>Nazi Germany: "Japan my son, the year is 1941 and you can either invade the USSR creating up a second front and ensuring our victory in the war or attack a neutral superpower that will certainly be the end of both of us if enters the war, which do you pick?
>A little while later (pic related)
One question. Why?
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meant to post this. oh well ill try again another time
Because
A) It wouldn't ensure anyone's victory, as the ability of Japan to effectively hurt the USSR was almost nil, especially after the oil embargo.
B) Japan, for some reason that is hard to fathom, wanted to pursue its own national interests rather than being a vehicle for the pursuit of German ones, and was not entirely interested in owning acres of frozen tundra with no oil (that they knew about at the time and was their major strategic bottleneck).
C) War with the U.S. would primarily be using naval and air assets, which were in relatively good shape. Opening up a second land war while you've already got a stalemate in China on your hands stretches the army too thin while your navy boys sit around and fuck each other in the ass.
>be Germany
>have a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union
>establish the Axis but never tell your allies you're going to break the non-aggression pact later
>be butthurt Italy and Japan don't follow up with your retardation
>waaah why didn't Japan and Italy just do everything we wanted and do it perfectly
t. Fritz
Didn't the US fuck with their oil and their presence in the SCS area?
>Why
Allow me to explain why
>Japan attacks Soviets
>Soviets use that fuckhuge reserve they've built in the East that is far larger than anything Japan has
>Japan fails to invade Outer Manchuria and probably even loses Manchuria proper
>What's left of the Japanese economy implodes because the resources they would have gained from the Southern Thrust (albeit temporarily) are unavailable to them
There was no real reason for Japan to invade the Soviets and war between Japan and the Soviets spelled certain doom. Everyone knew this. Attacking the United States gave Japan a chance, no matter how slim, for victory.
Japan been there before and didn't like it
>Oh hey you know those guys that pushed your shit in at Khalkhin Gol?
>yeah go fight them I'm sure you'll be fine
>besides you'll get a whole bunch of shitty tundra and desert if you win
Came here to post this.
The U.S. embargoed oil, and convinced the Dutch (Who at the time held Indonesia as a colony and was pretty much the only major source of oil in the Pacific at the time) to do the same.
Pre-war, they didn't do anything with the South China Sea directly. Once war began they started raiding as soon as it was within reach, of course.
1. There was literally no coordination between Japan and Germany. Japan was as surprised as anyone else when Barbarossa happened.
2. The Japanese were paranoid about the Soviet military ever since Kalkyn Gol (that battle has lots of spellings).
3. Japan viewed a war with America kind of like the Russo-Japanese War or the First Sino-Japanese War: that they could defeat a larger continental power via a quick strike to their navy (see Pearl Harbor).
4. FDR was an idiot and reduced troop levels in the Philippines.
There are other reasons, but those 4 give a good start.
Don't forget the Oil Embargos
The point is creating a second front. Even if they don't win every battle the USSR has to bring vital troops across the entire country when they can't spare to.
>you know this thing that has a cost to you and no benefit to you?
>why don't you just do that?
>4. FDR was an idiot and reduced troop levels in the Philippines.
uwotm8? One of the reasons that MacArthur threw out War Plan Orange is that it assumed there would be 2 divisions of troops in the Philippines, and he had a hell of a lot more than that. Mostly locals, to be sure, but they still take up space and have rifles.
1) Why should Japan throw itself on a sword to help Germany out?
2) The Soviets had roughly a million men in the Far East even post German invasion. It's hugely unlikely that any force the Japanese can muster would force them to divert troops away from the main front, and strategically, it would be dumb as hell for the Soviets to do so, trying to save a toe when they have an enemy striking at their heart.
Hell, if things get really bad, they can abandon eastern Siberia entirely, defend along the railroad, and need fewer troops, not more, since their perimeter has shrunk.
Yeah, and from the Japanese point of view, 'why fight somebody that already beat you with minimal reward that not only doesn't help the current oil shortage, but risks destroying what few supplies you have?' There was no incentive for Japan to even bother opening up a front with the USSR (and Mongolia), especially with China still kicking.
Thanks bud.
Looks like the Japanese actually did well in destroying armor at Khykin Gol though.
>One question. Why?
You're in luck, there's a massive new well-cited Wikipedia article on the subject:
en.wikipedia.org
tl;dr
1. Germany didn't tell Japan about their plan at all; Japan still thought that the policy was neutrality, and in fact they were initially offended by the German-Soviet neutrality pack because the Japan-Germany alliance was initially an Anti-Comintern Pact. If Germany had been open, the Strike North faction very well could have gained more power.
2. The United States had cut off exports of oil and scrap metal to Japan over their aggressive policy in China and Indochina. Without US imports Japan would run out of oil in a few months; thus, invading the Dutch East Indies was required in the event of any war. But Japan also erroneously assumed that war with the Dutch meant war with the Americans; so they devoted all their resources towards that, not war with the USSR.
3. By the time Japan had enough resources to convincingly pull off Kantokuen (they took a while to transition to a full war economy) while at the same time continuing operations in China, Southeast Asia, and against the USA, Germany had already floundered against the USSR and the USA had begun to send significant forces and aid to Europe. They figured that defeating the USSR in the Far East would be a pointless waste if Germany couldn't also decisively knock out the Soviets in Europe, which was looking very unlikely.
4. The Japanese, for the most part, genuinely believed in their neutrality pact with the Soviets.
>. But Japan also erroneously assumed that war with the Dutch meant war with the Americans
That's not necessarily an erroneous assumption, user. The U.S. was getting progressively fed up with Japan, and the last time they went after a dispossessed European country's colonies, well, that got them the embargo in the first place.
a few key factors into it.
the biggest one, Germany never informed Japan about Barbarossa, Tojo was taken by surprise just as much as everyone else when the invasion happened.
If you read the OKW's Basic Order # 24 Regarding Collaboration with Japan; you reach point 5:
"5. The Japanese must not be given any intimation of the Barbarossa operations.[52]"
in fact; Germany wanted Japan to focus on the South Pacific to take colonies away from Britain, here's a quote from Kriegsmarine Admiral Erich Reader:
Japan must take steps to seize Singapore as soon as possible, since the opportunity will never again be as favorable (tie-up of the whole English Meet; unpreparedness of U.S.A. for war against Japan; inferiority of the United States Pacific Fleet in comparison with the Japanese). Japan is indeed making preparations for this action; but according to all declarations made by Japanese officers, she will only carry it out if Germany proceeds to land in England. Germany must, therefore, concentrate all her efforts on spurring Japan to act immediately. If Japan has Singapore, all other East Asiatic questions regarding the U.S.A. and England are thereby solved (Guam, Philippines, Borneo, Dutch East Indies). Japan wishes, if possible, to avoid war against the U.S.A. She can do so if she determinedly takes Singapore as soon as possible.
—Adm. Erich Reader (18 March 1941)[53]
The other factors included lack of Japanese interest in Siberia and the inability to occupy it all, as Japan's Army had their hands full keeping China tied down, they last thing they needed was to fight another military titan.
last reason is the battle of Khalkhin Gol, Japan already knew that their forces were not prepared to fight the Red Army, and a Soviet invasion supported with a Chinese counterattack would risk the entire collapse of Japan's presence in Manchuria and China.
However the Soviets had a better supply and could afford to take such losses since they could just build more, but Japan was much more strapped for materials and could not afford such high losses.
The opinions of both the Japanese AND the Soviets was that the Far Eastern Front would get their shit pushed in by the Kwantung Army in the event of a full war. And with good reason; the Far Eastern Front in 1939 was much better than it was in 1941 per man, and even then it still suffered grievously disproportionate casualties against a far outnumbered Japanese force at Khalkin Gol. Where political considerations also meant that the Soviets pretty much always held the initiative.
With numerical parity, after a drop in quality, spread out along three major axis with little way to coordinate? The Soviets would've been annihilated. Keep in mind that in 1941 the Soviets were routinely losing entire mechanized divisions to encirclement operations by light infantry. Not even just the Germans, but the Finns and Italians too.
Considering isolationist attitudes at the time and also attitudes towards the Western empires, it seems very unlikely that the Americans would tolerate their husbands and fathers dying by the hundreds of thousands just to protect European colonialism. Popular opinion was still very much against war when Japan invaded the French colonies, and the USA liked France a lot more than the Netherlands.
War Plan Orange actually noted this; it started with the assumption of the Japanese declaring war on the USA and attacking the Philippines, an optimistic one compared to them doing nothing and the USA being the aggressor. But even in those circumstances the plan noted that its main obstacle was getting the US population to agree to what was envisioned as a long slog in the first place. Pearl Harbor handily solved this issue.
They couldn't do shit without resources like oil which they could no longer import. They had to make a decision fast: either accept US demands or take what they needed by force and escalate the war to include the Allied powers, and Japan chose the latter. They knew war with America was now inevitable, so they planned to begin the war in the way most favorable to them by striking the Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor.
>Finns and Italians
>Italians
They didn't do anything in Russia at all either. The king of Italy was already saying "Fuck, why did Mussolini have to ally with these retards. They're going to doom our country". And you know what happens next.
>the King of Italy was wondering why Italy allied with a bunch of retards
And here we thought it was Italy that was the retard in the war.
>They didn't do anything in Russia at all either.
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
>In its early encounters it was successful, taking a number of towns and cities and creating a favourable impression on its German allies.[3] Its most notable early victory came at the Battle of Petrikowka in September 1941, where the Italians encircled some sizable Red Army units, inflicting unknown combat casualties on them and capturing over 10,000 prisoners of war as well as significant numbers of weapons and horses.[4] This cost them only 291 casualties of their own: 87 killed, 190 wounded, and 14 missing.[5] On October 20, the CSIR together with the German XXXXIX Mountain Corps captured the major industrial center of Stalino (now Donetsk) after heavy resistance from the Soviet defenders. Units from the Pasubio Motorized Division captured the neighboring city of Gorlovka on November 2. While the CSIR did not participate in the siege of Odessa, Italian troops assisted in the occupation of the Odessa area after the city fell on 16 October 1941.[6]
>With the onset of winter, the CSIR units began consolidating their occupation zone and preparing defensive works. In the last week of December, the 3rd Mobile Division was hit with a fierce counterattack by Soviet forces. They managed to beat back the attacks long enough for the German 1st Panzer Army to provide back-up to their sector and subsequently defeat the Soviet offensive. The "Christmas Battle" was hailed as a great victory back in Italy, though the division likely would have fallen without German support. It subsequently weathered the 1941-1942 winter quite well in its relatively quiet occupation zone.[7]
Reminder that Germany betrayed Italy first. They declared war almost a decade earlier than agreed. Italy entered the war extremely unprepared with shitty equipment from WW1.
>WWII starting in 49 instead of 39
I wonder what it would look like?
Germany was rather happy about the Japanese DoW on the US.
No they weren't. Hitler was absolutely ecstatic.
I am not so sure that Japan would have kicked the soviets teeth in BUT far more important is the changed political and logistical/economical situation.
Stalin has to supply another front. This means a shitton of logistical capacity is needed for the far east. This makes a soviet winter offensive unlikely. And casualties in man and material would have to be replaced in the far east. If the Japs would be even moderately successful (destroying the equivalent of 1-3 armies) the soviets would lack critical troops at some point on the western front with germany.
Germany didn't expect the perfidious *nglo to be so bloodthirsty and declare war on them for no good reason. blame the *nglo not Germany
The same but everyone older.
t. Otto Von Fritzenburg
> “If the Japanese enter the war on Hitler’s side… our cause is hopeless.”
-General A. K. Kazakovtsev, Operations Chief, Far Eastern Front
Then again Stalin could've just totally ceded the Far East and relied on the massive expanse of Siberia to keep that front out of the picture. It's not like the Far East is something they couldn't go without. Lend-Lease would arrive much less efficiently without Vladivotsk though.
>Then again Stalin could've just totally ceded the Far East and relied on the massive expanse of Siberia to keep that front out of the picture.
Nah he honestly would have to spare at least some troops. Otherwise the japs would just slowly creep further and further along the transsiberian railway. And there is always the political dimension. Fully ceding one front just isn't a viable choice.
why don't you tell us why Kazakovtsev said that instead of taking his word for it?
That wouldn't solve the problem of the oil embargo.
>Invade far eastern Russia
>invasion going more or less succesfully
>b-baka we've run out of oil
>????????
>profit
They were doing alright until Midway. Hadn't they fuck up in that battle, it may have resulted in USA losing the war in the Pacific.
Even ignoring a possible US response (and dealing with later if it happens and USA declares war first, without being attacked) and just going after SE Asia would still be a better option than going to war with the Soviet Union.
>Hadn't they fuck up in that battle, it may have resulted in USA losing the war in the Pacific.
Are you retarded? You sound retarded. When your enemy is building eight carriers for every one that you're building (and more modern and better designed to boot), the war is not going to suddenly turn around because you managed to avoid losing a battle catastrophically that actually wouldn't involve the Americans taking open offensive against your island bases for a year and a halfish after it anyway.
>That wouldn't solve the problem of the oil embargo.
That's what the East Indies are for. They can do both Kantokuen and the assault on the East Indies, just beating the hell out of the Dutch was easy and required a fraction of the resources they used for the while Centrifugal Offensive.
>They were doing alright until Midway. Hadn't they fuck up in that battle, it may have resulted in USA losing the war in the Pacific.
No, it never would have. The US was always going to this war against Japan. Pearl Harbor's perfidy made sure of that.
Considering how ill equipped the IJA was I don't know how much they would have been able to do. I guess if they were a big enough distraction maybe it could work.
Why would the Japanese need oil that badly? just walk or ride bikes. You mostly just need to keep them preoccupied.
For little, unimportant things like powering their factories, or fueling their ships that carry everything to and from Japan.
>Considering how ill equipped the IJA was I don't know how much they would have been able to do
This is a myth. The IJA was as well-equipped as any other army from 1939 to 1942, it's only after that point that they really started to fall behind due to the navy hogging most of the budget. Even after that point they had some good gear. In particular the Americans always praised their light artillery.
The Kwantung Army circa June 1941 had the same truck to man ratio as the Soviets did when they stormed Berlin.
Were those carriers ready? Cause it seems to me there were only 3 carriers available at the time for the entire Pacific.
So how would the defense of Hawaii go without carriers? And after that, how would the defense of the west coast go without carriers? Surely the japanese wouldn't think of dispatching carrier fleets to bomb the fuck out of those nice ports and shipyards building all those nice carriers...
>So how would the defense of Hawaii go without carriers?
Easily, since it was host to several hundred land based planes (on average, larger, faster, and better armed than carrier planes) and was essentially invulnerable to the entire massed IJN.
> And after that, how would the defense of the west coast go without carriers?
Even more easily, you idiot, since there could literally be tens of thousands of planes guarding the coasts.
>Surely the japanese wouldn't think of dispatching carrier fleets to bomb the fuck out of those nice ports and shipyards building all those nice carriers...
No, because as stupid as the Japanese were ,even they weren't so blitheringly retarded as to think they could destroy literally dozens of ports with tiny CVP, when putting even one out of commission often took half the Bomber Command and thier massive numbers of 4 engine bombers, each of which could carry 5-10 times the bomb load of something like a Kate.
Which is of course completely irrelevant anyway, since most of the carriers were built on the east coast, where the Japanese were completely unable to reach.
Japan never had the capacity to go on the offensive towards a target like Hawaii, which is why they never tried, even well before something like Midway. Please kill yourself, or at least try to think before you post such tremendous idiocy.
>So how would the defense of Hawaii go without carriers? And after that, how would the defense of the west coast go without carriers? Surely the japanese wouldn't think of dispatching carrier fleets to bomb the fuck out of those nice ports and shipyards building all those nice carriers.
Hawaii has an airbase.
Carriers for the US were built at the East coast. So that's not a problem.
The IJN could not bomb the east coast with what they had even if they wanted to.
Drop some bombs on the Panama canal. Just saying.
The Panama canal is about 14,000 km from your closest carrier base on Truk. If you send your carriers out there, you won't have enough fuel to make it back.
They built airbases there too.
The USSR wouldn't have had to bring anything across to beat the shit out of the Japanese. They maintained a massive force out there that was maintained at a large size throughout 1941.
>They didn't do anything in Russia at all either.
Kys reddit.
To the US Army it didn't matter if there were 20 divisions in the Philippines if only one was American. The Flip forces weren't ready for war and US forces were under-strength and colonial-tier.
>The opinions of both the Japanese AND the Soviets was that the Far Eastern Front would get their shit pushed in by the Kwantung Army in the event of a full war.
[citation needed]
Overall your post is one of the biggest loads of bullshit I've yet read on Veeky Forums.
>This is a myth.
It really isn't
WWII proved that embarked aviation > land based aviation, even in superior numbers. Without carriers to defend the islands, and with support of their own land based aviation in captured Midway, a well planned carrier strike on Hawaii is perfectly conceivable.
>[citation needed]
> “If the Japanese enter the war on Hitler’s side… our cause is hopeless.”
-General A. K. Kazakovtsev, Operations Chief, Far Eastern Front
>"In December 1943, when the American military mission proposed a logistics base be set up east of Lake Baikal, the Red Army authorities were shocked by the idea and literally turned white."
-Alvin D. Coox, “The Myth of the Kwantung Army,” Marine Corps Gazette, 42, no. 7 (July 1958), pp.43
>your post is one of the biggest loads of bullshit I've yet read
Silly tankie, that's not what an argument looks like.
You do realize that Germany crushed France in 1940 using mostly Panzer Is and Panzer IIs and horse-dependent logistics, right?
>Hell, if things get really bad, they can abandon eastern Siberia entirely, defend along the railroad, and need fewer troops, not more, since their perimeter has shrunk.
Or just blow up the railroad.
What are the Japs going to do? Walk across Siberia?
Realistically, a Japanese intervention in the Russia war will involve them occupying the Far East and waiting for something to happen, a la the Civil War.
...
>WWII proved that embarked aviation > land based aviation,
What?
> even in superior numbers.
[citation seriously needed]
> Without carriers to defend the islands, and with support of their own land based aviation in captured Midway,
timeanddate.com
2,113 kilometers away.
en.wikipedia.org wiki/Mitsubishi_A6M_Zero
>Range: 3,104 km (1,675 nmi, 1,929 mi)
en.wikipedia.org
>Range: 1,992 km (1,075 NM, 1,237 mi)
Your primary bomber can't even reach, and your fighters are going to be making a 1 way trip. There is no land based support.
> a well planned carrier strike on Hawaii is perfectly conceivable.
You might be able to do a pinprick. Seriously, go look up things like how hard it was just to sink the Tirpitz, let alone destroy port facilities, with bombers that were colossally better at the task than torpedo bombers. The entire notion is insane.
>le mercator projection
Didn't they get megabutthurt because the US refused them passage through the panama canal?
>comparing an industrial powerhouse that was france to some backwater steppes
>Attacking the United States gave Japan a chance, no matter how slim, for victory
it really didn't
I'm failing to see how exactly Midway could not have been a defeat under any circumstances unless it was never attempted.
The Americans essentially did as close to an ambush as you can with a giant fleet of aircraft carriers due to their forewarning. Nagumo wasn't expecting them to be there because he expected taking Midway to be the bait to lure Fletcher out, not that Fletcher would already be in position to defend Midway when he showed up. Since the Japanese had fuck all for recon capabilities and radar, how exactly could he have turned it around?
Yamaguchi is usually called the "right" one because he said to take off immediately, but the problem was his planes would have no fighter escorts leaving them utterly defenceless. Those few Zeros that accompanied Hiryu's attack planes were critical, as their pilots were very good. Without those fighters, it is unlikely an attack from Soryu and Hiryu would have had any more success than Hiryu did itself, if that. In any case, Kaga, Akagi and Soryu were dead anyway, by the time they knew about the US carriers it was too late to avoid the American attack.
So best case scenario, maybe Hiryu isn't dead, but everything else I don't see how it could change.
There was oil, coal and iron.
en.m.wikipedia.org
That tundra did have a train line through it easing supply lines. Aircarft can go anywhere with a runway duh. Just build one. Problem was Nazis are racist and didnt see the utility of the Japanese and didnt tell the about Barborossa so on the way home from being told nothing the Japanese ambassador signed a non aggression pact with Moscow effectively releving every soldier east of the Urals. Fuck racists man
>If we made such great progress in a country with a well developed infrastructure, how much better will we fare in a land where the sole means of transporting and supplying our troops is a railroad which the Soviet will blow up.
>en.m.wikipedia.org
>Siberia’s contribution to the Soviet economy in percent of national output was given in Soviet statistical yearbooks for 1973 (1940 in brackets)
>(1.6%), Natural gas 8.5% (from 1.5% in 1950)
Did you not read that? They didn't know that Siberia was rich in oil and gas at the time. Even if they did they would have had to capture it from a superior land army before starting drilling operations, which would have taken a long time and been very vulnerable to sabotage/bombing.
>en.m.wikipedia.org
The oil wasn't discovered at that point.
ngm.nationalgeographic.com
> Aircarft can go anywhere with a runway duh.
Do you have any idea how much fuel, ammunition, and maintenance equipment a couple of hundred, nevermind more WW2 aircraft require? Sure, you can get the planes almost anywhere, but they don't do much good if they're just sitting there freezing and have no bombs. You need the rail line to supply the air forces.
>Japanese ambassador signed a non aggression pact with Moscow effectively releving every soldier east of the Urals.
Except that Soviet troop deployments in the Far East went UP, not down, between June and December 1941.
The option were already closed when they declared the war on China. Strengthening their presence on Manchuria and Korea, playing side with Chinese Warlords and funding anti-colonial sentiments in SEA are the best course of action for Nips. Unfortunately, just like Germany, Japan are too autistic to understand the art of diplomacy.
japan had irrational fear of the soviets. maybe it was the communism.
Japan wasn't exactly unified in action if memory serves. I think sects of the military were able to act almost of their own accord if they were strong enough.
Not OP, but quality post, ty
imagine an elbe river style meetup between germans and japanese in soviet union
Kamikaze.
Everybody hated and was scared of the Soviets, including the US and UK. I think the only reason the US wanted to get involved in the ETO was to ensure the commies didn't swallow all of Europe, since at that point Soviets were already gearing up to steamroll the Germans.
>There was literally no coordination between Japan and Germany.
They did cooperate when it came to helping to bury each other's dirty laundry. For example, Germany helped to cover up Japan's actions during the occupation of Nanking. John Rabe, a German industrialist who happened to be in China around that time, strongly denounced the atrocities that were occurring and even helped to protect Chinese civilians. Upon returning to Germany, he began to publicly call for the Nazis to withdraw support for Japan. He also wrote letters directly to Hitler, imploring him to use his diplomatic influence to dissuade Japan from further aggression.
Rabe had a brought a great deal of evidence with him. Besides his own diary notes, he had film strips which documented the atrocities in a detailed way. One night, he was grabbed by the Gestapo and interrogated. His business partners successfully protested against his arrest, and he was released, but his films were confiscated and he was forbidden to speak or write about what he had seen.
The opposite is true. Hitler was utterly thrilled when he heard about what his eastern allies had done. Hitler did not consider the USA to be a neutral power because they were supporting Britain through lend-lease. In fact, just prior to the attack, Germany had been working on an amendment to Tripartite Pact which stated that Germany, Italy, and Japan would each swear to engage in war against the United States if the US came into conflict with any of the Axis powers, even if the Axis member attacks first. When Hitler met with a Japanese ambassador on December 1941, he expressed very enthusiastic support for Japan.
>a couple quotes from wikipedia
>arguments
Meanwhile in reality the IJA lacked the logistics, fuel and manpower for such an undertaking. The Kwantung Army got its ass handed to it in every fight with the Red Army.
You do realize Germany had multiple regiments of said panzers and ALSO had 10x the trucks Japan had and a shorter logistics route, plus wasn't fighting an enemy experienced at kicking their ass the year before, right?
Well it's not like getting into a shooting war with China was something that the Japanese government decided to do, or actively pursued, the war was basically presented to them as a fait accompli by the military, and they had no other option than to accept it.