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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   2194 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 5, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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It's always irresponsible and silly, but does anyone have a link to a good counterfactual analysis of the WWII decisions of the Axis powers circa Pearl Harbor?

I'm working my way through The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and I was fascinated by the diplomatic dance between Germany and Japan around the entry of America into the war. Germany wanted Japan to attack the Soviets, while the the Japanese wanted the Germans to declare war on the Americans if Japan did. Ultimately, the Japanese got what they wanted and the Germans didn't, and they both got it good and hard from America (while the Soviets and their clients contributed nothing to their putative allies).

I'm curious to read a well reasoned hypothetical of what would have happened in the alternate cases, if Japan had declared war on Russia as well as or instead of declaring war on the United States. What would the balance of forces have looked like? Would Japanese forces have been capable of inflicting significant damage on Russia, or was nothing particularly useful coming out of the Russian far east anyway?

Or if Hitler had refrained from declaring war on the United States, which he was never obligated by treaty to do (and it isn't like Hitler ever cared about treaties anyway), how would the rest of the war have played out? Would FDR and his internationalist clique ultimately have succeeded in pushing the US into open war with the Nazis anyway? Would that have taken long enough, say until 1943, that it would have altered the outcome of important events on the European Continent?

Rising Sun Victorious (edited by Peter Tsouras) is a collection of brief scenarios presented in a nonfiction, history-book style. In the book's first story, Hokushin (written by Tsouras himself):

  • In March 1941, when Japanese diplomat Matsuoka Yousuke visits Germany, Hitler requests (more frankly and formally than in OTL) that Japan attack the USSR. This settles Japan's "hokushin or nanshin" debate in favor of a northern attack in cooperation with Operation Barbarossa.

  • The Soviet spies in Japan and the codebreaking Americans warn Stalin of the impending attack, but he ignores the warnings in the east just as he does in the west. In April 1941 (rather than in October as in OTL), the head Soviet spy in Japan, Richard Sorge, is discovered, and (rather than being exposed and executed as in OTL) is forced to feed to the Soviets false information that Japan is not planning to attack. After Germany attacks in June, this false information leads Stalin to move most of the Soviet troops in Siberia from the east to the west.

  • In August (6.5 weeks after Operation Barbarossa), Yamashita Tomoyuki's 1.3 million Japanese troops invade the USSR. Iosif Apanasenko's skeleton garrison of conscripts and gulag prisoners is beaten without too much trouble. Voroshilov (now Ussuriysk) surrenders in September, after four weeks of battle. With the forces that were transferred from Siberia exhausted in the first battles rather than being kept in reserve, in October Germany takes Moscow and Stalin flees to Kuybyshev (now Samara) along with the rest of the Soviet government. In December, the Soviet government collapses (with Stalin disappearing mysteriously), and Khabarovsk falls, but Apanasenko continues to defend against Japan from Blagoveshchensk.

  • In March 1942, the reconstituted Russian Eurasian Federation signs the Treaty of Manila (mediated by the United States), ceding to Japan "the Maritime Province", over which Genrikh Lyushkov serves as governor (until he is executed for treasonously trying to reunite it with Russia). The Allies agree to let Japan (1) conquer the Dutch East Indies and French Indochina and (2) freely import tin and rubber from British Malaya, as long as Japan refrains from attacking Malaya and the American Philippines. Britain repels Operation Sea Lion in the summer of 1942.

I think you have to consider what was happening in Japan, I don't think what Hitler did or thought affected this much at all. They lost decisively at Khalkhin Dol in '39, which lead to them focusing on going south instead of into Russia. If they had won or drawn there they might have chosen to go north instead of south.

Or maybe what if they just went into Russia rather getting bogged down in China and subsequently getting into a war with the entire west? If that happened it's harder to see the US cutting them off from oil and the USSR would likely have been fucked. The Chinese communists would likely also have lost the civil war and we might have had a second massive war after ww2 between an aggressive nationalist Japan and an aggressive nationalist China.

It would have been a very different world.

Would Japanese forces have been capable of inflicting significant damage on Russia, or was nothing particularly useful coming out of the Russian far east anyway?

Well known the troops that won the battle of Moscow were experienced divisions from Siberia sent west. Japan's largest army was there, 700k men. Due to Richard Sorge's intelligence, Soviets were able to lower the troop strength there because Japan wasn't likely to attack unless Soviet army there was comparatively very weak.

Had Japan decided to attack Soviets there in late '41 or '42 it might have led to serious problems for Soviets, who did not have a comfortable superiority at the time..

Not sure how well Japanese industry would've been able to cope with the strain of supplying both the naval and the land theater though.

Well known the troops that won the battle of Moscow were experienced divisions from Siberia sent west. Japan's largest army was there, 700k men.

Not quite. The German offensive was ground to a halt by European troops and whatever local reserves everyone could scramble, Asian troops were used to reinforce the counteroffensive that pushed the Germans away from Moscow. Without them the battle would still have been won, but the USSR would've spent 1942 in deep defense, mobilizing additional divisions instead of planning any counteroffensives.

Without them the battle would still have been won,

You mean the war. Probably, but there's way more factors. USSR got a lot of supplies through Vladivostok. Japan could've cut that.

Germans weren't a spent force in 1942 yet. Maybe they'd have fared better had they not been forced to retreat in winter.. However, it doesn't seem that many divisions were transferred, only like ~22 or so in total.

https://www.operationbarbarossa.net/the-siberian-divisions-and-the-battle-for-moscow-in-1941-42/#top2

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