Japan vs Australia

Who will win in this epic battle for the Black Sea?

Turkish battlecruiser Yavuz, former World War 1 German battlecruiser Yavuz.

Against Soviet battleship Parizhskaya Kommuna, an old World War 1 Tsarist era Gangut class battleship.

Make sure to look up the specifications before making an assumption. Yavuz’s armour is quite thick for that generation’s battlecruiser.

@witt

Definitely.

Still in the middle of listening to it (about an hour and a half in).

I’m a fan of hardcore history, but it takes me forever to get through his podcasts because they’re just so long. I’d just have them on in the background as noise while I do other things, but what he says is interesting enough to demand my full attention most of the time.

I voted for the Soviet invasion of Manchuria.

Prior to the dropping of the first atomic bomb, the Japanese were already willing to agree to a conditional surrender.

The Soviet Union was fundamentally hostile to the Western democracies. Some Japanese leaders hoped for an alliance between Japan and the Soviet Union–an alliance against the U.S. and Britain. Their hope was that the Soviet Union would enter the war on Japan’s side.

The Soviet invasion of Manchuria demonstrated that any kind of diplomatic arrangement with the Soviet Union was no longer an option. With its diplomatic options exhausted, Japan’s only way of avoiding the Americans’ demands was to achieve some kind of military victory. There was a shortage of Japanese military victories from '43 - '45, and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria only made things worse. That invasion was regarded by both sides as a prelude to the invasion of Japan itself. The quick collapse of Japan’s Manchurian forces inspired little hope that Japan would do well in a follow-up Soviet invasion of its home islands. Still less did it seem possible for Japan to defeat a combined invasion of American and Soviet forces. At that point, it was concluded that it was better to unconditionally surrender to the Americans, than to have unconditional surrender imposed anyway by a combined Soviet-American force.

Why wasn’t Stalin interested in joining Japan’s war against the U.S. and Britain? I see two main reasons: 1) He wasn’t yet ready for such a war, and 2) By 1945, Japan’s military had little left to offer. By the early '50s, Stalin may have felt himself ready or close to ready for war against NATO. Some historians feel that Stalin permitted the Korean War to proceed because he wanted to test American military readiness. The results in that war were such that Stalin felt comfortable moving forward with his plans for WWIII. However, he died before putting those plans into effect.

@abworsham4

We’ll say that magic happens-the Japanese would have surrendered by regular bombing before the planned invasion, even without the atomic bomb. So I’ll say that five nuclear bombs would be ready for tactical use.

I think the Allies would have lost 1.5 million men, including naval losses, radiation poisoning after entering area attacked by atomic bombs, and regular land fighting. Countless more would have been wounded. This also includes Soviet losses from the planned Soviet invasion of Hokkaido.

The Japanese would have lost at least 12 million men killed, due to the enormous losses fighting, from the nuclear bomb, and the mass of Kamikaze attacks. This total includes PCFC losses. 1 million more might have died in guerrilla warfare after the war.

20 million would have been wounded, if not more.

agreed. the reds would win on land, the allies in the air…

i like the first three us cruisers designed and build as treaty cruisers, the Pensacola class, the Northampton class, and the Portland class. these to me are beautiful ships, and represent the “best of the heavy cruisers”. they were treaty cruisers and fulfilled their roles beautifully. They packed a punch with 9-10 8"guns, 8 duel purpose 5" guns, and by 1944/5 they had a deadly AA gun compliment. plus the 5"/38 is considered to be the best duel purpose naval gun of the entire war. Their main battery was superb and they helped hold the line in the months after pearl. they were present from coal sea to the Doolittle raid. from midway to Guadalcanal. they were always there, both of the Pensacola class survived the war, the Indianapolis suffered a tragic loss in the closing months and the Northampton class lost half of their numbers. But IMO, they were the best…

The Winter War is an amazing tale of bravery on the Finns’ part.