Russian arms production

Russian (Soviet) armaments production in the Second World War.

Production of ZIS3 field guns
Production of ZIS3 field guns in a Soviet artillery factory.

Following are tables of the annual Russian (Soviet) armaments production (excluding ammunition) and a comparison of the necessary strategic raw materials.

Russian (Soviet) armaments production by weapon types

Annual Soviet production figures of the main arms and military equipment (without ammunition) during the Second World War from 1939-1945:

Tanks and AFV’s:

Tank type1939194019411942194319441945 (6 months)TOTAL
obsolete tanks 2,950 (incl. T-26, BT, T-28)125----- 125 (+2,950)
T-26 (all variants)? 1,549----- 1,549
BT-8?706-----706
T-28?12-----12
T-40--41181---222
T-50--4815---63
T-60-- 1,818 4,474--- 6,292
T-70--- 4,883 3,343-- 8,226
T-80----120--120
T-34-117 3,014 12,553 15,712 3,723- 35,119
T-34-85----100 11,000 18,330 29,430
T-44------200200
KV-1-141 1,121 1,753--- 3,015
KV-2-102232----334
KV-1S---780452-- 1,232
KV-85----130--130
IS-2----102 2,252 1,500 3,854
SU-76---26 1,928 7,155 3,562 12,671
SU-122---25630493- 1,148
SU-85----750 1,300- 2,050
SU-100-----500 1,175 1,675
SU-152----704--704
ISU-122, ISU-152----35 2,510 1,530 4,075
TOTAL 2,950 2,752 6,274 24,690 24,006 28,933 26,297 115,902

Other Armaments:

Type of Weapon1939194019411942194319441945 (6 months)TOTAL
Artillery (including Anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns) 17,34815,300 42,300 127,000 130,000 122,400 62,000516,648
Mortars 403,300 (1939-45)?????? 403,300
Machine guns 1,477,400 (1939-45)?????? 1,477,400
Rifles????????
Sub-machine guns-- c.5,000,000 (1941-45)???? c.5,000,000
Military trucks and Lorries??? 30,400 45,600 52,600 68,500 197,100+
Fighter planes c.4,500 4,574 7,086 9,924 14,590 17,913 c.9,000 67,587
Ground attack planes-- 1,5438,219 11,17711,110c.5,50037,549
Bomber planes c.3,500 3,571 3,748 3,537 4,074 4,186 c.2,000 24,616
Reconnaissance planes--------
Transport and liaison aircraft? 1,691 3,091 3,298 3,744 5,508? 17,322+
Trainers and miscellaneous military types?549267457 1,260 1,528? 4,061+
Cruisers2 (1939-45)??????2
Destroyers25 (1939-45)??????25
Submarines52 (1939-45)??????52
Merchant shipping tonnage????????

Raw material production for the military weapon production above:

Annual strategic raw material production (m. metric tons):

Year1939194019411942194319441945
Coal?? 151.4 75.5 93.1 121.5 149.3
Ore?? 24.7 9.7 9.3 11.7 15.9
Steel?? 17.9 8.1 8.5 10.9 12.3
Aluminium (in 1.000 metric tons - especially important for aircraft production)??? 51.7 62.3 82.7 86.3

References and literature

World War II – A Statistical Survey (John Ellis)
Soviet Tanks and Combat Vehicles of World War Two (Steven J. Zaloga, James Grandsen)
Krieg der Panzer (Piekalkiewicz)
Luftkrieg (Piekalkiewicz)
Der 2. Weltkrieg (C. Bertelsmann Verlag)
Operation Barbarossa: the Complete Organisational and Statistical Analysis, and Military Simulation, Volume I – IIIB (Nigel Askey)


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2 thoughts on “Russian arms production”

  1. Talking about Soviet aircraft production is little bit complex when without lend lease technology and such low aluminium production they won’t have produced more than 50,000 -60,000 aircraft. When Harry Hopkins first time in 1941 visited Moscow and asked Stalin what Soviets need more than anything else The Generalissimo replied: “aluminium”. There are also interesting details revealed by Boris Kavalerchik in his book “Tanks of Operation Barbarossa: Soviet versus German Armour on the Eastern Front ” like that T-34/85 could not be manufactured until the Americans sent machinery via lend lease capable of making turret rings larger than the standard size already in the T-34/76. The only set of machinery capable of manufacturing different size turret rings was lost in Kharkov when the Germans captured the city. The remaining tank factories could produce designs already in existence, but they could not machine new turret rings. It made me wonder if the adoption of turretless Soviet self-propelled guns prior to 1944 might have been influenced by this situation.

    What official Soviet history is not eager to talk about is problems of Soviet to increase fast their own oil production from late 1942. The increase was just 2% in 1½ years. The ammo production was lacking behind numbers of all kind of artillery which could have been seen on Kursk statistics: while Soviet had 1.8 times more artillery and mortars, Germans could fire 2.2 times more shells weight (51,083 tons vs. 21,867 tons)

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