Soviet artillery question - was Lend Lease essential for Soviet artillery effectiveness?

[James Ricker]

Yes
A large part of the chemicals needed for propellant and explosive filler for the shells were supplied by the United States.
Zuckov agreed with me

 

[Trevayne]

But there is a big side note to be considered. Not all German shells fired were fired on the Eastern Front. Some went to Africa, Italy, and France-Belgium. And I have read somewhere that about 1/3 of German munitions were fired up. (IYKWIM.)

Good point. Per the video, the author excluded all of the flak ammunition. I haven't seen the original data, so I can't verify that. I do think that in until 1944 after D-day, the vast majority of all German artillery ammunition usage was on the Eastern Front. They just didn't use that much in North Africa in 41-42. Sicily and Italy began in 1943, but were still small in comparison to the East.

 

[EWHM]

A lot of Lend Lease (probably most by tonnage) wasn't for stuff that the USSR couldn't produce, it was for stuff that would have been produced if they hadn't drafted Igor and Boris and Svetlana the sniper from the factories, farms, and mines that they normally worked at. Without Lend Lease, you can't mobilize as high a fraction of your population for war.

 

[Bellacinos]

While I know not the most reliable source was paroozing wikipedia and reading about lend-lease it is absolutely astounding the amount of aid we gave the USSR. Something like 92.7% of their railroad and telephone wire was through lend lease, and I know lack of mobility with railroads was a HUGE issue in the First World War for Imperial Russia.

In late 1941/early 1942, Germany had captured something like 41.2% of USSR'S farms and food production, on top of them losing 15,000,000 males to being conscripted, and with the USSR losing 23 million civilians already (I consider the starving of 3,000,000 Russian POWs to be civilians as they were non combatants) I shudder at the thought of how many more millions of civilians and soldiers would have died if the US wasn't filling that essentially 50% food production gap. You are almost looking at a Siege of Leningrad level catastrophe but across every city.

Regardless of your feelings towards communism or the USSR, they did not deserve what the Nazi's did to them and Lend Lease was a win win for everyone involved as every German soldier that was stationed on the Eastern Front was one less soldier stationed on the Western Front.

 

[Gannt the chartist]

Good point. Per the video, the author excluded all of the flak ammunition. I haven't seen the original data, so I can't verify that. I do think that in until 1944 after D-day, the vast majority of all German artillery ammunition usage was on the Eastern Front. They just didn't use that much in North Africa in 41-42. Sicily and Italy began in 1943, but were still small in comparison to the East.

I am not sure that is possible, you may get a distinction between Heer and Luftwaffe orders or expenditure but that says nothing about where the firing is taking place. or how you change from shipping shells quite easily to the suburbs of the city they are made in to the eastern front.

There is in all things a cap on the the ability transport as well as manufacturing capacity.

Apropos which just because the allies are not sending stuff to the USSR does not mean it does not exist. It, the shipping used to move it the escorts used to protect those convoys and the attacks on German heavy ships which soak up a lot of the RN resources, dont need them. Sure you can sortie the Tirpitz into the Mid Atlantic but it just has further to sink when its found.

A lot of that shipping is to Iran, in perspective Murmansk - Liverpool is a greater distance than NY Liverpool US - Iran takes the shipping out of use for 6 months +. This is a massive boost to Anglo American shipping and production. While it might delay the Soviet advance - the effect on LL in 42/Early 43 is limited possibly very significant but limited. And after that anything not going to the USSR goes to North Africa, Italy or the Pacific more likely the CBI the US wanted the British to attack towards the DEI in 43 ( Casablanca and Cairo Conferences) well now you can and support it with forces freed up from direct support to the USSR. North Africa happens earlier and faster because of shipping, more shipping is available to support Italy for longer.

Its a global war and all of it is interconnected.

 

[raharris1973]

While I know not the most reliable source was paroozing wikipedia and reading about lend-lease it is absolutely astounding the amount of aid we gave the USSR. Something like 92.7% of their railroad and telephone wire was through lend lease, and I know lack of mobility with railroads was a HUGE issue in the First World War for Imperial Russia.

In late 1941/early 1942, Germany had captured something like 41.2% of USSR'S farms and food production, on top of them losing 15,000,000 males to being conscripted, and with the USSR losing 23 million civilians already (I consider the starving of 3,000,000 Russian POWs to be civilians as they were non combatants) I shudder at the thought of how many more millions of civilians and soldiers would have died if the US wasn't filling that essentially 50% food production gap. You are almost looking at a Siege of Leningrad level catastrophe but across every city.

Regardless of your feelings towards communism or the USSR, they did not deserve what the Nazi's did to them and Lend Lease was a win win for everyone involved as every German soldier that was stationed on the Eastern Front was one less soldier stationed on the Western Front.

Paradoxically, by Lend-Lease enabling Stalin, the most brutal and least human rights respecting of the Allied leaders, the Allies were using the most efficient method available to save the lives of the Allied civilians most in danger of being murdered by the Nazis (Soviets, Poles, Roma, potentially Czechs, of the Jewish, Gentile, Christian, Atheist and Communist varieties). He and his regime were awful - his regime's advance certainly led to a net human rights downgrade for select nationalities like Axis POWs, Germans, Romanians, Hungarians, Bulgarians, Finns, but unlike the British and Americans, the Soviets were closest to the worst Nazi killing fields.

A lot of that shipping is to Iran, in perspective Murmansk - Liverpool is a greater distance than NY Liverpool US - Iran takes the shipping out of use for 6 months +. This is a massive boost to Anglo American shipping and production. While it might delay the Soviet advance - the effect on LL in 42/Early 43 is limited possibly very significant but limited. And after that anything not going to the USSR goes to North Africa, Italy or the Pacific more likely the CBI the US wanted the British to attack towards the DEI in 43 ( Casablanca and Cairo Conferences) well now you can and support it with forces freed up from direct support to the USSR. North Africa happens earlier and faster because of shipping, more shipping is available to support Italy for longer.

Its a global war and all of it is interconnected.

Good point about trade-offs and potential compensating western gains elsewhere. There comes a question of how much European real estate the Anglo-Americans can liberate earlier on. Many say it takes a long time to meet the minimum threshold for them to not get thrown back off the continent in defeat. On the other hand, if the Western Allies can take over all of Italy and all its occupied territories in one go when Italy decides to surrender, because of more available shipping, that is significant humanitarian relief to southern European civilians, especially Jews, compared to what happened in OTL.

If the resources go the Pacific, CBI, and Indies, it would liberate more people from the brutal Japanese earlier. It unfortunately probably couldn't get anyone in the Philippines, civilian or PoW, liberated faster. Reducing devastation to China would be nice for that long-fighting country if you could swing it. Occupation caused privation and brutality in Southeast Asia. Tossing the Japanese out earlier from Burma, Siam, parts of the DEI should provide some relief, and hopefully allow some improvement in basic living standards with a reconnection with global transportation - although things would probably still be more austere than from before the war. Allied forces operating in liberated colonies would have a hella complex political operating environment.

 

[James Ricker]

Do not forget Spam.
Spam Kept the russian army fed in 1941 and 1942

 

[Bellacinos]

Do not forget Spam.
Spam Kept the russian army fed in 1941 and 1942

Russian soldiers loved their spam.

 

[Raferty]

LL was essential for the motorization of everything in the Soviet Army so it was important there. As for ammo shortfalls, that was an issue for the Germans as well and I think the far bigger issue the Red Army had was in the specialized military professions - less the purges and more the dreadful losses in 1941 which saw army level formations destroyed with all their support units. This was devastating for their combat engineer personnel, artillery units (especially the howitzers; the Rocket Artillery usage during the war was in large part because they lost a ton of Howitzer Battalions at Kiev and Vyzama), but also for anti-air units and medical units. They also had their Western and Southwestern fronts equipped with the most in terms of support personnel so it wasn't as if the Trans Baikal reinforcements could make up for the losses. The Red Army after 1941 always had trouble getting force ratios correct for combat units - in 1942-1943, they had mobilized a lot of troops to fight as infantry but could not support them in the field adequately with support units (and the TOEs they were publishing were more aspirational than anything else), leading to excessive casualties than what was required in most cases.

In 1944-45, the manpower had started to run drier, and their tank units became way too tank heavy, without enough infantry support, and as a result they started losing a lot of vehicles even against rather paltry German opposition (German tactics did improve defensively after Bagration, however).

At the same time, they had just about mastered the attack-en-echelon using rocket artillery concentration and so there was a way in which adaptation became possible

 

[Trevayne]

LL was essential for the motorization of everything in the Soviet Army so it was important there. As for ammo shortfalls, that was an issue for the Germans as well and I think the far bigger issue the Red Army had was in the specialized military professions - less the purges and more the dreadful losses in 1941 which saw army level formations destroyed with all their support units. This was devastating for their combat engineer personnel, artillery units (especially the howitzers; the Rocket Artillery usage during the war was in large part because they lost a ton of Howitzer Battalions at Kiev and Vyzama), but also for anti-air units and medical units. They also had their Western and Southwestern fronts equipped with the most in terms of support personnel so it wasn't as if the Trans Baikal reinforcements could make up for the losses. The Red Army after 1941 always had trouble getting force ratios correct for combat units - in 1942-1943, they had mobilized a lot of troops to fight as infantry but could not support them in the field adequately with support units (and the TOEs they were publishing were more aspirational than anything else), leading to excessive casualties than what was required in most cases.

In 1944-45, the manpower had started to run drier, and their tank units became way too tank heavy, without enough infantry support, and as a result they started losing a lot of vehicles even against rather paltry German opposition (German tactics did improve defensively after Bagration, however).

At the same time, they had just about mastered the attack-en-echelon using rocket artillery concentration and so there was a way in which adaptation became possible

Yes, one of the interesting things in the video was the observation that effective artillery had four major socioeconomic sources and only one was heavy industry. Specifically, for an effective artillery force you need the heavy industry to build the guns, the prime movers*, and the shells; a chemical industry to produce the explosives and propellants required to get the shells from the guns to the targets and to make them effective in damaging the target on arrival; an education and training g system to produce trained gunners, observers, and fire direction personnel; and an electronics industry to produce the means of communication that link the observers, the fire direction centers, and the guns together so the gunners can put steel on target. The video has a nice flow chart illustrating this but I don't know how to copy it.

The Soviets only really had one of these areas fully covered. They had the heavy industry to produce the guns and the shells. They started out with the chemical industry to produce explosives and propellants, along with most of the trained personnel they needed. They also had an electronics industry. Then Barbarossa happened and things got worse.

They lost about two-thirds of their chemical industry in Ukraine, which impacted explosives and propellant production. They also lost a lot of their trained personnel and had heavy industry disrupted by it having to move to avoid capture. I expect their electronics industry was also disrupted and it now also needed to provide lots of communications equipment for everybody (tanks, infantry, air force, etc) as well as the artillery.

IIRC Lend-Lease helped mitigate all of these factors, especially explosives. It couldn't do much for the shortage of trained personnel, but food supplies reduced the number of people required to farm, so freeing them up for use elsewhere in the wartime economy.

*The video did not mention prime movers specifically, just guns and shells, but I don't think they could have done it with strictly horse-drawn artillery.

 

[Raferty]

Yes, one of the interesting things in the video was the observation that effective artillery had four major socioeconomic sources and only one was heavy industry. Specifically, for an effective artillery force you need the heavy industry to build the guns, the prime movers*, and the shells; a chemical industry to produce the explosives and propellants required to get the shells from the guns to the targets and to make them effective in damaging the target on arrival; an education and training g system to produce trained gunners, observers, and fire direction personnel; and an electronics industry to produce the means of communication that link the observers, the fire direction centers, and the guns together so the gunners can put steel on target. The video has a nice flow chart illustrating this but I don't know how to copy it.

The Soviets only really had one of these areas fully covered. They had the heavy industry to produce the guns and the shells. They started out with the chemical industry to produce explosives and propellants, along with most of the trained personnel they needed. They also had an electronics industry. Then Barbarossa happened and things got worse.

They lost about two-thirds of their chemical industry in Ukraine, which impacted explosives and propellant production. They also lost a lot of their trained personnel and had heavy industry disrupted by it having to move to avoid capture. I expect their electronics industry was also disrupted and it now also needed to provide lots of communications equipment for everybody (tanks, infantry, air force, etc) as well as the artillery.

IIRC Lend-Lease helped mitigate all of these factors, especially explosives. It couldn't do much for the shortage of trained personnel, but food supplies reduced the number of people required to farm, so freeing them up for use elsewhere in the wartime economy.

*The video did not mention prime movers specifically, just guns and shells, but I don't think they could have done it with strictly horse-drawn artillery.

The way to evaluate L-L's impact I think is less on exactly what was produced so much as what the absence of those materials would have produced - the USSR's war economy in 1942 was pretty much moribund because the evacuation took almost a year to unsort, to the extent it worked, and this was working in the existing Soviet system of basically even state industries needing to operate a shadow black market to meet targets. The evacuation was more like a rapid pell mell shipment of as much industrial plant and equipment, not to mention labour, to giant pools of other shipments, waiting to be reassembled somewhere else using whatever coercive resources could be brought to bear on the task. There was a way in which this worked but it took a while.

I agree on the food supplies being critical as well, not only to industrial labour but also to just having manpower, as they were running through it at a rapid pace.

I think the most important thing however, seeing as the war was ultimately decided on the battlefield, is the motorization not only in surplus Jeeps, Half-Tracks, and Trucks, but just as importantly, in spare parts. The Red Army never had a shortage of tanks or planes produced domestically, but they almost had too much of these things - they had developed enormous stores of obsolete tanks, planes, and APCs which they used to outfit their best trained personnel and suffered grievous losses in 1941-42, while their qualitatively superior T-34s and KV-1s were not allocated en masse or according to usage conditions, and of course their equipment tended to break down on the battlefield, all the time, because they had inadequate spare parts storage and production, inadequate repair facilities, and a vehicle ratio in their Armored and Mechanized units that never had nearly enough support vehicles. What the motorization of the Red Army accomplished, mostly in late 1943-early 1944, was that it allowed for offensives to become decisive in that deep penetration and destruction of German army level formations became possible as at Bagration or 2nd Jassy-Kishinev through sustained vehicle replacement and increased pace of movement in the strategic depth. Its conceivable that without these large scale victories of annihilation, the war would have taken an additional 2 years for the Soviets to be able to push into Central Europe, as German defensive tactics improved and Soviet manpower reserves diminished.

 

[Gannt the chartist]

The way to evaluate L-L's impact I think is less on exactly what was produced so much as what the absence of those materials would have produced - the USSR's war economy in 1942 was pretty much moribund because the evacuation took almost a year to unsort, to the extent it worked, and this was working in the existing Soviet system of basically even state industries needing to operate a shadow black market to meet targets. The evacuation was more like a rapid pell mell shipment of as much industrial plant and equipment, not to mention labour, to giant pools of other shipments, waiting to be reassembled somewhere else using whatever coercive resources could be brought to bear on the task. There was a way in which this worked but it took a while.

I agree on the food supplies being critical as well, not only to industrial labour but also to just having manpower, as they were running through it at a rapid pace.

I think the most important thing however, seeing as the war was ultimately decided on the battlefield, is the motorization not only in surplus Jeeps, Half-Tracks, and Trucks, but just as importantly, in spare parts. The Red Army never had a shortage of tanks or planes produced domestically, but they almost had too much of these things - they had developed enormous stores of obsolete tanks, planes, and APCs which they used to outfit their best trained personnel and suffered grievous losses in 1941-42, while their qualitatively superior T-34s and KV-1s were not allocated en masse or according to usage conditions, and of course their equipment tended to break down on the battlefield, all the time, because they had inadequate spare parts storage and production, inadequate repair facilities, and a vehicle ratio in their Armored and Mechanized units that never had nearly enough support vehicles. What the motorization of the Red Army accomplished, mostly in late 1943-early 1944, was that it allowed for offensives to become decisive in that deep penetration and destruction of German army level formations became possible as at Bagration or 2nd Jassy-Kishinev through sustained vehicle replacement and increased pace of movement in the strategic depth. Its conceivable that without these large scale victories of annihilation, the war would have taken an additional 2 years for the Soviets to be able to push into Central Europe, as German defensive tactics improved and Soviet manpower reserves diminished.

Well the destruction of German Army Level formations happened much earlier. Stalingrad for example. And the destruction of AGC is mostly a function of the attack by a Cavalry Mechanised group out of Pripet and the fact that the single Pz Div available cannot disengage fast enough often enough to meet successive blows. AGC by this point being of very limited strength and capability. The annihilation happens because the German forces to a great extent cannot retreat fast enough and never overcome their initial mis deployment of mobile formations. Once pushed out of prepared positions with stockpiled supplies they can never mount a successful defence until they can fall back to a prepared position. But there are no reserves to hand without weakening another part of the world.

This really all goes back to the failure of Barbarossa. You are now stuck with a Russian Front. And by the second half of 43 you have had Stalingrad, the Surrender at Tunis, Italian Armistice which means you have to replace the Italian Occupation forces, fight a war in Italy try to deal with the Post Zitadelle Soviet offensives and without LL to the Soviets the Western allies have more shipping and more materiel for themselves. Alexander is planning for a 5 Division Shingle in October 43, but no shipping so it does not happen . The Allied ground forces have to give up shipping to get the 15th Air Force operational so limited replacements and supplies for them. Not supplying Russia adds at least 300k tonnes of supplies to Italy at least because the turn around time to Naples is a lot less than the turn around time to Abadan. and ofc you then have more the stuff across Persia by truck. You can now land the trucks in Italy, move stuff across India ina good rail system and have the US construction troops building a road to China from India a lot faster, which saves on shipping as you wont have to provide the fuel and spares to fly the damn stuff over the Himalayas.

If the Allies land at Anzio with the planned 5 Division force and those troops are in theatre - and more and have the supplies and transport to sustain attacks along the Winter Line the Western Allies are probably on the Gothic Line or nearby 6 months earlier. Which means more the Italian population is available to recruit, more of the Balkan Coast is exposed more of Southern Germany in range of Allied Bombers.

And 6th of June Overlord happens and 90 Days later the Allies are at Joe's Bridge and closing on Aachen and the Tactical Air Forces shooting up trams in the Ruhr and the RAF smashing cities by daylight.

The Germans may well hold the Red Army a bit further east but good luck establishing fanatical national socialist resistance when the worst that happens if you surrender is three squares and a warm cot and worst if you don't is burning alive when the Crocodile does a hot shoot or the P47 napalms you.

And the P47 bit is what happens when you try to move troops west.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

Well the destruction of German Army Level formations happened much earlier. Stalingrad for example. And the destruction of AGC is mostly a function of the attack by a Cavalry Mechanised group out of Pripet and the fact that the single Pz Div available cannot disengage fast enough often enough to meet successive blows. AGC by this point being of very limited strength and capability. The annihilation happens because the German forces to a great extent cannot retreat fast enough and never overcome their initial mis deployment of mobile formations. Once pushed out of prepared positions with stockpiled supplies they can never mount a successful defence until they can fall back to a prepared position. But there are no reserves to hand without weakening another part of the world.

Which is contingent on lend-lease providing a good part of the mobility for the Soviets to exploit breakthroughs fast enough to outpace the German retreat and take advantage of those misdeployments.

This really all goes back to the failure of Barbarossa. You are now stuck with a Russian Front. And by the second half of 43 you have had Stalingrad, the Surrender at Tunis, Italian Armistice which means you have to replace the Italian Occupation forces, fight a war in Italy try to deal with the Post Zitadelle Soviet offensives and without LL to the Soviets the Western allies have more shipping and more materiel for themselves. Alexander is planning for a 5 Division Shingle in October 43, but no shipping so it does not happen . The Allied ground forces have to give up shipping to get the 15th Air Force operational so limited replacements and supplies for them. Not supplying Russia adds at least 300k tonnes of supplies to Italy at least because the turn around time to Naples is a lot less than the turn around time to Abadan. and ofc you then have more the stuff across Persia by truck. You can now land the trucks in Italy, move stuff across India ina good rail system and have the US construction troops building a road to China from India a lot faster, which saves on shipping as you wont have to provide the fuel and spares to fly the damn stuff over the Himalayas.

If the Allies land at Anzio with the planned 5 Division force and those troops are in theatre - and more and have the supplies and transport to sustain attacks along the Winter Line the Western Allies are probably on the Gothic Line or nearby 6 months earlier. Which means more the Italian population is available to recruit, more of the Balkan Coast is exposed more of Southern Germany in range of Allied Bombers.

And 6th of June Overlord happens and 90 Days later the Allies are at Joe's Bridge and closing on Aachen and the Tactical Air Forces shooting up trams in the Ruhr and the RAF smashing cities by daylight.

The Germans may well hold the Red Army a bit further east but good luck establishing fanatical national socialist resistance when the worst that happens if you surrender is three squares and a warm cot and worst if you don't is burning alive when the Crocodile does a hot shoot or the P47 napalms you.

And the P47 bit is what happens when you try to move troops west.

This is fantasy analysis all tries to pretend that the less successful Soviet advances post-Citadel doesn't result in the Germans suffering vastly fewer in manpower and material losses in the east. Which means that the replacement manpower, equipment, and supplies can flow west in vastly greater quantities. Just having the replacements that the Germans sent eastward in the summer of '44 go to Normandy instead results not just in German losses during that battle being covered, but the quantity of German forces in the battle actually increasing as it drags on rather then dwindling to attrition.

It additionally ignores that much of the actual equipment shipped to Russia was excess which the WAllies lacked the trained manpower to utilize owing to bottlenecks in training, so not shipping it means it sits in warehouses, gathering dust not making meaningful contributions to the defeat of the Nazis.

Meanwhile, stuff that gets shipped to China gets squandered by Nationalist corruption as it largely was OTL. The delay of Soviet intervention in the Pacific War also likely ensures that the war is dragged on by some additional time, increasing the death toll there.

So overall, not sending lend-lease most likely does not meaningfully shorten the war, most likely extends it, and most likely results in everybody except the Germans taking vastly more losses.

 

[Captain Homicide]

So overall, not sending lend-lease most likely does not meaningfully shorten the war, most likely extends it, and most likely results in everybody except the Germans taking vastly more losses.

How long does it extend it? A year?

 

[ObssesedNuker]

How long does it extend it? A year?

Hard to say. Too many variables, but a year doesn't strike me as a bad guesstimate-in-the-dark.

 

[EagleKeeper]

I did not see communications equipment mentioned in any of the discussion. A major LL delivery was of telephone equipment (field wire, switchboards, portable phonesets, etc.) This is all critical for fire control systems. Radios were also important but for artillery less so than telephony. Somewhere in the U.S. Army 'Green Books' (The official Army history of WWII) there is extensive coverage of LL including a chart with the numbers of items delivered I will have to see if I can dig it up.

 

[wietze]

for those interested, here a complete list of all lend-lease equipment delivered to russia(pdf file):

 

[LeX]

Hindsight is 20/20 but the vast amounts of Lend-Lease to the USSR was a strategic mistake since it allowed the Soviets not only to retake their own territory but also Eastern Europe. The extra pain of having to spend more time/lives defeating Germany and Japan would result in a free Poland, Czechoslovakia, likely non-communist China, and united Korea, who were the original victims of WWII in the first place.

 

[Crueldwarf]

Hindsight is 20/20 but the vast amounts of Lend-Lease to the USSR was a strategic mistake since it allowed the Soviets not only to retake their own territory but also Eastern Europe. The extra pain of having to spend more time/lives defeating Germany and Japan would result in a free Poland, Czechoslovakia, likely non-communist China, and united Korea, who were the original victims of WWII in the first place.

How many Poles, Czechs, Chinese and Koreans would die as the result of the prolonged war? Remember, Nazis murdered what 6 million Poles in 5 years. So it is one or one and a half extra for each year of war?

One year of Nazi occupation is quite literally (and significantly) worse than 50 years of Soviet one.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

How many Poles, Czechs, Chinese and Koreans would die as the result of the prolonged war? Remember, Nazis murdered what 6 million Poles in 5 years. So it is one or one and a half extra for each year of war?

One year of Nazi occupation is quite literally (and significantly) worse than 50 years of Soviet one.

Pretty much. People who advocate for cutting off lend-lease out of some faux-humanitarian concerns about Soviet domination are, in the minimum case, advocating for the sacrifice of human life - not just Central or Eastern European, but Western European and American too - for political advantage against a extremely important (if not vital) military ally, . This is an attitude that belongs more in the halls of those of the fascist states or, just as ironically, the Soviet Union itself than that of the Western democracies. And that's assuming merely the "Soviets are hobbled" camp is correct.

If the "Soviets collapse" camp of lend-lease is correct, then the argument that lend-lease was any sort of "strategic mistake" becomes downright deranged. The collapse of the Soviet war effort would have been a strategic catastrophe greater than any other that occurred to the Allied camp in the war, up too and including the defeat of France in 1940. Winning the war then would have required the effective nuclear destruction of Europe and the sacrifice of potentially millions of Anglo-American lives, and it is unknowable whether the Western Alliance would have the political will to see that through. If they don't, then not sending lend-lease means handing the Nazis the win.