Why didn't they attack Russia? Did they fear the alcoholic warrior?

Well the Manchurian Armies were nothing but men and rifles against must more armed Russians. If the Japanese military had come to their rescue then chances of actually beating the Russians were high but obviously they would need to shelve that southern plan and kiss invading Australia goodbye.

They feared the logistics warrior

I don't Japan ever intended to invade Australia, Australia would be as much a nightmare as Siberia since it's just mostly empty especially back then.

Unlike Russia, Australia's important cities are on the coast. The pacific was split through the hemispheres after WWI between Japan, and UK. Don't see why they wouldn't take Australia

Yea but that was their co-prosperity sphere, and it was far more likely than some Siberian invasion. I mean both are horrible terrain but atleast the Austrialian invasion you could avoid traveling through the north by simply landing invasions in the south.

Not him, but you'll never get to invade the south without securing the Solomons, trying to move a bunch of transport and cargo ship through them when they're under British control is going to be a nightmare. I mean, maybe they wanted it at some point in the far future, but they never had a practicable plan in the timezone of the actual war.

They could have captured the mostly undefended coast line and just worked their way down the right or left side while using the ports to store Japanese supply and troops. But regardless the Australian invasion would have been by sea and far more likely considering it was the Japanese main turf. A Siberian war for Japanese troops would have been a massacre.

Don't be stupid. First off, they'd be sailing around or through British held positions, with lots of space for land based airplanes. Assuming they're not spotted and the fleet carrying these troops isn't mauled en route, they'd have to make landfall somewhere. I dunno, say they overrun Brisbane in mid 1942. The Australians have over 5 divisions in Australia, and you're going to need a very large force to hope to advance once they converge on your landing zone. And a very large force is going to need supplies in order to keep going, which means regular cargo runs through contested waters past islands that the British control.

It is every bit as sucidally impossible as invading Siberia, just on a smaller scale.

literally this

They tried some border clashes, got BTFO, then said "sumimasen" and went on to pick fights with countries they could actually take out. Balance of power would've been more in their favor after Barbarossa but they had all the fronts they could handle at that point.

They got beaten by the alcoholic warrior, and then decided to go after the rubber and oil warriors instead.

The general staff officers were just too incompetent to make a good operative plan and unwilling to give up internal relentlessness.
The Japanese had millions of people as servants for the aristocracy or small-job workers, they could have been mobilized to produce weapons for the army, who desperately required such.

I believe if the Imperial Army tried to get knowledge of how to produce and use Anti-tank equipment from Germany,France and Italy, they could have produced masses of it and give it to the infantry, who then could've competed with the Soviet tank masses. Artillery of course should've also been largely produced.
But, I am curious about what they would've done about the winter in Siberia and Mongolia.

fpbp. it could've been done with appropriate resources going towards it, but was not worth it at all. maybe if there was better cooperation with germany but that obviously didn't happen. the southern doctrine was much more viable, well until the US got involved at least.

>hey Hirohito, you know how we're massively overstretched in china and it's basically a nightmare we can't wake up from?
>yes Tojo
>let's start another one of those but in Siberia

but they did and got BTFO

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Khalkhin_Gol

Holy shit. Was the USSR GOAT? Nothing actually ever defeated it militarily.

Nope, it would just be fighting over railroads, landroutes&towns and scouting where enemy positions in the Mongolian plains are, with air forces.
Then getting everything prepared for winter and fighting skirmishes with snipers etc.

There is nothing more than that left to care about, the Navy could have fun with bombing Vladivostok. The Soviets do not have their main industry and agriculture at least within 500km reach, so massing grunts from Ukraine is not an option.

They needed oil and there was barely any oil in Siberia in 1930/40s.

The (like everybody) did fear the Afghan warrior.