⚜ | Ungrateful or Insignificant? - Western Planes in the Soviet Air Force

[Music] [Music] I wonder Leslie's 91 page 91 defense operations along the Volga aid from our allies England and the United States lend-lease was insignificant the book I have just consulted this your official history of the soviet air force in world war ii written by the ministry of defense of the soviet union written in the early 1970s it appears to encapsulate exactly the kind of dismissive Soviet attitude towards lend-lease that many in the West have come to expect but is this at least when focusing on aviation a fair assessment that's what we're going to look at today now before we go into land leaves we should look at the cooperation between Soviet aviation in the West before that the Russian Revolution and Civil War meant that the emerging Washington later Soviet aviation industry had a very slow start as such foreign machines were imported to cover domestic aviation needs and allow the Soviets to learn from their designs until they could produce their own aircraft after the first world war the Soviet government started buying aircraft from Italy France the Netherlands and sometime later from Germany however the largest quantity of aircraft was purchased from Great Britain in spite of the rather strained relations between this country and Soviet Russia yet business is business that it is indeed even in the collectivist Soviet Union yet the relationship of both Britain and America remained complicated not all exports to the Soviet Union were actually granted America in particular limited sales to the Soviets prohibiting anything of a military nature the American Department of State shot down one export attempt of the words military aircraft for Soviet Russia in no case will this happen unsurprisingly words are wind when money is involved in some sales were made regardless in November 1949 the war of Finland began and on the 2nd of December 1949 the President of the United States declared a moral embargo for aircraft deliveries to the Soviet Union American companies one by one started terminating contracts with Russia and all official channels became paralyzed yet unofficial channels survived in March 1940 a gradual restoration of communication began now you might wonder why is any of this important after all its pre-war stuff well this shows that the Soviet Union was no stranger to both the British and American aviation industry had many contacts in place and had a relatively good idea of what aircraft were out there even though it's later orders were somewhat peculiar at times now pretty much immediately after the German invasion of the Soviet Union both Great Britain and America promised their support and I'll focus once again on the aviation part the Soviets took full advantage on the 30th of June a list of cargoes that the Soviet Union needed was hammered over the Soviets wanted to receive everything at once the list included 3000 fighters and 3,000 bombers to fulfill such an order the US of A would have to completely cut off exports to other countries including Great Britain and curtail deliveries to its own Air Force note that at this point these orders are not part of lend-lease and still considered to be normal industrial orders it had to be paid immediately on the 1st of August secretary for Stimson authorized the sale of 200 p 40 finders the soviet union immediately purchased 59 aircraft received engines propellers 10500 bombs and four hundred seven thousand nine hundred shells before the 30th of october the soviet union spent ninety two million u.s. dollars on those purchases in practice the Landy's act application to the Soviet Union was initiated on the 28th of October and followed two days later by an interest-free loan of 1 billion US dollars granted by the US of A later another credit line of 1 trillion u.s. dollars was opened up for the USSR in addition to that direct purchases of different equipment and munitions for currency and gold continued it was intended that all military materiel would be provided for the duration of the war payments were to commence 5 years after the war and would stretch over ten years so how many aircraft were actually sent to the Soviet Union now this is a matter of some discussion since in some instances planes were counted double omitted lost or written off one historian notes the USSR received 15,000 481 American aircraft and 3384 British of the overall number of 18,000 865 machines almost 17,000 were combat types another historian notes a slightly different number the figure of 18,700 aircraft agrees well with Soviet and foreign sources both as a whole and as far as the calculations of data of specific aircraft types is concerned 700 transport aircraft and 74 trainer aircraft should be subtracted from the total imports note that in the annex of the translated version of the Soviet Air Force in world war ii added by the editor it details a State Department report on war aid furnished by the United States to the USSR at lists fourteen thousand seven hundred ninety eight aircraft allocated to the Soviet Union of which fourteen thousand eighteen were actually delivered Britain sent two thousand nine hundred fifty three hurricanes 143 Spitfire mark five B's and 1188 Spitfire mark nine fighters and about thirty other aircraft but not all arrived now it should be noted that offer sources indicated about 50% less hurricanes were actually sent now as you can see there is a discrepancy and you should be aware of it for this video I will have to run with one number set and I will be using the one of the most recently published sources that being 18,000 the combat aircraft but more than just aircraft were actually sent the Soviet Union received both the aircraft and the parts without which it would have been impossible to operate them forever more so with aircraft and engine factories ran to considerable extent on imported equipment raw materials and we finished products dose Soviet aircraft to a certain extent were also influenced by the land lease program now some of you might now be wondering about aviation fuel to answer this check out this video by our favorite Austrian logisitics expert military history visualized now it should be noted that while the Soviets got around their own domestic limits in high-octane fuel many of the imported planes actually required exactly DS to operate well they required good fuel and quality oil for example the rolls-royce Merlin ran on octane rating of 87 the powerful twin wasp engines consume fuel of an even higher quality of an octane rating of 97 to 100 meanwhile the Soviet Union mostly utilized be 70 and be 78 aviation fuel with the figures in the designation standing for the octane number attempts to operate imported aircraft the Soviet fuel resulted in a loss of power and engine failures beginning from the middle of the war efforts were made to operate a foreign aircraft with only good fuel so often it was pure imported fuel now over the course of the war a vast selection of aircraft was sent and I hope that you're ready for this because it's about to get really wild the Soviets got hurricanes Spitfires p-40s P 49 SP 63 is p-47s p-51s typhoons a 20 s b-24s Hamlin's mosquitos Catalina are short Stirling's o 52 hours kingfish a c-47 c-46s alba males and a t6 Texans oh and beyond this they acquired a few aircraft throughout the war more or less by chance these are p38 b-17s b-29 speed 24s pv 1 when taurus Lancaster's and Supermarine walruses now you might now wonder how that all of these aircraft actually get to the Soviet Union now there were similar routes for aircraft coming to the USSR the northern route to Murmansk and archangels was covered by shipping as was the route into Vladivostok in the east and the southern route to Baku and krasna votes aircraft were shipped disassembled aircraft ferried by air came from the south via Iran and Iraq two additional air routes originated from Scotland and some brought in the UK although each was only used once in the East flying boats flew to Vladivostok while the alaska siberian route remains perhaps the most famous and the most perilous now with all of these aircraft coming to the Soviet Union this way is the question what did Soviet pilots actually think about the aircraft they got this is a really difficult question because it's completely subjective I've gone through dozens of accounts of pilots speaking on the very same aircraft and the margins between them is vast after all opinions are like MKV bullets however I generally found for consistent elements in these reflections Soviet pilots were often critical of the early fighter variants they received from the West sighting either poor performance handling or their limited durability in the Russian climate this was less so on NATO aircraft which seemed to be more readily appreciated except for a Spitfire machines have been universally disliked I actually have a video on that very topic another observation is that generally Soviet pilots were positive about most bombers they received setting superior usability comfort utility and reliability than some domestic counterparts also Soviet pilots were rather fond of the instruments and equipment present on most machines especially bombers finding them too superior to the domestic produced equivalents as well as that the overall build quality was generally positively received except for the antiquated hand-me-downs that they received sometimes now it's important to remember that pretty much anything the Soviets produced themselves must naturally suited to their old theatres of war because it was designed with that environment in mind only about half of the imported aircraft had similar suit abilities the aircraft that showed themselves would be the best advantage in the Soviet Union were exactly those which in terms of their performance were closest to the Soviet manufactured ones and those were the optimum aircraft were the Soviet German front conditions it is the dissimilarity in criteria that brings about a huge difference in opinion in the respect to the same aircraft in Russia and in Western countries so then it is only natural that some planes were held in higher or lower regard and others it also makes sense to the Soviet Union itself and its pilots tend to focus more on their own aircraft after all every country has a sense of pride in its own creations but it's important to know that propaganda is indeed a thing concerning the tactical and technical data on combat aircraft acquired via lend-lease from the Americans and the British it was recommended not to discuss this in writing or even to think about any superiority that may have existed over Soviet equipment considering that by mid war the Soviet could largely pick and choose their aircraft of choice they requested their favorites and increasing numbers and even had a hand in their development practically that doesn't sound exactly like people that are unhappy of the equipment they're getting but it also shows that they want to make sure that the equipment they do get is exactly suited to what they need now the lasting debate on land needs is whoever it was a significant factor for the Soviet Union in their struggle against Germany during World War two focusing on aviation once again this is a complex issue the book that you just got to see earlier the soviet air force in world war ii is a perfect example it was written at the height of the cold surrounding the Great Patriotic War and it's a book of about 400 pages in the translated version it mentions different foreign aircraft types but mentions lend-lease only twice literally calling it insignificant even if we push propaganda to the side significance remains subjective so let's look at the numbers now we've established that roughly 18,000 combat aircraft were sent to the Soviet Union how does this contrast with domestic production for this let's turn to two Russian historians according to official data the number of combat aircraft manufactured in the USSR throughout the war totals one hundred twelve thousand one hundred however this figure is currently believed to be overstated - the result will be approximately eighteen thousand from one hundred twelve thousand one hundred that being some sixty percent of the domestic manufacture another historian notes allegedly from July of 1941 fluid august 1945 the soviet union produced 112 thousand one hundred combat aircraft most likely the point here is that the soviet production of aircraft during the war years was overstated twofold owing to consciously overstated bookkeeping during the war years themselves information about the sharp fall and work expenditure on the output of units of primary types of aircraft and tanks in the USSR in 1941 243 indirectly confirms this idea but regard to the inflation of data about Soviet production the share of Western supplies of combat advil constituted not 15 percent as has been traditionally fought but around 30 percent however 112 thousand 100 aircraft is the number we have so I'll have to stick with that one for now a detailed breakdown helps us understand these figures a little bit better the Soviet Union manufacture more than 57,000 fighters thus the share of imported fighters kotas approximately 90% of this quantity the total number of ship bombers amounted four thousand against the Soviet manufacturer of seventeen thousand eight hundred the resultant share is also slightly below ninety percent as for hydro aviation the picture was more vivid throughout the war almost no Soviet sea planes were manufactured given this 165 consolidated pby-6a USA turned out to be a considerable help one interesting aspect our transport aircraft the u.s. sent around 900 c-47s making up 40% of the modern soviet transport aircraft fleet however the premiere domestically produced soviet transport aircraft was the Legion of lead to itself a licensed copy of the American dc-3 yet Soviet assault aviation was supplied by domestic production only presentative of these numbers you can come to your own conclusions on the significant of lend-lease but how come there is a debate where all the Cold War is one explanation but that's not all during and after the war the Soviet official narrative downplayed or belittled US help however the private remarks of top Soviet leader showed that lend-lease aid was vitally important to the feet of Germany yoke of himself remembers speaking about our readiness for war from the point of view of the economy and economics one cannot be silent about such a factor as the subsequent help from the Allies first of all certainly from the American side because in that respect the English helped us mean only me in an analysis of all facets of the war one must not leave this out of one's reckoning likewise general level F remembers in our literature the activity of American aircraft during combat operations at the front during the war was reduced to an absolute minimum however archival materials and memoirs of kumoi toilets paint a different picture considering that the figures live right at that balancing point where depending on what you're trying to achieve they can be either dismissed or exaggerated I think it is fair to say that Lesley's provided a noteworthy reinforcement of the soviet air force without being an overwhelming factor the majority of the soviet air force was still soviet but it's not like for an aircraft where exactly rare yet never mind what equipment was actually used it was used by soviet soldiers after all it is the pilot that makes the plane were and not the other way around in light of this and the continuing debate on lend-lease especially on the internet one conclusion some of Russian offer comes to mind there is no need to either overestimate or belittle the importance of the Allies help they did what they could politicians of course always pursue their own ends and who's in charge of propaganda yeah I think the answer to that is pretty obvious so what is your opinion on the impact of lenses on Soviet aviation tell us below make sure to share this video with her friends and check out my patreon for support for people like you make uploads like this one possible big thank you to Victoria Taylor of the proofreading and cosmic for sponsoring one of the books using these videos make sure to check out mhv videos on Andy's as well as always have a great day good hunting and Siana sky

Channel: Military Aviation History

Views: 515,115

Keywords: WW2, Aviation, Education, Lend-Lease, Western, Planes, Soviet, Union, Air Force, VVS, Siberia, History, Learning, P-39, Airacobra

Id: SLTR8qeTOIs

Length: 16min 57sec (1017 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 28 2018

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