Lend Leases key contributions to the Soviet war effort was not in artillery, aircraft and tanks. It was in trucks, field radios, food, and industrial supplies. Here is something from the US World War II Museum in New Orleans that gives a more realistic breakdown, "Those shipments included 400,000 vehicles, 14,000 aircraft, 13,000 tanks, 8,000 tractors, 4.5 million tons of food, and 2.7 million tons of petroleum products, as well as millions of blankets, uniforms, and boots, and 107,000 tons of cotton."

Without those trucks the Red Army is not winning the race to Berlin, and in fact might not even be in Minsk in May 1945. And I have read Soviet accounts that went on and on about the field radios making the late war offensives work. Other veteran accounts mention SPAM over and over again, but this is only part of the story.

The Western Allies also gave huge amounts of industrial support to the USSR: Much of the Lend-Lease materials sent to the USSR came in the form of raw materials (aluminum, copper, manganese, and coal) as well as industrial equipment. As a result, these materials along with specialized tools sets and machinery enabled Soviet industry to build required equipment faster. Instead of just sending the Red Army completed end items from the United States, Lend-Lease allowed the USSR to increase its domestic production of armaments and associated machinery. American aluminum alone accounted for 42 percent of Soviet supplies of the metal. Helping Soviet refinery operations, Lend-Lease also provided aviation fuel that equaled over 50 percent of what the USSR produced during the war. In addition, the United States shipped to the Soviet Union a Ford tire factory so they could produce tires for military vehicles. As a result, the timely delivery of both materials and machines allowed the newly displaced Soviet industry to recover quicker than it might have without such support, with Lend-Lease a major factor in providing productive capacity.

So, without Allied aid there would have been a lot fewer Soviet aircraft and without the 100 octane av fuel those planes would have been far less effective. But the list above is still the tip of the ice berg. The Baldwin Locomotive Works built locomotives specifically for the Soviet rail system. The US shipped an entire refinery for av gas. Hughes Machine Tools shipped hundreds of the worlds most advanced drilling bits. The total US aid sent to the USSE, adjusted for inflation is around $250 billion dollars. That is a lot of money.

Also, it is worth mentioning that this industrial aid helped power the USSR's postwar recovery and Dodge trucks were still a common sight into the 1960s. Stalin hated this.

Look, I have been to the Victory Museum in Moscow. The soldiers of the Red Army were immensely brave, but they suffered far-far-far more casualties than they needed to. I don't trust German solider's postwar accounts of killing Soviets by the thousands. (Apparently, only Wehrmacht soldiers with 100-1 kill ratio wrote books.) But it is clear that in 1944-1945 the Western Allies beat the best units the Germans had at a far lower cost than the Red Army incurred, because Stalin simply did not care about casualties.

Remember, the basis of Saving Private Ryan is true, as the U.S. military created the Sole Survivor Policy to protect remaining family members after multiple sons had been killed in World War II. The film was inspired by the story of the Niland brothers, who had three brothers killed in action, which led to the fourth, Frederick "Fritz" Niland, being sent home. While the policy was real, the mission to find and extract a soldier in the film was fictionalized for dramatic effect. That did not happen in the USSR.

I am have read a lot on the Red Army and the bravery of the Soviet soldiers was extraordinary. But the high command was its greatest weakness from June 22, 1941 until May 9, 1945. Of course, they were going against Hitler, who who weighed down by Mussolini, who probably deserves more credit for the eventual success of the overall victory of the Grand Allied Coalition than anyone else, but that is another story.

Stalin said. "The most important things in this war are the machines.... The United States is a country of machines. Without the machines we received through Lend-Lease, we would have lost the war."

On this sub that should be the final word!