Impact on Sowjet Union, if Japan won at Midway

That video ask the wrong question. They ask if the Japanese CAN do it, we’re asking if the Japanese COULD do it.

@CWO:

Intereting hypothetical question.  One amusing aspect is the idea of Hitler, with his long track record of breaking treaties and of attacking other countries without warning, expressing shock over Japanese treachery – though I guess it’s not unimaginable, since the same track record basically shows that he was quite capable of changing his foreign policies in any way that he felt served his interests at any given time.  And relations between Germany and Japan were not always cordial.  For instance, Germany supposedly expressed shock over the Rape of Nanking and offered itself as a mediator between China (with whom I think it had a degree of military advisory relations) and Japan.  And Japan was highly annoyed when Germany signed the August 1939 nonaggression pact with Japan’s old enemy, Russia.

Even taking Hitler’s impulsive and erratic nature into account, however, it’s pretty hard to fathom why he’d declare war on Japan in December 1941.  The two countries were partners under the Tripartite Pact, whose bottom line was, frankly, that Germany and Japan agreed to stay out of each other’s way as each nation pursued its expansionist policies on opposite sides of the globe.  A war between the two countries, even if it had been declared, would have been virtually impossible to wage since German and Japan were separated from each other by vast stretches of land (notably the USSR, which was unfriendly to both countries) and ocean.

It’s even harder to fathom why Hitler would offer support to the US in December 1941, since the Americans were actively supporting its enemy Great Britain.  I can understand Britain’s wartime partnership with the USSR against Germany, on the principle that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, but Hitler’s support of the US would have been a case of “the friend of my enemy is my friend”, which makes no sense.

Just for argument’s sake, however, I’d guess that if Hitler had inexplicably offered to the US a wartime alliance against Japan, the Americans wouldn’t have accepted it.  Nazi Germany was, to put it mildly, neither liked nor trusted by the Roosevelt administration, and its reaction would probably have been to treat a partnership proposal from Hitler like the offer of a bottle of poison.

it’s pretty hard to fathom why he’d declare war on Japan in December 1941.

I don’t want to speak for Gargantua. But it’s possible that the goal of this declaration of war would be for Germany to distance itself as much as possible from Japan’s Pearl Harbor attack. The underlying objective would be to make the political climate in America less favorable for going to war against Germany.

Nazi Germany was, to put it mildly, neither liked nor trusted by the Roosevelt administration, and
its reaction would probably have been to treat a partnership proposal from Hitler like the offer of a bottle of poison.

The goal of Stalin’s foreign policy was to foster war between Germany and the Western democracies. Stalin hoped to achieve this goal by promoting “anti-fascism.” The Soviet Union would stay neutral in this hoped-for war. This war would weaken both Germany and the Western democracies. Ideally it would be like WWI, and bleed both sides white. That war would set the stage for Soviet expansion westward into Europe. The first stage would be at the expense of Germany and Eastern Europe. The second state would be at the expense of France and possibly other Western democracies.

FDR was extremely eager to embrace the pro-Soviet, anti-fascist foreign policy Stalin envisioned for Western democracies. I don’t see anything Hitler could have done to change that. He didn’t begin to have the kind of penetration into the FDR administration Stalin had. Nor was there any readily available way for him to achieve that penetration. FDR hated Nazis and other Germans, but was very intrigued by communism and by Stalin. It was this mindset which allowed a number of outright communists to achieve positions of great influence in his administration, while anyone with right wing views was either excluded entirely or eased out of any real policy-setting role.

But FDR did not work in a vacuum. Had it been up to him, the United States would have declared war on Germany back in the '30s. The fact it did not do so was because due to strong isolationist forces. While FDR and his allies in the media were working diligently to weaken those forces, even by December 1941 they were still strong. Had Germany declared war on Japan in December '41, it would have been a clear, simple statement. Even FDR and his allies would have found it difficult to distort that statement into something which made war with Germany seem necessary.

By the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, the American pro-war faction had built up too much political momentum for a German declaration of war against Japan to stop them. Sooner or later, the pro-war faction would succeed at getting America into the war; much like it had succeeded in WWI. Even over the short-term, the pro-war faction would still have been able to send large quantities of weapons to Stalin and the Soviet Union, as well as to Britain.

Let’s say that declaring war against Japan would have bought Germany two years of nominal peace with America. While Germany would still have had to deal with large numbers of American made weapons during that two year period, at least it wouldn’t have had to face American soldiers. That two year grace period would have allowed Germany to concentrate more of its military force on its eastern front, instead of having to use as much strength defending against potential or actual Anglo-American invasions elsewhere. (Though they would still have had to defend against the Anglo half of that threat.)

That concentration of force against the Soviet Union would undoubtedly led to a more favorable situation on Germany’s eastern front. More victories, more Soviet soldiers captured, more conquered Soviet land. But I do not think that this alone would have been sufficient for Germany to win the war in the east. In the absence of other factors helping Germany, the German objective on the eastern front should (in this scenario) have been to grab what land it could in the western U.S.S.R., including at least some of the Caucasus oilfields, and then negotiate peace with Stalin. The more successful Germany was on its eastern front, the more presumptively likely Stalin would have been to negotiate an end to hostilities.

This peace treaty would by no means have represented the end of the war. It would merely indicate Germany had survived the first phase of the challenges ahead of it.

@Zooey72:

the topic went in a weird direction, to  bring it back I would like to see someone argue the point I made with how Germany could have won the war.

If in either sept 1939, or june 1941 the Sturmgwher were made standard issue to every German soldier how could any army have opposed them?  I think Dunkirk would not have succeeded in 40 and England would have no army, and in 41 Russia would have fallen before winter.  Even if it didn’t fall I am sure Moscow would have fallen, and the following spring offensive would have ended the war in the East.

The difference between this and other ‘miracle weapons’ is that an assault weapon is practical.  Jets and really big tanks take up too many resources even if they had been produced earlier or in greater numbers.  Ammunition would have been a factor, but that would have been it.

Imagine it, an army equipped with assault rifles opposed by armies who are equipped with what is basicaly now a hunting rifle.

Fortunately for the world Hitler didn’t like the concept until it was too late.Â

I found out, that it may have been allready implemented to German Soldiers way earlier, like 1942 as the Mkb-42.
It happend for tests that those Mkb`s 42 were sometimes dropped off for encircled infantry groups in russia to test run it. (weird)
but actually came to positive results of the Mkb-42 aka StGW '44.

For me “turning point” means when Japan lost its momentum to launch attacks and past the point where they had any hope of winning the war. Though midway certainly slowed Japan down significantly they still had like three carriers by 1942. After the battle of Santa Cruz America had one heavily damaged Enterprise up against Japan’s 3 fleet carriers, and after Savo Island we had to pull out all our cargo ships attacking Guadalcanal and left the marines to fend for themselves for months before they were reinforced. Through most of the Guadalcanal campaign Japan had logistical superiority and had the means and resources to supply and arm men putting 35,000 men into the islands. By this time Japan was still quite capable of matching America in in terms of ships and manpower but after the 6 month Guadalcanal campaign Japan had lost most of its experienced air crews and more importantly, America held off Japan for their industry to be capable of outmatching Japan. If Japan had better soldiers and tactics and had won Guadalcanal the war would have continued for much longer and would have been far from defeated and the war would have dragged on.

Bottom line US doesn’t achieve an uncontested superiority over the Japanese in production and ships until after they defeated Japan at Guadalcanal because they kept loosing carriers in the battles of Coral Sea, Midway and Santa Cruz and did not replace these losses until after the battle.

The Russians (read Staline and his goverment) would have been in great difficulty if Moscow would have fallen in German hands.
Staline knows that fact and it was his more fears…
He knows that’s it’s not necessary to conquer all parts of a country to put down a goverment.
That’s why I think a combined Japan-Geman against Russia would have been the best Axis option.
Allies wins because they joined their forces.

Their was no chance of that in Dec 41. Only until mid August 41 did they have that chance, but they sent all the good units to Kiev and lost the time to take Moscow. That was their only chance.

Japan could not undertake any attack on USSR before it had already crippled the US fleet and they were not prepared to fast track an attack on Hawaii in August, just to play your axis and allies strategies with Germany. At that point they were still negotiating to return the oil shipments with US and the military solution was put on hold until that was resolved.

This poll did not generate the interest that I assumed it would. I have locked the voting as it is time to move on to another subject. There were many different types of aircraft involved in this battle but I will confine my thoughts to the torpedo planes as that is what I voted for. The first single engine torpedo planes to attack the Japanese were six of the new TBFs from Midway. No hits were registered. One made it back to Midway. The first of the carrier torpedo planes to attack were Sixteen TBD Devastators from USS Hornet. (VT8) Because of confusion and inexperience they attacked without fighter cover. One man survived. Again no hits. The next group to attack were fourteen TBDs from USS Enterprise. (VT-6) Again no hits and eleven were lost. The last torpedo attack was made by thirteen TBDs from USS Yorktown. (VT-3) Once again no hits were scored and twelve planes were lost. But by this time ALL of the Japanese fighter cap was down to the deck to stop all of these torpedo planes. By chance this is when the dive bombers made their attack which lasted only about three minutes and left three Japanese carriers burning. Of course there were many others who gave their lives on Midway, on Enterprise and on the destoyer USS Hammann who never even got to see the enemy fleet. But those young men in the torpedo bombers gave their lives without even knowing the outcome of the battle. Can we even begin to imagine what their last thoughts were? They all contributed all that they could for this country. It is a shame that so many young people today have no clue what those men did for all of us.

@Audacity:

Very interesting.  Can you direct us to published material about this?

I certainly can. My best source is “THE SS, Hitlers Instrument of Terror” by Gordon Williams. It was actually Himmlers idea to incorporate Muslims into SS units as an experiment. They used their new power to quickly murder “religious infidels” including Jews and were eventually given only police authority because of their lack of obediance to SS order. They had their own special collar tabs but were never issued an SS Honour cuff on the sleeve. Himmler had these units engaged in the Balkans, around Greece and a few other minor battles. They were actually fought VERY poorly and were taken off the front lines. For the rest of the war, the units that weren’t disbanded were used for anit-partisan activities and were “attached” to another SS unit but did not have the title SS.

It was a brief experiment that elated Himmler. Hitler has little to do with it as far as I know.

PS – thanks for all the Karma while I’ve been out sick for the last month. You guys rock.

Midway without doubt.
The beginning of the end for the Imperial japanese navy.