And yet in Khalkin Gol the Soviets suffered twice the amount of casualties, lost twice the amount of planes, vehicles and artillery and 8 times more armor/tanks than the Japanese.
Besides that the Soviets did not have the infrastructure to adequately send reinforcements to the far east.
So why would you expect the Soviets to win if the conflict between the Soviets and Japanese escalate into a war?
Within the first two days of Nomonhan the Kwangtung used 70% of their total artillery stockpile. Total. For all of Manchukuo. Even the artillery they had no crews had ever practiced firing at maximum range, only 5000 yards for their best piece, and all of the Soviet artillery out ranged them. Up to 20,000 yards for their biggest pieces.
Exactly this. Any sort of escalation will result in a stalemate at worst for Japan.
They had tactical surprise in almost every engagement, including annihilation of the airbase and this forced Zhukov to send his tanks in piecemeal. Hence the large number loss, which of course no one abraded him for because the Soviets could take such minor losses without blinking. The Japanese, materially starved lost a far greater proportion of material and manpower in the region even with literally every aspect of the battle in their favour. What exactly is the Japanese response to a massed armour along the doctrine of deep operations that Zhukov wanted but wasn't able to do?
1. Nomonhan was the farthest point from a railhead along the whole border
2. The Japanese had initial numerical superiority
3. The Japanese had operational advantages (allowed to invade territory)
4. The operational advantage allowed tactical surprises: destruction of soviet airpower on the ground, invading of Mongolia for a pincer attack, attacking first and at night
Now that's certainly was an operational error by Zhukov but there was reason they didn't expect the Japanese to invade Mongolia and escalate but once a war started that would not be the case.
While Manchukuo certainly had better internal raillines in total they had only 2000 trucks in all of Manchuria, less than Zhukov used just for this one operation.
I don't see how you could possibly think that an army with no mobilisation and no artillery could defeat a wide offensive. Especially since the Japanese have never fought tanks or been faced with artillery. You can see this on July 5th when unsupported tanks forced Japanese over the river. Or with Japanese tank attacks being halted by machine gun fire that out ranged the tanks...
While there are limits on Soviets supply lines, particularly in the Mongolia salient the Soviets can draw upon the already present Far East Resources and have an easier time supplying places along the transsiberian.
The road alongside it also means that any attempted bombing of the transsiberian is far less impactful since it is easy to repair.
We could also see that every battle that goes by means that the decimated officer class of the Soviets will be more familiar. Remember that the army Japan faced at Nomonhan was the same winter war level of incompetent in terms of the lower officer corps. This is their weakest point and the Japanese still lost.
Exactly this. Any sort of escalation will result in a stalemate at worst for Japan.
Please source this in anyway.
If you have more sources than the casualties box on Wikipedia I am happy to review my position.
Mine is based primarily on Goldman's Nomonhan, 1939.
At the end of the day for the entire war the Soviets outnumbered Japan in Manchuria in every measure, men, artillery, tanks, trucks, guns, planes. And in every aspect apart from elan and tactical leadership they were qualitively superior.
What can Japan do when faced with a mass of tanks in a prepared attack? Nothing.
We can of course look at the 1945 invasion, after minor logistical changes to the soviet far east, for example of how the Soviets can supply an invasion.
All of this ignores that in addition Mao will now actually be fighting instead of pretending to a Chiang will receive far more Soviet aid.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/nomonhan-incident-escalates.110946/
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...attles-of-lake-khasan-and-khalkin-gol.312874/
Another thread on the subject. You can see that the commenters seem to be split in two camps, people who read a wiki casualty box and people who researched. There's also the historical logic of Japan thinking that the USA was less dangerous than the USSR, even during Barbarossa. And Stalin thinking it too risky to push in Japan with an uncertain Europe. Here he's, or someone is, more aggressive. Instead of stopping after smashing the Japanese the Soviets keep rolling.
What does Japanese collapse in China look like too?