The soviet tech tree has the least content out of all the tech trees, currently the US and German tech trees offer a surplus of content found nowhere else, whether it’s mutiple nationalities of soldiers, or more weapons.
Now let me tell you about the lend lease program, The US sent the following to the Soviet Union in WW2:
- 400,000 jeeps & trucks
- 14,000 airplanes
- 8,000 tractors
- 13,000 tanks
- 1.5 million blankets
- 15 million pairs of army boots
- 107,000 tons of cotton
- 2.7 million tons of petrol products
- 4.5 million tons of food
As for weapons we sent 140,000 Thompson’s across M1928A1, M1, and M1A1 variants.
Source for Soviet Thompsons: Historical Firearms - Historical Trivia: Soviet Tommy Guns The Red...
The Red Army’s use of submachine guns is legendary with millions of PPSh-41s and PPs-43s manufactured during the Second World War. However, it is largely unknown that the American Thompson submachine gun was technically Soviet Russia’s third submachine gun.
In 1942 the US began Lend-Lease shipments to the Soviet Union to help repel the German invasion. These included almost 15,000 tanks and vehicles such as M3 (Lee), M3 (Stuart) and M4 (Sherman) tanks. These tanks were shipped with a full inventory of equipment including Thompson submachine guns for the crews. In addition to those shipped with the tanks there were also larger individual shipments of Thompsons and ammunition. By the end of the war the US Lend-Lease programme had imported almost 140,000 Thompson M1928A1s, M1s and M1As many of these were produced by Savage Arms. When compared to the six million PPSh-41s produced during the war this was a drop in the ocean.
Unissued Soviet Thompson’s in their original shipping cases (source)
While the Soviets received the Thompsons, they were not widely issued for a number of reasons. The standard Soviet PPSh-41s and PPs-43s were chambered in 7.62×25mm while the Thompson was chambered in .45ACP this meant that resupply of troops issued with them was problematic as Russia had no means of producing the larger calibre ammunition - even if they had this would have been impractical. Another issue was the conditions on the Russian Front, freezing temperatures meant that the Thompson M1928A1s initiallysent didn’t perform well. Extraction became unreliable and the bolts would occasionally seize up.
This meant Thompson’s were primarily issued to rear echelon troops or put into store when sufficient numbers of the PPSh-41 became available. The photographs above show Soviet tank crews with their Lend-Lease M3 Stuart tanks and a squad of Russian naval infantry. In recent years some of the Russian Thompsons have been imported back to the US with many being found in mint condition - unissued.
Now with that being said here are some Thompson’s to add to the Soviet tech tree:
- M1921AC (20 Rounds) (BR-2) (Fire rate on a 21AC is usually around 1000 RPM Max)
- M1A1 Thompson (30 Rounds) (BR-3) (600 RPM Max)
- M1 Thompson (30 Rounds) (BR-4) (700 RPM Max)
- M1928A1 Early (50 Round Drum) (BR-5) (Early 28A1s were essentially just a M1928 USMC with a horizontal grip) (fire rate is about 700 RPM Max)
I also found a Soviet with a M50 Reising:
We could also get the M1911A1 pistol as well as M1 and M9A1 Bazookas to have as more lend lease but now let’s go on to more Soviet made weapons.
SKS-45 (BR-2) this is the SKS that appeared all over the world under the chinese copy “Type 56” and saw service near the end of WW2, it’d be a great Soviet counterpart to the M1 Carbine and VG 1-5.
The following is the numbers of soldiers from Soviet republics that fought for the Soviets in WW2:
- 7 million Ukrainians
- 1.5 million Uzbeks.
- 1.3 million Belarusians
- 1.2 million Kazakhs
- 700,000 Georgians
- 681,000 Azerbaijanis
- 600,000 Armenians
- 538,000 Romanians
- 360,000 Kyrgyz
- 260,000 Tajiks
- 195,000 Poles
And more.
So we definitely need more nationalities for Soviets.
