Had the Soviet Union collapsed or been defeated by Germany during WW2, how would that have affected the Pacific War? Would that have benefited Japan or not? And if so, how and why? Thank you very much.
Last edited:
Of course it would've benefitted Japan. It would've freed forces tied down along the soviet border for the Pacific war, and facilitated the movement of strategic material between Germany and Japan. In addition to direct benefits like German machinery and technology, Japan would've benefitted from a reich made stronger with more rubber and other vital commodities, tying down more allied strength in the ETO. (There would've been more successful trade as the axis would no longer depend on the risky blockade running expeditions.) And of course the fall of the USSR would've required more allied resources for the ETO, instead of Japan, as the allies no longer had the USSR to tie down German forces.Had the Soviet Union collapsed or been defeated by Germany during WW2, how would that have affected the Pacific War? Would that have benefited Japan or not? And if so, how and why? Thank you very much.
I like this question, and I think some assumptions may need to be set first.Had the Soviet Union collapsed or been defeated by Germany during WW2, how would that have affected the Pacific War? Would that have benefited Japan or not? And if so, how and why? Thank you very much.
There isn't a single answer to this question.Had the Soviet Union collapsed or been defeated by Germany during WW2, how would that have affected the Pacific War? Would that have benefited Japan or not? And if so, how and why? Thank you very much.
That's what happened in AANW. Although Berlin wasn't nuked if I remember, it was hit with an anthrax weapon from the British in retaliation for the St. Patrick's Day bombings in 1954.Yes, it helps Japan, becasue instead of Hiroshima it's going to be Berlin ...
If the collapse of the USSR is between August-October 1941, does it mean the Japanese will still attack Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, Guam, Wake Island, DEI, and Hong Kong? Or a similar thing will play out but not necessarily on December 7/8, 1941?There isn't a single answer to this question.
If the collapse is between August-October of 1941 the result if very different than if it after the Japanese have attacked the UK & U.S. Same goes for later collapses and on how badly the Soviets actually crumple.
The Soviet defeat will also do nothing to Japan's inevitable defeat at the hands of the United States. It might delay the war to 1946-1947 but the outcome will still be that Japan will capitulate at some point. Either through blockade, firebombings, or even atomic weapons.Then of course there is the debate of whether or not it was the nukes or the Soviet invasion of Manchuria that forced Japan to surrender in otl.....
But we've had a thousand different threads with that debate.
Ichi Go will be a lot more successful in this atl. Problem is a Soviet defeat does nothing to help the Japanese navy.
I was thinking of the collapse being after the attack to Pearl Harbor.There isn't a single answer to this question.
If the collapse is between August-October of 1941 the result if very different than if it after the Japanese have attacked the UK & U.S. Same goes for later collapses and on how badly the Soviets actually crumple.
With a Soviet collapse being after Pearl Harbor, but before the beginning of 1943, Japan can gain some short-term benefits.I was thinking of the collapse being after the attack to Pearl Harbor.
define the parameters of "collapsed" & "defeat". when does either/both occur? the U.S.A. particularly, & UK in general, benefit by not having the bleed off of materiel for lend-lease to ussr.Had the Soviet Union collapsed or been defeated by Germany during WW2, how would that have affected the Pacific War? Would that have benefited Japan or not? And if so, how and why? Thank you very much.
Well, although the European endgame was completely different, it was a regime change in Germany and a negotiated peace there, your Pacific Nightmare, if I am remembering the name of your interesting scenario correctly, was starting to show some of what flexibility the Japanese could have once they knew they no longer had to fear any Soviet attack at all. Unlike in that scenario, here the rump Soviets would not be leaking military resources to Japan to mess with the west and bog it down in revenge for western-German deals it disapproved of in Europe, but it just might trade some undestroyed military surplus material to Japan for rice, soybeans, or rubber or tungsten it may need for population sustenance or certain industrial niches. Of course, that also needs to be weighed against any trade or credits or aid the USSR might be getting or thinks it could get from the USA and British Empire, and the risk of alienating them and losing it if any Soviet gear is seen in Japanese possession.There isn't a single answer to this question.
If the collapse is between August-October of 1941 the result if very different than if it after the Japanese have attacked the UK & U.S. Same goes for later collapses and on how badly the Soviets actually crumple.
Very possibly.Well, although the European endgame was completely different, it was a regime change in Germany and a negotiated peace there, your Pacific Nightmare, if I am remembering the name of your interesting scenario correctly, was starting to show some of what flexibility the Japanese could have once they knew they no longer had to fear any Soviet attack at all. Unlike in that scenario, here the rump Soviets would not be leaking military resources to Japan to mess with the west and bog it down in revenge for western-German deals it disapproved of in Europe, but it just might trade some undestroyed military surplus material to Japan for rice, soybeans, or rubber or tungsten it may need for population sustenance or certain industrial niches. Of course, that also needs to be weighed against any trade or credits or aid the USSR might be getting or thinks it could get from the USA and British Empire, and the risk of alienating them and losing it if any Soviet gear is seen in Japanese possession.
Toaster is gonna toast, it is only a question of when and how and what the resource allocations to Nazi containment vs. Japan rollback are.Very possibly.
A lot would depend on a whole notebook full of specifics (what does the actual treaty between the Reich and Soviets lay out as conditions is, IMO, far and away the largest of them). You could either see the Japanese's position considerably improved OR vastly worsened, depending on the status/operational decisions made by the WAllies (U.S decides to turn Guadalcanal into Tinian, the teen years and start blowing pougies out of Rabaul with 300 plane B-17G strikes and does the same with NE Australia against New Guinea and parts of the DEI and the Japanese are going to have even MORE fuel issues (depending the Reich/Soviet Treaty*).
Same goes for WAllied ground forces. It took several years for the troops in the CBI to wipe out the Japanese in some of the worst terrain the world has to offer combat troops, but what if 1/3 of the troops and materials that were collected for Overlord went to the CBI? WAllies retake Burma by late 1943 they can realistically create a serious supply route into China (Laos and Thailand will be unthrilled, but at least American cigarettes are better than the Japanese variety). 6th U.S. Army (as an example) with a solid logistic supply chain against the IJA in China? Know where my betting money is headed.
Even of the WAllies simply play the same hand the did IOTL the Japanese are still toast, only real difference in that the Kwantung Army is now even more overstretched, as is the South China Area Army. By summer of 1944 American industry hits full gallop and that is all she wrote for the Japanese.
*The oil fields of Siberia, where the Russians today are pumping very nicely, were flat beyond 1940's drilling tech (even in the 1950s those sorts of deposits were mainly only accessible by a small handful of drilling companies, most of them American)
As I noted earlier, it very much depends on the conditions of the Soviet surrender. That one factor determines much of what the Reich and its Italian Allies can hope to achieve.Toaster is gonna toast, it is only a question of when and how and what the resource allocations to Nazi containment vs. Japan rollback are.
. Judging it impossible to succeed, *you* as the Allies may not be interested in cross-channel, cross-North Sea, cross-Mediterranean, cross-Caucasian, cross-Caspian, cross-Turkestani invasions, and may want to concentrate your greatest possible mass of mobilized force for fire and maneuver to make the quickest possible work of Japan.
But you possess important assets, the factory floors, workforce, recruiting pool, shipyards, and ports of Britain, Gibraltar, Malta, the Suez Canal, Middle East oil fields, in Iran and northern Iraq, that are in range of a large, formidable, and increasingly after Soviet defeat, underemployed Nazi and Axis Air Force, ground maneuver forces, and eventual rocket v-1then v-2 force. This Nazi force may be interested in *you* and your proximate assets that pose a threat to them.
No way Germany is defeated by 1945, without the USSR there is no way any D-day invasion succeeds and the British are going to have a lot of problems even beating Rommel.More or less the same as OTL Germany and Germany defeated by the end of 1945