Japan and the Soviet Union

[Juha]

Soren
Fact is that Ki-51s carried max a 100kg bomb under each wing. Of course you can believe what you want. Even that somehow Japanese could produce BK 3.7 armed A/T a/c clearly before Germans themselves, first 87Gs went to action in early 43 and that was still an experiment, the unit was Erpo Weiss or something like that IIRC. And a bit over 300kg is more than half of 500kg, at least here in Finland.
IMHO the idea of this tread was to argue what might happen if Japanese would have attacked SU instead of going against western powers. So with equipment they had at that time, one didn’t snap his fingers and buff, some exotic weapon system appears. Putting licence production in motion took some time we know that from the limited technical transfer there was from Ger to Japan.

Juha

[parsifal]

Originally Posted by imalko

I think this discussion shifted completely off topic. If we stick to the Renrich's original premise then all 'what if' theories about cooperation, sharing technology and licence production between Japan and Third Reich don't stand. Basic premise is that after their failure at the gates of Moscow in December 1941 Germans somehow managed to persuade their Japanese Axis Allies to help their 1942 summer offensive by attacking USSR in the Far East. So up to that point we need to stick to the true time line. And in this time line there wasn't any large scale sharing of technology between two countries and since they would had only about six months to prepare this 'coordinated' operation both Axis powers would be forced to use resources they had at their disposal at that time. There wouldn't be enough time for establishing licence production of German technology in Japan, etc, etc. In my opinion, when you consider how things unfolded for Germany in Caucasus and at Stalingrad in 1942, even with Japanese involvement Axis would be defeated anyway. More so, because according to basic premise Japan hadn't attacked USA but did attacked the British in China and Burma and the Dutch in the East Indies...

For the record, Axis powers were never allied in the same manner or not even close as Allies. Hitler haven't consulted with Japanese nor he asked their opinion when he concluded non aggression pact with Stalin, neither Japanese shared with Hitler their planes on waging war against USA. Hitler didn't included Japan in his war plans against USSR because he believed that Germany can defeat Soviet Union on her own. Therefore its unrealistic to speculate that Germany and Japan would have made coordinated plans for attack on USSR in 1941.

Your right we have shifted off topic. But I did say in one of my posts that removing the US (or any part of the elements of allied victory) from the equation is bound to have an effect.

I then went on to assess the likleihood of the US from not getting ibvolved in the war, and its basically zero if the Japanese continued to act agressively in China. It was Japanese aggression in China that was drawing the US into the war, so it makes no sense to try and speculate that somehow the US would all of a sudden not care about what happened in China.

Similalry, attacking just the British (and presumably the Dutch) is a situation that would not be tolerated by the US, for just one reaqson....access to oil. Give the Japanese oil in 1941, and all of a sudden, viewed in 1941 eyes, you have an enemy that goes from being controllable, to an enemy that is not. Allowing Jaoan access to the South east asian oil would allow the Japanese to attack and prepre for war on a far grander scale than they were capable of under other circumstances.

So it is a scenario that was never going to happen. So lets assume for a minute that the Americans dont get involved directly, by some process that is simply not able to be foreseen, they are at least going to pour resources in the form of lend lease to support the allies, and that means a vastly increased allied level of equipment, including the Russians.

As has been indicated by Joe, the Japanese did have a plan to attack the Soviets (with about as much likelihood of happening as the US Orange war plan of fighting Britain were going to happen I might say however) but this required no attack into the southern regions. If the Japanese elect to attack both south AND North, AND west (into China) I see nothing good for the Japanese. The high costs of attacking Russia in Siberia in the dead of winteracross some of the most heavily fortified and trackless inhospitable terrain one could think of should be plain to see. Switching from the defence to the attack in China costs logistic and air support. The carriers from the Pearl operation are of course freed for operations, but nearly all of their first line fighters will be needed to bolster the attacks into Russia and China. There will be less ground troops, pitted against an allied player with relatively more troops (and better trained), with more planes, and a better logistic support.

It is wide open to debate, but I believe the Japanese would collapse in a very short space of time. I give them less than six months

[Amsel]

Originally Posted by parsifal

It is wide open to debate, but I believe the Japanese would collapse in a very short space of time. I give them less than six months

Less then six months to collapse? You are underestimating the Japanese quite a bit. I believe Japan could have captured the entire Eastern maritime province, and the Soviets would not have been able to do anything about it until Germany was defeated at Berlin.

[parsifal]

Originally Posted by Amsel

Less then six months to collapse? You are underestimating the Japanese quite a bit. I believe Japan could have captured the entire Eastern maritime province, and the Soviets would not have been able to do anything about it until Germany was defeated at Berlin.

Okay...how are they going to achieve that? Have a glance at the map first before you say that. Also, remember that Vladivostock itself is a fortress no less formidable than Sevastopol, protected by Mountains and fortifications at the frontier that rival the maginot line. The Japanese army is outnumbered, outgunned and attacking in the teeth of the winter.

The eastern seaboard that you are referring to contains what??? Sakhalin, the port of Sovietskaya Gavan, a couple of fishing ports, and massive, trackless mountains behind that. They attack the eastern seaboard, take Sakhalin.....then what????

I believe that Vladivostock was essentially an impregnable fortress. It was immune to amphibious assault because of the defences, because of the beach types, and because of the currents . It was as least as impregnable as Sevastopol, and Truk, its only "weakness", if you could call it a weakness, was by landward assault.

Attacking Vladivostock has a near comparison in my opinion, the German assault onto Murmansk. The terrain is similalry devoid of communications, with the added complications of increased distance heavy vegetation and massive fortifications. The temperatures at Vladivostock are as extreme as they are in Murmansk (because of the effects off the gulf stream has on europe), and the distance to the objective many times that faced by the Germans in their assault on Murmansk. Yet you guys smooth over all of these issues, and glibly announce thaqt the Japanese can defeat the Russian in the blink of an eye. Dont forget, at the same time the Russians would be attacking along a front line which in its entirety stretches the same distance as the distance from Moscow to London, whilst the Japanese attempt to defend with about 14 divs (give or take) . Using the old silk road route through Kazakhstan (the route they used to supply their version of the flying tigers fighting the Japanese in China before 1941) would be used to pour men and material into the CCCP formations fighting in northern China.

People are surprised to learn that for the first six months after their entry, the US was a net liability to the allied cause. Despite the heroic and effective war being waged in the Pacific, this does not compensate for the netlosses being suffered in the Atlantic, nor does it compensate for the considerable aid being provided under the reverse lend lease arrangements that were occurring allover the world. The US was a sleeping giant, that once awaoken would seal the doom of the axis powers. However it would take some time to achieve that, time to teach the Americans how to fight, time for the Americans to leearn some very bitter realities. If those experiences are removed from the equation, the allies in the short term are better off. What I will concede is that a delayed entry of the US into the war is going to have a negative effect at the end of the war....towards the middle and late 1944m, because it will take the US that much longer to gear up for war, and Germany may have enough time to get her wonder weapons in place.......

[Amsel]

You could be right, Parsifal. Thats the beauty of a forum; we can discuss all possibilities.

BTW, I am not surprised to know the weak condition of the US military at the onset of the war. It is common knowledge I thought.

[parsifal]

apologies for being quite so dognmatic, but this scenario is one of those "axis wet dreams" that just dont stack up when you look at the details.

no malice was intended in my replies.....

[Juha]

IMHO we should have some concrete info on Japanese and Soviet forces available for FE operations in spring 42. Otherwise we simply speculate without connection to reality. I might be able to find some info on VVS units in Mongolia at the time. And I know that from summer 41 to spring 42 at least some LaGG-3s were sent to FE in spite of the situation in west. The fact that much of a/c production of SU was transferred to Urals and beyond during summer-autumn 41 in fact made it easier to rush modern a/c to FE if needed.

Juha

[Glider]

Everyone
It appears that I have unintentionally mislead everyone on the ability of the Japanese to land troops and their type 89 tanks. My mistake was to look at the IJN when these were developed for the Japanese Army.

The landing craft was called the LB-D type or the Diahatsu and could carry up to 17 tons.

Apologies all round

[Soren]

Originally Posted by Juha

Soren
Fact is that Ki-51s carried max a 100kg bomb under each wing. Of course you can believe what you want. Even that somehow Japanese could produce BK 3.7 armed A/T a/c clearly before Germans themselves, first 87Gs went to action in early 43 and that was still an experiment, the unit was Erpo Weiss or something like that IIRC. And a bit over 300kg is more than half of 500kg, at least here in Finland.
IMHO the idea of this tread was to argue what might happen if Japanese would have attacked SU instead of going against western powers. So with equipment they had at that time, one didn’t snap his fingers and buff, some exotic weapon system appears. Putting licence production in motion took some time we know that from the limited technical transfer there was from Ger to Japan.

Juha

You keep ignoring the important facts Juha, one of them being that only a 20mm cannon was needed, and the Japanese already had that in the Ho-03. Integrate a pair of those into the wings of the Ki-51 and you got yourself a tankbuster fit against anything the Soviets could field in the east.

Also the BK 3.7 system weighed 295 kg according to my sources, which is under 300 kg Juha.

Furthermore the Japanese did have other a/c available to perform the ground attack role, a/c such as the Ki-46, D3A and B5M.

[parsifal]

Attached to this post are some extracts from Dr Niehorsters OB site. It gives some idea of the force availability of the various Soviet Frontier commands

Here is also a link of tank strengths for every Soviet formation as of June 1941. I count about 1600 tanks for the Far Eastern Front alone

Soviet Tank Strengths, 22 June 1941

[Juha]

Soren
I don't ignore facts, you brought along your fictional tank killing Ki-51.
Yes, BK 3.7 itself weighted 295kg,I gave that info already in my earlier message, but our engineer seems to forget that a cannon neded also some fittings to get fixed into a/c and without ammo it was useless as A/T weapon, and ammo weights also.
And BTW B5M was the Mitsubishi candidate to IJNAF torpedo bomber in competition which was won by B5N Kate and only a limited numbers of it was produced. t was not a standard production a/c.
Ki-46 ground attack version, of which only few were produced, flew first time in late 44.

Juha

[Soren]

You don't ignore facts ? Oh really, then how come you again just happened to slip past the fact that only a pair of 20mm cannons were needed? You seem stuck on the BK 3.7 for some reason.

Put two Ho-3's on the Ki-51 and voila! You got yourself a capable T-26 killer!

Also remember a/c are adapted to what'ever task needs to be performed, and it wouldn't take long to put some guns on the Ki-46 if the need for it was there, which it would be in the case of a landbased invasion of the USSR. Tank busters would be needed big time, and the Japanese weren't stupid so they would've quickly addressed that issue, and that's BEFORE the invasion. Planning would take some months, in which time the equipment on hand could be adapted to the task needed to be accomplished.

Also you forgot the address the rest of my post.

[Juha]

Hello Parsifal
Thanks for posting the info. I also visited Niederhorst site but didn't find info from spring 42, which is a pity. But the site showed, or at least I didn't note any LaGG-3s in FE on 22 June 41, that even with critical situation in Western SU during oper Barbarossa Soviets sent LaGG-3s to FE because in Spring 42 there were LaGGs in service in FE. So SU was still suspious on the intentions of Japanese.

Juha

[parsifal]

Now for the Japanese, I will have to post the army assets as two posts, and the air force as a separate additional post.

In terms of Divisions, the Japanese had 14 available, plus two armoured brigades. There were about 250 tanks attached to the two brigades

Note that in the Japanese Army there were no Coprs commands, and that an "Army" was equivalent to a reinforced Corps in Western terms.

[Juha]

Soren
I really don't care what you think, I only sometimes correct your factual errors.
Last time, the whole BK 3.7 sideshow orginated from You and shows your limited knowledge on Japanese a/c. As did your Ki-41, B5M etc

Juha