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Doortofreeside t1_j7lpkii wrote

The what if I'm particularly curious about is if the Japanese attacked the Soviets instead of Pearl Harbor

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Raging-Fuhry t1_j7miqyc wrote

They did attack the Soviets at Khalkin Gol.

The poorly equipped and led IJA (which had been stripped of a lot of funding and manpower by the IJN) got totally obliterated by Soviet far eastern forces.

Japan immediately brokered a ceasefire with the Soviets, which the USSR held until they invaded Manchuria and the Kurils in '45.

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OrangeSlimeSoda t1_j7mk91r wrote

The Japanese also simply didn't have the manufacturing base to create tank and anti-tank weaponry that could go toe-to-toe with the Soviets. The air forces performed well and the Soviets were unnerved by the ferocity of the Japanese infantrymen (even if they were less than impressed by Japanese army tactics), but Japan's logistical and manufacturing limitations meant that they simply could not succeed in a prolonged offensive against the Soviets on land.

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Raging-Fuhry t1_j7mmbsi wrote

It's worth noting that the VVS still lost less airmen than the IJA, and the otherwise outdated I-16 fighter was a good match against Japanese planes since it's light armament could still damage the lightly armoured IJA planes, and it was just as maneuverable.

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MrMoogyMan t1_j7lr0vc wrote

They had planned on it iirc but realized that they would be not have a strategically viable position because of their overextension and the threat from the US. I don't think it's easy to speculate what a IJA invasion of eastern USSR would look like. Would it take pressure off of Hitlers Wehrmacht? Or would it have pushed the US to strike first? The IJN surely would have been very upset about it, and had already thrown their weight around to get rid of Matsuoka in Jul 1941. Japanese military internal rivalry sabotaged a lot of strategic ground operations and planning. I think it would have been disastrous for Japan, regardless of the Soviet response.

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cliff99 t1_j7m7imu wrote

Plus attacking the Soviet Union wouldn't have done anything for one of their major problems, which was getting a reliable source of oil.

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[deleted] t1_j7mb9yu wrote

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MisterBadGuy159 t1_j7moygu wrote

There's an account that Admiral Yamamoto, who led the attack on Pearl Harbor, told his higher-ups that he could guarantee six months where he could actually take home victories, and if the war went on past that, they were screwed. Six months to the day after Pearl Harbor, Japan lost four fleet carriers at the battle of Midway.

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treetown1 t1_j7mp0ip wrote

They were working off of the Russo-Japanese war experience - where Tsarist Russia stopped fighting after Mukden and Tsushima.

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MrMoogyMan t1_j7mbl83 wrote

I agree. There are oil fields in eastern Russia but they weren't well developed then. They would have never been able to sustain an occupation of the territory in the USSR while holding the rest of their gains in China and SW Asia against the Allies. Maybe the US may have just entered the war on its own at that point. Roosevelt was certainly convinced that war was on the way, and prepared as well as he could for it. Pearl Harbor was basically a gift to the US government for public support against Japan.

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TheLateHenry t1_j7m34hx wrote

Yeah, the Japanese Army was stretched thin because of how big China is already, the Soviet Union would have been an impossibility for them to conquer much of.

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[deleted] t1_j7mf2l5 wrote

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OrangeSlimeSoda t1_j7mjsfp wrote

A lot of colonial subjects in Southeast Asia were cautiously optimistic about the Japanese invading and granting them independence, even if they were satellite states to the Japanese Empire. The quickly learned the unfortunate lesson that the Chinese and Koreans had learned in prior decades.

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ErrolFuckingFlynn t1_j7mkecr wrote

I'm very curious as to your reasoning on this. Being shitshow bastards to the Chinese was a pretty integral part of the reasoning behind invading China in the first place.

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SirJudasIscariot t1_j7ml7jp wrote

I highly doubt the Chinese would’ve willingly rolled over and accepted Japanese occupation. The Western colonial powers had been repeatedly humiliating them for a century, the British especially, pushing drugs on them so the British could sustain their local and national economy. The two Opium Wars were fought for this reason. And then Japan and China fight for Korea, which had always been in the Chinese sphere of influence, and when Japan won, the other nations began raping their country even more. The last Emperor lost his reign, a new leader became a tyrannical despot, warlords ruled the country and did their own thing, Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong had their political and military battles, and most of Eastern China was a war-torn or corrupt mess. The Japanese just stepped in and played whoever would let them have their territorial conquests. Would the Chinese accept Japanese rule? Only at gunpoint, and only because the Japanese were strong enough and terrible enough to enforce it. Most of the Japanese war crimes were committed in this country because they adopted Western ideas of racism and applied it to the Chinese. It’s a complicated situation, and those Chinese that bowed to Japan did so for power, wealth, security, or because they had no choice, and Japan brutally oppressed them anyways.

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Alexexy t1_j7muzly wrote

Japan could have assumed the centuries old imperial China bureaucratic structures, cut deals with warlords/the republic, and as long as they left the peasantry alone or at least let them do whatever they want i doubt they would have a mass uprising. It's not like the republic of China was a very popular political force among the peasantry either.

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Aanar t1_j7mlub3 wrote

Good point. Japan already had Manchuria set up as a puppet for themselves in 1936.

China got a lot of arms sent to them. If Japan hadn't been so ruthless, they probably would haven't been sent so many.

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Masterzjg t1_j7mq6gq wrote

You can't separate Japanese culture and society from the way they treated conquered peoples.

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Kaiser8414 t1_j7mlwmt wrote

Just because Poland keeps getting conquered doesn't mean they were rolling out the red carpet for Germany and Russia in 1939.

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Alexexy t1_j7mue1c wrote

Of course most people weren't gonna be ok with it, but the Japanese can probably assume the old diplomatic structures and most normal people would have been ok with whatever is going on unless affects their day to day lives.

But nope, they gotta rape women and bayonet babies.

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Vilrek t1_j7mujro wrote

I think the unspoken point was that China's history of being conquered was like, eventually they eclipse their conqueror/assimilate them anyway, such as the Mongols or Manchurians, though I don't think that would happen here, as those two were intent on incorporating China as a whole, while the Japanese mostly just wanted the resources/manpower, like India was to the UK, except a "bit" harsher

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treetown1 t1_j7mpbi7 wrote

Often times people forget this - but ironically computer wargames like Strategic Command World at War shows the massive comittment of troops and material to China and how it dwarfed the IJA committment elsewhere.

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TyroneLeinster t1_j7mt7q8 wrote

I think at best it would have sped up Russia’s capitulation had the Germans been more successful and pushed Stalin past the urals as he had anticipated. But given that the Wehrmacht stalled where it did, I don’t think a Japanese eastern front would have moved that needle significantly

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SirJudasIscariot t1_j7mib25 wrote

They did and it didn’t fare well for them. There’s a reason Southeast Asia was called the Southern Resource Area. Manchuria, Siberia, and parts of Mongolia were the Northern Resource Area. For seven years, sporadic conflicts and fighting broke out between the Soviets and the Japanese, and while the Soviets suffered more casualties, the Japanese were repeatedly defeated and had to sign a neutrality pact once they lost all the Soviet and Mongolian land they had taken. Nearly 60,000 people became casualties in this border conflict. It was also where Georgy Zhukov gained his first experience commanding large formations of troops in battle.

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Aanar t1_j7mkny9 wrote

I realize it's a game and not the most historically accurate, but I've been trying things in Hearts of Iron IV to help whet my imagination for "what if X did this instead?

If you play Japan, it's hard to put enough pressure on the Soviets if you go into Vladivostok into Siberia. There's just so little infrastructure and supply that there isn't a way to push quickly. A small enough army to not have supply issues, and it can't push. Big enough to push quickly or blitz and you quickly leave your supply lines behind.

There's also not a whole lot there that helps Japan and Japan really is hard pressed for resources, not just oil and rubber, but even just steel. Yes there is oil in Siberia now, but it wasn't discovered/developed in that era.

Rather than Siberia, it works better as Japan to attack the Soviets through Iran and then push into the Caucasus. It gets oil for you and your friends and takes most of the Soviets away, crippling them. Iran itself has a little developed, and the caucuses are the next best source after Texas.

Edit: can't reply since the thread is locked. In response to Masterzig, yeah I should have added attacking Iran only really works as Japan if you do it without getting bogged down in a war with China and stay at peace with Britain as long as possible (since British controlled Pakistan borders Iran). Take Iran, then just wait until Germany launches Barbarosa. You're right you aren't taking on the Soviet army by yourself, but it's enough to tip things toward forcing the Soviets to surrender. I don't see it being very realistic for the Axis and Japanese to cooperate that closely though - they never did IRL.

I don't know what Japan's landing craft capabilties were like. They captured many of China's ports while at war with them, so must have had something. Iran doesn't have much in 1936-1945, so invading Iran is pretty doable. I don't see any situation where Japan would have done that thoguh since they were just focused on thing nearer to them in the Pacific. Iran does have some oil fields though, which Japan really needed. Biggest issue is it's so mountainous it takes a while to get through to the Soviet border and British India/Pakistan is then in between your forces there and Japan. The oil fields Iran does have are enough to get Japan by for a while. And the politics (in the game at least) are such that nobody really cares if you take Iran in 1937.

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Masterzjg t1_j7mr1gd wrote

Japan doesn't have the capability to attack USSR through Iran. It's "better" in a tabletop sim kind of way.

The real problem is that the Japanese Army was no match for the Soviet Army.

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sly0824 t1_j7mhpsk wrote

What would the reason have been for Japan to attack the USSR instead of America at Pearl Harbor? The Americans (and to a lesser extent the British) were threatening Japan's goals of conquering the resource rich areas of southern Asia and the south Pacific. Attacking and destroying the Soviet Pacific fleet - which was puny compared to the American one - wouldn't have achieved anything for the Japanese.

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TyroneLeinster t1_j7msj97 wrote

Japan’s land army was no match for the Soviets. Even being stretched thin in the west, it likely wouldn’t have taken much commitment to severely limit japan’s gains in the East.

I suspect it’s quite likely that as Japan decimated its own resources trying to invade Russia, Roosevelt would have eventually found a casus belli and started a war in the pacific on his own terms. The fear of this exact thing is why Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in the first place.

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