There’s an old adage that World War 2 was won with “American steel and Russian blood.” In the context of aid sent by the US to Russia during the war, what does “American Steel” actually mean? Were American factories making parts for Russian tanks? Or were the Americans literally shipping big blocks of pig iron to the Soviet Union?
For example, when we think about Soviet tanks during the war, we primarily think of Soviet-designed T34s, or British castoffs like the Matilda, but were the Soviets driving around in Sherman tanks at any point?
Although there definitely were Lend-Lease Sherman tanks used by the Soviets, I'll leave that to someone else to discuss as I'm not a 'tank guy', and instead look at the phrase itself, which is not really meant to be understood quite so literally, and instead is reference to the comparative industrial might of the United States, and her overall role in the conflict, which saw billions of dollars in material aid being sent to her allies - some of it steel, but much of it in other forms. I've written about American industrial performance in comparison to the Soviets, and the impact of Lend-Lease, before, so I would recommend that you check out this previous answer of mine for some insight. But if you want to take it really literally, as touched on in the linked response, some three million tons of steel was sent over to be used by Soviet factories.