1941

By Andrius Dirmeikis BY THE TIME LEND-LEASE STARTED TO ARRIVE IN LARGE NUMBERS, THE SOVIETS HAD ALREADY TURNED THE TIDE Many people, who are poorly educated about the timeline of lend-lease, have a false notion that lend-lease came at the most crucial time for the Soviets and it prevented the collapse of the USSR. In actuality, if you look at the numbers, it becomes clear that most of the lend-lease deliveries arrived after 1943, meaning that in the most crucial battles the Soviets fought largely on their own supplies. Only 13% of lend-lease supplies arrived in 1941-42. For example, out of nearly 380,000 trucks that the Soviets had in early 1943, only 5% were imported lend-lease trucks. Imported firepower, mainly aircraft and tanks, was prominent in the first trickle of aid in 1941-42. Meanwhile, 64% of lend-lease supplies arrived in 1944-45. If year 1943 is included as well, than 87% of all lend-lease supplies arrived in 1943-1945. And if year 1943 is analyzed separately as well...

By Luka Bilić It is widely known that Germans ‘couldn’t concentrate on Eastern Front’ during decisive period of war, the way Soviets could, because of demands of other fronts. This is certainly true to great degree especially regarding naval activities and air forces, the latter becoming significant from perhaps 1943. Regarding ground forces, distractions were continual presence in Norway, France and Afrika. I’m not going into details here, but I’ll mention that forces in France and Norway though several hundred thousand strong lacked mobile units and were for the most part made of ‘B’ class units, best suited for occupation and static defense duties. In Africa despite the name-Panzer Army Africa, there were actually only two panzer divisions there, one light division and later one more infantry division. On the other side Soviets concentrated all of their effort on German front. Or did they? There were actually major distractions to main Soviet effort on their active front with ...