To piggy back off thus further FDR felt that the best way to end the Holocaust was to defeat Germany as fast as possible. With majority of the camps being located in the Eastern Front, without lend lease, the Soviets would not face been able to advance nearly as quick, which means you doom millions more to death.
Soviet artillery question - was Lend Lease essential for Soviet artillery effectiveness?
- Thread starter Trevayne
- Start date
To piggy back off thus further FDR felt that the best way to end the Holocaust was to defeat Germany as fast as possible. With majority of the camps being located in the Eastern Front, without lend lease, the Soviets would not face been able to advance nearly as quick, which means you doom millions more to death.
Just to clarify, I asked the question because I wanted to know how important Lend-Lease was to the Soviet war effort, especially their artillery. I did not mean to suggest they should not have gotten it, just whether it was crucial or more nice to have.
For the record, I think they should have gotten lend-lease and that they paid for it in blood, both the Russian blood that was spilled in the course of WW2 and the Western allies' blood that wasn't spilled.
For a good example of the potential consequences of a Russian collapse, check out CalBear's the Anglo-American/Nazi War. To say things get ugly is a ludicrous understatement.
For the record, I think they should have gotten lend-lease and that they paid for it in blood, both the Russian blood that was spilled in the course of WW2 and the Western allies' blood that wasn't spilled.
For a good example of the potential consequences of a Russian collapse, check out CalBear's the Anglo-American/Nazi War. To say things get ugly is a ludicrous understatement.
The Anglo/American - Nazi War
Here is the start of a T/L inspired by some recent reading I've been doing on Hitler's plan's for Europe AFTER he won the war. The conceit here is that this is supposed to be part of a 2010 book on the war between the Western democracies and Nazi Germany in the early-mid 1950's (haven't quite...
www.alternatehistory.com
The Soviets helped start the war by telling Germany they'd help them take Poland and not get involved. Obviously letting Russia get taken over would be horrible and result in tens of millions more deaths, but based on what actually happened it would seem too much aid went to the USSR, an aggressor state that had its own evil plans blow up in its face and basically beg for help, then get rewarded with domination over half of Europe.
EDIT: And I should repeat again, in case people missed it, that hindsight is 20/20
While you are not wrong about Russia helping Germany start ww2 with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, GB and France are equally to blame as the only reason Stalin sought the MR pact, was because after Hitler seized the Sudetenland, Stalin reached out to the western Allie’s and offered an anti-fascist alliance, and said if they declare war on Germany he will send 1.5 million men to back them up, and GB and France blew him off, so Stalin felt like the western Allies couldn’t be counted on, so he turned to Germany to form a pact.
No, or at any rate not until mid - late 44. If you look at the rates of advance of the Soviet forces in 42- after Bagration they are not so different to the German rates of advance in 41 ( or in WW1 or the civil war for that matter). Soviet attacks tend to be very short legged and of limited duration when there is opposition, with initial penetrations of 1-10 km on the first day. 10km is a good march distance for a horse drawn wagon per day. The Zhitomir Berdichev offensive 24 Dec 43 - 31 jan 43 advances maybe 200km over 5 weeks or about 5 km per day. The German problem is their rate of retreat for horse drawn equipment is about the same if the horses are up day 1 and if one of the 1100 or so Russian tanks involved does not machine gun the retreating horse teams.
At which point whatever they were pulling is lost.
The Soviet sources claim ( and with some corroboration from German) that in the process they destroy 2 german divisions and a further 6 inc two mobile are halved in strength. You can pick another one if you like but the main effect is the Germans being pushed back, losing control of the battlefield and being unable to recover any materiel they lose.
This is hardly surprising there are no more roads available to the Soviets than there were for the Germans going the other way. Almost all the accounts refer to germans being pushed back not encircled except at the very tactical level with the encirclements being precipitated as much by cavalry or cavalry mech groups. Trucks no doubt help in many ways but in 43 - 44 where the armies are in contact and the main heavy lift is by rail anyway how much is questionable.
Later on when the Soviets are off their own gauge rail net and dependent on the inadequate Romanian railways and having to rebuild the net to their gauge trucks become more important but by then Overlord has happened.
Now the trucks and AFVs do provide a lot of assistance but enable the breakthroughs is a stretch because there really are no deep mobile breakthroughs and many of those result in a Soviet defeat even very late in the war.
The issue is not rate of advance but rate of attrition. There is no reason to suppose that the attrition rate on the easter front would be very different there is a remarkably consistent death rate in the Heer between 38 and 50k per month from July 41 ( which is at the high end) until the end of the war. There are spikes in the MIA numbers in Jan and May 43 ( Stalingrad and Tunisia) and again in July August 44 with 700k MIA over the two months but coincides with Normandy, Bagration and the defection of Romania which bags large numbers of rear area forces.
One item to note is German doctrine was to immediately attack a break in and in the west at least 80% of German infantry casualties were suffered during this counterattack.
What reinforcements going east? From a peak of 195 divs on the Eastern Front in Feb 43 by July 44 there are 124 in the East and 69 in France with 27 in Italy and 23 in South with 19 in Germany. Most of those in Germany seem to have been transferred from the East over June - down from 150 that month, down from 160 the month before and from 166 from Jan 44. A month later its 130 in the East, 72 in France 29 on Italy and 2 in Germany. Ofc by then several divisions are written off in both east and west. That says nothing about the equipment or strength of the divisions but generally those in the west are stronger and better equipped because they are closer to the production in Germany and any unit moving west takes advantage of this.
Generally from start of the 42 campaign season at least Germany is unable to replace manpower losses. Only AGS can be brought up to strength for 42. And after that they lose 6th army, 5th Panzer army and the DAK in Tunisia the whole Italian army, a couple of Romanian armies and the Hungarian army. Which may not be the best in the world but they can hold the line in quiet sectors allegedly without them someone has to be in the outposts. By 43 german 65th ID is mostly ethnic Czech and destroyed at Orsogna. Then reinforced and destroyed again at Anzio. By the time of Bagration AGC is around half its nominal strength with the rifle Bn being at least 30% ethnic Russians. At Kursk the German commanders are complaining that they will be unable to attack successfully because their infantry strength is too low.
The absolute best case after Kursk, which is still before the main LL effort arrives is the Germans are pushed back in bloody fighting pretty much as OTL with mobile elements and any reserves available having to do to Italy and the Balkans to compensate for the loss of Italian garrisons. Maybe a little better off in terms of ground lost but I doubt it In terms of casualties not at all. Outnumbered 10-1 in tanks and 5 -1 in men is not a good start point for Rumyantsev especially when brilliant genius Panzer God Manstein sends his reserve off in the wrong direction.
After that well AGC talked about AGN is snug ish but battered to all hell and the southern AGs having suffered through Zitadelle, Rumyansev the Dnepr Crossings et all with the Soviets galloping forward at an earth shattering slow walking pace one wonders where the troops will be found to go west. Apart obviously from the 40 odd divisions including at least half of the Panzer and Panzer Grenadier Divisions available already sent since Mid 43 the troops manning the air defence of the Reich to stop the Allies burning cities at will and the under and over age which will be called up in late 44 early 45.
And if they are there why the hell are they not used to bring up the troops on the Atlantic Wall to full strength and equip them with at least standard calibre guns and maybe a few horse drawn carts or bicycles.
Now as you say none of this actually adds to Western Allied fighting strength per se but it does remove constraints on shipping that force around - so the 5 divisions eventually at Anzio could be landed in the first couple of days. The Force landed at Taranto may not be limited to what you can get on and off a cruiser alongside a pier but also have a cargo ship to hand the locals will gladly as it turns out unload for you. The US 1-7 Amd div land in France earlier, with the 13 or so ID that actually land during July - August. With enough Shipping and Marseilles intact and all those trucks not in russia now who knows - Al Patch may be in Bavaria before the leaves fall with 500k vengeance crazed Frenchmen a burning and lootin up the Palatinate like great great Grandaddy and his daddy and his daddy and his daddy before him.
And if the war drags on until Early August 45 its boom boom time.
In reality, on the main axis of advance, the Soviet advance actually ended on January 14th, not the 31st. The right flank of the advance was ordered completely onto the defensive whereas the left was ordered to prepare for the follow-up Korsun-Cherkassy operation, which was a separate offensive that did not get moving until the 24th. Thus the actual elapsed time was not 5 weeks, but 3. 24 December 1943 to January 14th 1944. The bulk of territory was likewise taken within the first 2/3rds of that.
Even then, the successful Soviet offensives over such distances was not an even 5 kilometers per day, but rather would see an initial penetration of varying speeds that could unfold in as little as one or several days (the ideal was 30 kilometers on the first day, which was indicative of a "clean" breakthrough and potential move right into exploitation on the second day). This was followed by a exploitation which rapidly shoots the rates of advance up, causing the Soviets to suddenly leap forward several hundred kilometers in the space of a week or several, overrunning lagging German elements in the process and pre-empting new defensive lines in the process. Then the pace would slow as the advance exhausted itself and became overextended.
Detailed accounts of these campaigns show that the difference between an advance overrunning a potential defense line without resistance and running up against heavy German resistance and stalling could often be a difference of mere hours. Lend-lease proved pretty key in permitting this after mid-'43, as the expansion of the Red Army in the first half of 1943 stressed the transport infrastructure almost too it's breaking point. The arrival of all those trucks in late-1943 is what let them to sustain the operations at such paces and depths given the increasing numbers of men, guns, and armor and the increasing amount of supplies (both overall and a per basis) that needed to get to the front to support them. Lend-lease was a "right in time" arrival in that sense.
The two are inextricably linked. Higher rates of advances led to higher rates of attrition upon the German forces, as they permitted the Soviets to catch up and overrun stragglers as well as pre-empt defensive lines as I noted above.
This claim is false on a number of levels. For one, the "until the end of the war" claim is wrong, because we don't have the German numbers for January 1945 onward. Secondly, while the Monthly Field Army (Feldheer) casualties from September 1939 to November 1944 show highs for KIAs in line with what you claim once the Med front is factored out, but much lower lows. Additionally, it shows that the MIA rate in after the first part of 1943 - corresponding with major Soviet offensives of that time that started benefitting from lend-lease - is much higher than the corresponding periods for the entirety of either 1941 or 1942 save for December 1942 (the very end, corresponding to when losses from Operation Uranus and its ancillaries would have filtered in). Had the Germans continued in the East to suffer the casualties they had in the first half of 1943 (minus January, when the losses from Stalingrad filtered in) or that of 1942 (minus December, as previously noted), than their manpower losses in the east would have declined by about a quarter while their losses in the first half of 1944 would have declined by a 1/3rd. Given the scale of the losses were are talking about, that all amounts to hundreds of thousands of men whose replacements can now go west.
This is ignoring at hat the Feldheer casualty estimates are - in all likelihood - too low in general.
[Citation needed]
Most German reports state that the bulk of losses came during periods of retreats, as mobile Soviet groups ran down troops retreating westward on foot or (less frequently) horse.
Tons of them. Between June and August 1944 alone, 5,210 armored vehicles were shipped to the Eastern Front compared to 1,380 shipped to the Western Front. In non-armored vehicles, the figures were 44,806 compared too 12,665. The number of replacement personnel shipped eastward in this time period amounted to approximately the same as the entire personnel strength the Germans even deployed in Normandy for the June-August period, while the number of replacements who went to the Western Front in June-August was somewhere south of 20,000.
Probably because they were sent to the east to replace all those fellows who died, along with their kit.
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Expanding on ewhm's post #23 on the 2nd of may 2023 over on page two,
1 With out the 1941/1942 lend lease food stuff's the soviet union may likely have been starved into submission befor the first spring thaw of 1942 and or very very likely have been knocked out of the war befor the first fall of snow in late 1942,
2 As with the loss of it's breadbasket's of ukraine and other 1941 farming/agriculture industrie's the remaning kuban region befor operation edelweis's could only feed thirty million soviet's some four hundred calorie's a day,
3 And all the other soviet farming/agriculture industrie's at the start of 1942 could only feed five million soviet's some three hundred fifty calorie's a day dropping to two million soviet's some two hundred calorie's a day by november 1942,
4 All these number's do not take in and or account for lend lease food stuff's and or other lend lease thing's that allowed for several million's of men/women aged under seven to over eighty year's old being moved from the farming/agriculture industrie's and other industrie's to the now six?/eight? million strong army by late june 1942 and rising to over eleven million by the end of 1942,
5 Out side of twelve? million very old/very young infant's/the mentally disabled/the physically disabled and the very weak that were left to starve to death lend lease food stuff's let everyone else eatg up to seven~ hundred calorie's a day with the army getting up to one thousand~ calorie's a day,
6 The irrecoverable soviet losse's from the rostov/tikhvin offensive's from mid november 1941 to after the second battle of kharkov in late may 1942 had left most european axi's army's and there sub unit's on the eastern front haveing temporary local superiority till mid/late june with the soviet army haveing a temporary manpower crisi's,
7 With out lend lease many several of million's of men/women would need to stay in the home industrie's with many several of million's now not available for the drastically much smaller army.
8 By mid october 1941 the soviet union was fatally dependent on lend lease food stuff's with iron ore's/high octane aviation gas by june 1942 for it very survival.
1 With out the 1941/1942 lend lease food stuff's the soviet union may likely have been starved into submission befor the first spring thaw of 1942 and or very very likely have been knocked out of the war befor the first fall of snow in late 1942,
2 As with the loss of it's breadbasket's of ukraine and other 1941 farming/agriculture industrie's the remaning kuban region befor operation edelweis's could only feed thirty million soviet's some four hundred calorie's a day,
3 And all the other soviet farming/agriculture industrie's at the start of 1942 could only feed five million soviet's some three hundred fifty calorie's a day dropping to two million soviet's some two hundred calorie's a day by november 1942,
4 All these number's do not take in and or account for lend lease food stuff's and or other lend lease thing's that allowed for several million's of men/women aged under seven to over eighty year's old being moved from the farming/agriculture industrie's and other industrie's to the now six?/eight? million strong army by late june 1942 and rising to over eleven million by the end of 1942,
5 Out side of twelve? million very old/very young infant's/the mentally disabled/the physically disabled and the very weak that were left to starve to death lend lease food stuff's let everyone else eatg up to seven~ hundred calorie's a day with the army getting up to one thousand~ calorie's a day,
6 The irrecoverable soviet losse's from the rostov/tikhvin offensive's from mid november 1941 to after the second battle of kharkov in late may 1942 had left most european axi's army's and there sub unit's on the eastern front haveing temporary local superiority till mid/late june with the soviet army haveing a temporary manpower crisi's,
7 With out lend lease many several of million's of men/women would need to stay in the home industrie's with many several of million's now not available for the drastically much smaller army.
8 By mid october 1941 the soviet union was fatally dependent on lend lease food stuff's with iron ore's/high octane aviation gas by june 1942 for it very survival.
And hindsight tells us that, as the Anglo-Americans foremost strategic goal was to win the war at a minimal cost to themselves, lend-lease was not remotely a strategic mistake. The Soviets actions prior to getting invaded by the Germans is irrelevant in that analysis.
Pretty sure you mean 1943. The Soviet harvest of 1941, while it was lower than the 1940 one for obvious reasons, still came in before the loss of much of the best farmland in Eastern Ukraine and Southern Russia, so it was pretty good given the circumstances and meant the Soviets did enough food to last through much 1942 (when little food from lend-lease arrived anyhow). But the harvest of '42 was atrocious and the harvest of '43 even slightly worse - since the retaking of the Soviet Unions farmland in '43 happened in the fall, before it could be planted. Thus it was by the winter of 1942/43 that the Soviets were running desperately short of food, not the spring of '42.
Even with lend-lease supplies, the Soviets were not able to begin refeeding programs for those near starvation until the harvest of 1944, which was the first one where food production began to recover, came in.
Even then, while there undoubtedly would have been a famine in the USSR, it can be debated whether this would have been enough to actually knock the country out of the war, as opposed to ensuring a few million more grandparents and children starve to death instead.
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Just look at the museum displays of Kaytusha Rocket Launchers. Thousands of them were mounted on Studebacker Trucks, and more Studebackers were hauling the reloads. The same style truck was a prime mover for Soviet towed guns.
Overall the U.S. provided the USSR with 400,000 vehicles, 8,000 tractors and, among other things, enough boots to shod the entire Red Army.
Without Lend Lease the Soviets might not have lost, the math would still favor them (too much USSR, too few Germans), but it would have been vastly more difficult to win. Not unlikely the two of them would have beaten each other to a pulp and wound up agreeing on a time out.
Overall the U.S. provided the USSR with 400,000 vehicles, 8,000 tractors and, among other things, enough boots to shod the entire Red Army.
Without Lend Lease the Soviets might not have lost, the math would still favor them (too much USSR, too few Germans), but it would have been vastly more difficult to win. Not unlikely the two of them would have beaten each other to a pulp and wound up agreeing on a time out.
This is also like a cartoonish retelling of the zigs and zags of Soviet foreign policy during this period. Stalin didn’t rub his hands together one morning and say “Today I’m going to help Hitler annihilate Poland and enable Nazism to overrun Europe. Yay!”… The Pact was only taken in late 1939 as the earlier policy of collective security with the Western Allies had collapsed after years of concessions from the British and French which enabled Germany to devour two nations and multiple other disputed territories as well as rearm and retrain their military. Ignoring the fact that the Soviets had sought a triple alliance with the French and British to contain Germany for years and being rebuffed is cutting out a significant part of the story. This article by Soviet scholar Geoffrey Roberts (from ‘92 so a bit dated, but still post-archival) discusses it pretty well in depth. Yes, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact enabled the Nazis to have a free hand in the West. In hindsight, that was an awful thing. But beginning the story in August, 1939 makes the story one of a hapless schemer getting just desserts in ‘41. A longer view shows more nuance in that there was frantic attempts to contain Germany in conjunction with other powers, and that the agreement was less a plan or scheme to enable Germany and more of a self-interested attempt to buy time for the reorganization of the USSR and the reorientation to war footing.
Obviously, the point is that moralizing stories don’t get us very far in history. But if the citizens of the Soviet Union deserved in part to suffer longer because their leadership colluded with the Nazis at one point, than logically the mind must turn to Munich and Peace in Our Time as at least similar levels of folly. Only difference is that I wouldn’t go on to argue that anybody deserved longer periods of Nazi occupation for it, much less citizens completely blameless for the maneuvering of their politicians.
I don't want to derail this thread more with what started out as a side observation, but if it was the Soviets who started the war and invaded Poland, the Baltics, Romania, etc in a deal with Germany, and if Hitler had still managed to take France and start the Holocaust before getting surprise-attacked by Russia, I bet few would say that giving Lend-Lease to bail out the Nazis was a good idea, much less to the extent that they could still dominate Poland after pushing back the USSR and do with it as they willed.
After reading the comment at the end of the list I would take it with a small grain of salt. In that note the author claims that the Soviet Union was 'an ally of Japan for most of the war' And that Henry Hopkins was a KGB Agent. The claims about Hopkins were regular talking points made during the McCarthy Era and the USSR was not an Ally of Japan. They were Neutral in the War against Japan. We were okay with that since it allowed Soviet Flagged ships to deliver Lend Lease supplies via Soviet Pacific ports without convoys or escorts. Other than that it seems like a pretty decent accounting.
Agreed. In addition, I found it interesting about the first set of entries describing nuclear materials. I doubt very much that anything was moved because it would help a Soviet nuclear program, especially when the people running lend-lease were unlikely to know anything about nuclear programs. I do wonder just what the Cadmium and Cadmium alloys were for? The other stuff was probably sent over for general industrial purposes, and just got separated out by the compiler of the information, Major Jordan.
cadmium could be for dye ( until not so long ago cadmium yellow was for example used for giving colour to plastics
cadmium also is used as a coating (cadmium plating)
i just look at it for the list, nothing more, and as a list it shows how diverse lend-lease to russia was
Apparently a small amount of uranium (about a thousand of uranyl salt and two pounds of unrefined ore) was dispatched in 1944, just out of hopes they would get some idea of what the Russians wanted from it.
When the Soviets just took it, muttered an insincere “thanks”, and said nothing more, the US didn’t bother going any further.
Suffice to say, these quantities are so minute - both in comparison to what the Soviets initially requested, what they later captured from the Germans and Eastern Europe, and finally what they would ultimately mine themselves - as to be insignificant. The only place lend-lease would had any real impact on the post-war Soviet atomic program would be extremely indirect, through the improvements to the Soviets overall technical-industrial base.
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I agree they didn't do much. I suspect that given the date of the information (1952 - during the Korean war and the Red Scare)), it was trying to show just how much the FDR administration was coddling the Soviets and actually giving them stuff for their atomic program.
Tanks move faster than horses, hold the front page. But the majority of the Red army and the German army is horse drawn at and below corps level. So whatever the
Simpkiss - Red Armour gives a rate of advance in a breakthough of 50 - 85km per day. Note thats both armies ( which to be fair is pathetic compared to the British across France or the IDF in Sinai at 135km per day disturbingly this is almost the same as the rate of advance in the other direction across Sinai by the British - in 1917. Takeaway terrain matters.
50 Km BTW puts you in the German corps and probably army level depot zone ( and vice versa) on a quarter of a tank of gas cross country. For the tanks.
However we are arguing the counterfactual. Could the Red Army with about half the trucks it had available in 43 -44 have made large enough advances to drive back or isolate very large German formations. Yes, Uranus, Saturn.
yes but this is a post hoc argument. The 'missing' level is a result of the German army being pushed back and unable to account for all losses. Again the issue not what the Soviets did with LL but what they could have done without LL. Clearly the fighting from the second half of 42 when the Soviet factories come online and the training schools produce more officers and specialists and the general decline in the capabilities of the bulk of the German army are also factors. The only issue to what extent.
Your argument about transfers assumes without saying so that Zitadelle does not happen and the Soviets undertake no offensive action which is not going to happen. The statements that losses would have declined by 25 -30% are plucked out of thin air. The lines are in contact the bulk of Soviet supplies are moved by rail up to 50 - 90 miles from the front ( and there is no reason they could not be detrained closer, the Germans certainly did in the East) and for most units the last leg is horse drawn and this includes a slight majority of AFV which are attached to Infantry formations and the Soviets do produce about half their trucks internally and these are held at Front or higher level so can be redirected to whatever axis of advance Front chooses for however long they choose. Move the railhead from 100 miles to 50 miles from the front and you save half the truck miles. Once again a tank corps can advance to an operational depth on internal load.
As to transfer to the West - well they did. July 43 the Ostheer has 3.138m on strength. This declines to 2.235m in July44 or 2.160m with 1.840m in OKW theatres plus 400k SS and presumably LW field units in the 1,9m LW strength. From July 43 with two exceptions the Ostheer strength declines by more than the casualty level. The casualty levels as % of force deployed are actually around 2% pcm.
21 AG Ops Research Group report 19 - this actually refers to British casualties in the attack 69% or Patrol 9 %. But is fairly obvious, troops moving are less well protected from fire than troops in trenches. There are also reports from other sources and obviously there is a statistical difficulty in being precise about enemy casualties being engaged largely by indirect fire.
And of course the bulk of losses come in periods of retreat. Most of the troops are not combat troops and will not be engaged or capable of combat especially if AFV are involved and you have no AT weapons. This is different from the KIA level which will bias very heavily to combat troops unless the army is in the habit of shooting the clerks and potential slave labourers. The issue is what causes the retreat to happen, generally its the combat elements get dead.
See above - no.
The tank numbers can you source. The Inspector General reports give a total of 3953 tanks ( and Stugs Jpz) dispatched to all fronts in the period June - August. Its then broken down by Division/Parent organisation sometimes with notes that it comes the Eastern or Western or South Western allocation. The dispatched numbers are often lower than the planned number and I suspect Allocation is a higher level planning number. And Ofc these are mobile. 19th Panzer for example is located in the Netherlands after being destroyed in the east then its sent to the East after Bagration so which allocation does it come from?
Generally though units only get replacements to the established strength and a newly formed unit is sent to wherever its needed after training. So the allocation of tanks and other items is in part a function of TOE and for engaged units reported losses. Reported losses in important. German units in Normandy did not report losses unless they had to - i.e. total destruction. If a vehicle was even partly useable -e.g. no armament functioning, well it can tow a tank with working guns can't it. The reason for this seems to be that spares might become available or a fix found and if taken off the regiments books there was no guarantee that a replacement would come ( from Germany) and a certainty that your mates in the crew would become infantry trying to dodge allies artillery and air without armour to protect them. The same applies in reverse to the Allies BTW they were far more likely to write off a minor damaged tank at Bn level and have the depot repair it because they could pick up a 'new' tank immediately.
And ofc the reinforcements sent to the west are small. The first call for reinforcements would be troops in OB west, to go from Germany to France over a heavily damaged French rail network with very few bridges left means a long perambulation under the Jabo so at night to get to the front, which is about 50 miles long and around 8 weeks after landing the Great Swan is in full swing.
This is now very long so pause.
That Soviet request might have been in continuation of a long Czarist habit of acquiring samples of every military rifle ever produced by any nation. The rifles are then stored at a state arsenal and associated firing range where they can be studied by Russian, then Soviet designers.
Mikhail Kalashnikov was given access to the collection after his assignment to the design bureau for military rifles. Combining his own talents with mundane- but still relevant design ideas obtained rom the collection ranging from firing pin design, trigger mechanism, retaining pins, spring loaded latches /or lack thereof, he created the legendary AK-47.
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And the fire from those rockets and guns was likely called in by observers on thousands of high quality lend lease radios after targets were spotted using high quality (though not Leica level) lend lease optics.
Both the optics and radios were in the "nice to have" category. but they add up in effectiveness.
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