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I agree with Imalko, it wasnt the terms of refernce for this thread.....however, if we are going to assume that the Japanese are suddenly going to field a regular army bigger than that fielded by the Germans, should we not also consider similar expansions for the the allies, chines or Soviets. The sky is the limit once you start to depart from the known situation. Why couldnt the Chinese be equipped with surplus Russian equipment.....if we assume that then all of a sudden the allies have another 300 divisions to play with....why not assume that lend lease is diverted to the Pacific, in lieu of the US involvement, and field approximately another 30 divs and about 1500 aircraft. The possibilities are endless, and in the end quite silly, from either bias or perspective.
The only way this scenario can be objectively assessed is on the basis of the forces available. Japan did not have the plane or the pilots to fild 500 zeroes.....they didnt even have enough to field 300 and thats in December, not June.
The whole excercise becomes a bit ridiculous if we start introducing fanciful what ifs into the equation. Or if we do, it then becomes necessary to postulate logical quid pro quos for both sides
How good were these Russian Subs?
The interesting thing about alternative history is that many things could have happened that might not make sense at the present time. After the humiliating defeat of the Japanese on their Lake Baikal campaign they correctly surmised that they could not match the Soviets in artillery, armor and especially logistics. They did change their plans for the invasion of the USSR to reflect this. They knew that a campaign into the Lake Baikal region could not work mainly due to the Trans Siberian railroad being such an excellent way to move man and materials to the region. The Incident at Nomonhan made the Japanese realize that a campaign needed to be shorter and closer to its frontier to succeed. Luckily the linchpin of the entire Eastern Maritime District depended on the Trans-Siberian railway for any resupply due to the terrain of the region as pointed out by Parsifal, it was swampy forest and rugged mountains. The key to the region was Voroshilov, a mere sixty km from the Japanese positions.
The Japanese decided that for the Hachi-Go plan to work they needed 30 divisions to jump off and another10 divisions to continue the plan. They would need to pull 10 divisions from the homeland and another 10 divisions from China to add to the Kwangtung army for the initial phase of attack. And then another 6-7 Divisions from the homeland anda further 3 divisions from China for the next phase. With the campaign being much closer to the sea the IJN could play a huge part in the siege and assault of Vladivostok and the destruction of the Russian navy, airfields and subpens.
The Red Army fielded about 19 rifle divisions, 6 tank divisions, 2 motorized divisions, 4 mechanized divisions, a calvary division and about 10 brigades of rifles. Pretty formidable but at a disadvantage because they had to be spread out from Mongolia to the ocean. Under those circumstances the Japanese could choose how and where to attack. They had pretty good intelligence on the fortifications put up to protect the railway and could find a way to seep through the Soviet lines to sever the Trans-Siberin railway and cut off the resupply of the province from the west.
It's been done before, with a far less well-equipped army. And a bunch of elephants...Then there is the long frontier stretching from the Khentii Mountains in the Northwest to the Amur River near Komsolosk in the east. The Khentii Mountains are formidable, to say the least, there are no roads (it takes four solid days of riding on horseback to even reach the foothills) rising up to a massive 9,180 feet (1) , there is just no crossing this range with any large body of men (2)
The Amur is a major river system that the Japanese would find extremely difficult to cross (3)...
After the JapaneseFurthermore in the case of an invasion of the USSR, China wouldn't have been given much priority at all. The Japanese weren't importing any meaningful amount of important resources from the place yet anyhow. So it would've really been no concern to the Japanese at that point, esp. as they would know that after the defeat of the USSR an invasion of China would prove a lot easier. All they needed to do was hold on to the areas already conquered, and they had over 2 million reserves ready for that task. Way more than was ever needed. The airforce over there wasn't needed either. It was just about having the reserves dig in and hold the ground already gained
Knock out the railroad and roads to cut off the peninsula...?
Stalin's 37-38 purge decimated the Soviet high command, many of whom were seasoned veterans...This is getting interesting....
BUT I have a question regarding Russian leadership? How many Generals did Stalin have to spare? Who would he have sent east? So much of warfare rests on (Napoleons) luck...
.Sorry but there is no way that the Soviets could've dealt with both the Germans and the Japanese, it would've been over quickly.
The Japanese didn't have good tanks, true, but tanks are but one thing. The Japanese had lots of infantry to boot, and fanatic infantry at that. Furthermore and even more crushing was the the Japanese airforce, which would quickly sweep the VVS out of the skies in the far east while the Luftwaffe easily dealt with their part in the west.
There's simply no way the Soviets could've dealt with this at all. They were hard pressed enough against the Germans alone, so a Japanese attack from the east would've proven disasterous for them. There's also no doubt that a combined landbased invasion of the USSR by the Germans and the Japanese would've resulted in a lot of technology shared, esp. within the area of tanks. So the Japanese would've very likely had a tank similar to the Panzer IV not far after.
What would have happened if, instead of attacking the US at Pearl Harbor, Japan had only attacked the British in China and Burma and the Dutch in the East Indies and had mounted an attack against the Soviet Union in the Spring of 1942?
The British would have lost Burma and China, the US would ae attacked Japan as they were the ones applying political and economic pressure on Japan over their actions in China. I do not believe that the USA would stand on one side and wach Japan up the stakes. The difference of course is that Japan wouldn't have had the advantage of a surprise attack on Pearl Harbour and their losses would have been significant when they faced the USN in open conflict.
Amounts of land lease equipment handed over to Soviet Union became huge only in 1943. Before that Allied help went to USSR in much smaller quantities. In September 1941 British sent what they could but this was more significant as morale buster then its actual value on the front.
The average Japanese soldier wasn't nearly as well equipped as the average Soviet soldier but was in many ways better trained with some surprising omissions. For example on the plus side, at the start of the war every Japanese soldier was issued with a compass and trained how to use it which was very unusual. On the negative side, they generally were poor shots and even snipers were only trained to shoot out to 300yards.To add to this the trained Japanese soldier was just as well equipped as the average Soviet soldier, and better trained in many respects as-well.
As for armour, the Japanese had amongst others available:
Type 97 Tankette: 557
Type 95 Light tank: ~500
Type 97 Medium tank: ~850
There was also alot of planning into "political" sabotouge after having contact with many dissedants and anti-Stalinists who looked forward to the fall of Stalin. The Japanese knew that the USSR was so large that a military victory over the entire nation was not feasible and looked to the Siberians, Mongolians, and even Serbians for political support.