Germany vs. Japan (ww2)

Everyone knows that Germany and Japan were the leading Axis in ww2. Say if the main part of the fighting was based in russia (assuming they had conquered it and had gotten into arguements and then started their own war) and accepting the possiblilty that the nuke would be a part of the warfare, WHO would win? Personally i favor Germany b/c they had better technology, better weapons, and they were closer to building a nuclear weapon than the Japanese were- and basically i think that whomever builds the nuke first wins.

Once they developed nukes, Germany could just strap a nuclear warhead on one of their V2's and launch it at the Japanese.

Interesting idea but seeing as it's land-locked it would take the Japanese carriers out of it. On a coastal field, different story. I'm not aware of German carriers, not saying they didn't have them, just not aware of any.

Japan has worse inf and without good inf japan cannot simply win.

Japan would lose the ground war... they don't have good tanks and inf. to win... but germany would lose the sea war cause of japan's good navy.

Difficult one. We're accepting that they are not fighting anyone else at the same time I suppose.

Japanese navy was superior also they had control of important resources like rubber.

But I'd give it to Germany because of their proven record in the open terrain that you've put the conflict in.

Perhaps a different result if it were in the jungles of Burma where the panzers couldn't operate.

Interesting !!
The Japanese had a highly motivated yet poorly trained army compared to the Wehrmacht, even the Wehrmacht were motivated but not like the Japanese, they also had a very good airforce mainly due to the zero but so would the Germans if they had done Europe in. Navy wouldn't play a big role as the only way the Japanese would be able to launch any attack would bne through the Artic Sea and that would be treacherous also the German are more highly trained in winter combat.
All in all the germans would have had an upper hand but the japanese would have held on to a significant portion of Russian nonetheless. This is assumming that the Germans had been able to reinforce tehir ranks after their bloody russian campaign and had set up supply center inside Russia itself, if not the Wehrmacht will be heading home or die fighting!

EASy, Germany would win hands down. Their industrial base made Japans look like the stone age, not to mention the quantum leap in research and development Germnay had over Japan.

People say Japans navy was stronger, but the German U-boats were far superior and could easily take out the Japanese fleet. Don't forget they had the MK XXI boats which could attain speeds of 10 knots underwater and they were working on wire guidance for their torps by wars end.

Also, the German nerve gasses could be used to great effect on the islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

With regards to land combat the Japanese were beaten by Zhukov in 1937 at Kurgan Gol. There land army was never built for large scale set piece battles like those which occurred between the Germans and Soviets. Not to mention that the Japanese armour was outmatched even by a short barrelled M4 Sherman - and that could be called the worst tank in the European theater.

[edit on 21-6-2005 by rogue1]

Nice topic but wrong forum:

Weaponry
Military weapons technology past, present, and future.

seekerof

Germany versus Japan in WW2?
Interesting idea.......and I suppose if Britain had come to terms with Germany and taken up the offer to liberate and defend Singapore with the help of German troops, a possibility too!

It is worth bearing in mind though that had Germany been able to win in Russia then the new advanced projects that came out towards the wars end would have been extremely unlikely to have seen the light of day for a long time after.

In fact it was the case that Germany (then one of Europe's, if not the world's leading science nations) thought she had already won WW2 by 1941/42 and, because of limited resources, stopped all developments unlikely to lead to an immeadiate benefit to German arms; it was the later realisation that they hadn't that led to umteen crash programs which resulted in many of the famous advanced weapons.

Some (like the type 21 U-boat) actually were not nearly quite as advanced in principle as they initially seemed.
The type 21 was indeed a much faster and better all-round U-boat than the old type 7, 9 & 11 U-boats but it was all based on a simple double hull design with the bottom hull full of batteries.
The basic tech of that could probably have been done in WW1 if anyone had thought of it!

(BTW the figures I have for it are -
18 knots for 90 minutes
12 knots for 10 hours
or 'silent cruise' at 5 knots for 60 hours.

This was a vast improvement on the type 7 which could manage -
6 knots for 45 minutes
or cruise at 2 knots for 20 - 30 hours.

The type 21 as a genuine submarine whereas the earlier boats were really just submersibles; the type 21 could have crossed the bay of Biscay submerged whereas the type 7 was virtually immobile underwater except for short bursts.)