After months of long negotiation and prodding from the
other Allied leaders, Joseph Stalin was at last ready
to bring the Soviet Union into the struggle against Japan.
The operation that would spearhead this entry would be
codenamed "August Storm".

For the operation, the Soviets secretly massed 80
divisions along the Manchurian border, a large
number of them positioned in the wastes of 
Outer Mongolia in terrain the Japanese hitherto
considered unsuitable for an offensive strike. 
The Soviets would enjoy a massive superiority in
material in all categories;  1.5 million men supported by
26,137 guns and 5,556 tanks and self propelled artillery
vehicles.   Air power was equally massive with 3,800
aircraft available for air superiority and
ground support operations.

The Japanese Kwantung army, considered a crack force at
the start of the Pacific war, was but a shadow of its
former self by 1945 despite the fact that it still
numbered close to a million men in overall strength.
It would prove to be a poor match for the Soviet
juggernaut about to be unleashed on it. All of the
elite divisions that had once comprised the
army, including Japans only "armor division" , had
been withdrawn to other theaters only to be replaced by
conscript divisions with little or no training.
Modern weapons were scarce, some battalions reputedly
being armed only with bamboo spears!  

Utilizing Combined Arms tactics and aided by excellent 
Intelligence gathering, it would only take two weeks for
Soviet forces to crush the Kwantung army and secure
objectives inside Manchuria and Northern Korea.   