Trucks to Russia: the US6

1941 — 1945

A truck built for one customer: The largest single export program in South Bend's history was a truck the United States Army largely passed over. The US6 — a 2½-ton 6×6 cargo truck developed from Studebaker's civilian M-series, Hercules-powered — was manufactured primarily for export under Lend-Lease, while the Army standardized on GMC's CCKW for its own service. South Bend built 197,678 of them between 1941 and 1945, by the count the company's war record supports; Reo built a further 22,204 identical trucks at Lansing as subcontractor. The destination, in the Studebaker section's summary, was above all one army: more than half went to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease. The shipment count the military histories use is about 152,000 trucks delivered to the Soviet Union — of more than 400,000 trucks and jeeps the United States sent there in all — mainly through the Persian Corridor, with others reaching Russia by the Arctic convoys and the Pacific route, and still others serving on the Alaska Highway and the Burma Road. The first US6s arrived in the Soviet Union in the autumn of 1941. In Red Army service the truck hauled artillery, troops and supplies over roads its drivers described with an affection that survives in the nickname they gave it: "Studer." Its most famous conversion put the BM-13 Katyusha rocket launcher on its back — the multiple rocket projector the Germans called the Stalin Organ, sixteen 132mm rockets on rails — and the US6 chassis, most often the long-wheelbase U9, became the launcher's standard mount. The production record is carried in the Studebaker section; what belongs here is the destination and the road, and the road ran through Iran.

Sources:

1. Studebaker — South Bend production of 197,678 US6 trucks (the Texas State University history of Studebaker's war work and the trade press), Reo's 22,204 at Lansing, and the Lend-Lease share to Russia, cross-referenced and not retold here.
2. HistoryNet, "Studebaker US6: The Lend-Lease 'Deuce and a Half'" — 152,000 US6s shipped to the Soviet Union, mainly through the Persian Corridor; the "Studer" nickname; the type's service on the Burma Road and the Alcan Highway.
3. The military-vehicle record of the US6 (Military Factory; the encyclopedia of the type) — manufacture primarily for Lend-Lease export, first arrivals in the USSR in autumn 1941, the Katyusha conversion on the US6 chassis.