Wimble Toot
Banned
When Japan invaded china for the third time, Could they win any war on the Major scale?
No.
Japanese war strategy depended on their enemies capitulating in awe of the might of the Dai Nippon Teikoku
They didn't.
When Japan invaded china for the third time, Could they win any war on the Major scale?
AND the Soviets are going to intervene if they look set to dominate all of China?
Not really what happened at Stalingrad. US entry into Africa coupled with German overextension and Hitler's strategic insanity finally all caught up. Soviet generals did nothing outside of the massing overwhelming force against overextended and strung out forces deep in the USSR heartland. To get to that point something like 7 million Soviet troops died to that point in the war (including the PoWs in German custody starved to death) with millions more still in captivity and who knows how many millions of wounded. Pretty much nothing more than having unlimited willingness to sacrifice life for victory, US and UK allies, US and UK L-L, and an enemy that made fatal strategic mistakes and put their head out to be lopped off.
The real Soviet competency and skill came out in 1944-45.
It was what happened, demonstrably the Soviets proved their mastery over two field marshals, one of whom was the best the Germans had. You do not specify the gap in 1942-43 Soviet operational art/operational design and 1944-45, and how significant it is, for one thing. The 1941 issue of Soviet mechanized corps that were founded on overly optimistic and unrealistic objectives rather than on what would be required or what could practically be mobilized for a war, that was reversed at Stalingrad, tank armies first were seen there. That being said, I would agree that is merely a combat tool whose intrinsic effectiveness depends upon the talent of the user, as you are kind of stipulating. Multi-front operations were seen as early as Moscow and the STAVKA representatives--something that I would critique as imperfect. And the original Operation Saturn did not happen because of Stalin so this is unfair. And the Soviets very nearly trapped the 9th army of the Germans at Kursk. Kursk was a total failure (the OP asks if Germany could win the war of course). The Red Army took advantage of the LUCY spy ring at Kursk, they didn't have it going for them in 1941.
That's debatable; the much of the losses later in 1941 and in 1942 were avoidable, but due to gross incompetence and Stalin's meddling they happened. The Mechanized Corps issues in terms of OOB were not due to negligence, but rather faulty understanding of what was needed organizationally due to lack of appropriate combat experience; in terms of practical material deficits...that was a function of the modernization of equipment that was going on and the lack of industrial output prior to the invasion...not sure you can call that negligence per se. It probably would have been a workable organization with some additional years to try out the OOB in war games and once it had proper TOE as well as officers who gained experience in their new positions after the purges.And to answer your question, those 7 million and all the civilians that would be lost were unavoidable OTL (in any of the options available to the Red Army to stabilize the front far closer to the border as far as I am concerned), but the appropriate measures were not taken prewar due to gross negligence on the part of the Stalinist regime, these losses were unnecessary. The mechanized corps issues were due to negligence. The fact that the country was not mobilized beforehand was due to negligence.
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The Mechanized Corps issues in terms of OOB were not due to negligence, but rather faulty understanding of what was needed organizationally due to lack of appropriate combat experience; in terms of practical material deficits...that was a function of the modernization of equipment that was going on and the lack of industrial output prior to the invasion...not sure you can call that negligence per se. It probably would have been a workable organization with some additional years to try out the OOB in war games and once it had proper TOE as well as officers who gained experience in their new positions after the purges. ...
Ironically the Soviets went backwards with the Mechanized Corps org compared to their 1939 motorized division (effectively a tank division)...though it was workable in combat provided they had rectified the poor ratio of supply trucks to combat units, had sufficient radios, and had commanders skilled enough to handle full mobile corps formations.Everyone had imperfect organizations in the early years, even Guderian. I was surprised to see the French organization of the DLM was ahead of everyone else in many respects. Most oversized their tank divisions and were slow in reducing them to something manageable with 1940s communications.
When Japan invaded china for the third time, Could they win any war on the Major scale?
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Guderian never actually learned the lesson of reducing numbers of tanks per division, in 1943 when he became inspector of the tank forces he pushed for a return to the 400 tank division of 1940!
Its not that surprising that the French were in the lead in terms of organization given their lack of radios and uninterrupted experience with using and developing their armor units from WW1 to 1940; it is more surprising to me that the Brits neglected the lessons of their Experimental Mechanized Force.