What the fuck did Japan contribute to the Axis in WW2?

What the fuck did Japan contribute to the Axis in WW2?

>do nothing but autistically fight China for 8 years
>muh indochina
>get shit on by the soviets in the only real engagement you have with them
>eventually become so assmad you intentionally bring the USA into the war two years earlier than they likely would have joined
>screw over your allies even more despite never coordinating with them in the first place

Why did Hitler even bother to ally with them? It was like the Italians but 100x worse, he'd have been better off without them. In fact he'd have been better off if his allies just stayed neutral the entire time.

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Got USA in the war couple months earlier had they not been part of axis.

Realistically the US was a major threat the entire time. Hitler wrote extensively about the threat the US posed.

He probably viewed Japan as a chance to neutralize/forestall the US (or at least the USSR, although Japan wisely avoided that front).

So many things went wrong it can only be explained with everything being orchestrated by a dark hand

I mean Japan never had a chance in hell at beating the US in a war. The best they could have done was to cripple and negate their fleet and hoped they left them alone after that. The US would have still been free to attack Germany if they so desired. I suppose the USA's war with Japan did take some manpower and resources, but its not as if they didn't have plenty to spare at the time. Also the Royal Navy pretty much had Germany on lock anyway.

They werent really allies
The germans did their own thing and so did the japs there was little to no cooperation between them

1. The USA was going to go to war with Germany either way. Hitler didn't need to declare war on December 11 1941 regardless of what Japan did, he did it under his own initiative. He did this because he predicted the US would take at least a year to get involved in the war in Europe (same thing happened in WW1) if not two, they'd already started to build up bit by bit since 1939, and because attacking them while they were at their weakest would be better than letting than be strong first. See:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Happy_Time

Note also the first time US troops fought German troops- Feb. 19 1943, at Kasserine Pass. The first time they made landfall in Europe was Sep. 3 1943. So Hitler was pretty justified to feel this way.

2. The Soviets did not fare very well in that battle against Japan actually, suffering grievously disproportionate losses against two green Japanese infantry divisions despite massive advantages in every area of materiel. These were some of the Soviets' best men too. In an actual peer conflict erupting in East Asia while they were busy in Europe, they would have been crushed. This never happened, partly because Hitler autistically never told Japan about his plans, but regardless the USSR still diverted a lot of troops to the Far East that could have potentially been used in Europe, just so Japan wouldn't try anything. It worked, and Japan never tried to attack after their golden opportunity of mid 1941 passed.

Per Glantz's "August Storm" paper, the Soviets had the following assets in the Far East on July 1, 1942: 1,446,012 troops, 11,759 artillery pieces, 2,589 tanks and self-propelled guns, and 3,178 combat aircraft. Most of these would have been fighting the desperate battle in Europe if Japan wasn't in Manchuria with a million men, two and a half thousand tanks, two thousand aircraft, and hostile posture. So they served that purpose at least.

cont.

3. The Brits at their peak had over a million men arrayed against Japan. It was like 60% Indian and African, but still. Throw in the Australians and you're reaching close to 1.5 million men in 1944 that were in the Pacific Theater instead of Europe, and all their tanks, artillery, aircraft, and supplies. The loss of Malaya, Burma, Singapore, and Hong Kong were also a big hit to the British war effort. Malaya was a major rubber producer, and Burma was a bread basket.

4. Up until 1944, the Americans had more resources in the Pacific Theater than the European one. The Pacific Theater was actually a very big drain on resources for the USA. That shipbuilding program was expensive. But even ignoring the massive US Navy, the US Army and Marines had ~2 million men in the Pacific Theater in mid 1944. Again, men who were not fighting the Germans in Europe.

So overall they were a useful ally. But both allies could have done much good had they actually cooperated. The Germans could have told Japan about their plans to attack the USSR, shared with them their ASW tactics, tutored them on U-boats and their simply effectiveness, etc.

>In an actual peer conflict erupting in East Asia while they were busy in Europe, they would have been crushed

I severely doubt this. Most of Japan's mainland forces were tied down in China with the occupation and the USSR had the advantage of having literally thousands of kilometers to fall back into without losing anything of crucial importance in the Far East. Khalkhin Gol showed that the USSR's forces in the Far East were no slouches and more than sufficient to hold their own against Japan.

>I severely doubt this. Most of Japan's mainland forces were tied down in China with the occupation

They still had enough men to bring themselves to numerical parity or superiority to the USSR in that region if they committed. See the Kantokuen plan. According to Coox's "Japan Against Russia", even after Japan had abandoned that plan in favor of fully focusing on the USA, they still had 767,000 troops and 2,000 tanks in Manchuria in 14 divisions in June 1941, facing a similar number of Soviets. A reduced version of Kantokuen floated for a while before being finally canceled in August called for bloating these numbers by about 40% (adding two new divisions from China and four from the Home Islands). The full Kantokuen (which Japan would need foreknowledge of Barbarossa to decide on and prepare) called for a near double, and would be ready near the end of 1941 when the USSR would have 1.1 million men to Japan's 1.4 million.

>the USSR had the advantage of having literally thousands of kilometers to fall back into without losing anything of crucial importance in the Far East.

1. The USSR's strategy was not to fall back thousands of kilometers, mostly because the majority of their Far Eastern divisions were static (which would probably mean many would be destroyed in the opening weeks of any conflict), but rather to fight. They fortified Vladivostok so much that it made Snolensk look like a collection of huts.

2. They'd have to fight for Vladivostok. It was basically the only thing of value in the Far East and a major port. 50% of Lend-Lease ended up coming through there for a reason.

>Khalkhin Gol showed

...that if 1/4 of all the USSR's mechanized forces in Asia attacks two newly-formed light infantry divisions, they could eventually grind them down after three months and 50% greater causalties. Plus nearly 10-1 losses in tanks and armored cars.