German armor at Nomonhan

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Lawrence
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German armor at Nomonhan

#1

Post by Lawrence » 28 Sep 2007, 08:15

Let's just go off into fantasy land and say that the Kwantung Army was equipped with German III and IV Panzers when it fought the Russians at Nomonhan. Zhukov later said 'the Japanese don't do well against armor. It took about ten days to beat them.'

Would German armor have helped the Japanese at Nomonhan?

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#2

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 28 Sep 2007, 12:56

If you mean substituting German for Japanese tanks, then no. The Soviet AT guns (37mm, artillery, and AT rifles were adaquate for the task. The tactical situation was at the Japanese disadvantage. The Soviet Army held the high ground, had a marked artillery superiority, and out numbered the Japanese in infantry and armor.

Substituting two or three hundred tanks for a couple regiments of Japanese infantry would certainly raise Soviet casualties and drag out the battle, but the Japanese tank doctrine of 1939 would likely have caused the tanks to be used as infantry support, in dispersed groups. Most of the tanks would have been destroyed by the Soviet artillery as it had good observation of the battlefield and was able to attack everything that moved deep into the defenders zone.

If the tanks were used according to a modern armor (for 1939) doctrine then a massed combined arms attack on the flanks of the Soviet army or on a vulnerable point of the main force might have accomplished something. In this case the decisions of the commanders and skill of the reconissance/intellegence officers would be important.


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#3

Post by asiaticus » 29 Sep 2007, 11:50

The Japanese did use tanks in their early July offensive and were effective when used correctly and got cut up when they were used badly. The 3rd Tank Regiment was cut up when it out ran its infantry (slowed by being pounded by that Russian artillery) and got tangled up in Russian AT defenses.
4th Regiment made a nasty night attack that cut up a Russian artillery position. Later it too got cut up in attacks against the same AT defenses of the Russians the 3rd Regiment ran afoul of.

The Russian tanks were BT-5s with 45mm AT guns. Much of the rest of their armour were armoured cars with the same turrets and 45mm guns as T-26 tanks.

Instead of the unlikely event of Japanese having German armour it would be interesting to speculate what would have happened if the Japanese had held their armour back in July and used it as a reserve to counter Soviet armour in August.

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Lawrence
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#4

Post by Lawrence » 17 Nov 2007, 03:17

Thanks for your replies. So, is it safe to say that with better tactics, say similar to the Blitzkrieg tactics and reliance on German armor instead of Yamato spirit, the Japanese could have achieved victory at Nomonhon, or at some later pocket war on the Manchurian border?

Also, did the Japanese ever inquire about German armor?

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#5

Post by wlee15 » 22 Nov 2007, 09:40

Remember the battle ended short after Germany had invaded Poland. Production of Panzer III and IV had even begun yet so were looking at Panzer I and II as well Czech Panzer .35 and .38

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Lawrence
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#6

Post by Lawrence » 27 Nov 2007, 06:07

So, would the German Panzer I's and II's have made a difference?

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Re: German armor at Nomonhan

#7

Post by andymc001 » 07 Oct 2014, 17:15

It doesn't matter what tanks the Japanese had, they could have had Tigers and still would have lost. As posted above the Red Army/MPRA forces did indeed hold the high ground on the western side of the Halha River and their bigger guns entirely dominated the Japanese/Manchukuoan zone of operations. However the crux of the matter was that in all of Manchukuo the Kwantung Army only had enough bridging equipment to construct a single lane bridge of 80meters max. It was also not strong enough to take the weight of a tank, in fact even trucks had to be unloaded before crossing. Within the disputed border zone the Halha was mostly at least 100 meters wide and there was only one crossing point narrow enough for Japanese engineers to construct their span. This was opposite Bain Tsagan and well within the range of Soviet heavy artillery. Whilst the bridge was attacked by the Soviets with artillery, tanks (including flamethrowing tanks) and aircraft it was never hit (perhaps because its lightweight construction made it susceptible to the fast current causing it to bow in the middle). The lack of river crossing capability was to cost General Komatsubara dearly as it completely disrupted his plans to get behind the Soviet artillery on the high ground and cut off the Soviet/MPRA forces defending the eastern side of the river.

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Re: German armor at Nomonhan

#8

Post by sjashford » 07 Oct 2014, 18:33

In general I agree with andymc001, certainly as regards the lack of real bridging capability.
I would also draw your attention to the question of logistics, in general. The Soviets mobilised significant numbers of trucks to supply their forces. Whilst the Japanese did have a nearer railhead, I doubt that they could have produced sufficient logistic ability to support a significant armoured force.

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Re: German armor at Nomonhan

#9

Post by andymc001 » 08 Oct 2014, 13:16

Quite right SJ initially 1,000 Soviet trucks worked day and night to ferry men and materials the 600 kms from the nearest railhead at Tamsag to the front and this number was almost doubled by the cessation of hostilities. In response the Japanese managed to scrape several hundred trucks together and in the whole of Manchukuo they could muster only 700 trucks so most of the infantry marched nearly 200 kms from Hailar and the tank regt drove along the water logged dirt tracks from Aarshan. Whether the Japanese could have supplied a greater armoured force is really just academic as there were no other AFV's that they could have committed anyway.

However despite the paucity of the logistic system the Japanese tank attack nearly succeeded in breaking through the Soviet defenses and reaching the Halha bridges. It was the largest tank offensive the IJA ever tried and it did not fail in the same way that British tank attacks failed before Alamein. Although there was infantry slated to support the attack the armoured regt was intended to be the cutting edge. Their failure was due to 2 factors: firstly poor coordination between squadrons (no radios) not helped by a nighttime attack during a massive thunderstorm and secondly the tanks were stopped by piano wire (imported to Russia from Japan!) which clogged the bogeys and provided the Soviet anti tank gunners with sitting duck targets which were constantly illuminated by gun flashes and lightning.

After the battle the IJA realised that their logistics were so poor that they could not undertake any serious offensive action more than 150kms from a railhead and this more than any other factor helped give the IJN ammunition in pressing for a strike south. Instead of acting to improve their logistical capabilities and their weapons the Japanese chose to stress the spiritual indoctrination of their soldiers. In reality Japan's industrial set up was unable to cope with the fast pace of improvements that WW2 forced on the western nations. They did not have the flexibility to fashion new tools every time a new design was necessary and this is why during the Pacific War Japanese forces fought the conflict largely with the same type of vehicles and equipment that they started with. Generally speaking apart from basic personal weapons the other combatants finished the war with a very different set of machines than they started with. Japanese R&D was even worse than their logistics.

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Re: German armor at Nomonhan

#10

Post by Tim Smith » 27 Oct 2014, 09:18

Lawrence wrote:Let's just go off into fantasy land and say that the Kwantung Army was equipped with German III and IV Panzers when it fought the Russians at Nomonhan. Zhukov later said 'the Japanese don't do well against armor. It took about ten days to beat them.'

Would German armor have helped the Japanese at Nomonhan?
The early German tanks (mid-1938 models, assuming the Germans would not be likely to export their latest and best versions) weren't massively better than Japanese tanks. We are talking about the Panzer IIA & IIB, Panzer IIIA, IIIB and IIIC, and the Panzer IVA and IVB. Most of which had only 15mm armour, easily penetrated at long range by Soviet 45mm guns. Also the Panzer III's and IV's would be in small numbers.

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Re: German armor at Nomonhan

#11

Post by maltesefalcon » 31 Oct 2014, 04:10

I always wondered why the allies di not try a large scale drop behind the lines at Monte Cassino. Destabilize the German position enough they may have to retreat out of the stronghold.

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Re: German armor at Nomonhan

#12

Post by T. A. Gardner » 09 Jan 2015, 21:31

Well, it certainly would have raised Soviet casualties. Probably to a point where more units had to be committed. Yes, the Soviets would still win, they would still be the bludgeon they were and that would be why Zhukov wins. No real finesse or skill involved. The Japanese simply lack the army in numbers and mechanization to go up against the Soviets.

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Re: German armor at Nomonhan

#13

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 10 Jan 2015, 21:36

maltesefalcon wrote:I always wondered why the allies di not try a large scale drop behind the lines at Monte Cassino. Destabilize the German position enough they may have to retreat out of the stronghold.
Short answer is the Brit 1st & US 82d AB Divs were withdrawn in the autum of 1943. Shipped back to the UK to prepare for Op Overlord. There was a brigade size composite group left behind that Fall. There was also a problem of weather during the winter battles

Looking at the map I dont see much in the way of landing zones. There is the narrow Liri river valley & that about it. I dont know what was known of the German reserves but looking at those shown in the books does not give me any confidence in hindsight. At Salerno one of the para drops did land behind the German front line. Part of all of it fell onto a resupply site, which should have disrupted things a bit. Unfortunately the reconissance battalion from either the 16th or 24th Pz Div was refitting in the same area. The paras survived in part by fading into the scrub brush cover hills & ravines. Ridgeway described the aborted Operation Giant as a suicide mission, judging the favorable terrain around Rome as to far from the Allied ground forces. Looking at how fast Kesselring created reserves and reacted to Allied moves in Italy perhaps Ridgeway had something there.

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