moon

Simple repetition of a lie does not turn it into the truth. It is objectively true that Richard Butler ordered UNSCOM out. Butler's claims that Iraq was obstructing the inspectors are spurious at best, and in any case irrelevant to the fact that it was Butler, and not Iraq, that ordered inspectors out.
So al Qaeda is your friend?

Amen-Moses

Originally posted by Vorkosigan
Yes, the Russian Air Force was so great, the Finns hammered it for four years with Brewster Buffaloes, an aircraft that was out-of-date in 1941 but still scoring kills against the Russians in 1944. The leading Russian ace had about 62 kills. The leading Finnish ace had 94, 34 in the Buffalo. The #2 Finnish ace had 39 of his 75 kills in the Buffalo.

So the top allied ace was outdone by a Finn who was probably in the lower 300's of axis aces, that is supposed to make the allied position better? The fact still remains that the top Russian aces beat all the other allies!

Amen-Moses

Amen-Moses

btw if those figures are correct I'll grant that the US sent a huge number of trucks to Russia, maybe they melted them down to make Tanks?

Amen-Moses

Vorkosigan

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Amen-Moses
In the closing stages I agree that the supplies made a significant difference to the speed by which the Russian advance could progress and the destruction of German industry (although nowhere near as significant as was claimed at the time) did slow the re-supply of the Eastern front somewhat but as far as direct military action was concerned the Russians did it all by themselves.

Well, yes, but the point is the Russians were absolutely dependent on the US for most of their basic military supplies. Recent figures from declassified Soviet documents show this.

Doesn't it show up in the figures I gave? 50,000 T34s were produced by Russia up to 1945 and those are just the figures for one Tank of many types (although by far the most numerous), on top of which you have to add the tens of thousands of aircraft, trucks, artillery pieces, rocket launchers and countless other Russian militray hardware,

Amen, the Russians produced few trucks. Most of their trucks came from the US. Air Force useless with the aviation gas and high octane fuel US supplied, tanks and other weapons useless without 50% of explosives coming from US, whole war effort useless without locomotives, rolling stock and food supplied from US. Russian war effort was dependent on US to survive. Sure the Russians produced lots of military hardware. Because they didn't produce anything else.

In comparison the US, which was not under attack and had it's entire industrial base intact produced about the same amount of hardware in the same period of time.

Not really. Not only did the US outproduce Russia in almost areas of support vehicles -- trucks, locomotives, all the other really important stuff -- as Foch once said, amatuers study tactics, professionals study logistics -- but the US also produced a two ocean navy and supported the war efforts of Britain and Russia. Russia succeeded in piling up high production totals only by limiting its production to certain fighting vehicles. Had Russia fought the war alone, it would have been soundly whipped.

Vorkosigan

Amen-Moses

Except for the small fact that it was already winning before all these supplies arrived from the US! Sure it would have taken longer but I doubt that the outcome would have been any different.

I strongly suspect that all that non-military hardware being sent to Russia was either melted dwn to produce military hardware (how many Merlins will a Jeep produce?) or that it was utilised for non-military purposes, i.e given to farmers for productive use.

Why is it that the vast majority of the US aid was non-military btw? The vast majority of British aid was military, i.e advanced Aero engines (which we also gave to the US), Radar technology (which we also gave to the US), code breaking technology (which we also gave to the US). Dontcha think that those sorts of aid packages was what they really needed instead of trucks and tractors? (a bit like sending coals to Newcastle, sendin Tractors to the USSR!)

No wonder the USSR distrusted the US!

Amen-Moses

Amen-Moses

Two ocean? We had a 5 ocean navy and I don't remember the US doing fuck all about the Bismark, Tirpitz or Graf Spea, which other ocean where you thinking of?

Amen-Moses

theyeti

Okay, I should have said "Western allies" insead of US. I'm not trying to over-inflate the US's role in the war, but I am taking beef with the idea that the defeat of Nazi Germany was totally due to the Russians. And remember, the US was supplying the UK long before it even entered the war. If you want a debate about what would have happened without the US...well, that'll have to be another time.

The German advance was halted at Stalingrad because Stalin was willing to sacrfice over 1,000,000 lives to keep his favorite city. The Russian pincer manuver was of course a brilliant move, and it represents, in hindsight, the turning point of the war.

However, this took place during the winter of '42/'43, whereas Moscow was '41/'42. So the claim that the Soviets had "sewn up" the Eastern front before the US entered the war is wrong. The US entered in the winter of '41/'42. Your original post (cited by moon) makes it appear as if you're claiming that it was all Russian victory after the counter-attack at Moscow.

In fact, I don't think the outcome of the Eastern front was really clear (clear to everyone but Hitler that is) until the offensive of early '44, in which the German North Army was cut off, and the Red Army wasn't stopped until it reached Poland. The Soviets made more gains in this offensive than they did in the previous two years combined. Prior to this, it was still possible that Germany could pull off a victory, but with the Western allies pressuring them at that point, it was unlikely.

The Russians didn't attack the Crimea until early '44, and the Germans didn't surrender there until May of that year, after the maskirova in the Ukraine had already suceeded. Like I say, it was the offensives of '44 that really "sewed up" the Eastren front.

(And while it's bascially a nit-pick, the Germans did recapture Kharkov, so it's not like they didn't have any victories after Stalingrad. Just not too many.)

Yes, I think we agree here (except you left out the American daylight strategic bombers -- on purpose, I am sure ). The Tigers and the Me 262 were awesome weapons, but it was a matter of too little too late. But without the Western allies (even ignoring the supplies they gave the USSR), the war would have certainly dragged on longer, probably by at least a year or two, and this could have given Germany the time it needed to build enough of these weapons to defeat Russia. And aside from the extra time, there is also the issue of having their factories bombed. Do remember that "for want of a nail" applies here too. Even though the German forces in the West were small compared to the East, adding these in the right places and at the right times could have tipped the scales in a number of battles.

Well, there is also the issue of direct supply that I brought up earlier. The Red Army for example had thousands of Sherman tanks (admittedly not the best of tanks) and Western ammunition and other supplies. It certainly made a difference on the Eastern front, though how much difference is debateable. It was quite a lot of supplies, and most of it came from the US.

Yes, but the war was far from over. There is no reason why the Germans could not have still won the Eastern front until they suffered massive defeat in early '44. They certain did give back territory in '43 (and got whipped at Stalingrad and suffered irreplaceable losses at Kursk -- but in both of these battles, Red Army losses were much higher) but they were still deep into Russian territory. If we imagine a scenario where instant peace was made with the West, the war's outcome would have been far from certain.

That's an interesting bit of trivia that I wasn't aware of. But who had the most aces doesn't necessarily say who shot down the most aircraft, or who destroyed the most airplanes. (Obviously this is the case, because the Germans having the top 100 aces wasn't enough for them to win.) The Western allies destroyed more planes on the ground than they did in the air, and they were instrumental in destroying German oil production (not to mention preventing the Germans from getting cobalt, which they needed for the Me 262).

theyeti

theyeti

If you'll notice, Soviet success correlates perfectly with the amount of supplies they were getting from the West. Try cutting off those supplies in '44 and see what would have happened.

theyeti

Gurdur

Interestingly, the Russians at the time of encirclement of the German/Axis forces at Stalingrad had a misconception about how many they had actually encircled. They thought it was only a third of what they had actually encircled; when Paulus finally allowed himself to be surrended (throwing the responsibility onto a junior German Army officer), the Russians were completely unprepared to have three times as many prisoners as they thought they'ld have.

According to recently declassified and released KGB documents, around 10, 000 Germans actually went on fighting for up to a month after Paulus' surrender, taking refuge in the sewers and cellers of Stalingrad.
Of those 10,000, around 1,500 were killed, and the remaining 8,500 then surrendered piecemeal.

It seems that none of those 8,500 survived captivity, though that might not be true.
As it is, only around 6,000 of the original around 90,000 captives survived eventually the experience ---- again, largely owing to the Russians being completely unprepared for so many prisoners.

Not true.
Stalingrad coincided roughly with El Alamein.
The effect of both were quite clear to many German Army officers, who commented to each other at that time that they had lost the war, and after that it was all skid-row downwards.

theyeti

Goddamn you. My post got swallowed. Here's the quick version:

Okay.

1) This is mostly irrelevant.

2) The Germans lost about 600,000 after the encirclement; the Russians about 1,000,000 prior to that. This was a good loss to kill ratio for the Red Army, which was accustomed to losing 20 to 1 or worse.

Or maybe because the Russians treated their prisoners like shit. They killed most of them in retaliation. After the war was over, they marched off hundreds of thousands of Germans to be paraded in front of the crowds in Moscow. Few returned.

1) I've been arguing that the involvement of the West was instrumental in the defeat of the Nazis. Citing El Alamein supports my point.

2) The Eastern Front was indeed "sewn up" in 1944. While Stalingrad was a turing point, at least in hindsight, the gains made by the Soviets were relatively modest until the breakout of '44. The war could have taken a very differnt path up until this point, so therefore the involvement of the West in '43 and '44 was of great importance. That's my point.

theyeti