[TheThirdRuffian]

“Well that’s nice, considering Russia pretty much bailed Britain’s butts out during WWII.”

Hardly. Yes, “Germany’s ill-fated decision to invade Russia took so much pressure off of Britain,” but Russia was all for a German invasion of England and as much, if not more, of an enemy of England as the Nazis.

Russia didn’t “bail” anyone’s butts out but their own, and they would have fallen but for American supplies. The fact that the Russian front helped England is happenstance.

[Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Plus, Stalin had plans to attack Germany — Hitler struck first, but the end result was going to be the same no matter who executed their plan of attack first.

[dfwgator]

And most of the Russian war deaths were due to Stalin’s incompetence.

[the scotsman]

Don’t forget the huge British lend lease to the USSR as well. We supplied thousands upon thousands of tanks, vehicles, weapons and material, as well as even having an RAF squadron fighting for the Soviets on the Eastern Front!. Canada also supplied the USSR.

The Soviets could not have mobilised in 1941/2 without the American-British lend lease.

[98ZJ USMC]

Russia didn’t “bail” anyone’s butts out but their own, and they would have fallen but for American supplies.

Quite possibly. A very little understood part of WWII history. While the Wehrmacht towed artillery by horse almost exclusively, the Russians had lots and lots of the superb GMC 2 1/2 Ton, 6x6. Their breakthroughs after Kursk were made possible by them. The amount of material sent to the USSR was huge.

Conveniently doctored out of the archive footage of overwhelmingly massed Soviet artillery are the GMC Six-bys that lugged them all around. Stalin took great pains to ensure that wartime footage showed only Soviet equipment.

It's really not an exaggeration to say that, someone who knows how to drive the 2 1/2Ton can pretty much go through anything. Simple, rugged, ample power and versatile.