Let's say that the Marco Polo Bridge Incident is avoided in 1937, butterflying away the US oil embargo. At peace with China, Japan instead sides with the 'Go North' faction and plans are drawn up to invade the Soviet Union in summer 1941/spring 1942. How does the war go? Also, with no 2nd Sino-Japanese war, how does China develop internally? What becomes of the foreign spheres of influence & treaty ports?
Japan avoids war with China, goes north
- Thread starter _tscar
- Start date
What exactly does Japan gain by going north? The only thing they ever fough Soviets was to secure their Manchurian puppet. They went to China because there was more people and more resources there and because they feared the country might turn Communist. Nobody lived in Siberia at that time, there are no resources, at least not readily available ones and there was no hope that Soviet Union could be defeated by this campaign. Events from 1941 are still four years away and Japanese leaders have no way to know Germany will attack Soviet Union at that time.
Worth mentioning is that these four years are probably not enough for Japan to modernize their army, so they will still get beaten by Red Army.
GarethC
Donor
The problem AIUI is that there is no oil in Siberia extractable with 1940 technology. Going to war properly with the USSR will only exacerbate that problem for Japan.
Plus, basically, the US sees Japan as a major strategic competitor, mostly for Chinese commerce, while it sees the USSR as a customer of Lend-Lease. FDR will not permit Japan to be successful here.
It's a tossup -
1) Japan gets crushed by the Red Army, as they have an indifferent light infantry force with not enough armor (which is of low quality) inadequate artillery and woeful antitank weaponry, compared to an indifferent part-motorized force with quite a lot of armor (even if the Far East has second-rate tanks, they are still better than the Japanese ones), with plentiful support arms. Japan loses Korea and lots of Manchukuo, maybe as Soviet client states, maybe as new SSRs in the Union.
2) Japan doesn't get crushed by the Red Army, but runs out of gas when the USSR's Lendor/Lessor the USA, along with the Dutch government-in-exile embargos Japanese oil imports, then ends up with a peace deal remarkably similar to that above.
3) As 2), but Japan tries to guarantee oil by invading the DEI. Britain declares war in support of the Dutch. The British and Dutch get the worst of things for a while until the Japanese run out of, well, everything really, and collapse, losing the above plus Taiwan.
4) As 2, but the Japanese tries to avoid the threat to the supply lines to the DEI by attacking Singapore and Malaya as well. The US does Lend-Lease things like giving the Dutch all of the obsolete aircraft the US is replacing (Buffaloes and P-36s, that sort of thing) and runs convoys into the South China Sea with a "nyah-nyah-nyah, you can't touch me" kind of attitude waiting for a casus belli to turn up, supporting them with air patrols out of the Philippines. This continues until the Japanese run out of fuel as above, or the US finishes building all those carriers the Vinson-Walsh act funded and then says one of its destroyers was fired on by Japanese naval forces somewhere like, oh, I dunno, maybe the Gulf of Tonkin
and declares war.5) As 2), only the Japanese try some sort of pre-emptive strike to secure their supply lines to the DEI from US interference, maybe by knocking out some forward-based elements of the US Pacific Fleet...
On the Chinese front, Chiang will stop fighting the Japanese when they are off the Chinese mainland. Not very hard, because there are other things on his mind, but neither Chiang nor Mao are going to accept a peace - particularly when Japan is busy losing to the Soviets on land (and possibly to ABDA at sea).
I'm not debating the viability or usefulness of such a plan. I concur that a Japanese strike on the Soviet Far East would be virtual suicide. The question is what would happen if such a plan were to go ahead, not the reasoning behind it.
The problem AIUI is that there is no oil in Siberia extractable with 1940 technology. Going to war properly with the USSR will only exacerbate that problem for Japan.
Plus, basically, the US sees Japan as a major strategic competitor, mostly for Chinese commerce, while it sees the USSR as a customer of Lend-Lease. FDR will not permit Japan to be successful here.
It's a tossup -
1) Japan gets crushed by the Red Army, as they have an indifferent light infantry force with not enough armor (which is of low quality) inadequate artillery and woeful antitank weaponry, compared to an indifferent part-motorized force with quite a lot of armor (even if the Far East has second-rate tanks, they are still better than the Japanese ones), with plentiful support arms. Japan loses Korea and lots of Manchukuo, maybe as Soviet client states, maybe as new SSRs in the Union.
2) Japan doesn't get crushed by the Red Army, but runs out of gas when the USSR's Lendor/Lessor the USA, along with the Dutch government-in-exile embargos Japanese oil imports, then ends up with a peace deal remarkably similar to that above.
3) As 2), but Japan tries to guarantee oil by invading the DEI. Britain declares war in support of the Dutch. The British and Dutch get the worst of things for a while until the Japanese run out of, well, everything really, and collapse, losing the above plus Taiwan.
4) As 2, but the Japanese tries to avoid the threat to the supply lines to the DEI by attacking Singapore and Malaya as well. The US does Lend-Lease things like giving the Dutch all of the obsolete aircraft the US is replacing (Buffaloes and P-36s, that sort of thing) and runs convoys into the South China Sea with a "nyah-nyah-nyah, you can't touch me" kind of attitude waiting for a casus belli to turn up, supporting them with air patrols out of the Philippines. This continues until the Japanese run out of fuel as above, or the US finishes building all those carriers the Vinson-Walsh act funded and then says one of its destroyers was fired on by Japanese naval forces somewhere like, oh, I dunno, maybe the Gulf of Tonkin
5) As 2), only the Japanese try some sort of pre-emptive strike to secure their supply lines to the DEI from US interference, maybe by knocking out some forward-based elements of the US Pacific Fleet...
On the Chinese front, Chiang will stop fighting the Japanese when they are off the Chinese mainland. Not very hard, because there are other things on his mind, but neither Chiang nor Mao are going to accept a peace - particularly when Japan is busy losing to the Soviets on land (and possibly to ABDA at sea).
Thank you, this is exactly what I was looking for.
How long exactly would the IJA last in the Far East before being pushed completely off the Asian mainland (Manchuria+Korea)? Assuming this is a 1v1 between the SU and Japan (with Germany still following through with Barbarossa), would the Soviets have the naval capability to perform landings on Sakhalin or Hokkaido after beating the Japanese off the mainland?Without the war in China, Japan probably won't have either of the Go North or Go South factions.
Oh, but without the reasoning behind it, how can one presume how campaign would take shape? Those are different things if Japanese want to achieve minor border corrections or they want to inflict humiliating defeat on Red Army to dissuade Soviets from interfering into their sphere or if they want to go out full scale and annex Soviet Far East to the Empire. Mind you, latter is within ASB category. Former two might be doable.
IMHO without major doctrinal change to IJA, for which 1937 is way too late, they do not stand fighting chance against Red Army as deployed to Far East theater IOTL. They would get defeated in border clashes, suffer heavy casualties to any incursion force they dare send up. Soviet counteroffensive would also be faced with major logistic difficulties, but if Soviet Union is not distracted by events in Europe, I do not see what can stop Soviets from wrapping up Japanese Empire on mainland Asia. Japanese islands are something else entirely. Unless Red Army gets zombie pirate troopers, no Red Army soldier will get to beach of any Japanese island, except in the form of washed up corpse.