Invasions of Japan question

US invasions of Japan seem to be generally considered difficult, very bloody, and even risky: even with the US Navy in support, air support including waves of B29s, chemical/germ warfare, US V1-type rockets fired in their thousands, and atomic bombs used in tactical support.

However, when the question of a Soviet invasion comes up, it seems assumed that the USSR could invade, occupy and set up a communist regime in the North of the country. Surely the USSR had a much weaker navy, among other things?
 
Surely the USSR had a much weaker navy, among other things?


Surely the USSR is invading a different part of Japan which the Japanese haven't been spending years fortifying, in which they haven't positioned most of the military supplies left to them, in which they haven't stationed hundreds of thousands of troops, and in which tens of thousands of kamikazes and hundreds of kaitens aren't located, and which Japan will find almost impossible to reinforce?

Are you familiar with the three rules of real estate? Location, location, location? They are at work here.
 
This is what the more vocal members of the After 1900 forum want to believe, so it is therefore a fact of (alternate) history. If necessary, links to Wikipedia and other AH.com TLs can be provided as evidence.

Another answer is that Japan had most of her defenses facing the American-Commonwealth threat. Hokkaido didn't have much. Meanwhile the Soviets were moving divisions and aircraft to the Far East. It is assumed that the thousands of Soviet aircraft would make up for any deficiencies in the Soviet Pacific Fleet. Now that I write this, it reminds me some of Operation See Lowe.
 
It is assumed that the thousands of Soviet aircraft would make up for any deficiencies in the Soviet Pacific Fleet. Now that I write this, it reminds me some of Operation See Lowe.

That's exactly what I was thinking.

Also how many Soviet airbases in the Far East. enough for thousands of aircraft?

Because I can't see the USN lending landing craft to the USSR, unless the US invasion is going desparately badly, and even if they did lend them, I'm not sure it would be immediately helpful to the Soviet invasion anyway.
 
The Soviets had enough naval craft to launch a small invasion, and they used it against Korea during the war (Weren't fast enough to capture the entire penninisula before the war ended though). The Japanese forces on Hokkido were considerably weaker than what the Soviets were facing elsewhere and the Japanese had little air cover up there. No reason they couldn't grab that island.
 
US invasions of Japan seem to be generally considered difficult, very bloody, and even risky: even with the US Navy in support, air support including waves of B29s, chemical/germ warfare, US V1-type rockets fired in their thousands, and atomic bombs used in tactical support.

However, when the question of a Soviet invasion comes up, it seems assumed that the USSR could invade, occupy and set up a communist regime in the North of the country. Surely the USSR had a much weaker navy, among other things?

I wouldn't say "risky" though "bloody" it certainly would have been.

As noted above, consider the logistics: Japan had spent a long time building up the defenses of the Tokyo plain and Kyushu. By the time the USSR attacked the ability of the Japanese to move things around was crippled, so the Soviet invasion would only be facing the much lighter defenses of Hokkaido.

It isn't like the U.S.M. because the IJN had been effectively destroyed and the Japanese air forces were essentially out of trained pilots and fuel. The USSR's Pacific fleet wasn't much, but would be enough to achieve local dominance and their air power could achieve local air supremacy. That's all they need to invade and establish a beachhead.

A Soviet invasion would be bloody as well, but not a tithe of the bill they'd already paid in the West. The USSR had already lost something like (estimates vary widely) 20 million dead. The US had lost less than half a million. Another few hundred thousand would thus be a huge percentage of US total losses, but just a rounding error for the USSR.
 
Top