Was the USSR actually capable of conquering Japan at the end of WWII?
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You're absolutely correct on both counts. The Milwaukee was commissioned in 1923 and given to the Soviet Navy in 1944 in exchange for their share of the Italian fleet. And you're just as correct about the age and obsolescence of the Soviet ships. Even the newest ships in the Soviet Pacific Fleet -- the capable Kirov-class cruisers Kaganovich and Kalinin, were little better than the Milwaukee, which had been built over 20 years earlier. To make matters worse, the training standards of the Soviet Navy were atrocious, owing in small part to the fact that large numbers of cadre and experienced sailors had been drafted to fight the Germans on land during the war. This left the navy with a shortage of trained sailors to man its rag-tag fleet.
But in the end, the condition of the fleet doesn't matter as much as we might think. A third-rate fleet still afloat is superior to a first-rate one that's been sunk or is crippled by a lack of fuel, as were the Japanese. Ironically, in terms of ship types alone, the Soviet Navy was well-suited for the type of war that would be fought against Japan. Carriers were not needed, owing to the short distances between Soviet airfields in the Far East and Japan. Battleships might have been useful for shore bombardment, but their deep draft and vulnerability to air attack (if the Japanese had had any aircraft to use) would've limited their usefulness. Cruisers and destroyers, as the U.S. Navy proved during the island-hopping campaign in the south Pacific, were the tools of close-in amphibious support, and the Soviet Navy, at least, had those.
In OTL, neither the Kaganovich and Kalinin made it into combat. Completed in 1943 and 1944 respectively, they remained in port at Vladivostok after being floated down the Amur River from their shipyard. In TTL, we can expect these two crowning jewels of the Soviet Pacific Fleet to engage in heavy shore bombardment at the invasion points, adding their fire to the destroyers and minesweepers that made up the bulk of the Pacific Fleet.
For all their obsolescence and poor training, the ships of the Soviet Pacific Fleet, when coupled with the overwhelming Soviet air superiority, are more than enough to ship, land, and support an amphibious invasion of Hokkaido. The invasion will bear more in common with the slapdash American operation at Guadalcanal than the coordinated Allied assault on Normandy, but it will be no less successful than either of those two operations.
That plan is what we're discussing now, Adam. If you're interested in more than what I've laid out here, I'd suggest reading these two books about August Storm. They're head and shoulders above most of what's out there, but due to their cost I recommend getting them from the library. Glantz, the author of the two books, goes into detail not only about what actually happens, but discusses the plans for the Soviet invasion of Hokkaido, which I've covered in brief here. They're an excellent companion piece to Skates's superb work about the planned American invasion of Kyushu.
As to the justification for dropping the atomic bombs, that's a subject that's been discussed for over 60 years now, and will likely be discussed for more than 60 more. All the relevant decision-makers are dead, and barring time travel or the discovery of some hidden diary, it's unlikely we'll ever really know what was going on inside Truman's head.
If you're asking if I think it was likely that showing the Soviets off was one reason for Truman's decision, I'd have to answer no. The prevailing attitude was to address one war at a time, and you have to remember that the Soviets were still the good guys who helped us beat Germany. You've only got to look at Capra's The Battle of Russia to get an idea of what people thought of the Soviet Union at that point. Truman's main objective, from everything I've learned, was to bring the war to an end. Anything else was just a side effect.
I feel everyone is overlooking the obvious,The Japanese people as a whole would fiercely resist any land invasion with any means at there disposal. The Sov's would get it as bad as the German's with guerilla's chopping there rear and supply lines to shreds.And you could have 5000 T-34's, if you cant resupply them effectively they turn into pillboxes nice but pretty immobile. In order to achieve any "sucessful" invasion you would need to have USN hulls delivering Soviet supplies an unlikely event in that by 45 most of DC beleive that the Soviet's were the next enemy and will therfore not gifting the Soviet's with sealift capacity still sorely needed elsewhere for resupply and prepositioning of equipment for Downfall. While it might be that on there 1st attempt they do manage to move 26k troops how many will be drowned when there decrepit frieghters are sunk by Kamikaze's.
In Short while yes indeed the Red Army was a formidable land force this doen't equate to sucessfully conducting a seaborne invasion even against
a already beaten enemy
In Short while yes indeed the Red Army was a formidable land force this doen't equate to sucessfully conducting a seaborne invasion even against
a already beaten enemy
I'll address your concerns separately:
In regards to the kamikazes; they're basically a non-issue in an invasion of Hokkaido. The vast majority of surviving Japanese aircraft have been pulled to the south, as we stated earlier. That being said, there's still a handful in the north. But these handful aren't capable of any large operations against the Soviet fleet. They're hampered by a lack of fuel, poor training (most surviving Japanese pilots at this point are raw recruits), and obsolescent aircraft. Even more importantly, the Soviet Air Force has thousands of fighters and bombers available to support the invasion. The few dozen kamikazes that get into the air will be shot down long before they reach the invasion area, and if by some miracle one or two reach the invasion and manage to hit their targets, it's not something that can be repeated. Once a kamikaze is used, it's gone forever -- there are no repeated strikes. After that last gasp in the north, there will be no more Japanese aircraft to attack the Soviets with.
In regards to logistics; It's not going to be pretty, but in the absence of Japanese opposition, the problem is one of transportation, rather than combat. In effect, it becomes no different from a peacetime construction project. You mention partisans. Though the terrain of Hokkaido is somewhat rugged, it is sparsely settled. Today, Hokkaido has a population of just over 5.5 million, and in 1945, the population was just over 3.2 million. Those 3.2 million people were spread out over 83,453 square kilometers, for a population density of 38.3 people per square kilometer. To put that in perspective, it's about the same population density as the country of Guinea today. It's not condusive to partisan operations.
In addition, there's the matter of arming those partisans. At the time of the Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945, an estimated 40 percent of the entire Japanese ammunition stockpile in the Home Islands was on the island of Kyushu, at the exact opposite end of Japan from Hokkaido. Those few civilians lucky enough to receive a rifle won't have more than ten rounds to fire. The apocryphal stories of Japanese civilians being armed with bamboo spears aren't just stories -- they're what was actually happening on a small scale.
Furthermore, you have to face the remarkable effectiveness of Soviet anti-partisan tactics, which were honed during the Russian Revolution and modernized during the advance through the Ukraine during 1944. Effectively, these boiled down to killing everyone in the area where partisan attacks took place. It's extremely difficult for partisans to blend into the surrounding population if there's no population to blend into. As horrifying as that sounds, it's a possibility if the Japanese civilian population resists on a large scale, which, unfortunately, is borne out by OTL's experience on Saipan, Okinawa, and other islands throughout the Pacific.
In the end, partisans won't be more than an annoyance to the Soviet forces, and they will only become an annoyance after the successful occupation of the island. Partisan activity only works when the occupying force has to worry about casualties or is facing a large enemy force with the capability of liberating the partisan territories. In Hokkaido, neither element is present.
Ok, not going to again state fact on forces that AV and CB presented.
Don't You think that German people have also fiercely resisted the Red Army? Don't You see that numbers that Germany put up in the East are more than Japan could dream of? Yet Germans were beaten.
The problem is following. Red Army will have to use less ships, so the landings have to be conducted in small sucessive series rather than a big landing. This will make things difficult in start. However, Red Army is capable and WILLING to pour incomparable more than IJA has on hand. Trained soldiers (vetrans of the East Front) will overrun the local militia and regular forces in the north.
Depending on the actual time of invasion, once a foothold on the Hokkaido is estabilished, no problem to continue in way similar to island hopping that US conducted in pacific. Will be multiple hops onto the Japan mainland.
However high looses expected. And RA will undertake these looses. It's Russian strategy to use any means, no matter the costs.
What You will get after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is Zoned Japan, although just US and USSR zones.
We might actually see some deal (eg Japan American - Austria Russian). Though no succes in creating any "People's Democratic" Japan, as for Japan people and the very basic roots of Japan nation are connected to faith and Imperial House. This is what will Soviets sooner or later realize and will be willing to give up their influence for a trade off in Europe.
As for hot wars emerging in east asia (French Indochina, Korea,...), remeber these happen in former COLONIES, not the mother countries, and are more-or-less conflicts between pro-communist and pro-democratic (or pro-west at least) factions of the war resistance groups. Never any conflict was in the actually axis countries, and those that were (in Germany) were by the OCCUPIERS, over influence on the occupied countries.
Don't You think that German people have also fiercely resisted the Red Army? Don't You see that numbers that Germany put up in the East are more than Japan could dream of? Yet Germans were beaten.
The problem is following. Red Army will have to use less ships, so the landings have to be conducted in small sucessive series rather than a big landing. This will make things difficult in start. However, Red Army is capable and WILLING to pour incomparable more than IJA has on hand. Trained soldiers (vetrans of the East Front) will overrun the local militia and regular forces in the north.
Depending on the actual time of invasion, once a foothold on the Hokkaido is estabilished, no problem to continue in way similar to island hopping that US conducted in pacific. Will be multiple hops onto the Japan mainland.
However high looses expected. And RA will undertake these looses. It's Russian strategy to use any means, no matter the costs.
What You will get after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is Zoned Japan, although just US and USSR zones.
We might actually see some deal (eg Japan American - Austria Russian). Though no succes in creating any "People's Democratic" Japan, as for Japan people and the very basic roots of Japan nation are connected to faith and Imperial House. This is what will Soviets sooner or later realize and will be willing to give up their influence for a trade off in Europe.
As for hot wars emerging in east asia (French Indochina, Korea,...), remeber these happen in former COLONIES, not the mother countries, and are more-or-less conflicts between pro-communist and pro-democratic (or pro-west at least) factions of the war resistance groups. Never any conflict was in the actually axis countries, and those that were (in Germany) were by the OCCUPIERS, over influence on the occupied countries.
Not quite true there were huge ammounts of aircraft that were still available as intelligence found out after the war. It is quite true that there were several probles 1) shortage of trained pilots and of fuel. But the Biggest problem is that the soviets did not have the ships and trained personnel needed to conduct an amphibios operation. Thus the amount of forces that they would be able to land would be tiny and thus the Japanese defenders would be able to cut it to pieces. The casualties involved would in any invasion be incredible as the Japanese would fight to the last person on the island. This is what needs to be considered.
There still was a considerable size Japanese army located in northern Japan. A soviet invasion would have been a nightmare for the soviets to begin with and their loses would have made Stalingrad look like a cakewalk.
The Japanese had about three divisions on Hokkaido, all of "Home Guard" quality with no armor, no reasonable transport, no fuel for the little transport they did have, and zero air cover.
The Red Army could put AIRBORNE troops onto Hokkaido than the Japanese had in total forces. The Soviets would have had air cover, mostly Il-2 ground attack aircraft flownby combat veterans used to fighting a much more capable opponent, and, after securing a port facility, plenty of high quality armor (actually, even with just the LSTs the USSR had in hand they could have landed enough tanks to defeat the combined armored forces available to the entire Home Islands).
As far as partisan activity, this is a an overrated factor. As AV has noted, the Japanese ARMY had almost not ammo, certainly not enough to equip partisans & there was no outside power that was going to be shipping in supplies to the resistance. It also needs to be noted that this is the USSR's Red Army, not the American or British army. Any partisan activity would be handled by NKDV troops, many of whom made the Waffen SS look like Cub Scouts.
Lastly, as has been noted, casualties are not an issue. Joseph "one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic" Stalin didn't have the same view on military losses as Western leaders (if he had, the USSR would have surrendered in 1941) & Stalin was the only one whose viewpoint mattered. Stalin readily accepted 100,000 casualities just to take Berlin, despite knowing that he would need to turn 3/4 of the city over to the Western allies. Stalin was mad as a hatter (he probably was a sociopath) and once he decided he wanted something to happen the cost simply didn't matter (look at collectivization, that cost at LEAST 10 million lives).
Chris, Soviets HAD the ships, personell etc. all is matter of the before mentioned things transfer to Pacific theater. There's Trans-Siberian Railway ending in Vladivostok, the homeport of Red Pacific Fleet.
Japanese have no means of gathering info when and where soviets land until the landings take place and well after that happens, still that info needs to be transferred to local command and decisions have to be made. To gather more manpower Japs need to go through their command hierarchy back to General Command in Tokyo and whole way back.
Meantime, Soviet fast landing ships manage to transport more and more forces to landing sites and estabilish a beached (some equivalent of Dynamo operation, having ships to take multiple voyages).
Once soviet beachhead is present, nothing can stop their war machine from swinging through and around the defences (which are not like Atlantic defense in normandy, rather than similar to Japanese defenses on Pacific islands).
I mentioned island hopping. This is term to describe the US way how they conducted the warfare in pacific since Midway. For clear I write Soviet variant here.
Support forces (destroyers, some crusiers) are bombarding beaches and covering landing boats. No high numbers of the initial landing force have to be present, Japans never conducted actual serious defense of beaches... they did this inland. Soviet ships take turns to ferry more and more men and material. Nearby Russian mainland facilities will enable them to do it relatively fast.
As Russian forces advance inland, the armoured groups will sweep around the defense points, penetrating deeper southwards. Infatry will take care of the isolated outposts. The way Red army conducted ofensive operations in 44 and 45 in Eastern Europe will be an example, just smaller scale will take place here.
Stiff and fierce resistance of Japanese is overrunned by Red Army. The way it will be is surely bloody, but the Japanese cannot ship reinforcements and supplies to defense posts isolated by advancing armoured groups. Russian Army will outnumber them sooner or later. From the war lessons you may learn, is: the pinned down defender is sooner or later runned over or around by a maneouvering attacker. This way Germans won in France, Low Countries and early Africa campaigns, this way American 3rd Army swept through France in '44, this way Red Army won the Stalingrad battles.
Hokkaido is captured. Japan has so little transport means to shift reinforcements from the actual pacific theater, and if it does shoft all, the US will screw them poor.
With the Hokkaido captured, Russia estabilishes a base of operations in the Japan isles. All remaining is issue of numbers, numbers numbers.
Outcome is simple. Japan is done for.
Japanese have no means of gathering info when and where soviets land until the landings take place and well after that happens, still that info needs to be transferred to local command and decisions have to be made. To gather more manpower Japs need to go through their command hierarchy back to General Command in Tokyo and whole way back.
Meantime, Soviet fast landing ships manage to transport more and more forces to landing sites and estabilish a beached (some equivalent of Dynamo operation, having ships to take multiple voyages).
Once soviet beachhead is present, nothing can stop their war machine from swinging through and around the defences (which are not like Atlantic defense in normandy, rather than similar to Japanese defenses on Pacific islands).
I mentioned island hopping. This is term to describe the US way how they conducted the warfare in pacific since Midway. For clear I write Soviet variant here.
Support forces (destroyers, some crusiers) are bombarding beaches and covering landing boats. No high numbers of the initial landing force have to be present, Japans never conducted actual serious defense of beaches... they did this inland. Soviet ships take turns to ferry more and more men and material. Nearby Russian mainland facilities will enable them to do it relatively fast.
As Russian forces advance inland, the armoured groups will sweep around the defense points, penetrating deeper southwards. Infatry will take care of the isolated outposts. The way Red army conducted ofensive operations in 44 and 45 in Eastern Europe will be an example, just smaller scale will take place here.
Stiff and fierce resistance of Japanese is overrunned by Red Army. The way it will be is surely bloody, but the Japanese cannot ship reinforcements and supplies to defense posts isolated by advancing armoured groups. Russian Army will outnumber them sooner or later. From the war lessons you may learn, is: the pinned down defender is sooner or later runned over or around by a maneouvering attacker. This way Germans won in France, Low Countries and early Africa campaigns, this way American 3rd Army swept through France in '44, this way Red Army won the Stalingrad battles.
Hokkaido is captured. Japan has so little transport means to shift reinforcements from the actual pacific theater, and if it does shoft all, the US will screw them poor.
With the Hokkaido captured, Russia estabilishes a base of operations in the Japan isles. All remaining is issue of numbers, numbers numbers.
Outcome is simple. Japan is done for.
I second Wendell. People keep talking about how all of Japan's forces are concentrated in the south. The thing is, what makes you think they'll keep them there once word comes down of a Soviet invasion. We now know that the Japanese considered the Soviets to be an equal or greater threat then the Americans, even though we had the atomic bomb. I can easily see the Japanese hastily surrendering to the Americans and then throwing everything they've got at the Soviets (and more then likely, we'd let them).
I'm sure that once the Soviet invasion developed, the Japanese commander would like to move some forces northward, but the state of the Japanese transportation network by late 1945 would make moving large numbers of troops long distances virtually impossible.
One of the hidden successes of the American strategic bombing campaign over Japan was the mining of Japanese intercoastal waterways by the XXI Bomber command, commanded by General Curtis LeMay, who supported the plan from its initial conception. Codenamed "Operation Starvation," it lived up to its name in every way imaginable. A single B-29 could carry 12 1,000-pound mines or seven 2,000-pounders. In just 46 missions, over 12,000 mines were laid. These missions accounted for just 5.7 percent of XXI Bomber Command's total sorties.
In return, mines sank or damaged 679 ships totaling 1.25 million tons of shipping. In May 1945 alone, mines sank more ships than submarines did -- 113 ships in the Shimonseki Strait alone, nine percent of Japan's entire merchant fleet. In the last six months of the war, mines sank more Japanese ships than by every other method combined.
That's great, you say, but what does it have to do with moving troops from Kyushu to Hokkaido? A glance at a map of Japan will tell you. In 1945, there were no bridges connecting the Japanese Home Islands. Every man, gun, tank, or load of iron that moved from one island to another had to travel by water at one point or another during its trip. Even Japanese railroad trains moved by barge, traveling between railheads on specially-designed ships that turned into particular targets of attention for American fighter-bombers.
The intercoastal waters that most of the island-to-island shipping traveled in were too shallow for submarines and too enclosed for American surface ships. Therefore, mines were the best bet to seal off these routes, and they sealed them off so well that the Japanese Prime Minister Konoye said after the war that the mining campaign was just as effective as the B-29 strikes against industry, but at a far lighter cost.
By September 1945, the earliest point at which the Soviets can launch their invasion of Hokkaido, Operation Starvation will have been going on for seven months and be reaching new heights of operation. In OTL, the mining campaign continued right up until the August 14 cease-fire declaration, accelerating all the while. By the time the Soviets roll ashore in Hokkaido, every route between the islands will be sown with so many mines that travel will be impossible.
And that's just the sea routes. I haven't even begun to discuss the American air campaign against the Japanese rail network, which proved so successful that the post-war Japanese government found it more cost-effective to create a whole new rail network from scratch (including digging new tunnels) than to try to rebuild after the American attacks. Tunnels were collapsed, rolling stock destroyed, and railroad barges sunk. Travel on land via train became nearly as impossible as travel by sea. To move large numbers of soldiers, the Japanese military resorted to the oldest mode of transportation known -- marching. Marching columns are spectacularly vulnerable to air attack, particularly by one of America's newest weapons -- napalm.
In the event of a Soviet invasion of Hokkaido, the movement of large numbers of soldiers northward from Kyushu and Honshu will be virtually impossible. If the Japanese attempt to do so, they will be met by aerial attacks far deadlier than those that crippled German movements in France before and after the Allied breakout during Operation Cobra. A move northward would be welcomed by Soviet commanders as well as American ones. It's far easier, after all, to kill large numbers of the enemy via air attack than facing them on the ground in dug-in positions.
Additional Reading: http://aupress.maxwell.af.mil/saas_Theses/SAASS_Out/Chilstrom/chilstrom.pdf
Except of what AV and me stated about Japan ABILITY to move forces north, remeber again: no separate peace with Western Allies for Germany, no separate peace with USA for Japan.
I will again state two things: 1) a DESIRE to move troops is not enough, and Japan didn't have ABILITY to move troops voluntarily since '44.
2) Japan's offer to surrender to US doesn't mean the actual peace nor cease-fire. Japan will have to surrender explicitely to ALLIED forces, thus including soviets. Again ends with Soviet (at least part-time) presence on Hokkaido.
@ Amerigo Vespucci: I feel some people just close their eyes so they don't see actual facts, but their desires... like Hitler.
And in Japan, too, I think we'd see a lot of that effect if the coup attempt succeeds or if Japan simply doesn't surrender as in OTL. Paladin's suggestion of an insane movement north or the arming of civilians with bamboo spears speaks of the desperation of Japan or the way people can construct castles of imagination, regardless of what actually exists.
One of the more frequent observations that I have made when this sort of a subject gets kicked around on the Board is that too few posters look at the logistics of a situation, or only look at the issue from a very limited viewpoint. There is also the "History Channel" effect where a party line is repeated often enough that it becomes proven fact. The "Japanese fight to the last man" is one of the more often posted.
It is very true that the Japanese were prepared to throw everything they had in the envelope at the American landing on Kyushu, what is often overlooked is exactly what was IN the envelope. There is a tendency to transfer the abilities of the U.S. circa 1942 or of at least the 1943 IJA/N to the forces arrayed against Operation Downfall. The fact that the Japanese were preparing to send 1,800 Kamakazis is remembered, the fact that almost of them were primary trainers or old biplanes that would be hard pressed to make it out to the invasion fleet is forgotten. The fact that the Japanese were conducting Civil Defense drills where they were training militia with bamboo spears is remembered, the fact that the IJA command had accepted that there was no hope of defending Honshu once Kyushu fell is ignored, as is the fact that Japan was months from mass starvation. Too many people watch the quasi-history programs on cable & far too few have read the post-war Strategic Bombing Survey (or even the many excellent published works by historians how HAVE read the Survey).
Overall, it is a rather unfortunate demonstration of how poorly history is taught in grade and secondary school.
It is very true that the Japanese were prepared to throw everything they had in the envelope at the American landing on Kyushu, what is often overlooked is exactly what was IN the envelope. There is a tendency to transfer the abilities of the U.S. circa 1942 or of at least the 1943 IJA/N to the forces arrayed against Operation Downfall. The fact that the Japanese were preparing to send 1,800 Kamakazis is remembered, the fact that almost of them were primary trainers or old biplanes that would be hard pressed to make it out to the invasion fleet is forgotten. The fact that the Japanese were conducting Civil Defense drills where they were training militia with bamboo spears is remembered, the fact that the IJA command had accepted that there was no hope of defending Honshu once Kyushu fell is ignored, as is the fact that Japan was months from mass starvation. Too many people watch the quasi-history programs on cable & far too few have read the post-war Strategic Bombing Survey (or even the many excellent published works by historians how HAVE read the Survey).
Overall, it is a rather unfortunate demonstration of how poorly history is taught in grade and secondary school.
CalBear: problem with the history education at primary school and on the secondary level is (at least here where I live) that most of the education is focused on memorizing facts, it's like: Germany was bad, and they kicked French and Anglos, until US came there and kick all assess. Little about African Campaign. then there was Pearl Harbor, snekay Japs sink American ships, but America wins at Midway, then hop hop through Normandy, Stalingrad and Pacific island campaigns to Berling and Hiroshima. it's in like two or three HOURS you are taught the history of WW2. Cause is, in grade, you start from the very ancient man and hurry inf some three years, one hour each week, to ww2. Then at secondary, the process is repeated with same effects and same scheme. Oh and one hour of our national WW2 part us beign the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and resistance and liberation etc. Never make it past ww2 if I wasn't into history myself
Hardly. Detailed history, like Operation Downfall, is just as much a specialized subject as medicine or chemistry or any of a number of other subjects. Once you've got a firm grounding in the basics, there's no reason to do further research unless that's the field you're interested in. A teacher doing in-depth coverage of Downfall in grade school isn't helping his students. It's not a subject that will help them decide their future careers.
History is such an immense subject that teaching it in any depth in grade school is impossible. Not until someone starts to get into college/university would I expect a student to have in-depth knowledge of a particular historical event, especially something as esoteric as Downfall.