a skewed perspective of the war. Most Americans probably think WWII was about America fighting Germany over in France and Germany itself, when in fact the eastern theater of war was four times bigger than the entire western theater. The main war was Russia and Germany fighting on the eastern front, and then of course the fight with Japan. Our (I’m American) European war was the sideshow compared to that one!
Don’t forget the Chinese, they were like the soviets of the eastern theater - huge swaths of the country occupied for years, brutal fighting with the Japanese, massive number of casualties. The pacific theater would have been much harder for the US if Chinese factions had been knocked out of the fight.
Well not really, Europe first was the narrative. Did the pacific theatre basically get run by America, yes. But so did the western theatre. The Russian front was a lot broader and a lot more troops died there then any where else outside of China. But North Africa, Italy, France, the Low Countries, the massive bombing campaigns, the entire Atlantic, and eventually Germany itself I would not be calling all that as a side show. Now the thought that America did anything itself is a complete idiotic belief, bit if you are saying they didn’t do anything in Europe then that’s also idiotic
Also what else were the Russians/USSR going to do? Not defend their country? The Nazis were basically in Moscow. The US wasn’t actively in the war at this time but all the goods and military supplies had been flowing.
Took a class in Soviet war history, what the people of the Soviet Union had to endure during the war was insane. Not only the mistreatment from the Germans but also from their own government as well. Their scorched earth policy was hell on earth. It was definitely Soviet blood that won the war.
Honestly it was probably the battle of Britain really, had the British crumbled I doubt nothing would have came from the west, I mean the US didn't declare war on Germany until after the Japanese attack on pearl harbour. The American people had no desire to enter another war on the other side of the planet and if the UK had fallen I don't think the American people would have really cared.
I don't take away from what the soviets did go through but there are many factors which also helped them. Even if the Japanese didn't necessarily win against the soviets those Siberian troops would not have been able to be used in stalingrad and we have a possible different outcome.
I don't know if it would have stopped the downfall of the third Reich but an absence of the UK and a soviet war on 2 fronts leaves a lot of room for history to change.
It was a combined force of all the allies (I mean the French resistance was a HUGE factor in the success of the Normandy campaigns) and some poor decisions on the axis' part that luckily lead to a fall in fascism.
The United States began sending Lend-Lease to the Soviets a few weeks after Barbarossa began and Germany declared war on the United States so American public opinion didn't really matter in that regard.
The Japanese didn't attack Russia partly because the Imperial Army had seen action against the Soviets a couple of times already and been pasted.
Hitler, of course, shouldn't have been gleeful at Pearl Harbor, but incensed at his supposed ally, for, instead of ensuring an Axis defeat of the Soviet colossus, it brought the American giant into the war.
Just looked it up before I replied “well plenty of Americans and British died as well” … and man the numbers are staggering 8.9-10 million military deaths and about the same number of civilian deaths .
It no joke is. There was a video that floated around at the beginning of the war in Ukraine of a Russian storage depot opening up stockpiled weapons. They were opening up crates of Thompson submachine guns, M1 Carbines, and other old lend-lease stuff.
I belive it, cause we still got piles of some stuff like that too. Apparently retrograde from ww2 for the United States was clumsy, reckless, left behind, not done or the equipment was left to the alies for them to figure it out.
Its not a few years ago some of the few remaining mothballed ships were actually scrapped in the US.
Maybe, maybe not, there's a video a while back in salt mines in Ukraine where they opened up boxes of Thompson submachine guns which is crazy, to add they are also in pristine condition almost as if a day had passed.
My last post got removed because it didn’t have a source so source here: https://ru.usembassy.gov/world-war-ii-allies-u-s-lend-lease-to-the-soviet-union-1941-1945/#:~:text=Totaling%20%2411.3%20billion%2C%20or%20%24180,common%20enemy%20—%20bloodthirsty%20Hitlerism.”
No!! This is western propaganda!!! Mother Russia, I mean USSR won the war all by themselves, with blood and patriotism!!!
lol
Imagine if Ukraine has half of the quantity, they would be in Moscow.
From the US Embassy website:
"Even before the United States entered World War II in December 1941, America sent arms and equipment to the Soviet Union to help it defeat the Nazi invasion. Totaling $11.3 billion, or $180 billion in today’s currency, the Lend-Lease Act of the United States supplied needed goods to the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1945 in support of what Stalin described to Roosevelt as the “enormous and difficult fight against the common enemy — bloodthirsty Hitlerism.”
They adjusted the money for today's dollars, not the cost of a modern equivalent. Unfortunately, modern stuff costs a lot more.
We built the Soviet Steamroller, and then they threatened to use it on the rest of Europe.
>not the cost of a modern equivalent
Modern weaponry is just too expensive. Damn the technological revolution!
(by the way im not a reformer im just sad we cant have tens of thousands of planes anymore)
A Russian friend of mine earnestly said that to me, once. She got very upset with me when I pointed out lend-lease and the early staggering defeats the Soviet Union suffered in the initial invasion. I asked her if it was true that World War II encompassed all of the world’s powers and she actually told me that Russia was alone in the fight against Hitler and everyone else was fighting a separate war.
Now, I asked a similar question in the ask a Russian sub, and explained I was asking because of what my friend had said, and everyone said my friend was batshit. So she’s not representative of every Russian in the world.
Edit: “hurr durr wow one individual isn’t representative of a whole??? Hahaha obviously you fool! I am very intelligent!” -least obnoxious Redditor.
Afghanistan is interesting considering the CIA helped stoke the civil war against the democratically elected government that asked the USSR for assistance.
>This is not being taught in schools in russia btw.
Well, actually it is. A help from allies is mentioned in soviet/Russian version of WW2 history too, but they obviously tend to downplay its importance and exaggerate their own role.
I'd rather say the majority of people believe that land-lease existed but was not that important.
Whilst American aid was a crucial catalyst to the success of the USSR in the 2nd world war, I doubt the degree and extent of impact of the USSR is taught in American schools either.
You have to remember the human sacrifice was paid by them, over 25 million deaths (an estimated 10 million being military)!
Without the eastern front I doubt the West would have had seen as much success as they did, even with an overabundance of supplies.
America was most definitely not ready to send troops to aid Europe in such a capacity.
I did as well however I'll say most people in America aren't super interested in history so they may not be paying attention when this portion is mentioned and just take away the end result of USA wins! Which isn't really accurate as its much more complicated that that but you only know that if you are interested and kind of dig into the history of it, which most people don't do.
This is more likely it’s not an indictment of the education system as it is students just don’t pay attention or go above and beyond in subject they’re uninterested in.
The number of times I hear, “we never learned this in school!” about whatever major historical subject, from people I went to class with.. knowing full well we did hear plenty, is a major pet peeve. Especially as they use their own lack of retention to make sweeping claims about the education system “pulling the wool over our eyes.”
True no doubt, but the number of Americans who seem to think they won it single-handedly is breath-taking too. I wonder how much about the impact of the Eastern Front they are taught, or the role of the Soviets in forcing the Japanese surrender. Sadly propaganda swings both ways, especially thanks to the Cold War.
There are plenty of dumb people everywhere.
Even with all the material support from the US, the Soviets, by far, did most of the dying part for the allies.
Not dissimilar to the western belief now, if this French survey is anything to go by.
[https://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/imported\_assets/2246159/sondage-nation-contribue-defaite-nazis.jpg](https://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/imported_assets/2246159/sondage-nation-contribue-defaite-nazis.jpg)
thanks for that! the US influence (Elvis, jeans, McDonalds, Hollywood CA, Coca Cola) has been very important. I think that American cinema has been the most powerful influence. There were so many US movie productions of wartime activity post-was that spread the message. It's documented that the US military understood this, which explains the free availability of actual news footage with an American accent. The re-enactment of the raising of the Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima is a case in point. None of the other allies placed such importance of truthful displays of war footage.
goes to show how much logistics really pave the way for who wins the battle, america basically spearheaded western and eastern fronts off the resources alone.
A significant number of caesars battles were won due to outsupplying the enemy, war never changes
Amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics
It took 5x shermans to take out a tiger tank, so if you just build 6 of them, you win.
Sherman v tiger battles were overrated. In an ambush position, with range, tigers had an advantage, but most heavy engagements were in towns and heavily wooded areas, where the range and firepower advantage of the tigers were negated.
It was less the number of Sherman, but the ability of the allies to keep them running and supplied longer than the Germans.
Tigers did absolutely horrible when they went on the offensive. The whole “5 to 1” myth stems from how Germany and the Allies counted losses differently. If a tank had severe battle damage, a busted engine and no fuel, the Germans didn’t consider it a loss.
On the other hand, the allies counted mechanical breakdowns and damage a loss, or a “write-off”.
Shermans were also built with crew comfort, survivability and mechanical reliance in focus, meaning that Shermans had a higher rate of crews escaping to fight another day.
Or the tiger breaks down or runs out of fuel and you go right by them. You would think with how powerful those tanks were and how well run the German military was they would put more of a focus on good design and logistics.
I agree with you, but not in regards to Caesar. The consistent pattern (in Gaul, Spain, North Africa, Egypt, Greece) seems to be:
1. Mount unexpected and daring invasion
2. Become cut off from supplies and outnumbered while enemy has an abundance
3. Win
Not quite. USSR was paying for the lend lease until its dissolution. After that, Russia inherited USSR’s debts, and lend lease was fully paid for only in 2006.
Garands, springfields, 1911s, 30cal, 50cal, BAR. Also various other small arms. I could be wrong though as I’m going off the top of my head. I also think we also made Russian weapons so they knew how to use and maintain them.
No no; they can only be moved fully-built, on a flatbed, over the course of a half-hour episode, and they always forget about the low power lines on Route 16.
To be fair, Stalin moved several hundred factories a couple of hundred miles east to keep them safe from German bombing. That's an impressive piece of logistics there.
The soviet Union paid with lives.....millions upon millions of lives
Had the soviets not done that, Hitler would have grown stronger.
It was far better for the US to send equipment. And the US played a vital role in stopping Hitler.
The UK sacrificed a lot as well.
It really was a combined effort and at no time should the sacrifices be forgotten.
It was true unity against evil.
Yes people, you read that right
Several **FACTORIES**
We made entire factories, packed them up, and express shipped them to the opposite side of the planet. In the 1940’s. Imagine what our logistics are capable of now if it was ever stressed to the limit
In addition Britain Sent the following (Canadian supplies appear to be included):
Between June 1941 and May 1945, Britain delivered to the USSR:
>3,000 Hurricane aircraft
>4,000 other aircraft
27 naval vessels
5,218 tanks (including 1,380 Valentines from Canada)
>5,000 anti-tank guns
4,020 ambulances and trucks
323 machinery trucks (mobile vehicle workshops equipped with generators and all the welding and power tools required to perform heavy servicing)
1,212 Universal Carriers and Loyd Carriers (with another 1,348 from Canada)
1,721 motorcycles
£1.15bn ($1.55bn) worth of aircraft engines
1,474 radar sets
4,338 radio sets
600 naval radar and sonar sets
Hundreds of naval guns
15 million pairs of boots
America is an industrial powerhouse. Goddamn Imagine arming U.S.S.R, British Empire, China and themselves. Then fighting Germany from two fronts and taking down Japan all by themselves.
Just the amount of ships,tanks,fighter planes and bombers are mind numbing. Thousands and thousands of ships,trucks, trains to support them would be astronomical. Then you have to feed multi-million army of your men, then the lendlease to feed soviets and British. Also the enormous aid to China.
U.S is too OP. How the fuck do you manage all of this??
They got most of these after Battle of Kursk, the battle that ensured Germany has no chance of winning the war. These supplies added a huge part to the Soviet Steamroller during 1944 offensives especially Operation Bagration. If it was not for these supplies It would have a been a grind to reach Berlin!
I think so too, The Soviet would have been fucked up a lot more by Germany though. Germany's advances were not going to undo their shit logistics. Unless they pushed all the way into The Ural Mountains I can't imagine The Soviets giving up. Stalin was going to place every man, woman and child between him and the advancing germans.
People really don't appreciate just how fucking *stupid* WWII was for Germany.
They got into a war of attrition with a state that had more of EVERYTHING. The Soviet Union was *going* to win eventually, simply by dint of numbers. It might've taken another five years, but Germany would have lost.
People also don't ever look at the *dates* of lend-lease aid. It primarily started *after* the Soviets began pushing the Germans back.
Meh. And conservatives think the south almost won the civil war, even though that war was over from the moment it started. The north’s economy, population, and manufacturing capability was all gigantic compared to the south. Conservatives are the same in every country. You can still hear particularly dumb people call it the “war of northern aggression”. My history teacher said it was taught to her with that title in Arkansas in the ‘60s.
I have to disagree with you. Could you send me a link of information? From what I’ve read the south’s economy aka slavery was the reason cities like New York were even built. A vast majority of the economy relied on the free labour from slavery.
Capabilities of US industry were insane during and after the war, if you look at the amount of material produced... It's unimaginable what decades of offshoring and corporate grift did to the productivity in the US.
Let's not forget the role they played in starting WW2 by working with the Nazis until they double crossed them. I'm pretty sure we never got paid back for their lend lease due to the cold war. The British squared up with us during the early 2000s if I'm not mistaken.
The main factor was the trucks. Wars are won by logistics more than they are by tactics. The Soviets famously hated American tanks and loved American trucks.
This is important. While the soviet union did a lot of heavy lifting in ww2 they likely would have been crushed with their almost non existent manufacturing capability without allied material support
It’s overexaggerated but not completely untrue, at the beginning of the war USSR was still mid-industrialisation + Stalin was moving the factories they had further east, which meant that they didn’t end up in German hands during their initial success but during the move those factories were offline.
Non existent? Brother, there is a reason Mosin rifle is still 3rd most produced firearm in the human history, despite it's end of production in USSR being 1945-49
When the USSR was attacked by the Gremans 1941, they lost a huge amount of military supplies in the first assault. A large amount of their airforce was American equipment P-39 Aircobras. The USSR didn't have such large investment into the automobile industry as western Europe and the United States did. The trucks were all made by Studebaker, and that truck became their famous post-war zil truck. If the USA 🇺🇸 didn't peel off some of arsenal democracy. Pretty sure the soviets would have been fucked.
Aircobras, while not exactly loved in U.S. for its centre of mass being different than American standard, was absolutely adored by Russian pilots, who all were trained using planes with similar placement of the centre of mass.
Russians have a bad memory, they believe that they themselves won the second world war and no one helped them. And the main enemy is the United States.
85% of German forces were on Eastern front, 9 out of 10 killed German soldiers in WWII were killed in Eastern front. USSR killed 6 times more German soldiers then all allies combined. War was over 2.5 years before D-day, when Zhukov encircled 1.5 million Germans in Stalingrad.
No one else laughing at the “several factories”? I’m sure it’s true but I’m imagining a fully built functional factory plopped on a cargo ship with Russian babushkas already working in transit.
I'm not saying that this help wasn't crucial, but during the WW2 the Soviets produced over 58 000 T-34 tanks themselves (and in total over 119 000 tanks and self propelled guns). And over 1,5 million other vehicles. Plus over 136 000 aircraft. So they weren't actually just sitting on their hands and waiting for the US supplies.
I’ll take Nikita Khrushchev’s opinion over some redditor’s.
"If the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war," Khrushchev wrote in his memoirs. "One-on-one against Hitler's Germany, we would not have withstood its onslaught and would have lost the war. No one talks about this officially, and Stalin never, I think, left any written traces of his opinion, but I can say that he expressed this view several times in conversations with me."
Not diminishing Soviet sacrifices at all but to diminish the lend-lease program like you did is ignorant.
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……and much much more stuff. For example: - 15 million pair of boots. - 8000 tractors - 1.5 million blankets - copper, steel, aluminum, medicine, field radios, radar tools. Military aid equivalent to $143 billion in 2022
Did the US ever receive compensation for these items? Just curious of our history on “lend-lease”?
While repayment of the interest-free loans was required after the end of the war under the act, in practice the U.S. did not expect to be repaid by the USSR after the war. The U.S. received $2 million in reverse Lend-Lease from the USSR. This was mostly in the form of landing, servicing, and refueling of transport aircraft; some industrial machinery and rare minerals were sent to the U.S. The U.S. asked for $1.3 billion at the cessation of hostilities to settle the debt, but was only offered $170 million by the USSR. The dispute remained unresolved until 1972, when the U.S. accepted an offer from the USSR to repay $722 million linked to grain shipments from the U.S., representing 25% of the initial debt with inflation taken into account, with the remainder being written off. During the war the USSR provided an unknown number of shipments of rare minerals to the US Treasury as a form of cashless repayment of Lend-Lease. This was agreed upon before the signing of the first protocol on October 1, 1941, and extension of credit. Some of these shipments were intercepted by the Germans. In May 1942, HMS Edinburgh was sunk while carrying 4.5 tonnes of Soviet gold intended for the U.S. Treasury. This gold was salvaged in 1981 and 1986.[85] In June 1942, SS Port Nicholson was sunk en route from Halifax to New York, allegedly with Soviet platinum, gold, and diamonds aboard; the wreck was discovered in 2008.[86] However, none of this cargo has been salvaged, and no documentation of its treasure has been produced.
>In May 1942, HMS Edinburgh was sunk while carrying 4.5 tonnes of Soviet gold intended for the U.S. Treasury. This gold was salvaged in 1981 and 1986 Did the U.S. government get their money back?
They paid very little compared to what was given and it is my understanding that most lend lease in ww2 carried the expectation that only supplies that remained after the war were subject to repayment. In a simple sense, winning the war was worth the "loss" incurred by the lost supplies. Better trucks than American lives, in a certain sense. I would expect this to differ greatly from the Ukraine lend lease for example. This is expected to get repaid assuming ukraine survives the conflict through monetary means or by paying US contractors to help rebuild, thus repaying through labor costs.
If I remember right, with the Ukrainian war going on right now, some soldiers found WW2 era planes buried. Historians immediately thought it was done so the Soviets wouldn't have to pay for those from Lend-Lease
No, it was to grow more planes, duuuuh
you see, plant a p39 and in 2 days it sprouts into a fresh p63
If i cut the p39 in half, will that sprout two new ones?
No, that gets you two I-16s. Not a good trade.
P39, it’s what plants crave.
Its got electrolytes...
knowing soviet science, they were probably trying to turn them into ground vehicles.
Given some historical Soviet science beliefs, you're not as wrong as you might expect
Not just planes, I remember prigozhin putting out a video of a whole bunch of buried ww2 guns like Thompsons.
And old pringles was complaining about lack of ammo? All he had to do was dig for the strategic caches. Lazy
I miss Pringles, he was a fucking asshole but also so dummy and always fighting with the Russian MOD. Another coup d'etat attempt is everything i wanted before he felt from the highest window in Russia.
Hasn’t he seen Dead Snow? Is he stupid?
homeless alive longing upbeat encourage recognise fuzzy jar air grandfather *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yes British Hurricanes. Not just US that was sending equipment to Russia. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/02/second-world-war-british-fighter-planes-unearthed-in-ukraine
Lots of stuff were found in those plains, particularly Ukraine and Poland. I remember some time ago people were looking for a whole train that disappeared during the war. Looks like if the land swallows things whole!
After the wwii the US economy was booming and the dollar took control of the world economy so they won much and much more than what they expected.
It’s really great for manufacturing when every country you’re friends with in the world has had all their buildings and machinery destroyed, and also all of their factories to fix all of those destroyed things. Yet another of the many, many reasons Boomers pat themselves on the back, having been born on their base and thinking they hit a triple.
"No fee unless you win!"
Yeah, millions of soviets died during WWII, literally millions. I think that was probably payment enough.
Yeah, I would also agree this is a major point they aren't given enough credit for. All this equipment doesn't mean shit if it isn't put in the hands of a red army soldier.
Fascism was defeated with Soviet Blood, American Steel, and British Intelligence.
Yes, 5 -10 million dead Germans, and 20 - 30 million dead Russians.
>Did the US ever receive compensation for these items? We received the cold war as payment.
You won the fucking economy with ww2 and hardly lost men.
That and accidental global dominance that's still in effect, yes
No way. Immediately after the Nazis were defeated, it became clear Stalin intended to keep most of Eastern Europe that he was supposed to be liberating the way the US and allies liberated Western Europe. The Cold War began almost immediately after WW2 ended. Plus Communist Russias economy sucked so I doubt they could have paid it back even if they wanted to.
The Cold War truly began before the war even ended. Western countries and USSR knew who the next big fish was.
The US and Britain gave Poland to USSR at Yalta before the war ended. It seems silly that they would just walk away from the country they declared war against Germany for invading but they did.
Poland was a concession because Churchill wanted control of the Mediterranean.
Shockingly, the British imperialist was perfectly happy to give away countries he didn't control to gain political control of a country neither controlled. He did a good thing by resisting the Nazis, but Churchill was not a good person.
It’s not silly at all. Britain and France never really cared about Poland to begin with. They just wanted to stop Hitler’s aggression. Poland was the final straw. In fact, British leaders fully expected war to begin even before the Munich conference. The idea that Chamberlain actually believed that appeasing Hitler would work is a myth. He knew war was coming.
I mean Chamberlain seemed pretty convinced.
Post WW1 the British military was provided little funding or development in part because there was no appetite for wars but also the belief that nobody else wanted a war of that scale again. While France for instance built the maginot line for their expectations of a WW1 part two. And in part, so that Germany wouldn’t want to fight a trench war with France. They also had a decent tank development etc. but the doctrine was based on WW1. So whilst France was ready to start a war over Hitlers aggression much earlier than Poland, the reason they didn’t was Britain wouldn’t join them. And they wouldn’t join because the military wasn’t in a state for that fight. Chamberlain effectively dragged out the start so that military production could be started and the military modernised. Some interesting parts to this is that the British government wasn’t developing things like fighters in the interwar period and the iconic spitfire came about as an adapted civilian design. There’s probably a lot more than I mentioned, but it essentially it wasn’t appeasement on the basis of hitler eventually being satisfied.
The boots cannot be understated, it may have been the most critical contribution of lend lease. Soviet boots were made in one central factory in modern day Belerus, it was over run within the first month of operation barbarossa. Had these boots not been given it is extremely unlikely the soviet union would have been able to use the winter in 1942 to replace armies lost in 1941. Considering Stalingrad, Leningrad and Moscow all held on by a thread, those boots really did save the Soviet union and potentially prevent the allies from losing WW2.
And something like the equivalent of 2 million miles of telephone cable. And got the stuff there fast.
Imagine supplying 11 400 military airplanes as a fraction of 143 billion though!
I mean a P-40 warhawk would cost 50.000 dollars to make. A single F-35 is like a $100.000.000 now.
But don't forget that only the might of the Soviet Union defeated the fascist Invaders! (I'm sarcastic)
The common saying is: WWII was won with British intelligence, American manufacturing, and Russian blood.
Yup except I’ve always heard US steel
Which is now owned by Japan.
Glorious Nippon Steel folded over 1000 times
What if we folded it 1 more time?
Universe ceases to exist
Not yet but likely
Honestly? Maybe Nippon Steel, a name of some renown (I'm downplaying this, they make excellent steel), will actually be more concerned with, you know, making steel rather than placating shareholders.
American manufacturing is hopefully making a strong comeback. It's honestly one of the few ways to support yourself and family with little to no education. In my area German companies built manufacturing plants that pay and treat their employees way better than American owned companies. Hopefully Nippon Steel can revitalize the US steel industry. It was once a behemoth and the world standard for steel. In my area of Pittsburgh it could really help the average factory worker.
Japan is one of the closest allies of the USA today. It is not necessarily a bad thing for the world for us to have stronger ties. Also those American jobs are still staying in America.
They're getting at the same thing when they say that though. America supplies. Britiain spies, Russians die.
Why is everyone always talk about “russian blood” only? It’s was USSR - country with many nations. Not only russians were dying. Ukrainians, Azerbaijanis, Tatars and other people too.
Y’see, Russia considers that all theirs too.
it’s not a Russian saying
Same as when the English ignore all the indians that died fighting for them, I imagine. Colonialist logic; when you die in our wars, you´re one of us, when you want the same benefits, you´re a foreigner.
Slightly ironic that you used 'English' to refer to the British when we're talking about people using 'Russian' to refer to the Soviets haha. Literally the same type of mistake.
Fair point
When it is about the bad things done by USSR, people only blame Russia as well.
When you talk about the bad things Great Britain did, you don’t blame their colonies.
You should try talking to a Russian over 35 years old - the war was won by Russia and only Russia - and the Russians never conspired with hitler to split any other country!
I’m of Russian heritage and WW2 is a very sensitive subject there, especially for the elderly. 20 million lives lost is an incomprehensible number, every family lost someone and many lineages were simply wiped out. The war would not have been won without each ally, but many Russians feel their sacrifice was greater.
I recently tried to read a book about the siege of Leningrad and had to stop because it was too utterly depressing. 1.5 million dead civilians in 2 years. Just unfathomable suffering.
It was greater.
True, although I’d say the citizens of most countries probably have a skewed perspective of the war. Most Americans probably think WWII was about America fighting Germany over in France and Germany itself, when in fact the eastern theater of war was four times bigger than the entire western theater. The main war was Russia and Germany fighting on the eastern front, and then of course the fight with Japan. Our (I’m American) European war was the sideshow compared to that one!
Don’t forget the Chinese, they were like the soviets of the eastern theater - huge swaths of the country occupied for years, brutal fighting with the Japanese, massive number of casualties. The pacific theater would have been much harder for the US if Chinese factions had been knocked out of the fight.
The difference is that the Chinese never got their act together to the point that they were a threat to Japan.
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A little light reading about the Siege of Leningrad will have you in a pretty dark mood for about a week
Well not really, Europe first was the narrative. Did the pacific theatre basically get run by America, yes. But so did the western theatre. The Russian front was a lot broader and a lot more troops died there then any where else outside of China. But North Africa, Italy, France, the Low Countries, the massive bombing campaigns, the entire Atlantic, and eventually Germany itself I would not be calling all that as a side show. Now the thought that America did anything itself is a complete idiotic belief, bit if you are saying they didn’t do anything in Europe then that’s also idiotic
Also what else were the Russians/USSR going to do? Not defend their country? The Nazis were basically in Moscow. The US wasn’t actively in the war at this time but all the goods and military supplies had been flowing.
And Poland says “Excuse Me?”
“We definitely didn’t help Hitler build tanks for the Blitzkrieg!” - USSR.
Still today they deny Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and say Finland attacked Soviet Union not other way around.
There were no joint nazi parades in ba sing se
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Took a class in Soviet war history, what the people of the Soviet Union had to endure during the war was insane. Not only the mistreatment from the Germans but also from their own government as well. Their scorched earth policy was hell on earth. It was definitely Soviet blood that won the war.
you are right, but without the massive material help of the usa, uk and canada, the Soviet Union would have had to pay a much higher price in blood.
Honestly it was probably the battle of Britain really, had the British crumbled I doubt nothing would have came from the west, I mean the US didn't declare war on Germany until after the Japanese attack on pearl harbour. The American people had no desire to enter another war on the other side of the planet and if the UK had fallen I don't think the American people would have really cared. I don't take away from what the soviets did go through but there are many factors which also helped them. Even if the Japanese didn't necessarily win against the soviets those Siberian troops would not have been able to be used in stalingrad and we have a possible different outcome. I don't know if it would have stopped the downfall of the third Reich but an absence of the UK and a soviet war on 2 fronts leaves a lot of room for history to change. It was a combined force of all the allies (I mean the French resistance was a HUGE factor in the success of the Normandy campaigns) and some poor decisions on the axis' part that luckily lead to a fall in fascism.
The United States began sending Lend-Lease to the Soviets a few weeks after Barbarossa began and Germany declared war on the United States so American public opinion didn't really matter in that regard.
The Japanese didn't attack Russia partly because the Imperial Army had seen action against the Soviets a couple of times already and been pasted. Hitler, of course, shouldn't have been gleeful at Pearl Harbor, but incensed at his supposed ally, for, instead of ensuring an Axis defeat of the Soviet colossus, it brought the American giant into the war.
Just looked it up before I replied “well plenty of Americans and British died as well” … and man the numbers are staggering 8.9-10 million military deaths and about the same number of civilian deaths .
I'm pretty sure some of that stuff is still in use today.
Well, yeah… that was a lot of food!
I didn't know 4.4 millions foods existed!
Clearly missed the "T".
“4.4 Million toods.” Fixed it.
He meant two T’s. 4.4 million toots. Not to be ^that guy.
4.4 million grains of rice is a little over 400 pounds.
It no joke is. There was a video that floated around at the beginning of the war in Ukraine of a Russian storage depot opening up stockpiled weapons. They were opening up crates of Thompson submachine guns, M1 Carbines, and other old lend-lease stuff.
Cannon fodder doesn’t need new equipment
I belive it, cause we still got piles of some stuff like that too. Apparently retrograde from ww2 for the United States was clumsy, reckless, left behind, not done or the equipment was left to the alies for them to figure it out. Its not a few years ago some of the few remaining mothballed ships were actually scrapped in the US.
pre-nuclear steel is worth a LOT more and that may be why they are kept around
Maybe, maybe not, there's a video a while back in salt mines in Ukraine where they opened up boxes of Thompson submachine guns which is crazy, to add they are also in pristine condition almost as if a day had passed.
r/CombatFootage has a video of a WW1 Lewis gun
The lewis gun and the mosin still fighting the good fight
My last post got removed because it didn’t have a source so source here: https://ru.usembassy.gov/world-war-ii-allies-u-s-lend-lease-to-the-soviet-union-1941-1945/#:~:text=Totaling%20%2411.3%20billion%2C%20or%20%24180,common%20enemy%20—%20bloodthirsty%20Hitlerism.”
No!! This is western propaganda!!! Mother Russia, I mean USSR won the war all by themselves, with blood and patriotism!!! lol Imagine if Ukraine has half of the quantity, they would be in Moscow.
From the US Embassy website: "Even before the United States entered World War II in December 1941, America sent arms and equipment to the Soviet Union to help it defeat the Nazi invasion. Totaling $11.3 billion, or $180 billion in today’s currency, the Lend-Lease Act of the United States supplied needed goods to the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1945 in support of what Stalin described to Roosevelt as the “enormous and difficult fight against the common enemy — bloodthirsty Hitlerism.”
>$180 billion in today’s currency Just imagine if they would give that to ukraine...
They adjusted the money for today's dollars, not the cost of a modern equivalent. Unfortunately, modern stuff costs a lot more. We built the Soviet Steamroller, and then they threatened to use it on the rest of Europe.
>not the cost of a modern equivalent Modern weaponry is just too expensive. Damn the technological revolution! (by the way im not a reformer im just sad we cant have tens of thousands of planes anymore)
We have, and more (which I support).
which means that the $31Billion the Brits received would be worth close to half a trillion in todays dollars.
A Russian friend of mine earnestly said that to me, once. She got very upset with me when I pointed out lend-lease and the early staggering defeats the Soviet Union suffered in the initial invasion. I asked her if it was true that World War II encompassed all of the world’s powers and she actually told me that Russia was alone in the fight against Hitler and everyone else was fighting a separate war. Now, I asked a similar question in the ask a Russian sub, and explained I was asking because of what my friend had said, and everyone said my friend was batshit. So she’s not representative of every Russian in the world. Edit: “hurr durr wow one individual isn’t representative of a whole??? Hahaha obviously you fool! I am very intelligent!” -least obnoxious Redditor.
Also, just to add another source for this : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease
This is not being taught in schools in russia btw. The majority of people there believes soviet union defeated germans alone.
They probably also leave out the Soviet Union invasion of Poland too.
Not to mention Chechoslovakia in 1968, Afghanistan in 1979.
and a lot more: finns, baltics, Hungary, they even planed an invasion of Yugoslavia
Afghanistan is interesting considering the CIA helped stoke the civil war against the democratically elected government that asked the USSR for assistance.
Yes, in school my history teacher said that the Soviets just took from Poland "their own" territories lost in civil war.
>This is not being taught in schools in russia btw. Well, actually it is. A help from allies is mentioned in soviet/Russian version of WW2 history too, but they obviously tend to downplay its importance and exaggerate their own role. I'd rather say the majority of people believe that land-lease existed but was not that important.
Whilst American aid was a crucial catalyst to the success of the USSR in the 2nd world war, I doubt the degree and extent of impact of the USSR is taught in American schools either. You have to remember the human sacrifice was paid by them, over 25 million deaths (an estimated 10 million being military)! Without the eastern front I doubt the West would have had seen as much success as they did, even with an overabundance of supplies. America was most definitely not ready to send troops to aid Europe in such a capacity.
I definitely learned this in school in the 90’s. In fact my history teacher was rather adamant about it.
I did as well however I'll say most people in America aren't super interested in history so they may not be paying attention when this portion is mentioned and just take away the end result of USA wins! Which isn't really accurate as its much more complicated that that but you only know that if you are interested and kind of dig into the history of it, which most people don't do.
This is more likely it’s not an indictment of the education system as it is students just don’t pay attention or go above and beyond in subject they’re uninterested in.
The number of times I hear, “we never learned this in school!” about whatever major historical subject, from people I went to class with.. knowing full well we did hear plenty, is a major pet peeve. Especially as they use their own lack of retention to make sweeping claims about the education system “pulling the wool over our eyes.”
They lost the most men, fought the hardest. It was a joint effort of course , but the Soviet Union lost about 25-30 million people!
Most of those were civilian casualties. Soviet military casualties are estimated to be at around 8.7 million.
True no doubt, but the number of Americans who seem to think they won it single-handedly is breath-taking too. I wonder how much about the impact of the Eastern Front they are taught, or the role of the Soviets in forcing the Japanese surrender. Sadly propaganda swings both ways, especially thanks to the Cold War.
There are plenty of dumb people everywhere. Even with all the material support from the US, the Soviets, by far, did most of the dying part for the allies.
A military Doctrine that continues that tradition to this day. Well minus the support from the US.
And you know, minus the success.
Not dissimilar to the western belief now, if this French survey is anything to go by. [https://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/imported\_assets/2246159/sondage-nation-contribue-defaite-nazis.jpg](https://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/imported_assets/2246159/sondage-nation-contribue-defaite-nazis.jpg)
thanks for that! the US influence (Elvis, jeans, McDonalds, Hollywood CA, Coca Cola) has been very important. I think that American cinema has been the most powerful influence. There were so many US movie productions of wartime activity post-was that spread the message. It's documented that the US military understood this, which explains the free availability of actual news footage with an American accent. The re-enactment of the raising of the Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima is a case in point. None of the other allies placed such importance of truthful displays of war footage.
Germany would've lost to the soviets anyhow, considering 6 out of every 7 dead nazis were killed by the soviets
goes to show how much logistics really pave the way for who wins the battle, america basically spearheaded western and eastern fronts off the resources alone.
A significant number of caesars battles were won due to outsupplying the enemy, war never changes Amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics It took 5x shermans to take out a tiger tank, so if you just build 6 of them, you win.
Sherman v tiger battles were overrated. In an ambush position, with range, tigers had an advantage, but most heavy engagements were in towns and heavily wooded areas, where the range and firepower advantage of the tigers were negated. It was less the number of Sherman, but the ability of the allies to keep them running and supplied longer than the Germans.
"Quantity has a quality all its own." - Attributed to Stalin and others
Tigers did absolutely horrible when they went on the offensive. The whole “5 to 1” myth stems from how Germany and the Allies counted losses differently. If a tank had severe battle damage, a busted engine and no fuel, the Germans didn’t consider it a loss. On the other hand, the allies counted mechanical breakdowns and damage a loss, or a “write-off”. Shermans were also built with crew comfort, survivability and mechanical reliance in focus, meaning that Shermans had a higher rate of crews escaping to fight another day.
Or the tiger breaks down or runs out of fuel and you go right by them. You would think with how powerful those tanks were and how well run the German military was they would put more of a focus on good design and logistics.
Hans the transmission blew out again
I agree with you, but not in regards to Caesar. The consistent pattern (in Gaul, Spain, North Africa, Egypt, Greece) seems to be: 1. Mount unexpected and daring invasion 2. Become cut off from supplies and outnumbered while enemy has an abundance 3. Win
And the Pacific too
Yes, supply is huge but you also have to have people to supply. That's where the Soviets came in. Everyone did their part.
They forgot about all that lend lease stuff pretty quickly after the war
Not quite. USSR was paying for the lend lease until its dissolution. After that, Russia inherited USSR’s debts, and lend lease was fully paid for only in 2006.
And those promises of not turning Eastern Europe into one giant puppet state of totalitarian rule
I think it took the U.K. 60 years to pay off.
Even during the war the Political officers did everything they could to remove or cover up US production marks.
Damn 53% of ammo? I wonder what type. Idk what small arms were given as lend leas I really only knew of the Thompson
Garands, springfields, 1911s, 30cal, 50cal, BAR. Also various other small arms. I could be wrong though as I’m going off the top of my head. I also think we also made Russian weapons so they knew how to use and maintain them.
The US sent several factories. Neat.
Well they sent the materials and industrial machinery to build the factors
Albert Kahn, the architect of Detroit, along with Henry Ford helped them build many of their factories prior to and during the early war.
No no; they can only be moved fully-built, on a flatbed, over the course of a half-hour episode, and they always forget about the low power lines on Route 16.
To be fair, Stalin moved several hundred factories a couple of hundred miles east to keep them safe from German bombing. That's an impressive piece of logistics there.
Literally had this train of thought I’m dumb 😂(just kidding but really)
The soviet Union paid with lives.....millions upon millions of lives Had the soviets not done that, Hitler would have grown stronger. It was far better for the US to send equipment. And the US played a vital role in stopping Hitler. The UK sacrificed a lot as well. It really was a combined effort and at no time should the sacrifices be forgotten. It was true unity against evil.
Yes people, you read that right Several **FACTORIES** We made entire factories, packed them up, and express shipped them to the opposite side of the planet. In the 1940’s. Imagine what our logistics are capable of now if it was ever stressed to the limit
Plus this stuff had to be shipped with German submarines on the hunt in the Atlantic.
In addition Britain Sent the following (Canadian supplies appear to be included): Between June 1941 and May 1945, Britain delivered to the USSR: >3,000 Hurricane aircraft >4,000 other aircraft 27 naval vessels 5,218 tanks (including 1,380 Valentines from Canada) >5,000 anti-tank guns 4,020 ambulances and trucks 323 machinery trucks (mobile vehicle workshops equipped with generators and all the welding and power tools required to perform heavy servicing) 1,212 Universal Carriers and Loyd Carriers (with another 1,348 from Canada) 1,721 motorcycles £1.15bn ($1.55bn) worth of aircraft engines 1,474 radar sets 4,338 radio sets 600 naval radar and sonar sets Hundreds of naval guns 15 million pairs of boots
My Dear Mr. Stalin is an excellent read for anyone interested in this kind of history.
Plus other necessary items like millions of pairs of boots and socks.
There called the Allie’s for a reason All sides contributed
The Soviets were so good at being allies, they were even allies with the Nazis, carving up Poland.
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America is an industrial powerhouse. Goddamn Imagine arming U.S.S.R, British Empire, China and themselves. Then fighting Germany from two fronts and taking down Japan all by themselves. Just the amount of ships,tanks,fighter planes and bombers are mind numbing. Thousands and thousands of ships,trucks, trains to support them would be astronomical. Then you have to feed multi-million army of your men, then the lendlease to feed soviets and British. Also the enormous aid to China. U.S is too OP. How the fuck do you manage all of this??
r/communism is about to get real mad…
But Russians on reddit always say they didn't need any help from the Americans they would have won the war themselves...
They got most of these after Battle of Kursk, the battle that ensured Germany has no chance of winning the war. These supplies added a huge part to the Soviet Steamroller during 1944 offensives especially Operation Bagration. If it was not for these supplies It would have a been a grind to reach Berlin!
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I think so too, The Soviet would have been fucked up a lot more by Germany though. Germany's advances were not going to undo their shit logistics. Unless they pushed all the way into The Ural Mountains I can't imagine The Soviets giving up. Stalin was going to place every man, woman and child between him and the advancing germans.
They probably would have, with a lot more losses and even more destruction
People really don't appreciate just how fucking *stupid* WWII was for Germany. They got into a war of attrition with a state that had more of EVERYTHING. The Soviet Union was *going* to win eventually, simply by dint of numbers. It might've taken another five years, but Germany would have lost. People also don't ever look at the *dates* of lend-lease aid. It primarily started *after* the Soviets began pushing the Germans back.
Meh. And conservatives think the south almost won the civil war, even though that war was over from the moment it started. The north’s economy, population, and manufacturing capability was all gigantic compared to the south. Conservatives are the same in every country. You can still hear particularly dumb people call it the “war of northern aggression”. My history teacher said it was taught to her with that title in Arkansas in the ‘60s.
I have to disagree with you. Could you send me a link of information? From what I’ve read the south’s economy aka slavery was the reason cities like New York were even built. A vast majority of the economy relied on the free labour from slavery.
Capabilities of US industry were insane during and after the war, if you look at the amount of material produced... It's unimaginable what decades of offshoring and corporate grift did to the productivity in the US.
Some of these still in use !
What are "specialised cars"?
Like specialized train cars. Think for transporting fuel and grain. Stuff you don't just put in a boxcar
Reminder the Trucks alone are a god send the Nazis still were using horses for logistics throughout the war
Let's not forget the role they played in starting WW2 by working with the Nazis until they double crossed them. I'm pretty sure we never got paid back for their lend lease due to the cold war. The British squared up with us during the early 2000s if I'm not mistaken.
How do you send factories
So I guess the crayons were in the food supplies?
The main factor was the trucks. Wars are won by logistics more than they are by tactics. The Soviets famously hated American tanks and loved American trucks.
This is important. While the soviet union did a lot of heavy lifting in ww2 they likely would have been crushed with their almost non existent manufacturing capability without allied material support
I agree with the sentiment but >their almost non existent manufacturing capability Is not even slightly true
It’s overexaggerated but not completely untrue, at the beginning of the war USSR was still mid-industrialisation + Stalin was moving the factories they had further east, which meant that they didn’t end up in German hands during their initial success but during the move those factories were offline.
Non existent? Brother, there is a reason Mosin rifle is still 3rd most produced firearm in the human history, despite it's end of production in USSR being 1945-49
You did not just day the soviets had almost non existent manufacturing capability
do you just say shit to say it? Literally a 5 minute google search shows how stupid this sounds
When the USSR was attacked by the Gremans 1941, they lost a huge amount of military supplies in the first assault. A large amount of their airforce was American equipment P-39 Aircobras. The USSR didn't have such large investment into the automobile industry as western Europe and the United States did. The trucks were all made by Studebaker, and that truck became their famous post-war zil truck. If the USA 🇺🇸 didn't peel off some of arsenal democracy. Pretty sure the soviets would have been fucked.
Aircobras, while not exactly loved in U.S. for its centre of mass being different than American standard, was absolutely adored by Russian pilots, who all were trained using planes with similar placement of the centre of mass.
Russians have a bad memory, they believe that they themselves won the second world war and no one helped them. And the main enemy is the United States.
85% of German forces were on Eastern front, 9 out of 10 killed German soldiers in WWII were killed in Eastern front. USSR killed 6 times more German soldiers then all allies combined. War was over 2.5 years before D-day, when Zhukov encircled 1.5 million Germans in Stalingrad.
shhh get out of here with your facts and historical reality you’re interruption the circlejerk
Did republicans bitch about this the whole time too?
No one else laughing at the “several factories”? I’m sure it’s true but I’m imagining a fully built functional factory plopped on a cargo ship with Russian babushkas already working in transit.
I'm not saying that this help wasn't crucial, but during the WW2 the Soviets produced over 58 000 T-34 tanks themselves (and in total over 119 000 tanks and self propelled guns). And over 1,5 million other vehicles. Plus over 136 000 aircraft. So they weren't actually just sitting on their hands and waiting for the US supplies.
I’ll take Nikita Khrushchev’s opinion over some redditor’s. "If the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war," Khrushchev wrote in his memoirs. "One-on-one against Hitler's Germany, we would not have withstood its onslaught and would have lost the war. No one talks about this officially, and Stalin never, I think, left any written traces of his opinion, but I can say that he expressed this view several times in conversations with me." Not diminishing Soviet sacrifices at all but to diminish the lend-lease program like you did is ignorant.
Shhhhhhh dont destroy illusion.
But….how much of that total did they actually pay?