Russians/Manchuria - Impact?

[Nikademus]

If they do it right........

The Japanese didn't have me as their leader either .... [:'(]

[Oleg Mastruko]

http://www.rkka.ru/

Interesting site about early war Soviet army (for those who can read cyrillic and understand Russian). RKKA means Workers and Peasants' Red Army in case you wonder (official name of the Soviet Army up to 43). If there are any Battlefields beta testers here - they know it already [:D]

If you click on the "Arhiv" on the left, then under Kartii and Dokumenti you may see many interesting documents for "RKKA fanboys" (will WITP produce some RKKA fanboys?? [:D] it would be a shame if it doesn't)

http://www.rkka.ru/maps/manchjur.jpg - Manchurian operation

http://www.rkka.ru/docs/images/death.jpg - Soviets soldier death certificate

http://www.rkka.ru/docs/images/battle.jpg - don't know exactly what this is, but surely looks nice [:D]

Oleg

[j campbell]

suffice to say- if the japanses attack the Russians they are in for trouble. I have exact numbers for soviet divisions transferred out of the far east if anyone is interested.

lets not lose sight of the point. Japan was not going North and South simultaneously. The original question was whether the Soviets would take a weakened manchuko if the japanese garrison was thinned out. This question is open ended with no answer-perhaps the americans would have pressed the issue in return for their lend lease efforts-who knows.

6000 assault pts garrison sounds reasonable to me.

if the Japanese had decided on "North wind rain" they would have assaulted with maximum strength and not opted for the push south nor against PH. initial attacks had been planned with 16 div organized in 4 armies. i doubt this would have succeeded in accomplishing much more than isolating Vladivlastok (sp)

There is a nice speculation in the chapter on Japan and Finland inside Alber Seaton's " The Russo German war 1939-1945" regarding a Japanese north wind rain option.


Lets let the issue drop on a 6000 assault strength garrison-the japanese would be foolish to allow Manchuko to be stormed any earlier than 1945.

[Pascal_slith]

ORIGINAL: j campbell

suffice to say- if the japanses attack the Russians they are in for trouble. I have exact numbers for soviet divisions transferred out of the far east if anyone is interested.

lets not lose sight of the point. Japan was not going North and South simultaneously. The original question was whether the Soviets would take a weakened manchuko if the japanese garrison was thinned out. This question is open ended with no answer-perhaps the americans would have pressed the issue in return for their lend lease efforts-who knows.

6000 assault pts garrison sounds reasonable to me.

if the Japanese had decided on "North wind rain" they would have assaulted with maximum strength and not opted for the push south nor against PH. initial attacks had been planned with 16 div organized in 4 armies. i doubt this would have succeeded in accomplishing much more than isolating Vladivlastok (sp)

There is a nice speculation in the chapter on Japan and Finland inside Alber Seaton's " The Russo German war 1939-1945" regarding a Japanese north wind rain option.


Lets let the issue drop on a 6000 assault strength garrison-the japanese would be foolish to allow Manchuko to be stormed any earlier than 1945.

I'd be interested in the reference works where you got the numbers. I have Seaton's work in my library somewhere; must look at it.

[barbarrossa]

A Russian word for "Tar Baby"?

Kursk.

[mdiehl]

In an act of defiant hubris, I just want to point out that it's five and zero in my favor vs. the AFs. 1. F4F vs A6M. 2. Pearl Harbor oil farm. 3. Feasibility of crushing USSR in North Wind Rain scenario. 4. M4 vs PzIV. 5. Feasibility of misnamed "exception" coding.

[:D]

Have a nice day!

[;)]

[Damien Thorn]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

In an act of defiant hubris, I just want to point out that it's five and zero in my favor vs. the AFs. 1. F4F vs A6M. 2. Pearl Harbor oil farm. 3. Feasibility of crushing USSR in North Wind Rain scenario. 4. M4 vs PzIV. 5. Feasibility of misnamed "exception" coding.

I can't say I've read all of those topics all the way through but I don't think you've changed anyone's mind on any of these topics.

[j campbell]

Pascal,

actually i misquaoted my source -sorry all the books on the EF get confusing in my library

It is in Alan Clark's book "Barbarrossa" pg 170 footnote. over 1500 tanks and 1700 aircraft where removed from the far east to support the defense of moscow in the months of oct-Dec. exact locations and types of troops are listed. Not sure what was left over after that. I could ask David Glantz-i am sure he would know. he usually participates in forum discussion on a russian military homepage i used to frequent.

john

[mdiehl]

I can't say I've read all of those topics all the way through but I don't think you've changed anyone's mind on any of these topics.

I agree. The usual deal is that people who were generally on the fence will read such a debate and find one or the other argument to be supported by the preponderence of the evidence. AFs, however, not having reasoned their way into the positions they hold, can't be reasoned out of such positions. They do tend to get real quiet when enough evidence against an absurd claim has been presented.

[Nikademus]

According to Zaloga, (well known aurthor on Soviet armor), the Soviets did maintain signifigant assets in the Far East throughout the war.....however someone here, might have been SubChaser, claimed a while back that most of this was a carefully sham by Stalin to disquise true Soviet strength on the Far East

It was an interesting thread.....not saying i buy it completely but it did sort of contain more than a degree of common sense. For one thing, Stalin was a master poker player, so i can easily see him doing something like that. ALso with Japan committed to her own war by 1941 and with Soviet spies aware of Japanese plans, he could afford to gamble further still. 2ndly, with a fresh 1942 offensive in the wind by the Werchmact...i find it a bit hard to believe Stalin would have kept back substantial forces from the Far East.

Because of said events, i've been of the opinion that even had Japan gutted Manchuria, that the Soviets would never have invaded before the German threat was well and truely contained. Stalin simply wasn't that stupid.

In any event the Japanese did end up gutting Manchuria, but not in the way players can do in the game. Instead, Japan removed veteran divisions and units and replaced them with raw recruits, many near the end with little training

[mdiehl]

That's the cool part of What If, Nikademus. It's hard to say what Stalin WOULD have done if Japan had ever offered a serious threat to the USSR.


We can ask and maybe answer a few questions.

Absent a materializing Japanese threat, how low was Stalin willing to allow Far East Front's assets to go? This, maybe, gives us a ballpark idea of what the Japanese will face given that they time their attack to hit the Soviet Far East when it is weakest, and somehow manage to also scrape up enough divisions to do the job and conceal the deployment from the USSR.

How much did Stalin/STAVKA hold in reserve as a matter of course at different points during the war? Suppose Japan hits the USSR in August 1941? Would this be a case of optimal timing? If they wait until say May 1942, how much Soviet material in reserve for pending offensives would instead be used in the Far Eastern Front?

If J Campbell can get some kind of summary statement of of Glantz that'd be a handy thing.

[j campbell]

mdiehl,

the japanese -definitely after PH did no t have the material resources to cope with the usa and china and then pick a fight with the soviet union. they were completely dismayed when in 1945 the Soviets "stabbed them in the back"

i think you either have a north wind rain game for any scenario like that -completely hjypothetical of course in which case you forfeit any units moving south-however, japanese would be using their stockpiled reources in this endeavor because it is wholly unlikely that the americans would unfreeze their oil embaro.

I think if the japanese had gone with north wind rain they could have achieved local ari superiority due to the better training and abilities of their pilots-on the ground however, they would have been completely outmatched-see their misfortunes at kalkin gol and nomonhan.

the biggest impact that a north wind rain option would have done for japan was closen its ties with Nazi germany and prevent the transfer of soviet men and material to the Russo-german front-furthermore supplies by the americans would no longer have been able to come thru Vladivlastok-this would have had an impact but not dramatic-woul have only lengthened the war -not determined its outcome.

these are my thoughts on the issue.

in WiTP i think they model the historical possibilities well.
john

[mdiehl]

That's my position in a nutshell too, J. Campbell. But I was hanging some of the pertinent questions out there to help those who think that Japan could just "Make it so" and have the USSR fold up and wither away. And those are the questions that one would have to answer in order to find a set of circumstances that maximize the chances of the Japanese seizing anything they could use... Vladivostok maybe.

[tsimmonds]

Just for the sake of historical accuracy.....

Regarding the broadcast of a special message in an emergency. " In case of emergency (danger of cutting off our diplomatic relations), and the cutting off of international communications, the following warning will be added in the middle of the daily Japanese language short-wave news broadcast: " 1) In case of Japan-U.S. relations in danger: HIGASHI NO KAZE AME ("east wind rain") " 2) Japan-U.S.S.R. relations: KITA NO KAZE KUMORI ("north wind cloudy") " 3) Japan-British relations: NISHI NO KAZE HARE ("west wind clear") " This signal will be given in the middle and at the end as a weather forecast and each sentence will be repeated twice. When this is heard please destroy all code papers, etc. This is as yet to be a completely secret arrangement. " Forward as urgent intelligence."

From: THE CODEBREAKERS; The Story of Secret Writing, David Kahn, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London,1967

[ADavidB]

ORIGINAL: j campbell


the biggest impact that a north wind rain option would have done for japan was closen its ties with Nazi germany and prevent the transfer of soviet men and material to the Russo-german front-furthermore supplies by the americans would no longer have been able to come thru Vladivlastok-this would have had an impact but not dramatic-woul have only lengthened the war -not determined its outcome.

It would probably take a "World at War" game to model potential Japanese-Soviet alternate conflicts - I don't think that WitP is the right place.

But when you consider the strength of the "America First" movement prior to Pearl Harbor, who knows - a Japanese attack on the Soviets might have had a very different effect on the US Congress. There was an awful lot of anti-British, anti-war-in-Europe and anti-communist political action in the US in 1940 and 1941.

But that is all alternate world sci-fi; one might as well model the Japanese OAV anime series, "Konpeki no Kantai" in which Japan creates superweapons to defeat the US and go on to fight Nazi Germany for world domination. (Wow - I just checked the R2 DVD listings at CD Japan, this series is now up to volume 32 - that's 16 R2 DVD releases!)

Cheers -

Dave Baranyi

[mdiehl]

Spoken like a guy who plays "A World At War." [;)]

[Damien Thorn]

ORIGINAL: ADavidB
But that is all alternate world sci-fi; one might as well model the Japanese OAV anime series, "Konpeki no Kantai" in which Japan creates superweapons to defeat the US and go on to fight Nazi Germany for world domination. (Wow - I just checked the R2 DVD listings at CD Japan, this series is now up to volume 32 - that's 16 R2 DVD releases!)

Its also a game available on some of the console systems.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

That's the cool part of What If, Nikademus. It's hard to say what Stalin WOULD have done if Japan had ever offered a serious threat to the USSR.


We can ask and maybe answer a few questions.

Absent a materializing Japanese threat, how low was Stalin willing to allow Far East Front's assets to go? This, maybe, gives us a ballpark idea of what the Japanese will face given that they time their attack to hit the Soviet Far East when it is weakest, and somehow manage to also scrape up enough divisions to do the job and conceal the deployment from the USSR.

How much did Stalin/STAVKA hold in reserve as a matter of course at different points during the war? Suppose Japan hits the USSR in August 1941? Would this be a case of optimal timing? If they wait until say May 1942, how much Soviet material in reserve for pending offensives would instead be used in the Far Eastern Front?

If J Campbell can get some kind of summary statement of of Glantz that'd be a handy thing.

Couple of points on this. August would have done the Germans the most good, as it
would be just before the Soviets started major transfers to the West. Of course that
wouldn't be very good for Japanese prospects. As for making a big difference in the
West, very doubtful. The Germans were "stopped cold (literally and figuratively) in
front of Moscow before the great bulk of Siberian Troops were committed---they came
into play in the Russian Counter-offensive.

In the longer run, the lack of additional Far Eastern Assets could just as easily stopped
Stalin from squandering much of his reserve in the first half of 1942 and making the
German Summer Offensive much more viable. Speculation is fun, but data is lacking.

[Onime No Kyo]

There are advantages to being Russian.

http://www.rkka.ru/docs/images/battle.jpg ----this is a certificate that came with the Order of Lenin decoration awarded to Sr. Sgt. Isayev, Pavel Fedorovich. This particular "gramota", or certificate, seems to be a "mass award" for actions in everything from Kursk to Brno (which I beleive is is Hungary). Being that this is a mass printing, I would assume that it was handed out to a unit that had participated in all the mentioned campaigns. The gramota itself dates from very late in the war, possibly immedriately following the German capitulation.

The Russian phrase for tar baby is "p%$$ts podkralsya nezametno". Take it as you will. [;)]

[Subchaser]

ORIGINAL: Onime No Kyo

The Russian phrase for tar baby is "p%$$ts podkralsya nezametno". Take it as you will. [;)]

hahaha... in the most cases it’s just пиздец and nothing more.

BTW, Уважаемый, Вы похоже знаете русский, где изволите проживать?