Japan attacks USSR not USA

Certainly the German knew about it. They had embassadors, military attachees etc. both in Moscow and Tokyo, reporting on a regular basis to Berlin

Cheers,

 

If they both invaded in June, USSR would have kicked The Japanese asses, then countered at Moscow.

 

Moscow was saved because of the reinforcements from Manchuria.

If they had been occupied, then the Germans would have gotten a lot of opportunities to capture Moscow.

 

I think you have to consider why the germans may have chosen to ignore any info on the soviet from the japanese and listen to the stuff coming from the finns, at the end of the day it comes down to politics and ideology. remeber the nazis consider the slavs a lesser race and to hear that they were victoriuos would have been a blow. so they probably chose to ignore it and instead read the information on a war in which they were defeated. therefore, showing up their faults as a people.

 

I am sure as well that the Germans knew, how could they not with all their connections to Japan? Hitler probably thought that Blitzkrieg was the best of all tactics, anyway.
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Here was a part on T-34´s being used by then...That was not possible. The first versions were tested in March 1940 even though some earlier versions might have been around but none used in August 1939 against the Japs...
Sorry about that!


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Anyway, here´s something I found:

http://zhukov.mitsi.com/Russo.htm

Japan decided that it was not yet ready for an all-out war with the Soviet Union and on 13 April 1941 the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact was signed, with Japan unaware that Hitler would reverse his arrangement with the USSR and launch the Wehrmacht on Operation Barbarossa in June 1941.

The Nomonhan incident and the preceding borderland fights on the contested Mongolian-Manchurian borders, confirmed that in 1938 and 1939 the "Go North" strategy was highly favoured by elements of the Japanese army. Why then, with Germany invaded by the USSR in June 1941, did Japan not then seize the day and mount an invasion of the Soviet eastern republics? On 28 March 1941 the German foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, persuaded Count Oshima, the Japanese ambassador in Berlin, of the merit of joint action to deliver "a crushing blow" on the USSR. Germany sought a Japanese attack on Vladivostok, and into the USSR's central Asiatic republic. Tokyo was not interested.

While the Japanese foreign minister, Matsuoka Yosuke favoured a "Go North" thrust, most civil and military leaders in Tokyo advocated caution. With the Soviet Union now within the Anglo-American camp, albeit with the United States in non-belligerent status, Japan risked attack by the Russians in Manchuria and by the United States at sea. A two front war was undesirable, and likely to be calamitous. The Soviets were well deployed on Manchuria's border, and had shown their determination to fight. In mid-1941 the "Go South" strategy won preference with Japan to secure its needed resources in the south, diplomatically if possible. The Kwantung Army's pride was salved by a reminder that once Japan had secured its goal in the south the contest with the USSR could then be resumed. In any case, it was better to wait until Germany had broken the Red Army and taken Moscow.

[ 09. March 2003, 10:56 AM: Message edited by: Kai-Petri ]

 

Hi, I'm new too to this forum, and this is the first topic I've looked at and I can see this is gonna be a great place to hang around.

Anyway, my view:

It's pretty much a given that the Japanese army would have had their behinds handed to them by the Soviets. They did have 6 or so years experience fighting on the continent, but with light and disserayed Chinese and other asian countries. However I can't help but think what if the Japanese had engaged in a heavy air campaign over eastern USSR and bombed them to smitherines much like the Allies did to Germany in the west? Much of Russia's "turn-around" was due to re-enforcements from the east, and transfering of factories out of reach of Luftwaffe bombers. If Japan had began a bombing campaign en masse to strip Russia of its eastern assets might that have been good enough for Germany to take Moscow, and even if it werent that successful a campaign, would it have been enough to give the Germans the extra 50 or so km's it needed to get to Moscow?

 

That would have to depend on the strength of the Red Air Force in the east. Assuming Japan could get the drop on Russia they might have waged an air campaign, but the Reds might have rolled over Manchuria then sent most of those forces back to the West.

 

In this matter I do agree with many of you but have to make some important points:

-The Germans obviously knew about the Japanese defeat in Nomonhan.
-The Japanese Army was indeed not equipped to fight the professional Siberian Red Army (you should remember that these forces WERE NOT purged as the rest of the Red Army was), an élite force. And by the huge extention of territory involved it was needed that the Japanese would have bombed with ships and aeroplanes the important ports and cities in Russia's far East. Maybe puting them under siege. And advance inland would have been idiotic! There are 6.000 kilometres of snow and nothing before you reach the Urals and ANY Army was capable of achieving that even if they were adequately equipped... The important matter in here is that if the Japanese, exploiting their naval, aerial and numerical superiority would have attacked Vladivostok and other cities, the Siberian Red Army would have stayed there to fight them and even if the Japanese didn't achieve anything important the Siberian divisions would have remained there. Then who would have counterattacked in Leningrad, Moscow and Rostov? The war would have ended by spring 1942! This didn't require much of the Japanese military power and it could have been done at the very same time than all the other Japanese campaigns in the Pacific in December 1941 and early 1942. We say often that "Japan could not fight a two front war". They DID! In a month they invaded the whole Pacific! From Burma, Thailand and Indochina, Hong-Kong, New Guinea, Guadalcanal, Indonesia, etc., etc. That seems to me like a 10 fronts war...

 

I agree.

So Russia could have been beaten by Germany and Japan at the end of 1942.

 

Disagree.

This is like saying that America won the Whole WW2 while Russia would have collapsed if America did not open a 2nd front. Which is simply not true.

 

If there was no Second Front launched then the Russians would have faced a much larger force. The Second Front put off a lot of pressure on the Russians and forced Germany to move manpower to the West. But without the Allies launching a second front it is very debateable whether the Red Army would have been obliterated or not.

 

If the Japanese would use all their troops to attack the area around Vladivotstok - instead of using them in the Pacific - then they might defeat the Siberian divisions.

If no Siberian divisions, no - or at least after a very hard fight - way they could stop the Germans from capturing Moscow.

With Moscow out of the picture, Russia would surrender. Stalin would probably have been dead. he wouldn't have left the city.

 

Also, one more thing. Why do you think that Russia would have capitulated? People would rather die then surrender.

 

In fact they didn't like Stalin and at first they welcomed the Germans. But when it turned out that Hitler disliked the Russians, they fought bravely.

If Hitler would have treated the Russians softly, then there wouldn't have been so much guerillia fighting.

 

I would have thought that the Russians would have kept fighting whether the Germans treated the Russians softly or not because during battles the Germans offered the Russians to surrender and end the hell that they were going through, but instead the Russians chose to fight bravely and proudly for their country.

 

IMO, the germans needed FAR more than that to "get to Moscow", let alone mount any sort of significant offensive. By the time the germans began their campaign against Moscow in late 41, they were alreday at the end of a logistical system which could not support them. Food, fuel, ammo, replacements- all of these things would have been needed in massive quantities to take Moscow. An aerial campaign from Japan would have had no influence on the logistical situation the germans were in.

Plus, there's a major geographical problem with this "what if?"- Japan was even further away from the russian industries than Germany was!!! Look at a map- the russians moved most of their industries to the area around the Ural mountains. This area is HUNDREDS of miles from Japan.
I even wonder if the Japanese planes could have made it such long distances, let alone back again.
Look at the problems the germans had during the BoB- and they were only across the channel!

Final issue- this would have needed for the Japanese to postpone/cancel their attack on Pearl Harbor...

Aha... and based on what Kai just posted-

So the suggestion here is clear- the Japanese themselves also did not have the logistical capability to mount any kind of significant offensive against the russians.

One final thing- From everything I've read, the russians did in fact look favorably on the germans when they first invaded in summer 41. Stalin had been very, very repressive- and many people did see the germans as potential "liberators". But the conduct of the germans in russia quickly turned this all around, and once word spread of germans excecuting hordes of russians, most all russians truned against the invaders.

my 2 cents...

 

You are thinking Ukrainians, there is a difference.

 

Off course the Ukranians and a lot of other minor groups thought that there would be a liberation, but instead he (Hitler) was as a bad as Stalin.

But I really think that also a lot of Russians saw him - at first - as a liberator.

 

I highly doubt it. Stalin was a man who made a agracultural nation into an Industrial superpower.
Dont you think that for good of 300 million 30 thousand is a small price to pay? They may have not had any huge love for stalin, but for example: When hitler died, no one cared; When Stalin died, thousands weeped.

 

This is confirmed by Keegan and Erickson, among other sources.
The russians had suffered massive purges of the military, and massive purges of anyone in politics... thousands of russians had been sent to Siberia before WW2 started.

Dosen't mater what we think. What matters is what the russians thought- and every bit of evidence I've seen clearly suggests that early in Barbarossa, the Russians were at the least curious about the germans, and in some cases openly welcoming.

Stalin did turn russia from an agricultural nation towards industry- the result of which being thousands of russians starved to death...