A bad gamble. One of many

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Germany's nuclear program was a disorganized shit show. It wasn't even a program, so much as a funding source for various unconnected (and competitive) research groups.

The only way you get a German bomb before the Allies glass Alamogordo is by going a lot further back than the battle of France. Even then, I don't see how the Nazis don't chase out all of their best scientists, kneecapping themselves from the get go.

Indeed. The Commonwealth nations were killing fascists at just about every latitude on the planet. Not sure what the hell this argument is supposed to be.

I'm not a Churchill fan but he sure did throw everything but the kitchen sink at Hitler and Mussolini to be fair.

I realize it's a game and not the most historically accurate, but I've been trying things in Hearts of Iron IV to help whet my imagination for "what if X did this instead?

If you play Japan, it's hard to put enough pressure on the Soviets if you go into Vladivostok into Siberia. There's just so little infrastructure and supply that there isn't a way to push quickly. A small enough army to not have supply issues, and it can't push. Big enough to push quickly or blitz and you quickly leave your supply lines behind.

There's also not a whole lot there that helps Japan and Japan really is hard pressed for resources, not just oil and rubber, but even just steel. Yes there is oil in Siberia now, but it wasn't discovered/developed in that era.

Rather than Siberia, it works better as Japan to attack the Soviets through Iran and then push into the Caucasus. It gets oil for you and your friends and takes most of the Soviets away, crippling them. Iran itself has a little developed, and the caucuses are the next best source after Texas.

Edit: can't reply since the thread is locked. In response to Masterzig, yeah I should have added attacking Iran only really works as Japan if you do it without getting bogged down in a war with China and stay at peace with Britain as long as possible (since British controlled Pakistan borders Iran). Take Iran, then just wait until Germany launches Barbarosa. You're right you aren't taking on the Soviet army by yourself, but it's enough to tip things toward forcing the Soviets to surrender. I don't see it being very realistic for the Axis and Japanese to cooperate that closely though - they never did IRL.

I don't know what Japan's landing craft capabilties were like. They captured many of China's ports while at war with them, so must have had something. Iran doesn't have much in 1936-1945, so invading Iran is pretty doable. I don't see any situation where Japan would have done that thoguh since they were just focused on thing nearer to them in the Pacific. Iran does have some oil fields though, which Japan really needed. Biggest issue is it's so mountainous it takes a while to get through to the Soviet border and British India/Pakistan is then in between your forces there and Japan. The oil fields Iran does have are enough to get Japan by for a while. And the politics (in the game at least) are such that nobody really cares if you take Iran in 1937.

At the end of the day basically every alt history scenario where the Germans are more successful in WWII boils down to "if only the Nazis weren't Nazis, then they could have won."

I'm very curious as to your reasoning on this. Being shitshow bastards to the Chinese was a pretty integral part of the reasoning behind invading China in the first place.

It got close during early 1941 when Britain was calling for Churchill to sign a peace treaty but there's no way Russia would have signed a peace deal after barbarossa

Yea? Besides retreating from Europe what major invasion of continental Europe did they attempt without the additional support of US troops?

The Japanese also simply didn't have the manufacturing base to create tank and anti-tank weaponry that could go toe-to-toe with the Soviets. The air forces performed well and the Soviets were unnerved by the ferocity of the Japanese infantrymen (even if they were less than impressed by Japanese army tactics), but Japan's logistical and manufacturing limitations meant that they simply could not succeed in a prolonged offensive against the Soviets on land.

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Somehow I picture today’s Britain being on Shark Tank:

“And for that reason, I’m out”

/Brexit

A lot of colonial subjects in Southeast Asia were cautiously optimistic about the Japanese invading and granting them independence, even if they were satellite states to the Japanese Empire. The quickly learned the unfortunate lesson that the Chinese and Koreans had learned in prior decades.

Think I'll get scoffed at for this... but Yuval Noah Harri's Sapiens is, imho, GREAT (and a bestseller, so 🤷)

The claim that Britain "mostly sat out the war" is possibly one of the most egregious claims I've read on Reddit. Well done.

They did attack the Soviets at Khalkin Gol.

The poorly equipped and led IJA (which had been stripped of a lot of funding and manpower by the IJN) got totally obliterated by Soviet far eastern forces.

Japan immediately brokered a ceasefire with the Soviets, which the USSR held until they invaded Manchuria and the Kurils in '45.

You'd have to go further back to the point before Hitler broke so many treaties that his word became worthless. At which point... he's probably too constrained by treaties to do what he did. I wouldn't discount things going different if he'd done everything slower though.

They did and it didn’t fare well for them. There’s a reason Southeast Asia was called the Southern Resource Area. Manchuria, Siberia, and parts of Mongolia were the Northern Resource Area. For seven years, sporadic conflicts and fighting broke out between the Soviets and the Japanese, and while the Soviets suffered more casualties, the Japanese were repeatedly defeated and had to sign a neutrality pact once they lost all the Soviet and Mongolian land they had taken. Nearly 60,000 people became casualties in this border conflict. It was also where Georgy Zhukov gained his first experience commanding large formations of troops in battle.

Yes. Japan tried that. The allies decided they prefered unconditional surrender by way of atomic kablooey.

I wonder if they would have been able to accept and exploit “Jewish science”!

No, there was basically no way Germany could do what it did without its control of Europe being unacceptable to Britain. People need to remember that Britain in 1940 was not just another European power like it is today, it was an international superpower and the largest and most populous country on earth.

What would the reason have been for Japan to attack the USSR instead of America at Pearl Harbor? The Americans (and to a lesser extent the British) were threatening Japan's goals of conquering the resource rich areas of southern Asia and the south Pacific. Attacking and destroying the Soviet Pacific fleet - which was puny compared to the American one - wouldn't have achieved anything for the Japanese.

At the end of the war Russia was supposed to turn around and go home but they decided to stay. Taking over most of Central and Eastern Europe. Although the nazi’s were more diabolical in their attempt the Russians did most of what the nazis set out to do.

Paraphrasing, but "propaganda has the ability to make its creator believe it"

The allies had an agreement to only accept unconditional surrender from Germany