What if Japan attacked & invaded the Bolshevik empire NOT Pearl Harbor?

[Litwin]

So what do you think ? What if Japan attacked & invaded the Bolshevik empire NOT Pearl Harbor?

 

[RetiredGySgt]

they would have had a tough go of it. The soviet tanks were better, and all the previous incursions committed by the Japanese against the Soviets prior to 1941 ended in losses for the Japanese.

 

[Litwin]

The soviet tanks were better,

Do you think Japan could not make heavier tanks? The Japanese tanks that fought the US were designed for Eastern Asia, for island warfare. Japan has always had a mental and willpower advantage over the Moscow imperialists.

 

[AZrailwhale]

Do you think Japan could not make heavier tanks? The Japanese tanks that fought the US were designed for Eastern Asia, for island warfare. Japan has always had a mental and willpower advantage over the Moscow imperialists.

T-34/85s and JS-2s would have eaten Chi Tos for breakfast. Their glacis plate thickness was 75mm with 12mm to 30mm side and rear armor. Even if by some miracle the Japanese could have put then into production in 1941, T-34/76s would be a better than even match and the Soviets could build ten T-34s for every Chi-To the IJA could build.

 

[Stryder50]

I don't have an hour to invest in watching the OP video so my question is;
WHY ?
Why attack Eastern Russia?
What resources, especially petroleum are to be found there?

Japan attacked Southward because they were wanting lands with resources; food~metal ores~petroleum~etc.
Japan won't need much of that large Navy if the war is mostly in East Russia(Asia).

 

[JGalt]

So what do you think ? What if Japan attacked & invaded the Bolshevik empire NOT Pearl Harbor?

Never heard of the Russo-Japanese War? Japan wiped out the Russian fleet in 1904...

Russo-Japanese War - Wikipedia

 

[forkup]

So what do you think ? What if Japan attacked & invaded the Bolshevik empire NOT Pearl Harbor?

I think it would have been a strategic dead end for Japan.

They already tested that idea at Battles of Khalkhin Gol and got decisively beaten by Georgy Zhukov. That wasn’t just a one-off loss, it exposed a structural problem: Japan wasn’t built for large-scale, mechanized continental warfare.

The bigger issue though is logistics.
Japan struggled to supply its forces in China and Southeast Asia, regions with far better infrastructure than Siberia. Trying to sustain an offensive into the Soviet Far East means:

-worse terrain
-fewer rail lines
-longer supply routes
-harsher climate

In other words, all the problems Germany had in the USSR, but starting from a much weaker industrial and logistical base.

People often bring up the Winter War as evidence the Red Army was vulnerable. But even there, the Soviets adapted and still won.

More importantly, they had the depth, manpower, industry, and space, to absorb losses and recover. Japan didn’t.

The only real counterfactual is whether this helps Germany during Operation Barbarossa by tying down Soviet forces in the east.
Maybe it does. Maybe Moscow even falls.
But then what?

The USSR doesn’t collapse just because Moscow falls, they relocate industry, keep fighting, and Germany still runs into the same hard limit: it cannot sustain deep offensive operations long-term. That’s exactly what we see play out in 1942 anyway.

So you end up with Japan bogged down in Siberia, bleeding resources it can’t replace, while Germany still loses in the long run.
Different strategy, same outcome, just worse for Japan.

I like history undone. As a lifetime history buff these what if scenarios are like nerd porn. What I have noticed though as I got older and more knowledgable is that most of the time changing single events, no matter how large in scope tend to not change fundamental outcomes.

 

[Litwin]

What resources, especially petroleum are to be found there?

Eastern Siberia is full of energy resources

Sakhalin Energy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[forkup]

Eastern Siberia is full of energy resources

Sakhalin Energy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

We know that now. In 1941... not so much. We can extract those recources now, with great dificulty and cost, in 1941... impossible.

 

[forkup]

I don't have an hour to invest in watching the OP video so my question is;
WHY ?
Why attack Eastern Russia?
What resources, especially petroleum are to be found there?

Japan attacked Southward because they were wanting lands with resources; food~metal ores~petroleum~etc.
Japan won't need much of that large Navy if the war is mostly in East Russia(Asia).

Technically they were part of the Tri-party pact. And Russia was an oil producer, centered around the Caucasus. The battle of Stalingrad for instance was fought to secure the north flank of a German offensive to secure it.

The (very speculative) scenario would have been for the Japanese to help Germany win and getting oil over the trans-Siberean railway.

A pipedream by all accounts, but then again the Southern strategy they actually did end up using was only marginally more rational.

 

[Zincwarrior]

Attacking the USSR means they run out of oil in sox months and now are trapped in Siberia. Its almost like the only right answer is to quit attacking China, which started all their shit.

 

[Litwin]

Never heard of the Russo-Japanese War? Japan wiped out the Russian fleet in 1904...

Russo-Japanese War - Wikipedia

The cruel irony is that Rozhestvensky was one of the few good naval commanders the evil empire had and the only reason the Voyage of the Dammed even got to Tsushima is because he was actually skilled at his job