[Torplexed]

Originally Posted by mikeydredd

I think you will find that by the winter of 1941 Zhukov and many of the units he used to defend Khalkin Gol had moved west to defend Moscow, trying to stop the 2nd Pz Div, among others, from parking its tanks in Red Square. The opportunity for Japan to strike west was there. They were unwilling to take it for a host of reasons. Not least of which was the complete absence of any urging from their ally, the Germans, that they should, despite the fact that most of the Soviet army was now engaged against them. Not sound strategic thinking imho.

Even with minimal defenders I don't think a Japanese attack on the Soviet Union would have aided Germany much. Eastern Siberia back then was a mostly trackless wilderness supplied by one slender rail line with no large cities or sources of supply, it is not suited for modern war in 1941, and even now would be a logistical nightmare to keep an army supplied in. Japan was ill-equipped to fight in the sub-Arctic as their reckless invasion of the Aleutians demonstrated. Plus, Japan badly needed oil and it wasn't until well after the war that a booming oil and gas industry was developed in Siberia. Those factories that Stalin shipped east during Operation Barbarossa were mostly resettled near the Urals. That's about 2,000 miles of endless swamps, forests and rivers from the Manchurian border. Territory the Russians could easy afford to play the space for time game with. Vladivostok would probably fall, but it was expendable. There was still the Persian overland route for Allied supplies.