Lend-Lease's value cannot be measured only by comparing imported tanks or aircraft with domestic totals. Food, fuel, trucks, metals, machine tools, and intermediate products kept the wider economy functioning. Those imports freed British and Soviet labour and plant capacity to specialise in the combat output each could produce most effectively. The macroeconomic effect could therefore exceed the visible share of foreign-made weapons in a front-line inventory.
Notable Point · 2:52:31-2:53:00
Aid let Allied economies specialize for war
Imported basics allowed British and Soviet industry to concentrate more labor and plant capacity on weapons rather than duplicating every supporting industry.