Second Russo-Japanese War?

What would be the effects of the Japanese pushing further into Asia during WWII, instead of attacking pearl harbor.

Say the japanese realize they are suverly overdone and thus need more resources before attacking US and instead invade russia.

Could the soviets win this two front war?
How would germany do with an england counter part as its actuall ally, instead of just allies in theory?
 
if this is done during the initial German invasion in '41, I'd say the USSR would have a severe problem considering how close Germany came in OTL without Japanese help. I don't think Japan seriously contemplated this route though, considering the U.S. was the more obvious rival. And with no Pearl Harbor attack in late '41 to bring the U.S. in, maybe Britain goes all in to help the Soviets?
 
The Japanese get sent retreating back to Manchuria by the 1.5 million far east troops never touched during WWII, they are saved only by the USSR needing the supplies to conquer Manchuria and Korea back in Europe

Japan having lost a lot of resources on a fruitless endeavour now tries to strike south with less resources and a worse result
 

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The Japanese get sent retreating back to Manchuria by the 1.5 million far east troops never touched during WWII, they are saved only by the USSR needing the supplies to conquer Manchuria and Korea back in Europe
That's overstating the number quite a bit, there were 16 infantry divisions, One mountain division, three armoured divisions and two mechanized divisions and some odd independent brigade in the Far East Command on June 22nd 1941. With between 10-12.000 men in each division, you do the math yourself.
 
That's overstating the number quite a bit, there were 16 infantry divisions, One mountain division, three armoured divisions and two mechanized divisions and some odd independent brigade in the Far East Command on June 22nd 1941. With between 10-12.000 men in each division, you do the math yourself.
I got my numbers from this site, not sure who posted that, (they may have included troops not from the far east but from other nearby fronts) in any case still more than enough to see off the Japanese

I counted in the Far East 35 Division sized commands (not necessarily Divisions, but using symbols for such), plus 10 Brigade size, though I may have accidentally counted AA Brigades
 
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What would be the effects of the Japanese pushing further into Asia during WWII, instead of attacking pearl harbor.

Say the japanese realize they are suverly overdone and thus need more resources before attacking US and instead invade russia.

Could the soviets win this two front war?
How would germany do with an england counter part as its actuall ally, instead of just allies in theory?

The effects, at least for the scenario you give, is Japan gets it's but kicked again, just worse than in the OTL's border clashes.

The key is oil, and Japan won't get it in Siberia.

The effect on the European front means, at best, Germany gets closer to Moscow, but still get stopped.
 
why won't japan get oil in siberia? And I think before 1941 the USSR may be literally f**ked if germany invades from one side, and japan from the other.

assuming they don't end up like napoleon or hitler OTL.
 
There is little to no energy infrastructure in Siberia to extract, process, and ship any sort of fossil fuel back to Japan. They'd have to build it from the ground up.
 
It's not that simple. You'll need heavy machinery to clear paths through forest and build roads through swamp and tundra, drilling rigs to get at the oil, refineries to turn crude into petroleum products, and pipelines to get it back to the coast. All of which requires a metric shitload of oil and steel to get in working order, both of which are already in short supply for the Japanese. And I'm not even going to ask about how much heavy construction gear the Japanese were packing in the early '40s, much less how the hell they intend to get it overland and into Siberia.
 
It's more than just the infrastructure - the technological knowhow to exploit those oil resources hadn't yet been developed.

Also, the Far Eastern forces had superior equipment and tactical doctrine for the sort of fighting that would be involved. Attack a tank heavy mechanized force with tank-light infantry using unsuitable tactics is bad news.

IMHO, the most likely scenario for a full on second Russo-Japanese war would be Japan avoiding the jump into China proper in '37, and instead going north then. There's much less likelyhood of the US embargo happening in this case, so there's no need to go south. The Red Army purge of '38 is probably gone, Japan still gets it's butt handed to it, and the Soviets get Manchuria, Korea, and maybe the Northern Islands. (Note that, IIRC, that was originally suggested to me by CalBear.)
 
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Just on the subject of Siberian oil reserves, it seems they weren't discovered until after the war anyway. This page says that it took until 1948 for their extent to be realised, which is too late to do Japan any favours, and even the first test well only produced results in 1943. It doesn't seem likely that Japan would launch such a campaign if they didn't know there was oil there to be captured, and as others have pointed out even if they do know it's there it's still going to be very difficult to get it out.
 
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