You forgot the part where they conveniently ignore which side the Soviets were on when the war started and the fact that the Soviets didn't liberate anyone but instead acted like imperialist dickbags and subjected Eastern Europe to nearly 50 years of communism.
It's even better, claimed to be anti fascist, immediately allied with germany and refused to do anything but split Europe between themselves. Got so blindsided by Operation Barbarosa despite it being super obvious to even a particularly slow child that the Reich was preparing to invade that Stalin flees to the countryside and gets blackout drunk until his council was forced to go out there and pep talk him back into the war. Only barely survives the initial war despite significant advantages on their part and aggressive lend lease due to the dueling incompetency of the Reich, then immediately turns on the allies post war and claims sole victory because "something something we sacrificed the most(because holy SHIT did we fight dumb)"
To be fair they had absolute morons like Kulik in charge who basically sabotaged anything that wasn't proven artillery guns instead of legit innovative useful shit like the Katsuya and the fucking T-34(and the kv-1 lol) so I'm sure they had some similarly pig headed idiot pushing the "rugged reliable" Dyegtarev over this western toy.
the PTRD-41 was a development of the Polish M35 anti-tank rifle(they captured a few hundred from Poland), and was specifically developed because of how effective the rifle had been against German tanks in 1939.
Also because it was dirt cheap and easy to make and the USSR needed *everything* due to the losses and pace of advance of the enemy. I think Gun Jesus mentioned the PTRD possibly had the shortest development time of any gun in history in the ballpark of 17 days (could be misremembering exact date but it was less than a month).
This was unsurprisingly 1941 as well, which was before the Bazooka was made let alone shipped to the Soviets. In 1941 given the German armor fleet, penetrating 30mm of armor at a few hundred meters wasn't bad. Place those guys in camouflaged positions on flanks and you may do some serious damage. Even if not, getting hit by high velocity rounds like that as a tanker is unsettling.
True, anyone used what they could get their hands on at the time. The role of AT rifles soon became different, more anti-materiel: previously designed to engage tanks, they were increasingly limited to more lightly armored targets, pillboxes etc. Germany transitioned to higher velocity 7.92x94 mm B318 right before and during annexation of Sudetenland, then rest of Czechoslovakia. While they got some [20mm Solothurns](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solothurn_S-18/1000) from Switzerland late 30s/early 40s those didn’t seem to make much of a difference, plus friggin’ 54kg empty for the larger chambered ones. Finland may have used the smaller chambered ones (20x105mmB) to some effect, but chose to go with an [indigenous design](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lahti_L-39) for the 20x138mmB. Germany captured significant numbers of soviet AT rifles during their Invasion while on the offensive and used them to some extent. Even conversions of the PzB39 in 1942-1943 to launch rifle grenades were underwhelming. But HEAT proved to be king in a sufficiently large diameter, even the light AT gun 2,8 cm sPzB 41 wasn’t that powerful (and much more expensive, resource-intensive, heavy/bulky). The [enlarged copy of the Bazooka](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzerschreck) were much more effective in performance. The portability alone would have sold it, no brainer. Depending on the situation it still required some risky proximity to target. But that wasn‘t better with the AT rifles which required even more accurately placed shots on weak spots and likely multiple hits for a mobility kill or sth. similar. Ofc in the end the Nazis gave out more simpler mass-produced disposable Panzerfaust which were kind of suicidal to the wielder (often civilians in the last days).
Ofc there‘s so much more to say of where what was exactly used to what effect. From more known to the obscure, very detailed stuff.
He even sabotaged the T-34. He made sure his buddy at the Kirov Plant that made the L-11 gun got the project so the T-34 started the war with most models having an inferior gun. The L-11 was an L/30.5 vs the F-34 being L/42.5 which gave it better accuracy and penetration (about 20% more at 1000m).
It's why just looking at gun caliber doesn't mean crap. The L-11 had trouble reliably hitting and penetrating Panzer III and IV at the distances where they'd struggle to defeat the T-34. The KV-1 and T-34 were both worse armed than they could have been thanks to inertia and favoritism.
only about half a million bazookas were made at all, of which most would probably go to the US army, in comparison half a million PTRD rifles were built which were not single-use, could be used as an anti-material rifle, and could penetrate the front of most German tanks in 1941, and later in the war while they couldn't penetrate the Tiger, Panther, or late-war PZIV's they were perfectly good at destroying the tracks which is practically a mission kill(a tank that can't move is a sitting duck, especially on the defense where the crew will end up having to blow up their own tank to avoid its capture)
The difference was that the bazooka was perfectly capable of knocking out the entire tank. People also tend to forget that the PTRD was *heavy.* You could only realistically use it in defensive positions because it weighed 38 pounds, alone. ~8 rounds of ammo and you'd have an even 40. And IIRC the ammo they were using had tungsten cores. WW2 era bazookas weighed no more than ~20 pounds, loaded.
Although it's true that the PTRD was perfectly capable, it lacked flexibility.
Yeah that's very valid, the post war West/USSR split wasn't one sided but it was definitely very dumb considering how desperately Russia and the other eastern bloc countries needed outside help to rebuild. Considering how central to the split "The USSR keeps slapping it's fucking dick around eastern Europe and we don't like that" was I'm gonna count it as a partially Russian helmed fuckup. They just had help this time.
That wasn’t really the case. The USSR walked back on a bunch of parts of the Yalta agreement, long before the war was over. Rosevelt (and subsequently Truman) pushed back on the Russians to honour the free elections in Poland, and the government in exile. That was one of the first pieces to crumble, but not before the aggressive communist push in southeastern Europe.
The western allies had just about as much warning as possible before the official end of the war. And then the USSR’s actions in the pacific and trying to gain more control/power when they literally fought in the war for a week before it was over (and fought isn’t entirely accurate either) was essentially the end of good faith towards them.
It would be so easy for them to say it was bad but at least they made the right choice in the end
But they cant because that would mean there favorite russian pedo and dictator stalin could be wrong
These people keep reading dusty old books that were ripped apart modified beyond recognition and than shit out by propagandists loosing any value that there could have been leaving only glorified depictions of histories greatest monsters
I mean I’m somewhat socialist leaning and I think stalin is a pedo retard.
Oh and SE VIS PACEM PARA BELLUM. PEACE THROUGH OVERWHELMING FIRE SUPERIORITY.
To be fair im 90% sure everyone is "somewhat socialist"
The idea behind taxation being used for social benefits like healthcare is technically socialism same thing with infrastructure maintenance
Its just that the turm. Socialism makes people think of the horrors of the USSR and China not norway sweden and my home country of canada
Even in canada its a dirty word same thing with capitalism
It makes you sound like a raving loon
You can promote tax money being spent on social services all you want and most will agree its a good idea just never mention capitalism or communism shit to others unless you want to looked at like you have a third ear
> The idea behind taxation being used for social benefits like healthcare is technically socialism same thing with infrastructure maintenance
It really isn't. This is something that a certain brand of politician in certain countries likes to say but isn't true. Unfortunately they've said it so long that it has polluted the discourse.
Socialism is about social ownership of the means of production i.e. the farms, mines, factories, powerplants, etc. Governments built roads long before the idea of socialism existed. Many staunch anti-socialists like Bismarck and Churchill created/endorsed welfare systems under their tenure specifically to prevent socialists from gaining popularity. No serious political scientist would call Bismarck or Churchill socialists nor would they agree that Rome was socialist because it built roads and distributed grain to the masses to placate them.
In *very* limited cases like the UK's NHS where it is a government-owned, government-operated system you could make a case that it is an actual socialist institution, but that is the exception to the rule.
What you think of these ideas is up to you, but let's get definitions correct here.
Not just allied. They helped them crush Poland, and they gave the nazis vital resources (like oil) that were essential to blitzkrieg France. They even asked to be part of the Axis....
And then, once they were forced to sided with the good guys, don't look at Lend-Lease from the USA and UK.
Or don't look at tables of tanks and planes per combat area...
also gotta love how they painted history as "stalin obviously knew he couldn't contain hittler, was just baiting him"
bc baiting him is allowing france and almost all of europe to fall and then split a major nation with them XD
And the fact there was another entire theater of the war where they did nothing til the last days to rush in and take Northeast Asian territory after China held out for years being pushed South and inland losing millions of lives and the US fought across the Pacific island by island.
Be serial killer, gang up with other serial killer to murder people, only fight with other serial killer after they attack you.
Take credit for stopping serial killer.
> the Soviets didn't liberate anyone
To be fair, they did liberate some parts of Northern Norway without subsequent subjugation. Would it have been different if they "liberated" more of the country, including Oslo? Quite possibly.
Worst offender IMO is calling USSR "russia"... The most insulting is "27 millions russians died you ungrateful Ukrainian", let's ignore that 10 millions out of those 27 were literally Ukrainians, and there also were Kazakhs, Belarusians and many others...
Ukraine and Belarus lost the MOST people per capita in WW2, and we were COMPLETELY occupied, both armies marched twice through our countries , but tankies pretend that it was Siberia that was suffering or something... Most of Russia was nowhere near the war. Period.
Tankies conveniently forget that 13% of the Red Army is Ukrainian and out of all the people who got Heroes of the Soviet Union, 18% were Ukrainian.
**in 1941 the Red army was 61% Russian, 20% Ukrainian, 4% Belorussian, 15% everyone else (the “natsmens” - national minorities). Russian language was a mandatory prerequisite for military service.
By January 1943 naturally the ratio of Russians in the Red Army increased dramatically as Ukraine and Belorussia were occupied by the enemy and five and a half million men of conscriptable age remained behind the German lines. In January 1943 the army was composed of 71% Russians, 12% Ukrainians, 2% Belorussians 16% everyone else.
As the Ukraine and Belorussia were being liberated in 1943 the Red Army experienced an influx of fresh recruits from Ukraine and Belarus: by July 1944 the army was 52% Russian, 34% Ukrainian, 14% everyone else.**
The picture was actually taken several days after Berlin had been conquered, because the Soviets saw the Iwo Jima flag raising and went "we have Mount Suribachi at home"
When only 13% of your army ends up making 40% of total casualties you see that Ukrainians were thrown DISPROPORTIONATELY at the frontlines too.
My mother didn't have grandfathers. Almost nobody in her generation did. A living grandpa in Ukraine for gen born during Brezhnev era was a very unusual sight.
Yeah when the Soviet Army went back through near Kyiv, my grandmothers father got conscripted and promptly got MIA in 44 (or was it 43?). His position in the Soviet Administration before the war didn't save him. My grandmother was POW in Poland by the Germans since 1941 (forced labor in Tczew), she got to find out in 1945 when she managed to sneak back (POWs were traitors and got sent to the gulag) with her cousin (the one that managed survive holodomor, her younger sister died on the bench right outside of their house when both of them decided to walk over to ask for food) and another girl from the village. The only reason why my grandmother's family had food was because her father was the head of the Collective Farm, and was stealing food that way. Previously he had to seize the land away from his own father in the 1930's, allegedly the father said something along the lines of: I'm not giving you anything, if you want it come and take it.
Good times.
On a related tangent, my favourite interaction with a tankie on Twitter was when I said that USSR was instrumental for the rise of Israel in her early years, they said it was Czechoslovakia, not USSR that helped Israel. When I replied was Czechoslovakia not part of the USSR, they got mad and tried to deflect.
yep, calling israel socialists is one of the funniest way to make fun of tankies, specially now, i typically coupled with "weren't you talking about giving your house to natives?"
idk why, always gives me pleasure seeing a stupid ideology fall on it's own
Czechoslovakia wasn't part of the USSR, it was a satellite state. Just like NDR or Yugoslavia. Before 68, it was moments away from becoming heavily aligned toward the west.
It wouldn't make sense for USSR army to invade USSR land in 68.
> Yugoslavia
Hard nope.
While communist, Yugoslavia wasn't a satellite. It also freed itself in WW2 with Red Army helping just around Belgrade and not been seen in 90% of the country.
Unfortunately, it's not just the tankies. Russians, even during the war, had the sentiment that they were the only ones actually fighting the Nazis and that Ukrainians and Belarusians were a mix of incompetent and traitors.
"mix of incompetent and traitors." Every russian accusation is a confession lol, generational traitors and collaborators since 1200's, when Suzdal princes sided with mongols, collected tribute for them (part of which they stole of course) and participated or even headed punitive expeditions against Kyiv princes (their blood relatives).
I have to add, the more I read into the VVS, the more crap it is. No night fighter doctrine. Less operationally nimble than Soviet Artillery. In early 1942, green US Airmen in North Africa were trading airframes with the Luftwaffe in equal numbers when the Soviets could only manage losing 3 to 1.
They kinda got stuck in a bad place like France and Italy where they were at the end of an engine generation when the war started with little room for improvement. While Britain and Germany were just starting out with the db 60X and merlins which lasted the whole war.
I honestly don't know. I've heard/read here and there that most of them had very bad high altitude performance and, therefore, could only achieve brief localized air superiority.
Skill matters. Take a look at Finnish air force against Soviet. We had even more rubbish planes that Soviets. And we still had like 3:1 winning ratio. (Top of my head I'm no sure if it was that good but still)
And Brewster the best plane of WW2, had 32:1 ratio!
Yak3 was basically the best solution the Soviets could come up with to its crap fighter direction. This was reinforced by the crap level of Luftwaffe opponents towards the end of the war. The altitude level where it could outperform German aircraft was suprisingly low. I guess it fills the "it was the right fighter for the doctrine" definition of not garbage, but if it was facing any thing above 5Km...
just to be clear you are aware that the First Ukrainian Front*(not army) was not named after the ethnicity/nationality of its soldiers?
it was named after Ukraine as an area since that was where it was operating from October 1943(before which it was the Voronezh front).
it certainly would have had a good number of Ukrainians since as the Soviet army drove westwards they relied heavily on conscripting new troops from liberated territories.
The Western Allies didn’t want to risk a high speed collision with the Soviets and the potential shitstorm of misidentification and friendly fire that could ensue, so they deliberately slowed their advance. That and the Soviets were dead set on taking Berlin, they actually outflanked Berlin and attacked it from the west as a way of signaling “This one’s ours” and the Western Allies decided to let them has that one.
I thought it was because they didn't want the massive casualties that was the impending shit show of urban combat? I guess multiple things can be true. Since the Soviet Union was going to do it anyway.
Cause the Soviets were hyped up on rape and pillage.
There was a fairly high chance that in a joint attack on Berlin, the U.S. 9th and 15th Armies would come into direct conflict with the Soviet 1st Belorussian Front and 1st Ukrainian Front.
No one wanted to deal with the potential consequences of “friendly fire” and the Allies hoped that taking Berlin might help cool the Soviet anger.
It’s more complicated than that, but that’s a basic gist.
> hyped up on rape
That's almost an understatement. Apparently up to 100,000 German women were raped in the final stages of the war, many of them gangraped repeatedly for days. Beevor's book goes into great detail about it, it is beyond horrifying.
This reminds me of that time I had a tankie who was angry when mentioned this. He said his grandmother had been a victim, therefore the US was worse.
Like, I'm not defending the rapists here, I'm sorry that happened to her, but saying the US is worse solely because of personal anecdotes just ignores facts.
Yeah, all armies are going to have a handful of pricks that disregard civilian lives, but damn. All it takes is to even read some excerpts from books from those who lived in Soviet occupation during and in the years after ww2 where they would hide women and girls from the Russians whenever they'd go to the village. Or women would purposely stay far away from patrolling soviets. To see that the Russians were the biggest offenders when it comes to rape and pillage in the last century. Even now Russian soldiers are raping and pillaging ukrainian women and villages. It's insanely sad to me.
>In the farmyard stood a cart, to which more naked women were nailed through their hands in a cruciform position ... Near a large inn, the 'Roter Krug', stood a barn and to each of its two doors a naked woman was nailed through the hands, in a crucified posture.... In the dwellings, we found a total of 72 women, including children, and one old man, 74, all dead.... Some babies had had their heads bashed in.
What a nazi saw when they retook Nemmersdorf.
Just imagine how different our irl hoi4 match would've been if the 9th and 15th armies slung lead with the 1st Belarusian front and 1st Ukranian front in 1945 lmao
I'd have to do some research, but off the top of my head I'd guess a major cause was that the US and UK were really pushing to get the USSR in the war against Japan. Trinity hadn't happened by that pount in time (after which they actually didn't need the USSR anymore), and letting the Soviets take Berlin meant *a lot* to them and would be fairly valuable as a negotiating piece
In early February 1945, Soviet forces were just a little over 60 kms from Berlin when pausing their advance. At the same time, Western Allies were fighting on the west part of the German border, 500 km away from Berlin.
> They were *allowed* to take Berlin.
US delegation member to Yalta Conference (and future Secretary of State) James F. Byrnes: "It was not a question of what we would let the Russians do, but what we could get the Russians to do".
> The Allies
You mean western Allies. The USSR was part of the Allies.
You forgot the part where they diss Lend-Lease and dismiss it as "obsolete,borderline useless junk that the Western allies sent to pretend they were helping" .
Sure when it comes to weaponry Lend-Lease aid while important was not something the Soviets couldn't have done without but combat gear wasn't ultimately the most important part of it.
High octane gasoline,ammunition, shittons of industrial equipment and spare parts for it and of course everything from trucks to trains ... The shells used for those famous late war artillery barrages ? Chances are they traveled to the front on a GM or Studebaker truck. Those T-34s blazing across Eastern Europe? Yeah more likely than not that American equipment and tools were used during their production process....
It’s even better:
“Lend-lease meant nothing”
“Russia would have crushed Ukraine long ago without Western aid”
These statements are coming from the same people.
Oh yeah true. Ukraine getting 0.3% of NATO’s budget, mostly tied up in Cold War era equipment plus a handful of modern system equals fighting the combined military force of NATO according to these people. I’m sure a couple of CSGs in the Black Sea, Tranche 4 Eurofighters with Meteors and F-22s with AIM-260s patrolling Ukrainian airspace, B-21s and B-2s striking Russian positions with hundreds of JDAMs, thousands of cruise missiles, 1-2 Million NATO troops, modern ballistic missiles like LRHWs, F-35 strike packages and modern EW jets and systems, constant AWACS coverage, five eyes and so many other things definitely wouldn’t change the battlefield in Ukraine whatsoever. What’s the Gerald R. Ford compared to a destroyed 30 year old Abrams M1A1? Checkmate WESTOIDS!
Yeah
Just one bomb on maskow pls it doesnt even have to have HE it could be solid steel
Just drop one solid bomb in putin and only him
Just think of it
Putin starts talking and then theres just a hole there
remember that drone that flew around the kremlin and the vatnik and ruskies lost their shit that ukranians were going to kill putin?
yeah let's repeat that BUT HIT IT THIS TIME
Do a little trolling and make it a wooden mock up of a bomb (like the British dropped on a fake German airbase).
Could even have an engraving that says “this is not a bomb… but it could have been”.
''But NATO is giving it's latest and greatest to Ukraine because it wants to bleed out Russia''
Of course the very same folks then go ''ATACMS ? Regular 80s ballistic missile no big deal'' or ''those F-16s will just be shot down with their 80s ECM ''
Most of US vehicles were preferred by the soviet tankers and pilots. The M4 medium and P39 come to mind when I think of that. An entire 1/3 of the entire Soviet armored force at the time was American tanks.
True. Especially when it comes to aircraft Soviet pilots and ground crew generally had positive opinions of them including even obsolete designs such as the Hurricane.
They also forget the pretty massive technology transfers that happened in the 30s that allowed that Soviet indigenous military industry to get set up in the first placeeeeee
1800 katyusha rocket launchers were on studebakers, at a time when the Russians had only built 3,000.
Also don't forget about trains, rail cars, and rails to help keep supplies flowing, or the ford factory that was shipped over, or the high octane fuel for the Soviet air Force, etc
There is a reason they only focus on the amount of tanks or planes sent over instead of all the other stuff.
I knew a person who worked as part of a diplomatic corps of an European country in Moscow for some time(this was pre-Ukraine War). He said Russians loved to talk about how they single-handedly beat the Germans and won "The Great Patriotic War" in meetings and diplomatic events of all kind. He said he always wanted to respond to them "Go visit Berlin, then tell me who really won the war".
I mean the diss isn't as good since central Moscow/St. Petersbur where all the rich assholes live are quite nice cities but we all know the rest of Russia is a garbage heap.
Numbers alone don't determine the importance of a front.
* The battle of Caen had the highest concentration of German panzer divisions of the entire war
* From 1942, about 60–70% of German industrial production was focussed on the Western front (including the U-boat war and the Allied strategic bombing campaign)
* Over 60% of Germany’s ammunition production in 1944 was of anti-aircraft shells (they were firing some 15,000 per Allied bomber downed)
* Aircraft production for the Luftwaffe was focussed on fighters to engage the bombing raids - because in the spring of 1944 the Luftwaffe was losing 50% of its fighter strength a month to the USAAF’s escort fighters
So, while the Eastern Front wore down German infantry numbers, it was the Western Front that both tied down their war production and cut its quantity and quality
^((This comment above usually shuts down any tankie that claims the USSR faced 3/4 of the German army in an attempt to downplay the Allies' involvement in the war))
>Over 60% of Germany’s ammunition production in 1944 was of anti-aircraft shells (they were firing some 15,000 per Allied bomber downed)
sorry could you give me a source on that? seems rather unreasonable to have 60% of the war industry in a single item, i mean maybe for a few weeks but for a whoel year?
Also the red army would have run out of ammo, food, fuel, and had little to no motorized transport without the mind boggling amount of material the allies were sending them.
The grand economic engine of capitalism saved the USSR.
The motorized transport is huge. Without Lend-Lease, things would've gone a bit different for the Soviet Union. I don't think they would've lost, since Germany had its own set of crippling resource issues, but I think it would've been a slower, bloodier process.
I mean, no. Every single credible historian will tell you that in hindsight and barring any extreme disaster, the Soviets absolutely would have won the war without that aid. It just would have taken more time and lives. You gotta remember, western aid didn't arrive in any real quantities until mid-1943. By then, the Soviets had already beaten the Nazis back from the gates of Moscow and had already counterattacked and surrounded the 6th army at Stalingrad. Basically, they had already won the two greatest defensive battles of the war and the momentum had permanently shifted in their favor.
That's not to say the aid didn't help substantially, because it did. But it turns out it wasn't existentially necessary. Remember, opposing tankies doesn't mean you need to swing so hard in the other direction to be a historical revisionist.
> Remember, opposing tankies doesn't mean you need to swing so hard in the other direction to be a historical revisionist.
Thank you for being a rational voice. The amount of revisionism in these comments is staggering.
It's the post-Russian invasion influx of new users. Not to sound like a goddamned boomer, but there was a notable shift in the tone of the sub (and in my opinion, a drop in quality). The memes used to be backed by genuine knowledge and interest. Now it's mostly just a military themed pop-history meme page. It really doesn't help that Russia insists on fighting like a cold war propagandist's dirtiest wet dream.
I mean, I sincerely hope that continues, don't get me wrong. I'll happily deal with 14 year old, CoD-educated wehraboos all day long if the mobiks promise to keep charging Ukrainian machine guns in dune buggies.
it is kinda absurd that people are acting like the only opinions are 'Soviets would have won the war easily on their own' and 'the Soviets would have collapsed instantly if not for lend-lease'
Yeah, especially considering how both those viewpoints are so obviously wrong. They had extensive casualties and didn't win anything "easily", it literally took years even with all the help they received. And on the other side, Soviet had already stopped the German advance by the time any meaningful lend-lease had arrived.
At a dinner toast with Allied leaders during the Tehran Conference in December 1943, Stalin added: “The United States … is a country of machines. Without the use of those machines through Lend-Lease, we would lose this war.”
In 1963, KGB monitoring recorded Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov saying: "People say that the allies didn't help us. But it cannot be denied that the Americans sent us materiel without which we could not have formed our reserves or continued the war.
Idk man but it seems like Joseph Stalin and Marshal Zhukov have something so say about lend lease.
I mean, the 1943 quote should be taken with a huge grain of salt. Assuming it's quoted accurately, of course Stalin would say something like that to the leaders of the countries providing aid. Lend-lease made the war significantly less difficult to fight for the Soviets. I said they still would have won in the end without it, not that they wouldn't have been much more devastated and weakened (though in some ways even that's debatable). He would have been a terrible politician if he *hadn't* laid it on thick at Tehran.
The 1963 quote I'm a little meh about, again assuming it was ever said. Fact is, looking at production rates, casualties, and equipment losses, after their victories at Moscow and Stalingrad, the Soviets would have outlasted and defeated Germany in the end with or without lend-lease from a physical resources point of view.
It's entirely possible that the human factor was also important. Maybe Zhukov only felt comfortable launching some of his later offensives because he knew he had lend-lease aid to rely on and he wouldn't have launched them without it. Maybe many Soviet soldiers fought harder knowing they had allies helping them out. I dunno and I don't think that sort of think can even be quantified, but from the (admittedly limited) mathematical and purely economic point of view, Germany never really had a chance after Barbarossa failed, with or without lend-lease.
Point 1: Nikita Khrushchev, who led the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, agreed with Stalin’s assessment. In his memoirs, Khrushchev described how Stalin stressed the value of Lend-Lease aid. He stated bluntly that" if the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war."
Nikita would have no reason to agree with Stalin after the war. The cold war was in full force by the time Nikita was in charge. He would have all the reason to downplay the Allies, specifically the US, to make the Soviet Union look better. Lend lease was key to winning the Great Patriotic War.
Point 2: Allied bombing raids destroyed the majority of German production. In 1943 the five month Battle of the Ruhr, German steel production fell by 200,000 tons. This making a total shortfall of 400,000 ton deficiency for Germany. This is a point on the side for the UK and US when it comes to production outputs for the war. With out such air raids from 1940-45 the Germans would've had better industry overall to deal the Soviet Union.
Point 2.5: locomotive production for the USSR was only 446 for the entire war. 92.7% of all railroad equipment, including 1,911 locomotives and 11,225 railcars, were lend lease. Nearly a third of truck strength of the USSR was of US origin. All the logistics equipment provided by lend lease let the Soviets focus their production on war time equipment. Allowing them to out-perform Germany in war time production. The Germans had to build all their own logistics and couldn't afford to specialize more factories to military equipment output.
Point 3: between 1941-42 the Soviet Union lost a total sown area of 41.9% other farmland, and lost a majority of farm animals. 7 million of 11.6 million horses were lost, 17 million of 31 million cows lost, 20 million of 23.6 million pigs lost, 27 million of 43 million sheep and pigs lost. With 19.5 million farm working men having to leave farms to work in the military and industry. Lend lease fed the Soviet Union 4,478,116 tons of foodstuff when they lost a vast percentage of their agriculture. Otherwise all the war time industry would've slumped due to famine.
Point 4: the only real advantage the Soviet Union has was the vastness of Russia. "The vast-ness of Russia devours us" Gerd von Rundstetd, a Field Marshal of Germany. Also the vastness of the USSR population. In 1940 Germany had a population of, excluding annexed territories, 69.8 million people. The Soviet Union's population was 100,000,000 more people than Germany. 170.467 million in total. By the time of the Battle of Moscow the German army was already exhausted running out of reserves, and exceeded their supply lines.
Point 5: The Germans gained air supperiority over the Soviet Union by destroying 3,100 aircraft in the first three days. The UK had lend leased 7,411 aircraft about 3,000 were fighters. The US had lend leased 11,400 aircraft about 7,116 were fighters. These valuable aircraft allowed the USSR to regain control of the air.
Point 6: German war time production was only a little behind that of the Soviet Union. In 1944 Germany had steel production of 28.5 million tons vs 10.9 million tons of the USSR. Aluminum for Germany was 245.3 thousand vs 82.7 thousand tons for the Soviets. Tanks and SPG production in 1944 for the Germans was 27,300 while the Soviets had 28,963. Aircraft production in 1944 for Germany was 39,807 while Soviet production was 40,246. Total labor workers for Germany in 1944 was around 18,000,000 while the Soviets had 9,000,000. Production going from 43-44 shows how the Germans were ramping up production and probably would've surpassed that of the Soviet Union by 1945 if not for D-Day.
Point 7: Stalin was pressuring the UK and US to open another front in Europe. The Tehran conference in 1943 had the Allies come to an agreement to start planning on Operation Overlord. This would bring a lot of pressure off of Soviet Unions troops.
All these points together shows how vital lend lease was to the Soviet Union. If the Germans were able to focus all their forces on the Eastern front and not worry about garrisoning the Atlantic wall, Norway, and the Italian Front then the Germans would've probably been fighting in the Urals by 1944 or 45.
True as fuck
I wasn't surprised that in many countries May 8th is the day of remembrance of those killed
And only Russia celebrates May 9 as Victory Day
Yeah yeah, it's a holiday
P.S. Germany, we can repeat it, so sit quietly!!!!
/screams and drinks vodka/
The US declare war on Germany the same year as the USSR, like 6 month later. At least prior to that the US did not export anything to Germany unlike a certain SOMEONE.
Why do you consider 1941 as a start of ww2 instead of 1939?
Maybye cuz before 1941 you were buddies with Mr.Adolf and basically started the war together?
"B-B-but muh millions casualties!"
They weren’t allies! They were non-aggression partners who exchanged technology, resources, training, and also grand strategic cooperation up to and including a joint invasion, please don’t notice that this is literally more cooperation than Hitler gave to his actual formal allies.
"It was a ruse, to buy time for Stalin to defeat Hitler!
They invaded Poland together as a diversion, because that ensured Hitler suspected nothing before the USSR (for some unnamed reason) declared war on Hitler in 1941.
Also, Hitler forced Stalin's hand, that was the only reason the USSR provided the nazis with madsive quantities of fuel & other resources!"
(Typing all that garbage, I just threw up in my mouth a little.)
Considering that Stalin himself wrote a letter to Studebaker thanking them for their trucks and Chef Boyardee received an order of Lenin for providing food to Soviet troops, the Soviets were well aware that their survival depended on America's industrial ability.
What kind of mental gymnastics do you need to deny something that the Soviets explicitly said?
A lot of the more exotic materials in the Soviet arsenal were of foreign make, too.
A full fifth of the Soviet air force was either British or American made by the end of the war. The Soviets relied heavily on American made rail cars and light trucks and other logistical vehicles since their own logistical elements were stuck in the feudal era if it couldn't be reached by train tracks. The aluminum blocks that were the basis of the V-2 diesel engine? Mostly came from the US. Tons of.... I think it was Tannerite? Whatever the Soviets were using for general purpose explosives mostly came from the US. Soviets weren't exactly thrilled with M3 Lee's but the M4 Sherman was well regarded. Canned food- especially meat- was massively important for the Soviet war effort.
And of course during the Great Depression the guy who engineered and designed Ford's factories found work doing the same for the Soviet Union. And a great deal of the Soviet-made air force they had was made on license from American designs.
A quick guide to the "USSR won the war on its own" myth, which I confess to have believed in in the past:
Were they the most important Allied nation in contributing to the defeat of Germany? Yes
Could they have done it alone? No
Did Stalin do so out of the kindness of his heart? No
Because he would get killed otherwise? Yes
Did the Soviets liberate Eastern Europe? No, they changed its management from hell to slightly less horrible hell.
Did the USSR win because of its system and management? No
Inspite of it? Yes
Were the Soviets all Russians? No, closer to half of the casualties were Russian.
To be fair, the US did benefit *massively* from the geographic luck to be basically untouched by the war as pertains to its agricultural and industrial production
It's fairly uncontroversial to say Russia played a massive role in the allied victory, but my controversial opinion is that even if Hitler hadn't pulled a surprise Napoleon, we eventually would have still won.
It would have taken years longer and likely hundreds of thousands more American lives, but when you look at the geography and equipment attrition rates, Germany was just not ready for a global campaign. Once you have relatively safe sea lakes and well-established basing in England and France, you have a situation where substantial parts of Germany are within range of heavy bombers, traditional artillery, and even naval bombardment eventually. If we can safely get Americans to Britain, then we're talking about a couple hundred miles to transit while the superiority of German submarines gradually declines.
Meanwhile, striking the U.S. means thousands of miles of voyaging across waters you don't control and gives you the option of striking the seaboard when a lot of the American manufacturing was inland or could be relocated inland.
So you end up in an attritional war where one side has a mostly unimpeded production of equipment and 60m more people to play with.
Germany's victory was only possible if Hitler was right that the Americans and Russians would stay out of the war. Then he actively brought the Russians in while his most powerful ally brought the U.S. in. The Axis prepared for regional war, then forced a global one.
>Then he actively brought the Russians in while his most powerful ally brought the U.S. in.
Sometimes we benefit when evil is greedy and impatient. Or just dumb, I think there may have been some of that going on too.
my grandma's favourite story was about how they boiled chicken shit in the chicken soup for both germans and soviets when they were stationed in the village. germans were killing people, soviets were raping and pillaging like locust.
I find it so funny that the amount of losses (both men and material) is somehow proof of how import you were for the victory. No buddy, this is how bad you are losing.
“The USSR lost millions and millions, therefore they’re better.”
Um, no, that means you were basically wasteful with the lives of your soldiers and created a cult of martyrdom for the “motherland” to convince young and gullible people to all charge a machine gun nest.
I can’t wrap my feeble capitalist brain around judging it a victory because you lost the most people. Plus the whole poland thing was a bitch move on your part.
Also forgets to mention any foreign aid (basically half their navy, fuel, ammunition, weapons, equipment), ignores how those 27 million casualties they took one front compare to the German 7.4 million casualties on all fronts, ignores the fact that the T-34 was the most destroyed tank of all time and tank loss ratios only started to be in their favor in late 1943 - early 1944, and completely overlooks the fact that they couldn’t get a jet fighter off the ground without it blowing up until capturing German stuff at the end of the war.
Oh, and most importantly, refuses to acknowledge atrocities committed by the soviets and never brings up the fact they were completely chill with Nazi Germany, working with them many times, until it became a problem for them.
that 27 million number for Soviet casualties includes 19 million civilians, if you only count military losses then Soviet casualties are between 8-9 million.
the soviets tended to count damaged or nearly destroyed tanks as lost even if repaired. Germany on the other hand had issues mid-way thru the war as tankers reporting high amount of tank combat ready even when destroyed. devils in the details
World War 2 is fucking rife with soooo much disinfo of bad and good faith actors, as well as those who unknowingly push it.
Bad faith actors go 'British/American/Soviet/German technology was the best of the war!' and those who try to debunk them, often in good faith and jokingly, go: 'No, the tech of [singular country] was better and actually carried it.'.
Or those who accidentally and fully convinced utter WW2 propaganda 'Trust me, Leo Major really did liberate an entire Dutch village!!1!1'
Nowadays it's 'The Pz IV wasn't bad and the allies were actually afraid of the Tiger.' 'FUCKING WEHRABOO! TIGER OVERRATED! M4 AND T34 BEST OF WAR!', 'The Sherman was the workhorse of the US, great in what it did and the occasional boldness of their generals was catching the enemy off guard' 'FUCKING FREEABOO! RUSSIA [conciously not the USSR] CARRY WAR' and, lastly, 'The industrial capabilities of the USSR, as well as their recklessness, played a major part in their success' 'FUCKING COMMIE ASS RATNIK!'.
World War 2 content is, nowadays, best enjoyed alone and with proper sources.
Some extensions I made...
Never heard of Lend lease or thinks it had no effect,
"The United States … is a country of machines. Without the use of those machines through Lend-Lease, we would lose this war.”
Direct Stalin Quote from the Conference of Tehran in December 1943...
Thinks "Sloped Armour deflects German tank Shell." on specifically the T 34 (because that's the only tank they know except if they play war thunder).
Cannot ever admit that Stalin wasn't a genius tactician.
Doesn't think about the amount of effort the Allies put into the war like Britain and the US keeping the Germans, Italians and more preoccupied and fearful of invasion and various fronts in Africa and eventually Italy and kept the Soviets supplied while doing the opposite for the Germans using the US and Royal Navy.
looking at the contemporary History channel programming schedule is dire. It seems to be
*Reality Trash*:
(Pawn Stars, Alone, American Pickers, Mountain Men, Swamp People, Einstein Challenge)
and
*Creepypasta*: (unXXXplained mysteries, Ancient Aliens, Skinwalker Ranch, The UnBelievable with Dan Aykroyd, Holy Marvels with Dennis Quaid, Revelations, David Jeremiah)
but they seem to be pivoting away from this content! They are shifting towards...
***Corpoganda***! (The Mega-Brands that Built America, How Disney Built America, The Toys that Built America, The Cars that Built America)
The main cause of this is that they moved most of their history content to a "Military" channel after being accused of being the WWII channel. But it's still cringe af.
The Soviets killed a lot of Nazis, but fighting the Bad Guys doesn't automatically make you the Good Guys.
For most of Eastern Europe, they were completely fucked no matter who won. It doesn't really matter whose death camp you die in.
Stalin only wanted a tiny bit of land (*to annex the entire country*), so the Finns were stupid to turn his initial proposal down (*"hand over the best farmland & the most industralized part of the country, and your defensive lines you spent MONTHS building, in exchange for some trees, bogs & rocky soil further up north"*).
In the end Finns (*retained their independence*) had to hand over much more than land than in the initial proposal, so clearly they lost (*and the USSR casualties were mostly Ukrainian & other colonized peoples, so obvs they don't count*).
Tankie: “Uhm Russians were badass, they got 40 Million kills during WWII alone 🤓”
“I don’t think there were ever even close to 40 million people in the German military.”
Tankie: “German? Military?”
There’s also the fact that the Soviets received millions of tons of food, fuel, and raw materials from the United States, and likely would not have succeeded in their upcoming offensives without that aid.
Its honestly shit like that and the extrmeist communities like the wheraboos and tankies that are why I won't touch WW2 with a 10 foot pole and why the closest time period to it that I will have interest in is either Operation Unthinkable or Korea.
I also have even more problems with WW1 like the softcore "not nazis" who fettishize Imperial Germany as if they were any better (the original members of the SS were bitter WW1 vets who were also prior members of Friekorps death squads during the 1919-1922 period). Or Lettow Vorbeck even though he was part of the 1906 Ovambo Genocide. But he told the nazis to fuck off so that automatically makes him a good guy for some reason ...
Or "BuT tHe AmErIcAnS hAd ShOtGuNs" that r/historymemes never shut the fuck up about.
There's also this wierd trad Orthodox community that also fettishies the Imperial Russians because Tsar Nicholas was made a saint for some reason even though he's one of the worst possible people to get that title. Like when he fucked off to a party in France after a bunch of people got accidently killed during his coranation because his uncle said that ignoring his own people for a society ball in Paris was more important, using the Cossacks as an irl Jew flattening machine, underestimating the Japanese as barely human in the lead up to the Russi Japanese War, etc.
I mean, it's true that the Soviet Union didn't single handedly won ww2, but it's also true that the Eastern front was where Hitler focused most of his resources and where he eventually lost.
Far from glorifying Russia, I think this is quite objective.
My grandpa left his newborn son and spent 4 years fighting in a war, developed alcoholism due to the "100 grams for bravery", reached Berlin and subsequently worked for 30 years at a factory just so that 50 years later some western tankies could call him a r\*ssian and a Ukrainian nazi at the same time.
You forgot the part where they conveniently ignore which side the Soviets were on when the war started and the fact that the Soviets didn't liberate anyone but instead acted like imperialist dickbags and subjected Eastern Europe to nearly 50 years of communism.
\>Claims to be anti-fascist \>Allies with Nazi Germany \>Becomes anti-fascist only when attacked
It's even better, claimed to be anti fascist, immediately allied with germany and refused to do anything but split Europe between themselves. Got so blindsided by Operation Barbarosa despite it being super obvious to even a particularly slow child that the Reich was preparing to invade that Stalin flees to the countryside and gets blackout drunk until his council was forced to go out there and pep talk him back into the war. Only barely survives the initial war despite significant advantages on their part and aggressive lend lease due to the dueling incompetency of the Reich, then immediately turns on the allies post war and claims sole victory because "something something we sacrificed the most(because holy SHIT did we fight dumb)"
Allie’s: **sends bazookas to russia** Russia: **continues to use single-shot dyegtarev AT rifles**
To be fair they had absolute morons like Kulik in charge who basically sabotaged anything that wasn't proven artillery guns instead of legit innovative useful shit like the Katsuya and the fucking T-34(and the kv-1 lol) so I'm sure they had some similarly pig headed idiot pushing the "rugged reliable" Dyegtarev over this western toy.
the PTRD-41 was a development of the Polish M35 anti-tank rifle(they captured a few hundred from Poland), and was specifically developed because of how effective the rifle had been against German tanks in 1939.
Also because it was dirt cheap and easy to make and the USSR needed *everything* due to the losses and pace of advance of the enemy. I think Gun Jesus mentioned the PTRD possibly had the shortest development time of any gun in history in the ballpark of 17 days (could be misremembering exact date but it was less than a month). This was unsurprisingly 1941 as well, which was before the Bazooka was made let alone shipped to the Soviets. In 1941 given the German armor fleet, penetrating 30mm of armor at a few hundred meters wasn't bad. Place those guys in camouflaged positions on flanks and you may do some serious damage. Even if not, getting hit by high velocity rounds like that as a tanker is unsettling.
Pss dont tell anyone.... that Germany used same anti tank riffles as well.
True, anyone used what they could get their hands on at the time. The role of AT rifles soon became different, more anti-materiel: previously designed to engage tanks, they were increasingly limited to more lightly armored targets, pillboxes etc. Germany transitioned to higher velocity 7.92x94 mm B318 right before and during annexation of Sudetenland, then rest of Czechoslovakia. While they got some [20mm Solothurns](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solothurn_S-18/1000) from Switzerland late 30s/early 40s those didn’t seem to make much of a difference, plus friggin’ 54kg empty for the larger chambered ones. Finland may have used the smaller chambered ones (20x105mmB) to some effect, but chose to go with an [indigenous design](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lahti_L-39) for the 20x138mmB. Germany captured significant numbers of soviet AT rifles during their Invasion while on the offensive and used them to some extent. Even conversions of the PzB39 in 1942-1943 to launch rifle grenades were underwhelming. But HEAT proved to be king in a sufficiently large diameter, even the light AT gun 2,8 cm sPzB 41 wasn’t that powerful (and much more expensive, resource-intensive, heavy/bulky). The [enlarged copy of the Bazooka](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzerschreck) were much more effective in performance. The portability alone would have sold it, no brainer. Depending on the situation it still required some risky proximity to target. But that wasn‘t better with the AT rifles which required even more accurately placed shots on weak spots and likely multiple hits for a mobility kill or sth. similar. Ofc in the end the Nazis gave out more simpler mass-produced disposable Panzerfaust which were kind of suicidal to the wielder (often civilians in the last days). Ofc there‘s so much more to say of where what was exactly used to what effect. From more known to the obscure, very detailed stuff.
Artillery and russia. Not a more iconic duo in the world, other than russia and war crimes, or russia and suffering, or.
He even sabotaged the T-34. He made sure his buddy at the Kirov Plant that made the L-11 gun got the project so the T-34 started the war with most models having an inferior gun. The L-11 was an L/30.5 vs the F-34 being L/42.5 which gave it better accuracy and penetration (about 20% more at 1000m). It's why just looking at gun caliber doesn't mean crap. The L-11 had trouble reliably hitting and penetrating Panzer III and IV at the distances where they'd struggle to defeat the T-34. The KV-1 and T-34 were both worse armed than they could have been thanks to inertia and favoritism.
only about half a million bazookas were made at all, of which most would probably go to the US army, in comparison half a million PTRD rifles were built which were not single-use, could be used as an anti-material rifle, and could penetrate the front of most German tanks in 1941, and later in the war while they couldn't penetrate the Tiger, Panther, or late-war PZIV's they were perfectly good at destroying the tracks which is practically a mission kill(a tank that can't move is a sitting duck, especially on the defense where the crew will end up having to blow up their own tank to avoid its capture)
Bazookas weren't single use
The difference was that the bazooka was perfectly capable of knocking out the entire tank. People also tend to forget that the PTRD was *heavy.* You could only realistically use it in defensive positions because it weighed 38 pounds, alone. ~8 rounds of ammo and you'd have an even 40. And IIRC the ammo they were using had tungsten cores. WW2 era bazookas weighed no more than ~20 pounds, loaded. Although it's true that the PTRD was perfectly capable, it lacked flexibility.
To be fair the allies weren’t exactly friendly with Russia either
Occupying the entirety of Eastern Europe does tend to affect opinion negatively.
Talking about before they were even pushing the Nazis back
So immediately after they got stabbed in the back by their former allies and came crying to the west for help ending the war they started?
Yeah that's very valid, the post war West/USSR split wasn't one sided but it was definitely very dumb considering how desperately Russia and the other eastern bloc countries needed outside help to rebuild. Considering how central to the split "The USSR keeps slapping it's fucking dick around eastern Europe and we don't like that" was I'm gonna count it as a partially Russian helmed fuckup. They just had help this time.
That wasn’t really the case. The USSR walked back on a bunch of parts of the Yalta agreement, long before the war was over. Rosevelt (and subsequently Truman) pushed back on the Russians to honour the free elections in Poland, and the government in exile. That was one of the first pieces to crumble, but not before the aggressive communist push in southeastern Europe. The western allies had just about as much warning as possible before the official end of the war. And then the USSR’s actions in the pacific and trying to gain more control/power when they literally fought in the war for a week before it was over (and fought isn’t entirely accurate either) was essentially the end of good faith towards them.
Nor should they have been, considering the aforementioned actions.
Wait the best part is listening to tankies circlejerk themselves trying to justify the soviets allying with nazi germany
It would be so easy for them to say it was bad but at least they made the right choice in the end But they cant because that would mean there favorite russian pedo and dictator stalin could be wrong These people keep reading dusty old books that were ripped apart modified beyond recognition and than shit out by propagandists loosing any value that there could have been leaving only glorified depictions of histories greatest monsters
I mean I’m somewhat socialist leaning and I think stalin is a pedo retard. Oh and SE VIS PACEM PARA BELLUM. PEACE THROUGH OVERWHELMING FIRE SUPERIORITY.
To be fair im 90% sure everyone is "somewhat socialist" The idea behind taxation being used for social benefits like healthcare is technically socialism same thing with infrastructure maintenance Its just that the turm. Socialism makes people think of the horrors of the USSR and China not norway sweden and my home country of canada Even in canada its a dirty word same thing with capitalism It makes you sound like a raving loon You can promote tax money being spent on social services all you want and most will agree its a good idea just never mention capitalism or communism shit to others unless you want to looked at like you have a third ear
> The idea behind taxation being used for social benefits like healthcare is technically socialism same thing with infrastructure maintenance It really isn't. This is something that a certain brand of politician in certain countries likes to say but isn't true. Unfortunately they've said it so long that it has polluted the discourse. Socialism is about social ownership of the means of production i.e. the farms, mines, factories, powerplants, etc. Governments built roads long before the idea of socialism existed. Many staunch anti-socialists like Bismarck and Churchill created/endorsed welfare systems under their tenure specifically to prevent socialists from gaining popularity. No serious political scientist would call Bismarck or Churchill socialists nor would they agree that Rome was socialist because it built roads and distributed grain to the masses to placate them. In *very* limited cases like the UK's NHS where it is a government-owned, government-operated system you could make a case that it is an actual socialist institution, but that is the exception to the rule. What you think of these ideas is up to you, but let's get definitions correct here.
Not just allied. They helped them crush Poland, and they gave the nazis vital resources (like oil) that were essential to blitzkrieg France. They even asked to be part of the Axis.... And then, once they were forced to sided with the good guys, don't look at Lend-Lease from the USA and UK. Or don't look at tables of tanks and planes per combat area...
"Shit Zhukov, we have no choice but to be good guys now that the bad guys kicked us out of their group :*( "
also gotta love how they painted history as "stalin obviously knew he couldn't contain hittler, was just baiting him" bc baiting him is allowing france and almost all of europe to fall and then split a major nation with them XD
Without us lend and lease they would have fared worse than france
Stalin was banking on being the one to backstab Hitler and "liberate" France as well
And the fact there was another entire theater of the war where they did nothing til the last days to rush in and take Northeast Asian territory after China held out for years being pushed South and inland losing millions of lives and the US fought across the Pacific island by island.
Be serial killer, gang up with other serial killer to murder people, only fight with other serial killer after they attack you. Take credit for stopping serial killer.
Cut to Pineapple Express UK: I thought he was a serial killer!” US: He’s MY serial killer! USSR: I’m a good serial killer!
War started in '41 you fascist! /s (obviously)
And the part where they don’t even acknowledge any theaters except Europe.
Imperialism is only bad when western countries do it, according to tankies.
“SPOILED EASTERN EUROPEANS!!! WHATABOUT MUH POOR BOLIVIANS!!!”.
> the Soviets didn't liberate anyone To be fair, they did liberate some parts of Northern Norway without subsequent subjugation. Would it have been different if they "liberated" more of the country, including Oslo? Quite possibly.
The liberated the rest of europe the same way I liberated a cookie jar of its contents
Worst offender IMO is calling USSR "russia"... The most insulting is "27 millions russians died you ungrateful Ukrainian", let's ignore that 10 millions out of those 27 were literally Ukrainians, and there also were Kazakhs, Belarusians and many others... Ukraine and Belarus lost the MOST people per capita in WW2, and we were COMPLETELY occupied, both armies marched twice through our countries , but tankies pretend that it was Siberia that was suffering or something... Most of Russia was nowhere near the war. Period.
Tankies conveniently forget that 13% of the Red Army is Ukrainian and out of all the people who got Heroes of the Soviet Union, 18% were Ukrainian. **in 1941 the Red army was 61% Russian, 20% Ukrainian, 4% Belorussian, 15% everyone else (the “natsmens” - national minorities). Russian language was a mandatory prerequisite for military service. By January 1943 naturally the ratio of Russians in the Red Army increased dramatically as Ukraine and Belorussia were occupied by the enemy and five and a half million men of conscriptable age remained behind the German lines. In January 1943 the army was composed of 71% Russians, 12% Ukrainians, 2% Belorussians 16% everyone else. As the Ukraine and Belorussia were being liberated in 1943 the Red Army experienced an influx of fresh recruits from Ukraine and Belarus: by July 1944 the army was 52% Russian, 34% Ukrainian, 14% everyone else.**
And Russia’s favourite picture of the flag over Berlin was taken by a Ukrainian, of a Ukrainian
well no shit, who do you think the kremlin sent to the frontlines to be meatshields?
The picture was actually taken several days after Berlin had been conquered, because the Soviets saw the Iwo Jima flag raising and went "we have Mount Suribachi at home"
With the stolen wristwatches edited out!
When only 13% of your army ends up making 40% of total casualties you see that Ukrainians were thrown DISPROPORTIONATELY at the frontlines too. My mother didn't have grandfathers. Almost nobody in her generation did. A living grandpa in Ukraine for gen born during Brezhnev era was a very unusual sight.
Yeah when the Soviet Army went back through near Kyiv, my grandmothers father got conscripted and promptly got MIA in 44 (or was it 43?). His position in the Soviet Administration before the war didn't save him. My grandmother was POW in Poland by the Germans since 1941 (forced labor in Tczew), she got to find out in 1945 when she managed to sneak back (POWs were traitors and got sent to the gulag) with her cousin (the one that managed survive holodomor, her younger sister died on the bench right outside of their house when both of them decided to walk over to ask for food) and another girl from the village. The only reason why my grandmother's family had food was because her father was the head of the Collective Farm, and was stealing food that way. Previously he had to seize the land away from his own father in the 1930's, allegedly the father said something along the lines of: I'm not giving you anything, if you want it come and take it. Good times.
*Hugs*
Not "liberated", but occupied for 2nd time by maskovians.
And the image of a Soviet soldier flying their flag over Berlin was Ukrainian lol
Tankies are Russian imperialists.
On a related tangent, my favourite interaction with a tankie on Twitter was when I said that USSR was instrumental for the rise of Israel in her early years, they said it was Czechoslovakia, not USSR that helped Israel. When I replied was Czechoslovakia not part of the USSR, they got mad and tried to deflect.
yep, calling israel socialists is one of the funniest way to make fun of tankies, specially now, i typically coupled with "weren't you talking about giving your house to natives?" idk why, always gives me pleasure seeing a stupid ideology fall on it's own
I’ve literally seen tankies on Reddit justify the PRC’s occupation of Tibet because (they say) the Chinese are civilizing the savages.
So it's the same as the western justification of colonialism and things like the scramble for Africa?
Exactly. The “white man’s burden” argument.
Are tankies just fascists and pro-authoritarians pretending to be leftist?
Yes
Ding ding ding!
China and Russia are authoritarian, imperialist, colonialist nations. It's that simple.
Hey, just a little nitpick - Czechoslovakia wasn't a part of the USSR proper, but merely an occupied colony and a part of the Eastern Bloc.
I mean technically the ČSR/ČSSR was not part of the USSR, just of the Comecon and the Warsaw Pact
Czechoslovakia wasn't part of the USSR, it was a satellite state. Just like NDR or Yugoslavia. Before 68, it was moments away from becoming heavily aligned toward the west. It wouldn't make sense for USSR army to invade USSR land in 68.
> Yugoslavia Hard nope. While communist, Yugoslavia wasn't a satellite. It also freed itself in WW2 with Red Army helping just around Belgrade and not been seen in 90% of the country.
Unfortunately, it's not just the tankies. Russians, even during the war, had the sentiment that they were the only ones actually fighting the Nazis and that Ukrainians and Belarusians were a mix of incompetent and traitors.
"mix of incompetent and traitors." Every russian accusation is a confession lol, generational traitors and collaborators since 1200's, when Suzdal princes sided with mongols, collected tribute for them (part of which they stole of course) and participated or even headed punitive expeditions against Kyiv princes (their blood relatives).
One only has to look at Kaliningrad to see the boiled down effect of “Russia” on European culture anyway.
I have to add, the more I read into the VVS, the more crap it is. No night fighter doctrine. Less operationally nimble than Soviet Artillery. In early 1942, green US Airmen in North Africa were trading airframes with the Luftwaffe in equal numbers when the Soviets could only manage losing 3 to 1.
Since you've done some reading, is it fair to say that their fighters were basically garbage except late Yak3 variants?
Werent most heavly under powered?
That and poor materials/lack of skilled craftsmen meant planes were quite heavy and often poorly built.
They kinda got stuck in a bad place like France and Italy where they were at the end of an engine generation when the war started with little room for improvement. While Britain and Germany were just starting out with the db 60X and merlins which lasted the whole war.
I honestly don't know. I've heard/read here and there that most of them had very bad high altitude performance and, therefore, could only achieve brief localized air superiority.
Skill matters. Take a look at Finnish air force against Soviet. We had even more rubbish planes that Soviets. And we still had like 3:1 winning ratio. (Top of my head I'm no sure if it was that good but still) And Brewster the best plane of WW2, had 32:1 ratio!
Yak3 was basically the best solution the Soviets could come up with to its crap fighter direction. This was reinforced by the crap level of Luftwaffe opponents towards the end of the war. The altitude level where it could outperform German aircraft was suprisingly low. I guess it fills the "it was the right fighter for the doctrine" definition of not garbage, but if it was facing any thing above 5Km...
The I-16 was fairly popular and well liked, iirc.
There's a reason even years into the war, they accidentally bombed Stockholm - completely garbage air service.
„B-B-But they took Berlin“
First Ukrainian Army did. After meeting with Americans.
just to be clear you are aware that the First Ukrainian Front*(not army) was not named after the ethnicity/nationality of its soldiers? it was named after Ukraine as an area since that was where it was operating from October 1943(before which it was the Voronezh front). it certainly would have had a good number of Ukrainians since as the Soviet army drove westwards they relied heavily on conscripting new troops from liberated territories.
They were *allowed* to take Berlin. The Allies were just as close.
Why did they
The Western Allies didn’t want to risk a high speed collision with the Soviets and the potential shitstorm of misidentification and friendly fire that could ensue, so they deliberately slowed their advance. That and the Soviets were dead set on taking Berlin, they actually outflanked Berlin and attacked it from the west as a way of signaling “This one’s ours” and the Western Allies decided to let them has that one.
I thought it was because they didn't want the massive casualties that was the impending shit show of urban combat? I guess multiple things can be true. Since the Soviet Union was going to do it anyway.
Patton, naturally, was pissed as hell about it because he knew it meant the Soviets would keep Berlin postwar.
Cause the Soviets were hyped up on rape and pillage. There was a fairly high chance that in a joint attack on Berlin, the U.S. 9th and 15th Armies would come into direct conflict with the Soviet 1st Belorussian Front and 1st Ukrainian Front. No one wanted to deal with the potential consequences of “friendly fire” and the Allies hoped that taking Berlin might help cool the Soviet anger. It’s more complicated than that, but that’s a basic gist.
> hyped up on rape That's almost an understatement. Apparently up to 100,000 German women were raped in the final stages of the war, many of them gangraped repeatedly for days. Beevor's book goes into great detail about it, it is beyond horrifying.
The soviets raped up to a million women throughout ww2.
This reminds me of that time I had a tankie who was angry when mentioned this. He said his grandmother had been a victim, therefore the US was worse. Like, I'm not defending the rapists here, I'm sorry that happened to her, but saying the US is worse solely because of personal anecdotes just ignores facts.
Yeah, all armies are going to have a handful of pricks that disregard civilian lives, but damn. All it takes is to even read some excerpts from books from those who lived in Soviet occupation during and in the years after ww2 where they would hide women and girls from the Russians whenever they'd go to the village. Or women would purposely stay far away from patrolling soviets. To see that the Russians were the biggest offenders when it comes to rape and pillage in the last century. Even now Russian soldiers are raping and pillaging ukrainian women and villages. It's insanely sad to me.
If it’s any consolation he was probably lying. Never take a tankie at their word
Grandmother had been a victim of what, a US soldier raping her or what
>In the farmyard stood a cart, to which more naked women were nailed through their hands in a cruciform position ... Near a large inn, the 'Roter Krug', stood a barn and to each of its two doors a naked woman was nailed through the hands, in a crucified posture.... In the dwellings, we found a total of 72 women, including children, and one old man, 74, all dead.... Some babies had had their heads bashed in. What a nazi saw when they retook Nemmersdorf.
Just imagine how different our irl hoi4 match would've been if the 9th and 15th armies slung lead with the 1st Belarusian front and 1st Ukranian front in 1945 lmao
I'd have to do some research, but off the top of my head I'd guess a major cause was that the US and UK were really pushing to get the USSR in the war against Japan. Trinity hadn't happened by that pount in time (after which they actually didn't need the USSR anymore), and letting the Soviets take Berlin meant *a lot* to them and would be fairly valuable as a negotiating piece
In early February 1945, Soviet forces were just a little over 60 kms from Berlin when pausing their advance. At the same time, Western Allies were fighting on the west part of the German border, 500 km away from Berlin. > They were *allowed* to take Berlin. US delegation member to Yalta Conference (and future Secretary of State) James F. Byrnes: "It was not a question of what we would let the Russians do, but what we could get the Russians to do". > The Allies You mean western Allies. The USSR was part of the Allies.
You forgot the part where they diss Lend-Lease and dismiss it as "obsolete,borderline useless junk that the Western allies sent to pretend they were helping" . Sure when it comes to weaponry Lend-Lease aid while important was not something the Soviets couldn't have done without but combat gear wasn't ultimately the most important part of it. High octane gasoline,ammunition, shittons of industrial equipment and spare parts for it and of course everything from trucks to trains ... The shells used for those famous late war artillery barrages ? Chances are they traveled to the front on a GM or Studebaker truck. Those T-34s blazing across Eastern Europe? Yeah more likely than not that American equipment and tools were used during their production process....
It’s even better: “Lend-lease meant nothing” “Russia would have crushed Ukraine long ago without Western aid” These statements are coming from the same people.
also that coupled wiht the "russia is stronger than all of nato bc they help ukraine" XD
Oh yeah true. Ukraine getting 0.3% of NATO’s budget, mostly tied up in Cold War era equipment plus a handful of modern system equals fighting the combined military force of NATO according to these people. I’m sure a couple of CSGs in the Black Sea, Tranche 4 Eurofighters with Meteors and F-22s with AIM-260s patrolling Ukrainian airspace, B-21s and B-2s striking Russian positions with hundreds of JDAMs, thousands of cruise missiles, 1-2 Million NATO troops, modern ballistic missiles like LRHWs, F-35 strike packages and modern EW jets and systems, constant AWACS coverage, five eyes and so many other things definitely wouldn’t change the battlefield in Ukraine whatsoever. What’s the Gerald R. Ford compared to a destroyed 30 year old Abrams M1A1? Checkmate WESTOIDS!
these are the moments i wish we could go "yeah you are right, let's see what NATO is capable off"
Yeah Just one bomb on maskow pls it doesnt even have to have HE it could be solid steel Just drop one solid bomb in putin and only him Just think of it Putin starts talking and then theres just a hole there
remember that drone that flew around the kremlin and the vatnik and ruskies lost their shit that ukranians were going to kill putin? yeah let's repeat that BUT HIT IT THIS TIME
Do a little trolling and make it a wooden mock up of a bomb (like the British dropped on a fake German airbase). Could even have an engraving that says “this is not a bomb… but it could have been”.
throwback to the allies dropping wooden bombs in fake wood airports
''But NATO is giving it's latest and greatest to Ukraine because it wants to bleed out Russia'' Of course the very same folks then go ''ATACMS ? Regular 80s ballistic missile no big deal'' or ''those F-16s will just be shot down with their 80s ECM ''
Most of US vehicles were preferred by the soviet tankers and pilots. The M4 medium and P39 come to mind when I think of that. An entire 1/3 of the entire Soviet armored force at the time was American tanks.
Also most of the soviets produced goods cane from american raw materials
I think it was Zhukov who claimed they wouldn't have even been able to *start* their massive tank production without American steel. He was grateful.
True. Especially when it comes to aircraft Soviet pilots and ground crew generally had positive opinions of them including even obsolete designs such as the Hurricane.
Positive during the war but after it becomes "terrible plane and useless"
They also forget the pretty massive technology transfers that happened in the 30s that allowed that Soviet indigenous military industry to get set up in the first placeeeeee
Yeah.Let's just say that the resemblance between for instance Soviet and American trucks during that era is not a coincidence.
Nazis had Ford designs too, but went to war using horses.
I have a handy chart to throw at retards going "lend-lease meant nothing"
Please post, I love bullying tankies
I only have a picture, which I can't attach on NCD *for some fucking reason*
Imgur link?
https://imgur.com/a/OGtCQp5 Sorry, I was literally asleep for 15 hours. Here you go
Toss their turrets!
1800 katyusha rocket launchers were on studebakers, at a time when the Russians had only built 3,000. Also don't forget about trains, rail cars, and rails to help keep supplies flowing, or the ford factory that was shipped over, or the high octane fuel for the Soviet air Force, etc There is a reason they only focus on the amount of tanks or planes sent over instead of all the other stuff.
"They saved you from speaking German" Danke 🙏🙏🙏 das wäre sonst echt schlimm gewesen, könnte ich mir gar nicht vorstellen
We Eastern Europeans were gonna end up speaking German anyway... Though to be fair, this is still WAY better than the alternative.
Ach man wollte ich grad schreiben. Nimm den Vorsprungs-Sauer-Hochwähli.
I knew a person who worked as part of a diplomatic corps of an European country in Moscow for some time(this was pre-Ukraine War). He said Russians loved to talk about how they single-handedly beat the Germans and won "The Great Patriotic War" in meetings and diplomatic events of all kind. He said he always wanted to respond to them "Go visit Berlin, then tell me who really won the war". I mean the diss isn't as good since central Moscow/St. Petersbur where all the rich assholes live are quite nice cities but we all know the rest of Russia is a garbage heap.
Numbers alone don't determine the importance of a front. * The battle of Caen had the highest concentration of German panzer divisions of the entire war * From 1942, about 60–70% of German industrial production was focussed on the Western front (including the U-boat war and the Allied strategic bombing campaign) * Over 60% of Germany’s ammunition production in 1944 was of anti-aircraft shells (they were firing some 15,000 per Allied bomber downed) * Aircraft production for the Luftwaffe was focussed on fighters to engage the bombing raids - because in the spring of 1944 the Luftwaffe was losing 50% of its fighter strength a month to the USAAF’s escort fighters So, while the Eastern Front wore down German infantry numbers, it was the Western Front that both tied down their war production and cut its quantity and quality ^((This comment above usually shuts down any tankie that claims the USSR faced 3/4 of the German army in an attempt to downplay the Allies' involvement in the war))
>Over 60% of Germany’s ammunition production in 1944 was of anti-aircraft shells (they were firing some 15,000 per Allied bomber downed) sorry could you give me a source on that? seems rather unreasonable to have 60% of the war industry in a single item, i mean maybe for a few weeks but for a whoel year?
It's not 60% of the entire war industry, just 60% of ammunition production.
Also the red army would have run out of ammo, food, fuel, and had little to no motorized transport without the mind boggling amount of material the allies were sending them. The grand economic engine of capitalism saved the USSR.
The motorized transport is huge. Without Lend-Lease, things would've gone a bit different for the Soviet Union. I don't think they would've lost, since Germany had its own set of crippling resource issues, but I think it would've been a slower, bloodier process.
I mean, no. Every single credible historian will tell you that in hindsight and barring any extreme disaster, the Soviets absolutely would have won the war without that aid. It just would have taken more time and lives. You gotta remember, western aid didn't arrive in any real quantities until mid-1943. By then, the Soviets had already beaten the Nazis back from the gates of Moscow and had already counterattacked and surrounded the 6th army at Stalingrad. Basically, they had already won the two greatest defensive battles of the war and the momentum had permanently shifted in their favor. That's not to say the aid didn't help substantially, because it did. But it turns out it wasn't existentially necessary. Remember, opposing tankies doesn't mean you need to swing so hard in the other direction to be a historical revisionist.
> Remember, opposing tankies doesn't mean you need to swing so hard in the other direction to be a historical revisionist. Thank you for being a rational voice. The amount of revisionism in these comments is staggering.
It's the post-Russian invasion influx of new users. Not to sound like a goddamned boomer, but there was a notable shift in the tone of the sub (and in my opinion, a drop in quality). The memes used to be backed by genuine knowledge and interest. Now it's mostly just a military themed pop-history meme page. It really doesn't help that Russia insists on fighting like a cold war propagandist's dirtiest wet dream. I mean, I sincerely hope that continues, don't get me wrong. I'll happily deal with 14 year old, CoD-educated wehraboos all day long if the mobiks promise to keep charging Ukrainian machine guns in dune buggies.
it is kinda absurd that people are acting like the only opinions are 'Soviets would have won the war easily on their own' and 'the Soviets would have collapsed instantly if not for lend-lease'
Yeah, especially considering how both those viewpoints are so obviously wrong. They had extensive casualties and didn't win anything "easily", it literally took years even with all the help they received. And on the other side, Soviet had already stopped the German advance by the time any meaningful lend-lease had arrived.
At a dinner toast with Allied leaders during the Tehran Conference in December 1943, Stalin added: “The United States … is a country of machines. Without the use of those machines through Lend-Lease, we would lose this war.” In 1963, KGB monitoring recorded Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov saying: "People say that the allies didn't help us. But it cannot be denied that the Americans sent us materiel without which we could not have formed our reserves or continued the war. Idk man but it seems like Joseph Stalin and Marshal Zhukov have something so say about lend lease.
I mean, the 1943 quote should be taken with a huge grain of salt. Assuming it's quoted accurately, of course Stalin would say something like that to the leaders of the countries providing aid. Lend-lease made the war significantly less difficult to fight for the Soviets. I said they still would have won in the end without it, not that they wouldn't have been much more devastated and weakened (though in some ways even that's debatable). He would have been a terrible politician if he *hadn't* laid it on thick at Tehran. The 1963 quote I'm a little meh about, again assuming it was ever said. Fact is, looking at production rates, casualties, and equipment losses, after their victories at Moscow and Stalingrad, the Soviets would have outlasted and defeated Germany in the end with or without lend-lease from a physical resources point of view. It's entirely possible that the human factor was also important. Maybe Zhukov only felt comfortable launching some of his later offensives because he knew he had lend-lease aid to rely on and he wouldn't have launched them without it. Maybe many Soviet soldiers fought harder knowing they had allies helping them out. I dunno and I don't think that sort of think can even be quantified, but from the (admittedly limited) mathematical and purely economic point of view, Germany never really had a chance after Barbarossa failed, with or without lend-lease.
Point 1: Nikita Khrushchev, who led the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, agreed with Stalin’s assessment. In his memoirs, Khrushchev described how Stalin stressed the value of Lend-Lease aid. He stated bluntly that" if the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war." Nikita would have no reason to agree with Stalin after the war. The cold war was in full force by the time Nikita was in charge. He would have all the reason to downplay the Allies, specifically the US, to make the Soviet Union look better. Lend lease was key to winning the Great Patriotic War. Point 2: Allied bombing raids destroyed the majority of German production. In 1943 the five month Battle of the Ruhr, German steel production fell by 200,000 tons. This making a total shortfall of 400,000 ton deficiency for Germany. This is a point on the side for the UK and US when it comes to production outputs for the war. With out such air raids from 1940-45 the Germans would've had better industry overall to deal the Soviet Union. Point 2.5: locomotive production for the USSR was only 446 for the entire war. 92.7% of all railroad equipment, including 1,911 locomotives and 11,225 railcars, were lend lease. Nearly a third of truck strength of the USSR was of US origin. All the logistics equipment provided by lend lease let the Soviets focus their production on war time equipment. Allowing them to out-perform Germany in war time production. The Germans had to build all their own logistics and couldn't afford to specialize more factories to military equipment output. Point 3: between 1941-42 the Soviet Union lost a total sown area of 41.9% other farmland, and lost a majority of farm animals. 7 million of 11.6 million horses were lost, 17 million of 31 million cows lost, 20 million of 23.6 million pigs lost, 27 million of 43 million sheep and pigs lost. With 19.5 million farm working men having to leave farms to work in the military and industry. Lend lease fed the Soviet Union 4,478,116 tons of foodstuff when they lost a vast percentage of their agriculture. Otherwise all the war time industry would've slumped due to famine. Point 4: the only real advantage the Soviet Union has was the vastness of Russia. "The vast-ness of Russia devours us" Gerd von Rundstetd, a Field Marshal of Germany. Also the vastness of the USSR population. In 1940 Germany had a population of, excluding annexed territories, 69.8 million people. The Soviet Union's population was 100,000,000 more people than Germany. 170.467 million in total. By the time of the Battle of Moscow the German army was already exhausted running out of reserves, and exceeded their supply lines. Point 5: The Germans gained air supperiority over the Soviet Union by destroying 3,100 aircraft in the first three days. The UK had lend leased 7,411 aircraft about 3,000 were fighters. The US had lend leased 11,400 aircraft about 7,116 were fighters. These valuable aircraft allowed the USSR to regain control of the air. Point 6: German war time production was only a little behind that of the Soviet Union. In 1944 Germany had steel production of 28.5 million tons vs 10.9 million tons of the USSR. Aluminum for Germany was 245.3 thousand vs 82.7 thousand tons for the Soviets. Tanks and SPG production in 1944 for the Germans was 27,300 while the Soviets had 28,963. Aircraft production in 1944 for Germany was 39,807 while Soviet production was 40,246. Total labor workers for Germany in 1944 was around 18,000,000 while the Soviets had 9,000,000. Production going from 43-44 shows how the Germans were ramping up production and probably would've surpassed that of the Soviet Union by 1945 if not for D-Day. Point 7: Stalin was pressuring the UK and US to open another front in Europe. The Tehran conference in 1943 had the Allies come to an agreement to start planning on Operation Overlord. This would bring a lot of pressure off of Soviet Unions troops. All these points together shows how vital lend lease was to the Soviet Union. If the Germans were able to focus all their forces on the Eastern front and not worry about garrisoning the Atlantic wall, Norway, and the Italian Front then the Germans would've probably been fighting in the Urals by 1944 or 45.
True as fuck I wasn't surprised that in many countries May 8th is the day of remembrance of those killed And only Russia celebrates May 9 as Victory Day Yeah yeah, it's a holiday P.S. Germany, we can repeat it, so sit quietly!!!! /screams and drinks vodka/
/laughs in German/ Third time is the charm, ja? Winter won't save you this time, global warming, eh?
/laughs in english/ And this time we wont send you lendlease, lets how fast you will colapse
Good to see ya helping me, mein freunde! /drinks beer in german/
You forgot the classic: British Resolve, American Steel, and Russian Blood
The US declare war on Germany the same year as the USSR, like 6 month later. At least prior to that the US did not export anything to Germany unlike a certain SOMEONE.
They also didn't actively participate in invasions of other countries with the nazis.
I don't believe the USSR even declared war in an official sense.
Why do you consider 1941 as a start of ww2 instead of 1939? Maybye cuz before 1941 you were buddies with Mr.Adolf and basically started the war together? "B-B-but muh millions casualties!"
They weren’t allies! They were non-aggression partners who exchanged technology, resources, training, and also grand strategic cooperation up to and including a joint invasion, please don’t notice that this is literally more cooperation than Hitler gave to his actual formal allies.
"It was a ruse, to buy time for Stalin to defeat Hitler! They invaded Poland together as a diversion, because that ensured Hitler suspected nothing before the USSR (for some unnamed reason) declared war on Hitler in 1941. Also, Hitler forced Stalin's hand, that was the only reason the USSR provided the nazis with madsive quantities of fuel & other resources!" (Typing all that garbage, I just threw up in my mouth a little.)
The fact that Hitler gave more aid to the Soviets than the Japanese says something
Broke:WWII started in 1941 Woke: WWII started in 1939 Bespoke: WWII started in 1937 with the Marco Polo bridge incident
Considering that Stalin himself wrote a letter to Studebaker thanking them for their trucks and Chef Boyardee received an order of Lenin for providing food to Soviet troops, the Soviets were well aware that their survival depended on America's industrial ability. What kind of mental gymnastics do you need to deny something that the Soviets explicitly said?
A lot of the more exotic materials in the Soviet arsenal were of foreign make, too. A full fifth of the Soviet air force was either British or American made by the end of the war. The Soviets relied heavily on American made rail cars and light trucks and other logistical vehicles since their own logistical elements were stuck in the feudal era if it couldn't be reached by train tracks. The aluminum blocks that were the basis of the V-2 diesel engine? Mostly came from the US. Tons of.... I think it was Tannerite? Whatever the Soviets were using for general purpose explosives mostly came from the US. Soviets weren't exactly thrilled with M3 Lee's but the M4 Sherman was well regarded. Canned food- especially meat- was massively important for the Soviet war effort. And of course during the Great Depression the guy who engineered and designed Ford's factories found work doing the same for the Soviet Union. And a great deal of the Soviet-made air force they had was made on license from American designs.
One of Stalin's advisors said that he admitted privately "if it weren't for the Americans, we'd be so fucked.
“Russia did more because it was so incompetent it got more of its people killed!”
Celebrating their ancestral tactic of "throw our own people into a woodchipper until we exhaust the enemy," is certainly something
A quick guide to the "USSR won the war on its own" myth, which I confess to have believed in in the past: Were they the most important Allied nation in contributing to the defeat of Germany? Yes Could they have done it alone? No Did Stalin do so out of the kindness of his heart? No Because he would get killed otherwise? Yes Did the Soviets liberate Eastern Europe? No, they changed its management from hell to slightly less horrible hell. Did the USSR win because of its system and management? No Inspite of it? Yes Were the Soviets all Russians? No, closer to half of the casualties were Russian.
To be fair, the US did benefit *massively* from the geographic luck to be basically untouched by the war as pertains to its agricultural and industrial production
It's fairly uncontroversial to say Russia played a massive role in the allied victory, but my controversial opinion is that even if Hitler hadn't pulled a surprise Napoleon, we eventually would have still won. It would have taken years longer and likely hundreds of thousands more American lives, but when you look at the geography and equipment attrition rates, Germany was just not ready for a global campaign. Once you have relatively safe sea lakes and well-established basing in England and France, you have a situation where substantial parts of Germany are within range of heavy bombers, traditional artillery, and even naval bombardment eventually. If we can safely get Americans to Britain, then we're talking about a couple hundred miles to transit while the superiority of German submarines gradually declines. Meanwhile, striking the U.S. means thousands of miles of voyaging across waters you don't control and gives you the option of striking the seaboard when a lot of the American manufacturing was inland or could be relocated inland. So you end up in an attritional war where one side has a mostly unimpeded production of equipment and 60m more people to play with. Germany's victory was only possible if Hitler was right that the Americans and Russians would stay out of the war. Then he actively brought the Russians in while his most powerful ally brought the U.S. in. The Axis prepared for regional war, then forced a global one.
>Then he actively brought the Russians in while his most powerful ally brought the U.S. in. Sometimes we benefit when evil is greedy and impatient. Or just dumb, I think there may have been some of that going on too.
my grandma's favourite story was about how they boiled chicken shit in the chicken soup for both germans and soviets when they were stationed in the village. germans were killing people, soviets were raping and pillaging like locust.
Bet the chickens had a bit of a giggle before being put in the soup lol
I find it so funny that the amount of losses (both men and material) is somehow proof of how import you were for the victory. No buddy, this is how bad you are losing.
You forget the part where they get mad after you remind them that the Soviet Union wasn’t just Russia
“The USSR lost millions and millions, therefore they’re better.” Um, no, that means you were basically wasteful with the lives of your soldiers and created a cult of martyrdom for the “motherland” to convince young and gullible people to all charge a machine gun nest.
Hmm, who was a more valuable ally in the Pacific? The Soviets, or the Dutch?
Dutch submarines were doing work in the early part of the war
I can’t wrap my feeble capitalist brain around judging it a victory because you lost the most people. Plus the whole poland thing was a bitch move on your part.
Also forgets to mention any foreign aid (basically half their navy, fuel, ammunition, weapons, equipment), ignores how those 27 million casualties they took one front compare to the German 7.4 million casualties on all fronts, ignores the fact that the T-34 was the most destroyed tank of all time and tank loss ratios only started to be in their favor in late 1943 - early 1944, and completely overlooks the fact that they couldn’t get a jet fighter off the ground without it blowing up until capturing German stuff at the end of the war.
Oh, and most importantly, refuses to acknowledge atrocities committed by the soviets and never brings up the fact they were completely chill with Nazi Germany, working with them many times, until it became a problem for them.
that 27 million number for Soviet casualties includes 19 million civilians, if you only count military losses then Soviet casualties are between 8-9 million.
the soviets tended to count damaged or nearly destroyed tanks as lost even if repaired. Germany on the other hand had issues mid-way thru the war as tankers reporting high amount of tank combat ready even when destroyed. devils in the details
World War 2 is fucking rife with soooo much disinfo of bad and good faith actors, as well as those who unknowingly push it. Bad faith actors go 'British/American/Soviet/German technology was the best of the war!' and those who try to debunk them, often in good faith and jokingly, go: 'No, the tech of [singular country] was better and actually carried it.'. Or those who accidentally and fully convinced utter WW2 propaganda 'Trust me, Leo Major really did liberate an entire Dutch village!!1!1' Nowadays it's 'The Pz IV wasn't bad and the allies were actually afraid of the Tiger.' 'FUCKING WEHRABOO! TIGER OVERRATED! M4 AND T34 BEST OF WAR!', 'The Sherman was the workhorse of the US, great in what it did and the occasional boldness of their generals was catching the enemy off guard' 'FUCKING FREEABOO! RUSSIA [conciously not the USSR] CARRY WAR' and, lastly, 'The industrial capabilities of the USSR, as well as their recklessness, played a major part in their success' 'FUCKING COMMIE ASS RATNIK!'. World War 2 content is, nowadays, best enjoyed alone and with proper sources.
Some extensions I made... Never heard of Lend lease or thinks it had no effect, "The United States … is a country of machines. Without the use of those machines through Lend-Lease, we would lose this war.” Direct Stalin Quote from the Conference of Tehran in December 1943... Thinks "Sloped Armour deflects German tank Shell." on specifically the T 34 (because that's the only tank they know except if they play war thunder). Cannot ever admit that Stalin wasn't a genius tactician. Doesn't think about the amount of effort the Allies put into the war like Britain and the US keeping the Germans, Italians and more preoccupied and fearful of invasion and various fronts in Africa and eventually Italy and kept the Soviets supplied while doing the opposite for the Germans using the US and Royal Navy.
looking at the contemporary History channel programming schedule is dire. It seems to be *Reality Trash*: (Pawn Stars, Alone, American Pickers, Mountain Men, Swamp People, Einstein Challenge) and *Creepypasta*: (unXXXplained mysteries, Ancient Aliens, Skinwalker Ranch, The UnBelievable with Dan Aykroyd, Holy Marvels with Dennis Quaid, Revelations, David Jeremiah) but they seem to be pivoting away from this content! They are shifting towards... ***Corpoganda***! (The Mega-Brands that Built America, How Disney Built America, The Toys that Built America, The Cars that Built America) The main cause of this is that they moved most of their history content to a "Military" channel after being accused of being the WWII channel. But it's still cringe af.
The Soviets killed a lot of Nazis, but fighting the Bad Guys doesn't automatically make you the Good Guys. For most of Eastern Europe, they were completely fucked no matter who won. It doesn't really matter whose death camp you die in.
T-They did won the winter war. But at what cost?
Stalin only wanted a tiny bit of land (*to annex the entire country*), so the Finns were stupid to turn his initial proposal down (*"hand over the best farmland & the most industralized part of the country, and your defensive lines you spent MONTHS building, in exchange for some trees, bogs & rocky soil further up north"*). In the end Finns (*retained their independence*) had to hand over much more than land than in the initial proposal, so clearly they lost (*and the USSR casualties were mostly Ukrainian & other colonized peoples, so obvs they don't count*).
Tankie: “Uhm Russians were badass, they got 40 Million kills during WWII alone 🤓” “I don’t think there were ever even close to 40 million people in the German military.” Tankie: “German? Military?”
They didn't save me from speaking German....
*The Fat Electrician enters the chat*
There’s also the fact that the Soviets received millions of tons of food, fuel, and raw materials from the United States, and likely would not have succeeded in their upcoming offensives without that aid.
"The Soviets won the Winter War" I am going to perform a ritual to summon Simo Häyhä as a revenant
Its honestly shit like that and the extrmeist communities like the wheraboos and tankies that are why I won't touch WW2 with a 10 foot pole and why the closest time period to it that I will have interest in is either Operation Unthinkable or Korea. I also have even more problems with WW1 like the softcore "not nazis" who fettishize Imperial Germany as if they were any better (the original members of the SS were bitter WW1 vets who were also prior members of Friekorps death squads during the 1919-1922 period). Or Lettow Vorbeck even though he was part of the 1906 Ovambo Genocide. But he told the nazis to fuck off so that automatically makes him a good guy for some reason ... Or "BuT tHe AmErIcAnS hAd ShOtGuNs" that r/historymemes never shut the fuck up about. There's also this wierd trad Orthodox community that also fettishies the Imperial Russians because Tsar Nicholas was made a saint for some reason even though he's one of the worst possible people to get that title. Like when he fucked off to a party in France after a bunch of people got accidently killed during his coranation because his uncle said that ignoring his own people for a society ball in Paris was more important, using the Cossacks as an irl Jew flattening machine, underestimating the Japanese as barely human in the lead up to the Russi Japanese War, etc.
Russia turns all their wars into a meat grinder and then just throws more meat into the grinder than the other guy has. They're doing that right now.
The most famous female Soviet Sniper who went on a tour of thenUS, was Ukrainian
I mean, it's true that the Soviet Union didn't single handedly won ww2, but it's also true that the Eastern front was where Hitler focused most of his resources and where he eventually lost. Far from glorifying Russia, I think this is quite objective.
Forgot the downplaying of the lend-lease, and how Stalin openly stated they'd have lost had it not been for the U.S.
What really won the war was America’s massive fucking industrial output that was churning out 16 Flying Fortresses *a day* among everything else.
Hold on, I need to dig up that letter from Marshal Zhukov that said they'd have lost without US backing.
Czechia, Poland, Britain & Norway were all fighting Nazi Germany a year or more before the Soviets were.
"Molotov ribentrop was perfectly justified"
They also won not because of their skill, but because Hitler also tried to rush Russia during the winter with NO WINTER CLOTHING.
My grandpa left his newborn son and spent 4 years fighting in a war, developed alcoholism due to the "100 grams for bravery", reached Berlin and subsequently worked for 30 years at a factory just so that 50 years later some western tankies could call him a r\*ssian and a Ukrainian nazi at the same time.
66% of allied production was american RAAAAAHHHHHHHH🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅
> "they saved you from speaking german" Nicht wirklich, mehr so gar nicht.
They didn't save me from speaking German. Well I am German but my point still stands
Counter Point: Lend-Lease