Yeah and leave torn up roads in their wake that will be noticeable.Yeah, if.
Drive the Tanks at night, stick them under the nets during the day.
I never said the Japanese would attack the USSR on the first day.Yeah, after 9 months to the day (as opposed to only 4 days after Pearl harbour).
At the same time its rebuilding from WW2, as well as building up and reinforcing the fledgling Warsaw Pact. Its doable, but it might be a bit of a stretch.Assuming the war in Europe ends in 1945 as our one did, that gives Russia at least 5 years to build Mao up.
True. But how good are the roads and railways there?The nearest point on the Western Sino-Soviet border is about 2,100 Km from the westernmost point of Manchuria, that's hardly "within a reachable distance" for a non-mechanised army (or even a mechanised one for that matter).
Most of it is desert, mountains and wasteland, the only roads and railways that are truly usable for large scale transportation is near Japanese territory. The USSR supplying China that way would be at least as bad as the Burma Road.
This makes it almost certain that the Japanese will know about it. When two countries hate each other they almost always have a decent idea of what is across the border waiting to attack. Japan and China would be no different. So the Japanese would know that China has a large stockpile of weapons and supplies near the border (they have to be unless you want the Chinese offensive to move at a crawl), this means Japan will make more and stronger forts and have lots of soldiers waiting behind the lines to plug any breaches. It would be a more primitive version of the East and West German border.They won't need to, those supplies will have been carefully built up over years in advance.
So the cities don't supply soldiers? Guns? Ammo? Factories? Workers? Trained professionals?Because the cities don't contribute anything to his supplies.
Or does Mao get all these things from the Soviets?
If the Soviets are sending enough supplies to build up the Chinese army into a good fighting force its extremely likely that the Japanese will at least have a clue whats going on. They won't know the exact numbers, quality, or types, but they'll know China is getting a mechanized army.Assuming they know it's there, and they know its size.
Assuming the same budget, this means less money going to either the infantry, or the navy, which means you've either got a smaller (but overall better) army, or a smaller navy.
This should push the Japanese into preparing for it. And ITTL Japan has had the same amount of time with no major fighting to build up its resources. So the Navy probably won't grow much and may shrink a little from 1945 to 1950 or so, but not enough to make them howl. And the army can get some decent anti-tank weapons and artillery.
Well Ammo is easy enough to hide, most of the tanks probably won't last long enough to use their full 70+ rounds. Fuel and food would be harder though.[/QUOTE}
Your still sending hundreds of tons to within spitting distance of the Japanese border to prepare for this assault. The Japanese will notice at least some of the construction going on for bunkers and storage facilities. Even if they don't notice the trucks and peasants moving these supplies all over the place.
It will cause some concern even if the Japanese aren't sure what exactly is happening.
And vice-versa, there will probably be plenty of Chinese in Manchuria willing to spy for Mao's forces.And the Japanese won't care. Unless they go crazy they won't want to fight a war with a Soviet or American ally, especially one that has been building up for 5 or more years. They'll be too worried about being attacked in the rear. So the Chinese spies will see the Japanese fortifying the border even more, and preparing for a possible assault.
THat is the smart thing for China to do, and it would cause some confusion. But when you have several hundred tanks and thousands of trucks moving all over the place, and conflicting reports the smart thing to do is to batten down the hatches and prepare for a storm.Unless they were decoys, and moving south.
As long as Japan is ready for an attack, even if they're not certain when and where it will hit, they can lessen the blow and recover more quickly.
Agreed.And I still say Japan would make a pretty poor superpower.
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