What if? Archangel, Murmansk, Land Lease

[bclemans]

Land Lease equipment helped the Soviets greatly as can be seen in their air units with P-38, Spitfires and armored units such as Grant and Sherman tanks. The Allies also provided a lot of trucks that greatly improved the mobility of it army, tank corps in particular in 1943 and later.

Historically, the Finns cut the Murmansk railroad at Medvezhegorsk and Petrozavodsk, the Soviet responded by building a new railroad to loop around the south of the White Sea. Further north still, the XXXVI Corps attacking from Finland and the German's Gebirgskorp attacking from Norway (not Finland) were facing the 14th Army defending Murmansk (mere 50 miles away).

Personally, I think the Germans have a real chance to severe the railways and/or capture Murmansk if it had decided to put more resources there and thus preventing the Soviets from getting a lot of supplies from the Allies (since Archangel cannot be reached all year round). It looks like the alpha 1941 map covers Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega and doesn't extend that far north to this area.

This is a big "What if" question that I think have great implications to the war. What do you think?

[wworld7]

More of LL came via the southern route.

[Helpless]

Even more via Pacific - http://www.o5m6.de/Routes.html

[06 Maestro]

Thanks for that link, Helpless. I never saw that info broken down like that-excellent.