Soviet Invasion of Japan: World War 2

How can we get a Soviet Invasion of Japan, a realistic one?

I imagine the source of the POD would probably be based in the European Campaign against the Nazis where the Nazis are defeated earlier or give up earlier before American forces are in a position to invade Japan or nuke them.
 
You could just have a successful coup against the Emperor/pro-peace faction after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs are dropped.

I'm not sure what the USSR's capacity for such an operation would be at the time though. I'd imagine quite the makeshift affair?
 
Makeshift indeed, though it would appear that the Japanese may have written off Hokkaido. If it occurs around the time of the planned US Invasion then Japanese force would have shifted most of their defensive units to the extreme south.
 
Germany and the Soviet Union remain at peace due to one of

1) Hilter dying sometime early in 1941
2) Germans doing better in BOB and North Atlantic campaign and decide to concentrate on British defeat as a strategy before attacking Soviet Union
3) Germans realize how strong the Soviets really are and delay their invasion to prepare more and better weaponry.

Regardless of which of theabove, an unoccupied Soviet Union instead of attacking Germany unprovoked (attacking such a country with a military reputation of Germany doesn't seem like such a good idea to Stalin) and instead pick on Japan and attack Manachria and sothern Sakhalin in July 1943. Soviet command of the air allows them to move down the Kuriles into Hokkaido in small jumps, supported by parachute drops and light craft.

However the Soviets once in northern Hokkaido don't push any more, wanting to finish occupying as much of China and Korea as they possibly can before tangling with messy fanatical resistance in the more populated Japanese areas.

Caught betwwen the Soviet Union and the USA, Japan submits to a compromise peace by September 1944, complete with a 5 year occupation of their country and disarmament and establishment of democracy, but are promised their pre 1905 boundries post war (which lets them keep Taiwan).

The Allies (and Soviets) then focus on Germany.
 
I don't believe that the Soviet Union had the lift transport to move a division across from the Mainland to Honshu, let alone Hokkaido..

They would have to get some LSTs and LSIs from the USA via Lend-Lease...
 
Which is the last thing the US would do. They already saw the problems they were having in East Europe with Stalin. The last thing they would want is the Uncle Joe in Japan. So unless they want to jump into their inflated tire tubes and swim its not going to happen.
 
I don't believe that the Soviet Union had the lift transport to move a division across from the Mainland to Honshu, let alone Hokkaido..

They would have to get some LSTs and LSIs from the USA via Lend-Lease...

If the Soviet Union was at peace with Germany in some ATL but prepping for war with Japan it would have the time and resources to develop cheap light craft along the line of German Siebel ferries and MFPs. Decent landing craft, not complex, cheaply built, can be shipped by sections in rail. The Soviets were able to pull off amphibious assaults on the Black Sea OTL, and transferred small submarines and such via rail between the Pacific and Black sea and even transferred some merchants out of the Back Sea to the Pacific creeping along Turkish neutral waters to the Suez canal.

but If the Soviet Union was at war with German as in OTL but decided to attack Japan in July 44 or something then, such landing craft resources would be hard to come by but the USSR had a large merchant marine by this time due to USA ships transfered to the Soviet flag to support Lend Lease via Vladivostok. So if a port could be captured by paratroopers and whatever could be scrapped up to marine land then stuff could be shipped in I suppose.

Its an interesting ATL. Compared to what the German were planning for Sea Lion everything seems less a fiasco.
 
The Soviets demonstrated that they could take the northernmost islands, so I don't see Hokkaido being much of a stretch considering the pitiful state of Japanese defense. Honshu is probably impossible through a military solution, but they might be able to get it at Yalta or Potsdam.
 

katchen

Banned
Southern Sakhalin is certainly doable. And the Soya Strait to Hokkaido is only 15-20 miles wide. The Russians would likely want to finish building their railway to Sakhalin that they started and stopped in the 1930s, though. Or at least build good winter roads. A winter offensive would be critical.

As would taking Hokkaido, which is mostly a knot of mountains. Hokkaido is where the Russians could easily get bogged down. If the Russians can make it to the Tsugaru Strait, they can probably get across it and into Honshu.
 
How can we get a Soviet Invasion of Japan, a realistic one?
A communist uprising after the atomic bombs. Japan was not as monolithic as people think. An earlier Imperial motorcade through Tokyo was shown blatant disrespect and by summer 1945, some conscripts were starting to defy their officers.

Also, you could have the Soviets capture pro communist Japanese civilians (and maybe even pro communist troops) in Manchuria - there were several million Japanese civilians in the area. While right winger colonists were probably common, some communists may have been exiled there after the Japanese communist riots of the 1920s. The Soviets then promote a charismatic captive as the head of a new provisional government

They would have to get some LSTs and LSIs from the USA via Lend-Lease...

Thats only if they wanted to do a western style invasion against a prepared opponent. By fall 1945, the Japanese only had one regular division on Hokkiado (and even this division may have been a regiment short as the Japanese had been "parting out" their mainforce divisions in Japan for years). All other Japanese formations on Hokkiado - and there were not that many of them, were either category B "Volksgrenadier" type divisions or armed civilian militia.
 
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I heard that a lot of leftists and intellectuals went to Manchuria out of a sense of idealism (solidarity with Asian peoples), and because life was more relaxed

The thing about militarist Japan was that there was never a coup or a revolution, there was never an actual transfer of official power from one political group to another - it was simply the military gaining enough clout to force its demands on the civil government. So a lot of the population wasn't really forced to undergo radical change, as was the case in the USSR or Germany.
 
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Southern Sakhalin is certainly doable.

It's OTL. By land invasion - from Soviet-held North Sachalin.

And the Soya Strait to Hokkaido is only 15-20 miles wide.

IIRC Soviets planned in 1945 landing near Rumoi. With US-supplied landing craft.

As would taking Hokkaido, which is mostly a knot of mountains. Hokkaido is where the Russians could easily get bogged down.

? Hokkaido is the flattest of Japaneses Home Islands. And when Red Army gets to the plain on which Sapporo is located - whether by land or by small amphibious hop - then Hokkaido is lost for Japan.
 
The Soviets might wait until the Americans attack, and when most of Japanese forces are engaged against US landings, Soviets might attack Hokkaido. Apart of sea landing, they might also attempt an airborne attack - a parachute brigade lands near a port, even a small one; a relatively y small force lands from sea in the same area; together they might be able take control of the port, which would allow the Soviets to form a solid beachhead and bring reinforcements even without big fleet of landing ships - a regular merchant ships or even fishing boats might be anough for a short voyage from Sakhalin and they can be unloaded in a port. Soviets also have total air superiority, with Red Air Force operating from Sakhalin. Hokkaido is well in range of Shtormoviks, providing good air support for troops on land. OTOH, assuming the Soviet attack starts in October/November 1945, days are short, which limits the effectivness of Soviet planes.
Of course Soviets would needed a lot of preparation for that and I'm not sure if they had time to do so. Persoally, however, I believe that had the decided to try, they had a decent chance of success. At least as far as Hokkaido goes.
 
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