WI: Soviet Union loses the Battle of Khalkin Gol

Not talking that railroad lines are not particularly easy to cut from air and it is even harder to make them stay cut.

Quite difficult to severe rail networks with air attack when these networks are in the middle of heavily populated Europe. Easier to severe an individual line. Especially one that runs through thousands of miles brutal terrain with any number of bridges and forests for sappers to hide in. Have you seen the TSRR? It's thousand of miles of track in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by forest where any number of enemy troops can hide.
 
After air superiority was achieved, the air force (there is no specific distinction between army and navy elements at this point, though coming from an Army monograph it's likely this refers to the IJAAF) would go over to tactical support of the advancing ground troops both through direct attacks on Soviet positions and sorties against lines of communication, of which the Trans-Siberian railway was included as a specific objective. In addition to attacks by aircraft, gunboat raids, sappers, and long-range artillery fire were also listed as means of disrupting Soviet supply lines over the railway before the majority of it's length could be physically occupied by the IJA.

Sounds about right, with the addition that under the doctrine used in the Southern offensive it was IJN air forces that were used on long range missions, IJA aircraft for ground support. IJN aircraft numbers would certainly be more than 350 in any 1942 scenario, as 1st Air Fleet alone was that total in April 1942, not inclusive of land based elements.
 

Deleted member 1487

I came across this when doing some research on the Soviet purges:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13518049808430361
It has very detailed information about the state of the Soviet far East forces from Coox in 1938 from the defecting head of the NKVD in the region, Lyushkov. If true then Soviet Far East Forces were a horrific mess. Much worse than I would have thought.
A sample:
In the Soviet Far East there were some 5,000 trucks, mainly of the three-

ton and 1'/2-ton type. Approximately 4,000 were assigned to prisoner

86
camps, whose population Lyushkov now revealed: in the Ban camp -

275,000 prisoners; in Dal - 80,000 to 90,000; in Ushestroi - 40,000; in Raichkai - 8,000. A further number of prisoners were located at the construction camp at Nagaevo. Three more camps were planned for timber- cutting work..

The army trucks wore out quickly because of the low level of skill of most of the drivers, the abuse of engines, and the lack of repair and maintenance. As many as 40 per cent of the trucks were customarily out of service due to the scarcity of rubber and the poor quality of what there was (especially of the tubes), and the lack of fuel and spare parts. At the end of

1937 and the beginning of 1938, about 60 per cent of the transportation was out of action and practically all the rubber and fuel from mobilization stock had been expended.
 
Still can't argue with the OTL results, with the IJA decisively losing the logistics battle.
Makes one wonder on the service rate in the IJA
 

Deleted member 1487

Still can't argue with the OTL results, with the IJA decisively losing the logistics battle.
Makes one wonder on the service rate in the IJA
All you have to do is plan on starting a war your enemy doesn't want and you can escalate far beyond what they're willing to commit.

Interestingly at the end of the article Coox says that Lyushkov helped contribute to the loss at Nomonhan because the Japanese knew how bad off the Soviet forces in the Far East war, so they thought that any border engagement would be against what the Soviets had locally; they were not planning on Stalin sending a special army group and thousands of trucks from European Russia to fight a limited border battle.
 
Re-read the thread and while the OP which boils down to the question of;
But what if the Soviet Union somehow lost the Battle of Khalkin Gol?

The main "question" is of goals and policy, not so much logistics and numbers. (Important though they be they are in fact a 'secondary' consideration when the REAL question is if either side actually WANTS a war, which for actually pretty similar reasons they did not)

In the main Tokyo didn't want to start a real 'war' with the USSR, probably more so to avoid giving the Kwangtung Army anymore power/support than absolutely necessary as it was a given they'd run with it to their own ends rather than follow Tokyo policy. On the other side the USSR was looking to give the Japanese, (and specifically the Kwangtung Army) a nice "punch-in-the-nose" blow to 'settle' this frontier issue so they can concentrate on the more "important" European front.

OTL the Kwangtung Army nicely set itself up for the blow by ignoring intelligence and underestimating the Soviets willingness to escalate the conflict short of war.

Now suppose for a moment that the Kwangtung Army gets some clues and instead at least takes them more seriously. (NOTE this does not change the political positions, just the "on-the-ground" situation) So that the situation more closely resembles Bob-The-Barbarian/Wiking's scenario.

Suddenly Zhukov is no longer enjoying a tactical 'advantage' on par with OTL and the much more likely outcome that will not be what Stalin has ordained. We assume he has two brain cells to rub together so he would obviously kick the information up the chain to Stalin. (OTL that's what happened when Zhukov initially requested the 'reinforcements' OTL that he used in his offensive)
Stalin now has two choices;
1) Commit more forces to the area which will obviously require they be drawn from resources planned to be committed to "other" upcoming operations. (Poland/Finland)

2) Tell Zhukov to proceed with the forces he has which invariably is a 'win-or-die' situation and "hope" this will still bring the Japanese to the negating table willing to accept and enforce a stalemate on the Kwangtung Army.

Note that "history" has shown that nothing short of a decisive and overwhelming 'defeat' will force the Kwangtung Army to actually abide by such a political agreement so any 'ambiguous' outcome is counter-productive. Japan is unclear at this point that if actually 'war' breaks out if they can either count on German aid or even IF Germany can provide any real assistance. Neither can the USSR prosecute a 'war' at this point due to planned overextension that as we know OTL does not go as planned. Stalin of course can't "know" this but it was quite obvious he'd already committed the most resources he COULD commit to the theater without taking resources from his other planned offenses.

The question isn't who 'wins' now but if the conflict even takes place as we know it OTL as neither side now has the 'advantage' enough to guarantee a 'clear' decision.

(Note the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact wasn't signed until AFTER communications from Khalkhin Gol indicated that the Japanese were losing, badly. With a less clear outcome around the same time frame it would seem MORE likely that Stalin would jump on the Pact to assure German non-interference if he has to commit more forces to against Japan at some point. Keeping in mind that Europe will always be the 'main' theatre of attention. However, given a 'less clear' outcome in August of 1939 how tempting would Stalin find it to consider building up forces for a "more favorable outcome" campaign say in late 1940, or early/mid-1941?)

Zhukov has to do "something" obviously and keeping in mind his 'reinforcements' have been 'cherry-picked' from the whole Red Army and it's likely the Soviet forces can still use their tactical mobility, and better logistics to generate a positive outcome but at a higher cost, and probably far less 'clearly' an overwhelming victory as OTL. Or he could be told to simply 'keep the lid on' things while the situation in Europe is resolved. (Then it becomes a question of how long can the Kwangtung Army continue to support the forces concentrated in that area and/or how long before the local commander jumps off on his own again)

Further Khalkhin Gol OTL was a "proof of concept" run for the tactics and organization he used later against Germany.

Randy
 
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