Lend-Lease - World War II: Discussion

neither did the T-34s or any other single type of tank, plane, or artillery piece; all weapons complement each other.

It was the T-34s that bore the brunt of most of the fighting on the eastern front and without it things could have been rather different for everyone.

they probed Soviet & Mongolian defenses & got a bloody nose.

They expected it to be a walk over like Hitler said about Barbarossa... just kick the door and the whole place will collapse... a bit like the Europeans had just done before then.

China & SE Asia had vast resources that industrialized & embargoed Japan needed. I'm amused at ur false assumptions!

Siberia had them too but they could not get them, so they took the line of least resistance and headed south. Which of my assumptions are wrong?

they were, but not that far; many follow-on attacks against them failed with Ks of Soviet dead. The Germans formed a well defended front that largely held till 1943.

The only thing that had stopped them before then was the English channel... the military might of most of Europe including the British and French forces took weeks to dismember and absorb... they turn to the Soviet Union, which they had expected to shred in a few weeks as well but it doens't work the way they think... in fact they are actually stopped on the gates of Moscow and Leningrad and the Caucusus... there is a lot of tooing and froing... lots of attacks and counter attacks... and then after Stalingrad and then Kursk they start to push them back and out of Russia.

most of those troops would've stayed in the FE had not the Chinese been helped by the USSR & USA in their fight against the IJA, thus neutralizing Japanese threat to the Soviet FE.

Rubbish... the Japanese were only interesting in maintaining control of China and Manchuria, their focus was to their south acquiring resources across Asia and the Pacific... the last thing the Soviets needed was to rile up the Japanese into sending new troops into China to sort out problems.

They probably did help the Chinese but only as a distraction... not to get Japans attention... that is the last thing they wanted.

They knew from their spy in Japan that Japan was no interested in opening a second front against the SU to help Germany... Japan had heard about the non aggression pact with the SU and decided then not to take any risks helping Germany as they no longer trusted them.

Lend-Lease tanks constituted 30 to 40 percent of heavy and medium tank strength before Moscow at the beginning of December 1941.

Ahh Fuck off... their heavy tanks at the time were T-35s which were fucken useless pieces of parade ground shit so having a dozen Churchils making up 40% of numbers might sound useful but it wouldn't be much use at all... the first tanks sent had pathetic 2 pounder guns that didn't even have HE rounds and were worse than useless in real combat where most of the time HE is the standard round.

r u being sarcastic?

The link you provide is to a New Zealand Government website about the war... I didn't say we didn't know and recognise what we did, I am saying british military experts didn't.

What British documentary on the battle of britain mentions the contribution from New Zealand? Keith Park was someone you would think they would recognise from day one for his contributions... read the biography of the man here: http://www.sirkeithpark.com/

But no... fair enough they did make a statue to the guy who saved their asses in the battle of britain... in 2009...

[qutoe]Immediately after the Ottawa Agreement of 1932 <snip>en up when the war ended; but for dairy produce and meat it continued until 1955.[/quote]

Another NZ website... I know we knew what we did... I am saying they don't remember or acknowledge until pushed and harangued and bullied...

it happened in the USA as well, although on a smaller scale.

Yeah, they weren't being bombed, and nor did they have to move their own factories 5,000km and set them up in the middle of nowhere in minus 30 degree C conditions...

that was the fear in the US, prompting them to support allies with the LL.

So now the Russians have to crawl on their bellies and thank the US for saving their own asses... No.

since 1933, they produced enough to take most of Europe, see church domes in Moscow through binoculars, reach the Volga, the N. Caucasus mountains, & sink dozens of ships in the Atlantic & Indian oceans.

They were running on single 8 hour shifts per day right up until late 1943... they used slave labour and captured a lot of gear which they reused, but their production levels were not amazing.

The Germans also used different tanks, & employed them rather successfully in their offensives:

How many Shermans did they use?

This was the start of the war... the Germans were using modern tactics which also walked over the French and British armies too... the entire British expedition force lost all its equipment at Dunkirk and if they didn't get the chance to run away would have lost all their soldiers too.

The Soviets used their & captured enemy tanks against the German tanks & fortifications, etc., while the LL supplied tanks were mostly in support roles.

Thank you... that is what I am telling you... Soviet and German tanks in production from about 1941 onwards were useful and effective... LL tanks fill gaps and support... doesn't that tell you what you need to know about them?

Still, they helped- otherwise they would be sent straight to the smelters. The Shermans were better than some of these smaller &/ obsolete Soviet tanks

They wouldn't smelt them... they would just dump them... quicker and cheaper. Sherman medium tanks might have been more useful than most Soviet light tanks but light tanks have a purpose... if you could use a medium tank for the job it makes more sense to use a T-34 if they are available.

The M4s were better than the M3s obviously... but that is not saying much.

My dad was a RAF fighter controller and my mum was a WRAF in the Ops Room in Biggen Hill then Uxbridge. Both had HUGE respect for Keith Park.

My dad was a RAF fighter controller and my mum was a WRAF in the Ops Room in Biggen Hill then Uxbridge. Both had HUGE respect for Keith Park.

As mentioned in that website about him... he commanded the few that Churchill was talking about... if he was American there would be a dozen movies about the guy...

not only- anti-tank artillery, Katyusha MLRs (mounted on a Lend-Lease Studebaker US6 2½-ton trucks), infantry, & frontal aviation with its ground attack IL/Pe-2s+the LL supplied fighters, bombers & transports shouldn't be overlooked.

You do understand their anti tank artillery was towed by their own trucks for the first half of the war and the Katyushas were a Soviet invention that could have been mounted on almost anything... even otherwise useless T-26 light tank chassis of which they had plenty, and the Infantry were soviet... not lend lease... and what ground attack aircraft was more important than the Il-2 and later Il-10 for them that was lend lease that could not have been replaced by a Soviet equivalent?

Most of the bombers were soviet and their transports were either licence produced C-47s or obsolete bombers which for the first half of the war had nothing to do with lend lease.

The truck fulfilled many important roles in service with Soviet military forces during the war, such as towing artillery pieces and anti-tank guns and transporting troops over long distances.

they used trains more than trucks for troop transports over any significant distance and they had plenty of tracked prime movers but like the Germans the vast majority of Soviet artillery was horse powered or man powered over rough terrain.

The Il-2 aircraft played a crucial role on the Eastern Front. When a factory fell behind on its deliveries, Joseph Stalin told the factory manager that they were "as essential to the Red Army as air and bread." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilyushin_Il-2#Effectiveness_as_attack_aircraft

What the hell does the Il-2 have to do with lend lease?

The C-47s were also supplying partisans and depositing agents far behind the German lines

Most of the partisans were troops that slipped out of captivity or were never captured by the Germans and hid in the woods. They were supplied by captured German equipment and fed by the local populations generally... the Soviets couldn't support them by air any more than the Germans could supply their own troops at Stalingrad by air.

The partisan ops helped the Red Army at Kursk & elsewhere
According to the memoirs of Marshal G.K. Zhukov, the partisan fighters operating in Smolensk and Orel districts contributed significantly to Soviet Army victories in the summer of 1943 in Kursk and Orel.

They made a significant contribution and tied up a lot of Germanys forces, but they also were not supplied by Lend Lease... they might have dropped a few special forces behind enemy lines... but not enough to say Lend Lease was important... if they didn't have LL C-47s they could and probably did use the much quieter Po-2 biplane to drop people behind enemy lines. Most of the fighters behind enemy lines ended up there simply be being overrun by the German front line.

That resulted in having less Soviet casualties.

Nothing like a D Day invasion of France by Britain and Canada and the US of France in 1942 would have.

that "the Pacific and Asia... not important at all really..."- they had to go there to secure their flanks, get more labour force, resources, & to dislodge British from Burma & India.

If Stalin was an ally of Germany and Japan and joined the Axis powers Japan would have had all the wood and material they needed... there would have been no invasion of the Pacific or Asia...

Stalin wanted & needed to keep the Japanese military busy & trapped in China, relieving pressure on the FE, insuring that the Emperor & his generals didn't change their minds about not attacking in the the USSR in the FE.

What are you talking about... it wasn't a problem till the middle of 41 when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union and by December 7th the threat of Japan invading the Soviet Far East was totally eliminated... and before that Japan had already started moving through Asia and had committed to finding resources like wood and oil and rubber etc etc in Asia instead of Siberia... Japan was no more interested in opening another front into Siberia than Russia was interesting in fighting Japan at the same time as fighting Germany.

It would also helping the Americans who could then open the 2nd front in Europe sooner, as he hoped. China's heroic resistance did save many American & allied lives.

Japan occupied Manchuria since the early 1930s... China on its own couldn't solve its own problems.

No1 advocates that, but completely dismissing all that help is also wrong. Marshall Zhukov I quoted didn't have any reason whatsoever to lie about it.

At the time they were allies... both sides were very respectful towards the efforts of the others... you posted that Frank Capra movie "why we fight"... there are plenty of examples of American Generals heaping praise on the Soviets there... even though at that time they were not 100% sure of what went on on the Eastern front. Afterwards of course it was a double whammy... the Soviets were now the enemy so anything they said that put them in a good light was a lie... propaganda... and anything bad was true was the first slant on the truth and getting to the truth, and of course the major problem was that the wests new allies... the Germans from west germany were now their only direct sources of what happened on the eastern front... so it became a case where hitler cost them the war, and the winters of course... who could contradict them... their new enemy the Soviets... can't believe them... gotta believe the war criminals who butchered 20 million civilians on the eastern front and still thought they were the good guys.

In todays context with France not inviting Russia to WWII commemorations but inviting Germany, and the vast majority of Europe now trying to equate the Soviets with the Nazis... notice what I said there... remember you can't call the Germans all bad because they weren't all nazis, but you can call all the Soviets Russians and you can blame all Russians for what Stalin did... a man from Georgia...

So no... Lend lease was a worthless attempt to keep the Soviet head in the meat grinder because someone was going to lose millions of people and the UK/US had decided that would be the Soviets... and to top it all off lets blame them for the whole war and treat them like they were the bad guys... it worked with Germany after WWI... we didn't take any responsibility for that conflict at all... it was all germanys fault don't you know... leading directly to the confrontation called WWII but we don't learn... hense the cold war and now cold war II.

w/o their support, more T-34s, etc. & troops would be lost & less Germans would be killed or taken prisoner, prolonging the war.
If they were such a liability as u say, their crews would be assigned to other tanks &/ units.

M3 tanks killed 7 Soviet tankers at a time... at least a T-26 only had two crew. Their other tanks were too slow to operate with either the T-26 light tanks or the T-34 medium tanks or the KV-1 heavy tanks... they were used together because they were to slow to operate with anything else... Churchill and Valentine and Matilda tanks moved at walking pace.

true, but they were 1st used at the end of 1941 &/ early '42 near Moscow. putting them on LL trucks was the right choice- otherwise they would use only other vehicles.

What LL trucks did they have at the end of 41 and early 42?

Most of the first stuff they sent was obsolete British tanks and obsolete US tanks that did not include the M4 because at that time the M4 didn't exist.

as were the T-34s u categorically say "bore the brunt of the war"-I naturally included both LL & non-LL to refute that.

The performance and effect of the T-34 and related variants and the Il-2 are totally independent of LL... it would probably have made more sense for Russia to send some T-34s to the British so they could operate some decent tanks for a change.

Nothing sent as LL was absolutely critical to the Soviet war effort.... it was appreciated when it arrived, but it was not the case that anything was sent to them that made them impossible to defeat... that was within themselves and could not be lent or leased.

none, but the more of those LL planes meant more firepower unleashed on the Axis ground forces & more enemy fighters kept busy with them rather than with other Soviet planes.

LL would have actually been much more significant a contribution to the Soviet war effort if they had sent more T-34s and more Yak-1s and more La-5FNs... what they did send was of much lower usefulness, but considering their position they accepted the crumbs offered... they didn't have a lot of other options.

I never said/meant they were crucial, only that, no matter the #s, they were important & played a significant role in the fighting, even if supplied later.

How could they have any effect if they were supplied later in the war?

They weren't rushing out to meet the Germans in combat happy in the knowledge that next year they were going to get lots of useful trucks and stuff...

many of their horses were killed or died for lack of feed & care.

A lot of horses did die and were killed but most were well looked after because if they died or got injured it was Soviet soldiers that pulled the ropes to move things around.

Trucks r better as they have a lot more horsepower than 2-3 horses together towing artillery & carts.

You can't eat a US truck and it wont run on grass either.

crucial supplies &/ people were brought in/out by Li-2/C-47s; even if only Soviet planes were used for that, the LL planes could thus be used elsewhere to help the Red Army.

They didn't move much supplies to the partizans they were largely on their own and most of the time a Po-2 would be more use than a noisy C-47... by the time enough LL had arrived to matter there were no partizans because they were moving out of Soviet territory and into European territory where many of the partizans were openly hostile to the Soviets.

impossible: Anglophil Hitler wouldn't tolerate Stalin as an ally. The Soviets would continue to fight even if pushed beyond the Urals.

Because he was an idiot... if he was smarter he could have done rather better than he did.

Stalin kept significant forces in the FE as a deterrent, even after Moscow was secure- the threat was still there.

No he didn't. He transferred quite a few Siberian units to defend moscow in december only because he knew the japs were committed to their south.

regardless, his praise of LL wasn't exaggerated & untrue.

He was being polite. Starting D Day in 42 would have been much more useful help but he was too nice to say so.

"if the shoe fits, wear it!"- whatever their hidden agenda was, the USSR put the LL to good use. Many of those &/ the kids/grandkids of those saved by it later died in Korea, Vietnam, ME & Afghanistan, with very little to show for it. That's the reason Trump's election rhetoric resonated with so many.

Perhaps if LL was actually more beneficial and represented real help instead of token help Korea might not have happened... the ME was created by the British and French and Afghanistan wont change much either... that is invasion number 6 for the UK now isn't it?

If the west had been more genuine in its support perhaps better relations could have been normal but the fact is that the British have been to Russia for the last several centuries... the US didn't have to go down the same path but chose to on their on volition.

Payback is coming because Russia wont lift a finger to help the west these days... or they might keep selling them what they need...

Despite all of the..drawbacks, the Li tanks played a role, temporarily making up for the losses of the Allied (in the North African theater of operations) and Soviet armored forces [957 delivered], "plugging holes" in the supply of armored units and allowing them to survive in anticipation of better equipment.

Complicating their logistics and support problems for vehicles worse than the ones they were making for themselves... you could say a role, but not a big role, not a vital role, not an important role.

Having them was still a lot better than not having. Using an analogy, at the time of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the locals had only old British & WWII rifles/submachine guns. With those, they held long enough to capture AKMs &/ before Ks of AK-47s, etc. were supplied via Pakistan.

Yeah... all the more reason to discard the LL assistance as an act of an insincere actor... Afghanistan was a shithole that the US was trying to get onside after just being kicked out of Iran... the Soviets going in to Afghanistan was their best chance at a real future... schools and hospitals and roads and apartment buildings were built... and what did the peace loving democracy spreaders do? Gave them bombs and guns and sent them to destroy it all.

When the US troops were in Afghanistan in the early 2000s it was the Soviet built apartment buildings that were popular with the locals because the heating and aircon still worked... the billions of dollars the US spent in Afghanistan chasing their own tail was not balanced by any money being spent by Russia to make their operations dangerous yet they still failed to have even a fraction of the effect the Soviets had...

But America knows best and is perfect...

You know the enormous value of the contribution the US made via lend lease when you hear that the Soviets had to pay in gold for everything they kept that was not used up in combat so most of the planes and tanks were handed back to US forces... they loaded them all up on the decks of their aircraft carriers... sailed out to open waters and pushed it all over board into the sea... that is how much value those vehicles and that equipment was even to the US.

But it is equally clear that when aid began to arrive on a massive scale, it significantly increased the speed with which the German Army was pushed out of the Soviet Union. Without Lend-Lease, the Soviet people would have had to make even greater sacrifices and would have suffered even more deaths.

Without Lend Lease the Soviets probably would have lost fewer troops... they lots large numbers of troops liberating eastern european countries and germany itself... assuming the war was extended because of a lack of LL then the first d day might have failed because they would have less need for having most of their forces on the eastern front... which means more forces facing the western allies.

I doubt their losses would actually have been much higher but the western allies would have had to fight their way in to Berlin and Poland etc and would have lost a rather larger number of soldiers, though they would have had more surplus obsolete equipment they didn't sent to the Soviets they could have used too.

It probably just would have cost them occupation of eastern europe and increased hostility towards the west who would have effectively don't nothing to help them.

The Soviets were thus disappointed in the 4,700 U.S. P-39 Aircobras

Says it all.

“The result would probably have been the same, except that Soviet soldiers would have waded at France’s Atlantic beaches rather than meeting the Allies at the Elbe.”

You posted it yourself.... READ IT... The Soviets would have taken all of Europe instead of meeting the west halfway across Germany...

they were supplied enough ham & had plenty of Baku oil to make fuel & lubricants.

You have enormous confidence about their supply chain... I am impressed...

a useful idiot. But if he indeed escaped to S. America, he was at least smart enough to save his skin.

If?

Why would the Soviets pretend he was dead if he was not?

FYI, a far larger force remained there:
..of all the divisions transferred west after August 1941, only three rifle divisions originated with Siberian personnel and only two went into the Western Front defending Moscow. Where are the ‘newly arrived Siberian divisions being encountered all along the front protecting Moscow’? To fulfil this statement there would need to have been 10-20 Siberian divisions in Western Front. The only division which actually earned the reputation bestowed upon the Siberian divisions in 1941 was the 32nd Rifle Division which defended near Borodino in October 1941. Ironically this division was formed in 1922 in the then Volga Military District and only a portion of its personnel came from western Siberian oblasts. ..
Most sources claim the information from Sorge’s spy ring came in October 1941 at the earliest and November 1941 at the latest. Yet it is apparent that the decision to move the vast majority of available divisions west was made well before this time and no new rifle divisions were actually shipped after October.
Whichever way data is analysed, the whole Siberian transfer story is a myth in all respects: including timing, numbers, source of personnel and overall combat performance.

That website is a .net website.... it is American.... it is not even factually correct... they could have planned to send one or ten or 200 divisions from the East... the actual transfer is trivial and can be enacted rather quickly so getting the go ahead to transfer x number of units doens't take months of preparation...

Even if the few Siberian divisions exhibited a higher than average combat proficiency in the winter of 1941/42, their contribution was almost insignificant compared to the mass of newly mobilised units. There is no doubt that the 1941 Soviet mobilisation programme was simply the largest and fastest wartime mobilisation in history. The multitude of average Soviet soldiers from all over the USSR that made up these units saved the day, and definitely not the existing units transferred west after June 1941, or the mostly non-existent and mythical Siberian divisions.

The ignorance of this passage is amusing... most of the conscripts called up in western Russia are from cities and small villages and are civilians... many of which will still be wet behind the ears mommys boys. The Siberian forces include men who have been called up but were trained within the last 10 years... many would be career army men who had not been overrun by the Germans in 1941 and had their weapons and equipment taken from them and sent to prison labour camps in Germany.

In the west the most suitable soldiers had already been lost in the initial invasion.

Hunters and fishermen also tend to be better fighters and more independent and resourceful...

By August, Soviet strength in the Far East had doubled, from the former 40 divisions to 80 divisions with strong supporting forces.

Do you even read what you link to... this is August 45 when the conflict in the west had ended and Stalin was under contract to the US to open a second front against Japan within 6 months of the conflict against Germany ending...

If China had surrendered in 1938, Japan would have controlled China for a generation or more. Japan's forces might have turned toward the USSR, Southeast Asia, or even British India.

They did turn against the USSR and got their asses handed to them.

The official death toll for Japanese soldiers killed in China between 1937 and 1945 is 480,000.

That is over an 8 year period... and I would expect many of those 480K killed were killed in the last few weeks by the Soviet invasion.

BTW it is funny hearing the NYT talk about debts to China for their efforts during WWII when they are so dedicated to downplaying the efforts of the Soviets in that conflict...

It would take them longer but their march on Berlin would still happen.

Hard to say for sure... without the LL trucks then operation bagration wouldn't have been the mind blowing success it was, but that also means it wouldn't have been the threat it was and it woudn't have grounded up all those German units that it destroyed... and it coincided with D day... so without LL there would have been rather more German forces available to oppose D day, which could have caused it to fail... in which case based on their previous failed landings in 42, it would probably not be until 46 before they could try again... by which time the Soviets might have pushed the Germans back to Germany.

I'm concerned on the LL effect either way on the USSR, not the allies.

LL was to help the Soviets better help the western allies...

they always complained about many things, but if "they were effective", it's a moot point.

When you have decided you have enough children you can cut your own balls off... not ideal... but effective...

having all those trucks run out of fuel & rendered useless during offensives would be a disgrace & subject to court martials.

Without LL they wouldn't have the trucks in the first place... they would be using horses and men... it would be slower but would also use less fuel...

Stalin didn't believe reports of his death. I saw a few documentaries that showed it could be a forgery to cover up his tracks.

Soviet experts inspected the bodies and concluded it was hitler... the soviets had no reason to help Hitler escape anywhere... they weren't fighting for Stalin or for communism... they wanted revenge against Hitler and what his armed forces had done to their country.

The Russians r known to do many things inefficient & slow.

They managed to stop the German advance before it took Moscow... compared to that the performance of the British and French forces was pathetic.

They planned for the war to start at least a year later than it did, & we don't know what kind of original plans they had before & after 6/22/41 regarding troops movements.

When the Germans invaded in mid 41 all those plans became irrelevant and had to be completely changed anyway... they would have had contingency plans to transfer troops from the far east and the far north and the far south for that matter, but they wouldn't start anything till they were sure they needed it... the source you presented claimed no units were moved after October, which suggests that by October they had moved enough for the job. Your source of course could be wrong.

many of them were from the Western parts sent t the FE, & not necessarily from the countryside.

Either way... they were trained soldiers from their original army... like the millions captured on the western front in the first 6 months of the war, but they still had their equipment and were not hastily called conscripts.

I do, but it seems u read selectively: they had 40-43 divisions in 1941, only 3 of which were sent to the Eastern Front to plug holes & stop the Blitzkrieg. Sending more would've been stupid. Do u have more reliable sources? Even if we ask the RF DOD archives I doubt they'll want to tell us the truth- perpetuating useful myths won't hurt them, but showing dirty laundry & busting them could!

Of course... can't trust Russian sources... only western sources can be trusted because they are solid and based on... west german soldiers opinions of their enemy... always a reliable source...

the Kwantung Army was caught with its pants down & surrendered en mass after the Red Army surprised advance over the Gobi Desert & Hinggan Mountains where they didn't expect them.

There was plenty of combat on that theatre and plenty of casualties on both sides...

So the Soviet factories could build more of their own fighters, ground attack, & bombers instead. But even all those Li-2s, C-47s & P-39s were not enough: During and after the war, up to 37 trophy Ju-52s were used, which were decommissioned in 1947-1949.

You do understand those were probably in East Germany when the surrender was signed... flying around in a Ju-52 before the war ended would get you shot down by your own side...

thus, those trucks made a big impact & the LL worked very well for them & the Allies.

Certainly made D Day much easier to succeed...

why cut a branch u sit on? Vasectomy is a better solution!

There were no easy or comfortable choices available...

they would then use older/captured tanks/BMPs to tow wagons & captured German American made Ford & GM trucks.

During the first half of the war there were not that many captured German vehicles... many of which did not handle the cold well enough to be useful anyway.

By the second half the war was already decided...

thanks in large part for stretched German supply lines & Hitler's order, against his generals advice, to divert most tanks to advance on Kiev. Their biggest mistake on 6/22/41 was to advance on a such a broad front from the Baltic to the Black Sea.

They made many mistakes... chief among them was underestimating the Russians and not expecting a long war that would require a lot of fuel and ammo and winter clothes... they probably assumed they would fold like the French and British forces did but with even more inferior armour and aircraft.

They thought the best Soviet plane was a Polikarpov I-16 they met in Spain and their best tank was the T-26 they also met in Spain...

The LaGG-3 wasn't an amazing plane but was certainly better than the Polikarpov and the Yak-1 and MiG-3 were also rather better too, and the T-34 and KV-1 were world class tanks...

then, those 3 FE divisions + others from elsewhere were enough or they didn't have any more available for transfers. whoever owns the site had no interest in falsifying the data about Red Army Siberian units saving or not saving Moscow.

Who knows how that site it funded... and the fact that the Germans were stopped and pushed back suggests they go it right.

not all of it came with them; even if not, 3 divisions is a drop in a bucket compared to the overall # of forces joining the fighting.

Three divisions of potentially rather angry men finally given a chance to kill some of the invaders... yeah a drop mate... a drop.

any historical investigation must take into account all avail. sources. Besides, the archived materials could be forged or "disappeared".

Except they weren't... as I said... in the west it was the West German now allies that were listened to... Soviet sources were ignored because they were assumed to be propaganda. Soviet records were actually quite accurate and very carefully collected and are much more reliable than a bigoted American "expert" could insinuate...

some, if not many, of them were downed/fixed or captured on the ground outside of Germany. All they had to do was to paint 6 large red stars on them & notify PVO/fighter units of their presence &/ use them in deep rear areas.

In bad light such aircraft would not last long over Soviet troops who would attempt to shoot that obviously German plane down... simply not worth the risk.

u r grasping for straws-show me other recent unbiased sources that refute it.

I am not grasping at straws, any site can post any crap it likes... most of the time if it wants to succeed with a western audience it needs to feed them the usual bullshit they expect... just follow the money... looking at the links you have used... new york times, cnn, rbth, washington post, does not fill me with trust...

everything is relative. The Germans were also angry losing so many of their comrades, fought well, & believed they could make a final push, win & go home.

No, they were tired and sick of being lied to, and pissed off at having condoms but no winter coats by the time they got to Moscow... I doubt even the most fresh faced new replacement thought this was going to be an easy win like it was in France...

I never heard any of them engaged & shot down while in Soviet markings. A slow 3 engine transport plane with a blunt nose, when when visible, doesn't look like a bomber & isn't a threat; even if it drops airborne troops, they could be killed from/on the ground.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... yeah, that was a rule on the eastern front... if you were an enemy plane but didn't have a gun or bombs then they just left you alone... especially slow easy targets...

Must ask though... how many were shot down during by the war... must have only been one or two by accident was it?

You provide evidence they were shooting them down on sight... and how do you tell every single unit all along their potential flight path that they are friendly and to not just shoot on sight?

If bombers can shoot them down anyone with a rifle calibre machine gun or heavier could too.... and would...

Air transport is overrated... most things transported would be either by truck or by train over great distances a single train can carry 1,000 times what those old transport planes could carry...

They would have big bright markings & even painted differently; fighters & bomber pilots within shooting range would need to be blind not to see them. Compare these pics:

In bad weather or at night no amount of markings or paint will change the fact that it is a clearly recognisable GERMAN aircraft design... fifty air defence units might let it pass but it just takes one to shoot it down.

Kozhedub reportedly shot down several Mustangs because those American pilots mistook his unfamiliar plane as being German (it wasn't... it was Soviet).

Besides, they were equipped with radios & could talk to each other & the ground.

Hahahaha... of course... all those Soviet air defence gun batteries waited for radio confirmation before deciding whether to open fire on obviously german aircraft types...

What was the purpose of that cable connecting tail with the front part of aircraft in early models?

The cable is an antenna for a radio while that loop is a direction finding antenna so this might have been an early EW aircraft used to detect and locate enemy radio transmissions...

During WWII, EW aircraft had big & ugly antennas & looked like porcupines.

Those are Yagi antenna... they operate in a frequency that requires that size and shape antenna... in the 1970s the Soviets had Ka-25 helicopters whose role was detection of enemy ships at long range to engage them with long range anti ship missiles and they had the same antenna arrangement...

A very rare model you mostly can only find drawings of, though I did find this photo: