>Germany alone had the USSR beat economically and industrially >Your interpretation is wrongLOL, which is why it had to buy its oil, grain and other resources frantically in the pre-war and early-war years? The USSR sold them a million tons of grain in 1939 (not even their 5th largest import BTW), barely 0.3% of Soviet grain production and yet it was 5 months worth of food for the Germans, and they only traded with the USSR because they got embargoed and had been previously buying massive amounts of oil from Western countries like the USA, I posted some of the numbers.
Soviet production outproduced Germany in actual tangible results by almost 50% more in many industrial areas despite the fact that they were diverting plenty of resources to the reconstruction of their industrial base, much of which was uprooted and rebuilt during the German advance. Meanwhile the Germans most prominent diversion of industrial resources was the Atlantic Wall and Kreigsmarine.
"In the Soviet case 8 million tons of steel and 90 million tons of coal in 1943 were translated into 48,000 heavy artillery pieces and 24,000 tanks; Germany in the same year turned 30 million tons of steel and 340 million tons of coal into 17,000 tanks and 27,000 heavy guns." - Richard Overy, Why The Allies Won, Page 182, W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (May 17, 1997)
>The MG-42 was a squad-level support weapon <you're comparing apples to orangesYou're an idiot that missed the point or is deliberately shifting goalposts. I KNOW they're different classes of weaponry, I specified that when I point out one is an LMG and one is an SMG. The point is that the MG-42 and its predecessor was inefficient for its role because its rate of fire ate ammunition prohibitively, wore out the barrel quickly and was prone to jamming. It also failed to make up for the lack of automatic weaponry in the overall squad formation compared to the Soviets.
The Soviets understood that a precision built bolt action rifle with sights graduated to 1200 yards was an expensive option and one that required considerable time and resources to train huge numbers of troops on. The Mosin–Nagant of which they made 37,000,000 (not counting millions more in reserve from decades past and the Empire) was a good weapon but one that only a small percentage of their infantrymen could use to its maximum potential and as with all bolt guns was cursed with a slow rate of fire and a limited magazine capacity.
The soviets realized sooner than anyone else that 90% of infantry combat takes place at close range (>200 meters) where full power cartridges like their 7.62mm X 54R were over powered and the bolt action rifles that fired such heavy hitters had a low rate of fire. Soviet doctrine demanded that in meeting engagements their troops should be able to establish direct fire superiority quickly and then maneuver under the cover of that high volume of fire. This is why SVT-40 and other semi-automatic and automatic rifles were low-priority compared to SMGs in Soviet arms development.
Of course the Germans wanted the same capability but were too slow to implement the changes required in time.
The German Solution was to place light belt fed machine guns with high rates of fire such as the MG-34 with its ~900 round/min rate of fire with infantry platoons. Thus the German squad armed predominantly with bolt action rifles/carbines and a few SMGs was centered around its base of fire the MG34. Elite units would sometimes get more SMGs.
The Soviet Solution (s):
•On one level the Soviets adopted the same solution with the 7.62mm X 54R DP-28 drum fed light machine gun acting as the base of fire and the rest of the unit armed with bolt action rifles.
•Another Soviet solution was the creation of SMG battalions where the predominant weapon was the easy to manufacture PPSh-41 sub machine gun (1000 rounds/min) that was supported by DP-28 LMG and designated marksmen armed with either Mosin–Nagant bolt guns or SVT-40 semi automatic rifles. These units could send clouds of lead at German troops while in the attack at a dead run.
So a unit of ~20 Germans with 1 MG-34, 4 MP-40s and 15 bolt action rifles facing ~20 Soviets with 2 DP-28s, 6 SVT-40s/Mosin-Nagants and 12 PPSh-41s. The German unit is over matched with respect to the volume of fire it can deliver. And it take less time and effort to train a sub machine gunner than an effective rifleman.
Germany's economy was heavily propped up by the West, it did not initially achieve its production numbers on its own and was bordering on collapse without the parasitism of other countries, see Adam Tooze's works on German 'economic miracle' (pdf rel).
The company Standard Oil supplied millions of barrels of oil to the Nazis. In the Canary Islands in general, a filling station was set up for German submarines which provided them an ample base for the Battle of the Atlantic allowing them to easily extend their range South. In addition, this corporation owned a patent for tetraethyl, which was part of the fuel for aircraft.
https://newrepublic.com/article/104346/standard-oil-axis-allyThe International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT) established a supply of components and even entire ready-to-use units for the V-missiles which bombarded Britain. According to the contract, ITT conscientiously supplied Germany with special communication equipment, high-frequency equipment, selenium rectifiers, fuses to artillery shells (30,000 each month), radar equipment, telephone sets, switches and many, many others. The International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation maintained close ties with leaders of Nazi Germany from 1933 until the end of the war in 1945, according to Anthony Sampson, the author of a forthcoming book, “The Sovereign State of ITT,” to be published by Stein and Day. His charge is based on a study of U.S. government records in the National Archives that have been ignored until recently.
https://www.jta.org/1973/04/24/archive/disclose-itt-had-nazi-tiesIBM was yet another friend of the Nazis. IBM, supplied computing machines, spare parts for them and special paper for concentration camps. Apparently, as the contingent of death camps replenished, the Americans increased the supply of IBM, which helped the fascists quickly calculate the population of those yet to be exterminated. While individual members of departments making those instruments may not have been aware of their purpose (though it is doubtful anyone would admit to such an atrocity now), The higher ups of IBM most certainly were aware, considering how close they were to Hitler.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ibm-and-nazi-germany/The Rockefeller enterprise eventually agreed to pay a minor fine “for having betrayed America” but was allowed to continue its profitable commerce with the enemies of the United States. A tentative investigation into IBM’s arguably treasonous activities in the land of the Nazi enemy was similarly aborted because the US needed IBM technology as much as the Nazis did. Edwin Black writes: “IBM was in some ways bigger than the war.” Both sides could not afford to proceed without the company’s all-important technology. “Hitler needed IBM. So did the Allies.” (Black, 333, and 348) Uncle Sam briefly wagged a finger at Standard Oil and IBM, but most owners and managers of corporations who did business with Hitler were never bothered at all. The connections of ITT’s Sosthenes Behn with Nazi Germany, for example, were a public secret in Washington, but he never experienced any difficulties as a result of them. Meanwhile, it would appear that the headquarters of the Western Allies were keen to go as easy as possible on the American-owned enterprises in Germany. According to German expert Hans G. Helms, Bernard Baruch, a high-level advisor to President Roosevelt, had given the order not to bomb certain factories in Germany, or to bomb them only lightly; it is hardly surprising that the branch plants of American corporations fell into this category. And indeed, while Cologne’s historical city centre was flattened in repeated bombing raids, the large Ford factory on the outskirts of the city enjoyed the reputation of being the safest place in town during air attacks, although some bombs did of course occasionally fall on its properties. (The Myth of the Good War: America in the Second World War, revised edition By Jacques R. Pauwels, Billstein et al, 98-100)
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/04/hitlers-willing-business-partners/303146/http://nationalpost.com/g00/news/how-six-months-before-the-second-world-war-britain-gave-hitler-9-million-in-gold-that-belonged-to-another-country/wcm/3c1b3aa0-3bfe-4e57-83e9-8eefeec7cc52?i10c.referrerhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwarhttps://fort-russ.com/2016/05/hitler-was-financed-by-federal-reserve/http://www.globalresearch.ca/profits-ber-alles-american-corporations-and-hitler/4607This didn't stop with Corporations either. The people and governments of many European countries supported the German war-effort, including volunteering to fight. The German author of the book “Results of the Second World War” (1953), K. Pfeffer wrote,
"Most volunteers from Western Europe went to the Eastern Front only because they saw this as a common task of the West … Volunteers from Western Europe, as a rule, were attached to SS units and units …"
The English historian A. Taylor wrote about the two “neutral” countries least of all dependent on Nazism, Switzerland and Sweden, that they “could bring Germany more benefits than if they were in the position of vanquished. Germany received iron ore from Sweden, precision instruments from Switzerland. Without this, she could not continue the war.” Almost every third fascist projectile was made of steel smelted from Swedish ore, and almost all the necessary tungsten came from Portugal.
Professor Richard Kaczmarek, director of the Institute of History of the Silesian University, author of the book “Poles in the Wehrmacht” claims that roughly half a million Poles served the German army during the war. In 1942 alone, the Poles made up 40-45% of the personnel of the 96th infantry division of the Wehrmacht, about 30% of the 57th division, about 30% of the 11th division (together with the Czechs), about 12% of the 110th division. The French also had their contribution with 220,000 volunteers serving in the 33rd SS division Charlemagne alone.
In 1940, Ford factories began mass production of trucks and other vehicles for the Nazis such as the Maultier. The Ford plants in Europe also worked, supplying the fascists with cars of various purposes, tires, aircraft engines, auto parts and much more. A Ford plant in 'neutral' Switzerland also repaired German trucks.
http://www.kfzderwehrmacht.de/Homepage_english/Motor_Vehicles/Germany/Ford/Ford_V_3000_S-SSM/ford_v_3000_s-ssm.htmlThe relationship of Ford and GM to the Nazi regime goes back to the 1920s and 1930s, when the American car companies competed against each other for access to the lucrative German market. Hitler was an admirer of American mass production techniques and an avid reader of the antisemitic tracts penned by Henry Ford. "I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration," Hitler told a Detroit News reporter two years before becoming the German chancellor in 1933, explaining why he kept a life-size portrait of the American automaker next to his desk.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/nov98/nazicars30.htm?noredirect=onPrimary examples of investments in the German economy.
"Ford" - $ 17.5 million.
Standard Oil of New Jersey (now Exxon Mobil Corporation) - $ 120 million.
General Motors - $ 35 million.
"ITT" - $ 30 million.
And that's ignoring the fact that the Red Army was more mechanized throughout the war than the Germans EVER were with 80% of transport being horse and cart.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-wwii-german-army-was-80-horse-drawn-business-lessons-from-history/Not getting lend-lease would mean perhaps fewer T-34s and more stressed supply lines, (so no different to 1941-43) But the difference is not enough to tip the war in favour of the Germans. The war might have lasted to Autumn 1945 or even Spring 1946, and the western allies might meet the Soviets at the Oder, or even the Vistula instead of the Elbe. But the German Reich was doomed.
“Left to their own devices, Stalin and his commanders might have taken 12 to 18 months longer to finish off the Wehrmacht.” (David M. Glantz & Jonathan House, ‘When Titans Clashed’, 1995, p. 285)
''Once, during a conversation with Mikoyan, we again raised the topic of strategic lend-lease supplies to the USSR. «Take, for example, the supply of
vehicles» - he said. «We received, as far as I remember, about 400 thousand first-class machines such as «Studebakers», «Fords», jeeps and amphibians. All our army was actually on wheels and what wheels! Well… - Mikoyan mused. Without Lend-Lease, we would probably war another year or two…»'' G. Kumanev, Next to Stalin: frank evidence, meetings, discussions, interviews, and documents. Moscow., 1999, p. 38.
Since you're copy-pasting Medium.com articles:
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/lend-lease-saved-countless-lives-but-probably-didnt-win-the-eastern-front-77715c4ce0b9 Sending supplies is also a lot less meaningful than actually fighting on the front. The Lend Lease was not critical but ended the war early and the USSR earned every penny of it in blood, so fuck off.
PS
On the subject of Aviation fuel again:
https://crithis.quora.com/Lend-lease-and-Soviet-fuel-in-World-War-2-Analysis Also on the subject of metal; The USSR provided enormous amounts of Chrome and Manganese ore - 429,138 tons and 204,386 tons respectively - to the USA, the latter of which is heavily used in the making of armor alloys and fuses such as the Mk-21 fuse used in the USN and which was key in the Pacific Theater. The USA used 9 million tons of Manganese in all war-time uses, and had imported large amounts from the USSR since before the war.
Or lets talk about Boots. Yes Lend Lease boots were a massive percentage compared to Soviet PRODUCTION DURING THE WAR, however in 1940 alone the USSR produced over 69 thousand pairs of boots and another 44 thousand in 1941, and had millions more produced or available from years prior. And types of boots mattered as Lend-Lease boots did not last long compared to their Soviet counterparts.
https://archive.is/phOzA >>827169>Casualties for the Third Battle of Kharkov was 11k for Germany No, it was 11,500 and only for Paul Hausser’s II SS Panzer Corps between the 11th and 15th of March, during Urban battles. This comes from their medical logs. The total losses for the Third Battle were 40K for the Germans and 86K for the Soviet forces, this was only achieved because the Germans threw their reserves forward for a 7 to 1 numerical superiority in tanks, including the first mass operational use of the Tiger tank which had been sparingly used since Leningrad in the winter of 1942. Given that they were up against the logistically exhausted Soviet offensive that began months ago this is much less of a feat than you think.
>the Fourth Battle of Kharkov These numbers are even more incorrect and nonsensical because you're just running a GPT script.
Soviet KIA for the Voronezh front were 48 339 and for the Steppe front were 23 272, 71K total. German losses are poorly documented but between Glantz's work and Valeriy Zamulin's analyses, the German losses are estimated at 30K with 1/3 being from Army Group Kempf. Soviet losses were 250K only if including injuries and the overall casualty percentages had Germans lose 28% of their forces compared to Soviet 22%.