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Page 145 14. In any case the amount of steel consumed in the U.S.S.R. directly in armament production is not large. The estimated output of armaments of all types could, it is considered, be met from about 24 million tons of steel ingots, or a little over 10 per cent. of availabe supplies. It has not been possible to obtain an authoritative comparable figure of United Kingdom consumption in armament manufacture, but in any case the figure for the U.S.S.R. does not much exceed the ingot equivalent of the United Kingdom's net exports of crude and finished steel.
15. A further comparison may be made between current Soviet production and German production of steel in the three immediate pre-war years. The figures for Germany (in million tons) were as follows :—
1937 1938
1939
By 1950 the U.S.S.R. will have surpassed these figures.
19.8
22.6 22.5
16. Although it is generally accepted that steel production is as good a single yardstick of industrial strength as any, the irreducible civil requirements of countries with widely differing standards of living vary so much that it is a very uncertain measure of military potential; Japan exerted a formidable military effort on the basis of an annual production of a mere 8 million tons.
The Comparison of Installed Machine Tools
17. A further possible method of comparison is by numbers of installed machine tools. Here the only available up-to-date figures are:-
U.S.S.R.
United Kingdom Germany
1,500,000 900,000 1,737,100
(1950 plan) (estimate for 1949) (1945)
4
The bare figures do not, however, allow for differences in quality and efficiency. It is probable that the application of this factor would reduce somewhat the apparent superiority of the U.S.S.R. over the United Kingdom. A large number of Germany's machine tools have been removed to the U.S.S.R. however, and these were of the highest quality.
The Comparison of the Chemical Industries
18. In any comparison of the chemical industries the best single measure is output of sulphuric acid. The relevant figures are as follows:-
U.S.S.R.-
1940-41
1948 (estimated)
1950 (Plan)
United Kingdom (1948) Germany (1938)
Comparison with the Last War
Million tons
4.0
2.6
5.0
1.55
2.25
19. The table in the Appendix shows the output in 1943 and 1944 of air- craft, tanks and self-propelled guns and artillery in the U.S.S.R., United States, United Kingdom and Germany, together with the steel output in each case. Although allowance must be made for differences of types, particularly in aircraft, as well as for the indirect contribution made by Lease-Lend, the achievements of the U.S.S.R., while still suffering from the loss of industrial capacity through invasion, are impressive. Particularly striking is the fact that her output in 1943 of tanks and self-propelled guns was three times, and of artillery two and a half times, that of the United Kingdom at a time when her steel supplies (ie., her own output plus Lease-Lend) were only 70 per cent. of the United Kingdom's domestic production. Obviously she could not have achieved these results if she had attempted a naval effort comparable to that of her allies or had devoted so much of her industry to the material requirements of combined operations and strategic bohge 143uff these results were achieved when pergate 5poduction was less than half what it is to-day.
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The Compartoon 1of the 3landard of Living