Vorkosigan

This is probably because those ships were sunk (Bismarck, Graf Spee) or nuetralized (Tirpitz) before the US entered the war. Screaming at me won't make your case, Amen, especially when your history is all screwed up.

BTW, declassified docs -- as I recall -- showed that the US illegally helped track Bismarck. I'll try to find a reference.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

You can "strongly" suspect as you like, but until you produce hard evidence that anything was "melted down" you are just talking out your ass.

As for military stuff, US lend-lease tanks amount to about 10% of Soviet production, and the US sent thousands of aircraft. In fact, there were about as many P-39s to the USSR as all marks of British aircraft, almost 15,000 allied fighter aircraft in all, compared to Russian fighter production of 74,000 or so. We also sent 3700 or so bombers, against British contributions of about 50. There's a quick page here: http://peacecountry0.tripod.com/lendlse.htm

"The USA supplied the USSR with 6,430 planes, 3,734 tanks, 104 ships and boats, 210,000 autos, 3,000 anti-aircraft guns, 245,000 field telephones, gasoline, aluminum, copper, zinc, steel and five million tons of food. This was enough to feed an army of 12 million every day of the war. Britain supplied 5,800 planes, 4,292 tanks, and 12 minesweepers. Canada supplied 1,188 tanks, 842 armoured cars, nearly one million shells, and 208,000 tons of wheat and flour. The USSR depended on American trucks for its mobility since 427,000 out of 665,000 motor vehicles (trucks and jeeps) at the end of the war were of western origin. "

As you can see, Russia was completely dependent on the US for its food, gas, and trucks. No food, no victory.

Of course, the list here is only partial. It doesn't mention radios and other stuff also absolutely essential to the war effort. As the saying goes, the Eastern Front was won on the manufacturing floors of the United States.

Here's another list, just to make my point even more:
Here

• In addition to the aircraft deliveries American Lend-lease deliveries to Russia included also more than 400.000 trucks, over 12.000 tanks and other combat vehicles, 32.000 motorcycles, 13.000 locomotives and railway cars, 8.000 anti-aircraft cannons and machine-guns, 135.000 submachine guns, 300.000 tons of explosives, 40.000 field radios, some 400 radar systems, 400.000 metal cutting machi_ne tools, several million tons of foodstuff, steel, other metals, oil and gasoline, chemicals etc. A price tag was naturally attached to all deliveries, with following typical fighter prices:
  
  P-40 Kittyhawk - 44.900 dollars, P-39 Airacobra - 50.700 dollars and P-47 Thunderbolt - 83.000 dollars.
  
  Regardless of Soviet cold-war attempts to forget (or at least diminish) the importance of Lend-lease, the total impact of the Lend-Lease shipment for the Soviet war effort and entire national economy can only be characterized as both dramatic and of decisive importance. The outcome of the war on the East front might well have taken another path without Lend-lease. There were undoubtedly big difficulties in the early period: aircraft modified for tropical conditions were delivered to Arctic ports, Russian-language instructions were lacking, a big number of aircraft were grounded because of lack of spa_res, ammunition, bombs or high-octane fuel. Soon many technical problems 'were overcome, Soviet guns and bomb racks were installed, and numerous other technical improvisa_tions were made in Soviet AF frontal units. Soviet specialists developed also ingenious technical improvements and modifi_cations of the original aircraft versions. In parallel the new American technology was systematically investigated in research and design institutes, and the total impact for the modernization of the Soviet aviation industry was certainly immense. The ultimate peak of this learning process was the post-war copying of the Boeing B-29 in only two years time, resulting in the Soviet nuclear-bomb carrier Tu-4.
  
  Lend-lease aircraft amounted to 18% of all aircraft in the Soviet air forces, 20% of all bombers, and 16-23% of all fighters (numbers vary depending on calculation methods), and 29% of all naval aircraft. In some AF commands and fronts the proportion of Lend-Lease aircraft was even higher: of the 9.888 fighters delivered to the air defense (PVO) fighter units in 1941-45 6.953 (or over 70%!) were British or American. In the AF of the Karelian front lend-lease aircraft amounted to about two-thirds of all combat aircraft in 1942-43, practically all torpedo bombers of the naval air forces were A-20G Bostons in 1944-45 etc....
  
  and about your aces
  
  ....Several Soviet aces scored more than 40 victories with Airacobras. G.A.Rechkalov's 50 victories are apparently the highest score ever with an American fighter, while the No.2 Soviet ace A.I.Pokryshkin claimed 48 of his 59 victories when flying Airacobras.

Vorkosigan

Gurdur

So you'ld prefer listening to moon ? Your loss.
Bit of a strong implication there, and you're not too correct in it either.
First off, many German prisoners weren't treated all that much worse than the Russians guarding them.
Second off, you had a higher chance of survival being a German prisoner of the Russians than a Russian prisoner of the Germans.

No, really ? I mean, if you look back in this thread,you'll see I was the first to make that point.
Don't mind me if I happily potter around the margins with trivia.

However, my own point was that the end was clear to many, many German staff and field offficers immediately following Stalingrad and El Alamein.
It's no big deal; I see little point in a vicious argument on this score.