Is USSR doomed if Japan invades?

Well, Dale, I can see why Snake is getting frustrated (not that it's particularly difficult to achieve...but).

I brought up diplomacy, I brought up intelligence, you're still gunning for a narrow, not particularly likely scenario and don't want to talk about anything else except how for a want of a nail the kingdom fell. Fine.

Here's some questions:

Step one: The US imposes some sanctions on the Japanese after their occupation of Southern IndoChina in the summer of 1941, but does not permanently cut off oil shipments. That means that the Japanese don't necessarily have to go south to keep from running out of oil.

Step two: As a result, the ongoing Japanese debate about whether to go North (the preferred army strategy) or South (the preferred navy strategy) remains unsettled.

Step three: In late July 1941, the Kwantung army, along with pro-Go North factions inside the Japanese army, conspire to and succeed in, precipitating a war with the Soviets, much as they did in the Manchurian incident and the China incident....

Okay so.

1. How much time passed between "Summer 1941 (when is that?)" and "July 1941"

2. The navy and the high command were already planning to go South since early '41 before there was an oil embargo. In fact, they did go south. So they are pretty committed and redirecting assets will take time.

Whatever the time period is, July 1941 is a very early date. Based on that, I will basically assume no real preparations have been made (since they're undetectable to Soviet intelligence and a sudden change of direction).

3. Since the Americans already put sanctions on Japan repeatedly, and they clearly failed, and that the last set of sanctions they passed (but not the oil embargo to show leniency) only resulted in immediate slap to the face, what are the chances of America continuing business as usual, instead of following up with a total embargo of everything?

Unlike those wars, the Japanese are not up against inept opponents, though the quality of the Soviet forces is highly variable, just as it was in Finland and in the first part of the German attack on the Soviets.

It quickly becomes apparent that the Kwantung has bitten off more than it can handle, though the Japanese navy quickly mops up the local Soviet navy and the Japanese airforce temporarily takes control of the skies.

Navy: Red navy is probably irrelevant to the war at large, but because of that it won't be "mopped up". The guns will be taken off to fortify Vladivostok or whatever, the personnel will be trained as naval infantry. The Soviets have no qualms doing that. The navy OTL was used to supply troops for the Lake Khasan operation, and that's pretty much it before August Storm.

The Japanese navy has literally nothing to do up north, in return for abandoning its ambitions south.

Airforce: unless the IJN airforce gets involved, I wouldn't even grant that much. The skies will be contested, and the further from the coast the more contested they will be. I also don't see initial advantages continuing all that long.

Step four: As a result, Japanese national resources are pulled into the fighting along the Manchurian border. The Japanese are forced to go on the defensive in China and even pull back exposed garrisons to economize force there. Resources (steel, rubber, labor) that would have gone into ship-building flow into building trucks, tanks and artillery for this Japan/Soviet war.

So...at this point, Japan has accomplished nothing, wasted a lot of resources, America is still building up for war, and the navy has nothing to do except lose pilots over land missions. They're also pulling back in China. Splendid.

So let's think back to when I suggested that Stalin offers half of Sakhalin for peace, and estimate the chances of a navy-led counter-coup.

Step six: As a result, the Soviet response in the west is somewhat less powerful, mainly in the autumn 1941 to autumn 1942 time-frame. Now we're at the crucial questions: (1) How much less powerful are the Soviets in the west during that period? (2) How does that lessened power impact the course of the war in late summer/fall 1941? (3) What territories do the two armies end up controlling by summer 1942? (4) Most crucially, do the Germans end up with significantly greater amounts of good farmland or grain stocks under their control?

1. The only numbers they're realistically missing are the Pacific naval infantry, somewhat close to 30,000 men over the war. They are at this point very green.

Actually, you can see the movement of nearly every formation to pretty serious detail in these files: http://www.rkka.ru/ihandbook.htm or here http://www.tashv.nm.ru/BoevojSostavSA/BoevojSostavSA.html but it's a lot of work to go through them and summarise. I guess we can try to quantify all this in some indefinite future when I have a lot of time.

:D

Consider this a conversation for the future.

In general though, I have a feeling that a simple answer is "not enough", "not enough" almost to the point where there's no real tactical effect.

Here's some questions from me to consider even for your scenario that are less dry and more open to people participating:

1. Stalin tries to buy peace with Japan (very probable):
1a. before Kwantung army proves incapable
1b. after Kwantung army proves incapable

Does Japan accept? If yes, how does that affect the attitude of the Americans (do they give up on China? Do they give LL? Do they let Japan do whatever they want? What does Japan do next?).

If Japan refuses an offer, and the Americans know, and Stalin asks for help, will America get involved earlier?

2. What is, Far Eastern front and Trans-Baikal reserves, instead of sitting back and surviving, actually actively engage Kwantung army and have it in a serious mess (not routing, but certainly not making much progress) even before IJA/IJN's assets are pulled up in full. These are tangible victories in a grim time. It definitely affects morale at home.

How does this affect British and American estimates of the Soviet chances (they thought them pretty low, I think)? Will they:

2a. think they have enough assets to let the enemies bleed while the WAllies get ready and thus ignore it,
2b. or do they specifically give it assistance to finish Japan off earlier in one case, and resist Germany in the other case?

This also partially answers your starvation questions. If America is supplying the Soviets, they won't starve even if Germany does a little better in '41/42.
 
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Edit to break ridiculously long response into bite-sized pieces:

Well, Dale, I can see why Snake is getting frustrated (not that it's particularly difficult to achieve...but).

I brought up diplomacy, I brought up intelligence, you're still gunning for a narrow, not particularly likely scenario and don't want to talk about anything else except how for a want of a nail the kingdom fell. Fine.

Let's see. The topic of this thread is "Is the USSR doomed if Japan invades?" Excuse me if I try to stick to that topic. Quite a few people claimed that there was no point in dealing with the question because there was absolutely no way the Japanese would attack. I pointed out that there was a way, not particularly likely, but not physically impossible and not out of the range of options the parties involved had discussed, that the Japanese might have ended up invading the Soviets. This is an alternate history board (I keep having to emphasize) so theoretically we come here to discuss the impact of options that historical figures might have taken but didn't.

I outlined a set of options that historical figures might have taken but didn't. They led to a possible, though not extremely likely, Japanese invasion of the the Soviet Union. The topic name is pretty clear. If you're not interested in discussing whether or not the Soviet Union would have survived such an attack there are lots of other topics on the forum to comment on.

The OP asked a question. I set up a framework to help answer it. If someone else can come up with a better way to answer it, great. What isn't great is telling people it isn't valid to discuss that question or to try to divert discussion in this thread into something else.
 
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Note: Broken down from my Uber-post of last night and some details added.

2. The navy and the high command were already planning to go South since early '41 before there was an oil embargo. In fact, they did go south. So they are pretty committed and redirecting assets will take time.

There was a faction that advocated going south, but no decision had been made as of at least as late as early July 1941. From Joseph Maiolo's "Cry Havoc" "In early June, word reached Tokyo of Hitler's impending attack on the Soviet Union. With army/navy collaboration at a low ebb, the north-south debate intensified." (page 392) A little further down the same page, "On July 2, the top-ranking military and political leaders assembled for an Imperial Conference in the presence of Emperor Hirohito. (...) At this meeting, however, no decision was reached about whether to go north or south. Instead, everyone agreed to get ready to push north and to occupy all of Indochina."


Whatever the time period is, July 1941 is a very early date. Based on that, I will basically assume no real preparations have been made (since they're undetectable to Soviet intelligence and a sudden change of direction).

Early August 1941 might be more likely, but the main point is that historically the Japanese were preparing to go north if a favorable situation arose. Joseph Maiolo continues (same page) "Once Hitler unleashed Operation Barbarosa on June 22, General Tojo and his war planners, like most professional soldiers the world over, predicted a German victory in a matter of months. The Kwantung army prepared for a thrust into Siberia." (emphasis mine)

The book Nomonham details those (real world, our timeline) preparations. The Japanese put their divisions in Manchuria and Korea on war footing and set up a timetable that would prepare them to attack in September. Those preparations included shipping around 180,000 additional troops to Manchuria to bring the divisions there up to war footing, shipping somewhere between two and eight additional divisions from the homeland and China to Manchuria (with the exact number an issue between the Japanese factions).

Bottom line: the Japanese were historically preparing to go North if the opportunity arose. There was an ongoing debate between three factions: (1) Go South,
(2)Go North, and
(3) prepare to Go North to be in a position to take advantage of the expected Soviet collapse.

Historically, the Japanese chose 1 and 3, but there was little difference in the early preps for option 2 and 3.
 
1. How much time passed between "Summer 1941 (when is that?)" and "July 1941"

That's a good question. The Japanese occupied southern Indochina on July 21, 1941. The oil embargo was imposed two days later. That probably pushes any Japanese attack on the Soviets back into August, which may or may not be significant.

3. Since the Americans already put sanctions on Japan repeatedly, and they clearly failed, and that the last set of sanctions they passed (but not the oil embargo to show leniency) only resulted in immediate slap to the face, what are the chances of America continuing business as usual, instead of following up with a total embargo of everything?

Maybe they would go with a total oil embargo shortly after the Japanese invaded the Soviet Union. It's certainly a possibility.

So...at this point, Japan has accomplished nothing, wasted a lot of resources, America is still building up for war, and the navy has nothing to do except lose pilots over land missions. They're also pulling back in China. Splendid.

Yeah, that's a lot like what happened historically with Mussolini. Fundamentally underestimating one's opponents is a good way to get screwed over.

So let's think back to when I suggested that Stalin offers half of Sakhalin for peace, and estimate the chances of a navy-led counter-coup.

So the navy would do what precisely? Fight the army for military control of Japan? Good luck with that. Take over political control while the army is physically more powerful on the home islands?
 
The Japanese navy has literally nothing to do up north, in return for abandoning its ambitions south.

Blockading Vladivostok, where close to half of Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union historically got offloaded, isn't quite nothing.

This also partially answers your starvation questions. If America is supplying the Soviets, they won't starve even if Germany does a little better in '41/42.
The US would probably get less food to the Soviets than they did historically. Historically the US supplied a lot of food to the Soviets (the Soviets acquired quite a taste for Spam), but the Soviets were on extremely short rations through 1942, 1943 and the first half of 1944--essentially until they retook the Ukraine and got agriculture rebuilt there. The problem was that the Allies didn't have enough shipping to meet all of the historic demands on it, even without sending more food to the Soviets. Also, in this scenario Vladivostok would be closed to Lend Lease shipping (Japanese blockade), which would push the roughly half of Lend Lease that historically went there to the Arctic route (which had to run a gauntlet of German attacks from Norway) or to the Trans-Iranian railroad, which was already running at capacity and being expanded as quickly as possible.
 
Here's some questions from me to consider even for your scenario that are less dry and more open to people participating:

1. Stalin tries to buy peace with Japan (very probable):
1a. before Kwantung army proves incapable
1b. after Kwantung army proves incapable

Does Japan accept?

First, I doubt that Stalin would offer Japan anything substantial that they hadn't already taken except during a very narrow window after the Soviet defeats at Kiev and in front of Moscow and before the fall rains hit in earnest. Before those defeats, he was pretty confident he could beat the Germans. After the fall rains hit, he was also pretty confident he could beat them.

As to participation, is this still a board where people are capable of going beyond sound-bites, debater tricks and snide remarks? It used to be. If it stopped being I'm wasting my time here.

If yes, how does that affect the attitude of the Americans (do they give up on China? Do they give LL? Do they let Japan do whatever they want? What does Japan do next?).

If Japan refuses an offer, and the Americans know, and Stalin asks for help, will America get involved earlier?

Americans were already pushing for Lend Lease to the Soviets. No reason for that to change. The US wasn't geared up for a land war yet and was already fighting an undeclared naval war against Germany, so I don't expect much change from the historic until December 1941. Not sure what would happen in terms of Japan and the US after that. That's a good question.

2. What is, Far Eastern front and Trans-Baikal reserves, instead of sitting back and surviving, actually actively engage Kwantung army and have it in a serious mess (not routing, but certainly not making much progress) even before IJA/IJN's assets are pulled up in full. These are tangible victories in a grim time. It definitely affects morale at home.

True, but it also uses up scarce consumables (fuel, spare parts, bullets) at a time the Soviets were frantically trying to keep up with demand for those things, and it also uses scarce locomotives/train cars that could otherwise be moving factories and food stocks and skilled people out of areas threatened by the Germans. My guess is that the Soviets stay on the strategic defensive until at least December 1941 and let the Japanese bleed themselves out, then hammer them in the spring of 1942, but that's a close call. The Soviets might decide to go for a major victory in August or September 1941.
 
@Dale:

I've been watching this thread, but keeping my head down as it seemed like Japan had no way to do much at all, even with opening attacks. Blocking Soviet Shipping to the Far East and potentially drawing reinforcements away from the west--and perhaps gaining Sakhalin--was basically all I figured Japan could achieve.

I'm unsure whether the UK would DoW Japan in such a circumstance. If they opt to do so, they're going to lose Hong Kong and Japan may well try the DEI for the oil it critically needs. Would the United States join the war if Japan seizes the DEI AFTER the UK attacks it?

Does this end with a familiar ending of War over 1945, just with a larger Soviet Sphere in East Asia? Or perhaps Japan is left as a defeated nation without a means to continue the war with minimal oil and no Asian holdings? Does it mean the Iron Curtain is moved East in Europe, perhaps Croatia-Austria-Czechia in allied hands?

Given no real way for the Soviets to invade Japan and the Japanese war Effort collapsing for lack of oil, I could see Japan getting kicked out of Mainland Asia. We then have a Japanese Rogue State in the 1950s that's no one's friend.
 
@Dale:

I've been watching this thread, but keeping my head down as it seemed like Japan had no way to do much at all, even with opening attacks. Blocking Soviet Shipping to the Far East and potentially drawing reinforcements away from the west--and perhaps gaining Sakhalin--was basically all I figured Japan could achieve.

I'm unsure whether the UK would DoW Japan in such a circumstance. If they opt to do so, they're going to lose Hong Kong and Japan may well try the DEI for the oil it critically needs. Would the United States join the war if Japan seizes the DEI AFTER the UK attacks it?

Does this end with a familiar ending of War over 1945, just with a larger Soviet Sphere in East Asia? Or perhaps Japan is left as a defeated nation without a means to continue the war with minimal oil and no Asian holdings? Does it mean the Iron Curtain is moved East in Europe, perhaps Croatia-Austria-Czechia in allied hands?

Given no real way for the Soviets to invade Japan and the Japanese war Effort collapsing for lack of oil, I could see Japan getting kicked out of Mainland Asia. We then have a Japanese Rogue State in the 1950s that's no one's friend.

Yeah, if you game this out, it starts getting weird in a hurry, mainly because there are so many branches that could go either way. For example, if the US waits until say January 1942 and then imposes an oil embargo, Japan is royally screwed.

As to how the Japanese would have done:

According to the book Nomonham, Japanese intelligence figured that as of June 22nd the Soviets had a little over twice the manpower in the Far East that the Japanese did. The Japanese figured that the Soviets had 30 of their rather small divisions versus 14 Japanese divisions that were officially much larger, but actually far short of their wartime strength. The Japanese figured that they would fill out the manpower of the existing divisions in Manchuria and bring in 8 more from China and the homeland. They were counting on the war in the west to force the Soviets to withdraw approximately half of their far east divisions, at which point they calculated that the Japanese would have approximately a two to one edge in manpower in the far east, and could easily take pretty much what they wanted to. Given the superior Soviet firepower, that was probably wildly optimistic.

According to Japanese intelligence, the Soviets did move some troops west, but not nearly as many as the Japanese expected and the Soviets quickly replaced those troops with new recruits so the Soviet force structure remained pretty much the same, though with less real-world capability.

The Japanese did have some tricks up their sleeves, including long-distance penetration teams that were intended to go after Soviet rail capabilities, many of them peopled with anti-Soviet Russians. I'm somewhat skeptical of how much those guys would have accomplished, but the trans-Siberia railroad was long and correspondingly vulnerable.

Soviet forces would have been a mixed bag, just as they were in the early days of the German invasion. The Germans shouldn't have been able to get anywhere close to as far as they did in the west, given a strategically irrational plan--if you could call it a plan, tossed together logistics and constant feuding among the German command.

That they did so was largely due to incredibly inept Soviet command at all levels and the fact that the Soviets had far more force structure--tanks, planes, artillery--than they had consumables and trained people to make that structure effective. In the first couple of months powerful Soviet tank forces often lost most of their tanks before they ever met the Germans because the tanks broke down and there weren't enough spare parts or trained mechanics to fix them.

On paper, old Soviet T26 or BT7 were more than enough to handle the Japanese, but broken down and without spare parts or used as pillboxes by Stalin's old cavalry buddies they wouldn't have much impact. Under good commanders, of which the Soviets had a number, they would be devastating early on.

My guess is that the Japanese would make some initial progress at a very high casualty rate while the Soviet officers learned how to fight and the Soviet system got the dead wood out. By three or four months in, the Soviets would be getting much more effective and the Japanese would have to either match Soviet firepower or get bled white/chopped to pieces.

The Japanese could have produced a lot more artillery and tanks than they did historically, but only at the cost of conceding naval superiority to the US. A 73,000 ton Yamato-class battleship equals a lot of 15-20 ton tanks, as would a 30,000 ton Japanese fleet carrier.

If the Soviets looked likely to take Manchuria, the Japanese would pour resources that historically went into their navy into artillery and tanks. They wouldn't come close to matching Soviet production, but they would only have to match the portion of Soviet production that they faced--what the Soviets weren't using in the west. The Japanese light mediums would be good enough to handle a similar number of T26/Bt7s, but T34s and KV1s would be a nasty surprise for them. They would probably respond with more heavily armed assault guns until they got something comparable into production, probably in mid-1943.
 
I'm a bit confused; why wouldn't Roosevelt launch an oil embargo?

This seems the logical outcome, right?

Because he didnt mean to iotl? My understanding is his original intent was something short of a full embargo, but what got sent to japan and published was the full embargo, after which it would have looked like caving if he loosened the terms.

Still, he HAD to do something, and something major.
 
I'm a bit confused; why wouldn't Roosevelt launch an oil embargo?

This seems the logical outcome, right?

An embargo is the logical outcome if Roosevelt underestimated either the Japanese or the Soviets (or both). The problem with the embargo is that when it was imposed the Japanese had the power to break it by taking the Dutch East Indies (and BTW, taking 90%-plus of the world's rubber production). I'm not sure if Roosevelt realized that the Japanese were capable of taking on the Brits and the US at the same time in the Far East when the embargo got imposed, but he certainly knew that the Japanese were formidable opponents.

The advantage of the embargo from an Allied point of view was that it made a Japanese attack on the Soviet Union much less likely by forcing them to try to grab the Dutch oil, diverting forces from Manchuria.

The Soviets wouldn't have completely folded in Autumn 1941 even if the Japanese had attacked them, but most world military opinion was that they would fold in a few months even without the Japanese getting involved, so Roosevelt probably believed that too.

The allied nightmare was that the Germans and Japanese would effectively knock the Soviets out of the war in the summer/fall of 1941, then turn their full force against the Western Allies, with all of the natural resources and manpower of the Soviet Union behind them. That dramatically overestimated the Germans and underestimated the Soviets, but it was the nightmare Roosevelt was preparing for and trying to postpone.
 
The Japanese light mediums would be good enough to handle a similar number of T26/Bt7s, but T34s and KV1s would be a nasty surprise for them. They would probably respond with more heavily armed assault guns until they got something comparable into production, probably in mid-1943.

That, of course, assumes that the Japanese are still fighting somewhere on the Asian mainland in mid-1943. I'm agnostic on whether or not that would be the case.
 
That, of course, assumes that the Japanese are still fighting somewhere on the Asian mainland in mid-1943. I'm agnostic on whether or not that would be the case.

This design was made in 1941, and probably gets more priority if Japan is planning to take on the Soviets.

The Type 1 is inferior to a US Sherman tank and stands little chance of taking on a T-34, but perhaps it could take out a T-26 or BT-7. If the IJA is going to take on the Soviets, perhaps they can move up their tank designs a year.

I wonder about the Soviet Response to Japanese Attack. On one hand, Siberia has to be the lower priority compared with Germany's offensive and Japan stands to gain little even if it 'wins big'.

On the other, the Soviets are going to learn before too long that they can throw the Japanese out of Manchuria if they commit the forces to do it. If the Soviet forces in the Far East are able to take out the IJA on their own, the only thing stopping them is their own logistical tail. If they suffer failures as they did against Germany, we might have a Finland situation where Japan really can't afford to go deep into Soviet Territory and the Soviets have bigger fish to fry.

Not sure which of those it will be.
 
More allied cooperation

WW2 was fought by the allies as a number of interconected separate wars rather than one big one. If the USSR is fighting Japan, and the US-Japanese war starts as in OTL, there would probably be a greater integration of efforts by the allies.
 
An embargo is the logical outcome if Roosevelt underestimated either the Japanese or the Soviets (or both). The problem with the embargo is that when it was imposed the Japanese had the power to break it by taking the Dutch East Indies (and BTW, taking 90%-plus of the world's rubber production). I'm not sure if Roosevelt realized that the Japanese were capable of taking on the Brits and the US at the same time in the Far East when the embargo got imposed, but he certainly knew that the Japanese were formidable opponents.

The advantage of the embargo from an Allied point of view was that it made a Japanese attack on the Soviet Union much less likely by forcing them to try to grab the Dutch oil, diverting forces from Manchuria.

Which would be true here as well no? If you want to distract them to avoid this Allied nightmare, you want to force them to strike south.
 
Originally Posted by DaleCoz
An embargo is the logical outcome if Roosevelt underestimated either the Japanese or the Soviets (or both). The problem with the embargo is that when it was imposed the Japanese had the power to break it by taking the Dutch East Indies (and BTW, taking 90%-plus of the world's rubber production). I'm not sure if Roosevelt realized that the Japanese were capable of taking on the Brits and the US at the same time in the Far East when the embargo got imposed, but he certainly knew that the Japanese were formidable opponents.

The advantage of the embargo from an Allied point of view was that it made a Japanese attack on the Soviet Union much less likely by forcing them to try to grab the Dutch oil, diverting forces from Manchuria.


Which would be true here as well no? If you want to distract them to avoid this Allied nightmare, you want to force them to strike south.

It's a very tough judgement call. Remember, a successful Japanese attack south meant that the Japanese seized over 90% of the world's rubber supply. As of July 1941 the US (and Britain) had no substantial synthetic rubber industry and there was no guarantee that they could build one before rubber stockpiles ran out. The Soviet Union had a limited and poor quality synthetic rubber industry, but nowhere near the quantity or quality to keep its industry going.

Given World War II technology, running out of rubber meant shutting down most of industrial production. You couldn't make a truck, a car, a battleship/aircraft carrier, a tank or a plane without vast amounts of rubber. Given what Roosevelt knew at the time, he was risking total defeat of both the Soviets and the west by pushing the Japanese to go after that vulnerability at a time the Allies weren't ready yet to stop the Japanese.

Historically, of course, the US built a synthetic rubber industry in record time and supplied itself, the Western Allies and the Soviets with synthetic rubber, but again, Roosevelt couldn't know that in July 1941.

As noted, this was a very tough judgement call
 
Historically, the Japanese decided definitely not to go north unless the Soviets folded big-time by August 9th, according to Nomonham. The Japanese buildup in Manchuria continued into around mid-September. By that time, they had reinforced Manchuria with 463,000 additional troops, 210,000 additional horses, and 23,000 additional motor vehicles. They had added 55,000 men in Korea. That more than doubled their manpower in the area, from somewhere around 300,000-350,000 to 763,000 men. (figures from Allen Coox Nomonham). I'm not sure if that total includes troops in Korea too or just Manchuria. Oddly, they did NOT move significant air assets to the area, and actually moved some away.

In late September, the Japanese moved 88,000 troops out of Manchuria to help with the southern offensive.

Japanese intelligence claimed that in early to mid October 1941 the Soviets pulled 9 to 11 rifle divisions out of the Far East, along with at least 1000 tanks and 1200 planes. I don't know if those figures were accurate, but they represented the info available to the Japanese at the time. Coox speculates that the Sorge network tipped the Soviets off when the Japanese decided definitely to head south and began moving troops west at that time.
 
Some factors if the Japanese did attack:

1) The rapid mobilization would have a definite impact on Japanese unit cohesion, especially for an August attack precipitated by a faction.

2) The most likely time for a war to start would probably be August 2, 1941. There was a weird set of incidents that day that could have given plotters in the Kwantung Army a chance to start hostilities. (a) On that day, the Japanese detected (or thought they had) that Soviet units along most of the frontier had gone radio silent. That's usually an immediate prelude to an attack. In this case it was apparently due to sunspots disrupting communications. The Kwantung Army asked for permission to immediately respond to any Soviet attack. The home government wisely said "no."(b) On that same day, a major Japanese supply dump exploded, destroying a goodly percentage of the local Japanese munitions supply. There have been claims that the radio silence and the massive explosions were the result of Soviet saboteurs, but the Japanese army thoroughly investigated and found no evidence of that.

3) The climate at the intersection of Manchuria and Siberia makes Moscow in winter look relatively balmy. Japanese troops who had been stationed in Manchuria for a while were used to it. The newbies would get a horrible lesson in what a real winter is like. On the other hand, neither side would be likely to be able to make major advances in the worst of the winter months. We're probably talking a campaign that goes into survival mode on both sides in late November 1941 and stays there until late February 1942.
 
This design was made in 1941, and probably gets more priority if Japan is planning to take on the Soviets.

The Type 1 is inferior to a US Sherman tank and stands little chance of taking on a T-34, but perhaps it could take out a T-26 or BT-7. If the IJA is going to take on the Soviets, perhaps they can move up their tank designs a year.

I wonder about the Soviet Response to Japanese Attack. On one hand, Siberia has to be the lower priority compared with Germany's offensive and Japan stands to gain little even if it 'wins big'.

On the other, the Soviets are going to learn before too long that they can throw the Japanese out of Manchuria if they commit the forces to do it. If the Soviet forces in the Far East are able to take out the IJA on their own, the only thing stopping them is their own logistical tail. If they suffer failures as they did against Germany, we might have a Finland situation where Japan really can't afford to go deep into Soviet Territory and the Soviets have bigger fish to fry.

Not sure which of those it will be.

Historically the Japanese took the turret and gun from that tank and mated it to their existing light medium. If I'm reading the gun data correctly, the 47 mm gun they used would have been considerably better in terms of penetration than the shorter-barreled version of the German 50 mm gun for the Panzer III, but not as good as the longer-barreled L/60 version the Germans later used. Based on that, I'm guessing that the gun could probably knock out a T34 from the front at "I so wouldn't want to be in that tank" ranges, while the T34 would be able to easily knock out the Japanese tank (whichever of the two the gun was mounted on).

Please don't take my read of the gun data as gospel. There are all kinds of quirks involved in those comparisons and I don't claim to know all of them.
 
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