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In 1939, Japan and the Soviet Union fought an undeclared border war in Manchuria, which culminated with the Japanese defeat at Nomonhan in late August.

... the Red Army in a few days enveloped and destroyed the Twenty-third Division of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA). The fact that this was a campaign fought over the exact ground and against the very enemy, that the army had spent the last thirty-plus years preparing for, made this an unqualified disaster.

(Schmider, Hitler's Fatal Miscalculation, p. 167; commas as in the original)

This was less than two years before Operation Barbarossa, in the early stages of which the Wehrmacht used similar tactics of envelopment, though on a much larger scale. In 1939, Germany was courting Japan as a potential ally against the Soviet Union, although these efforts were set back at exactly this time by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. There had been a German military mission in China until it was recalled in May 1939.

How did the fact that the Red Army so decisively defeat the IJA influence German planning and thinking between August 1939 and Operation Barbarossa? Was the "Nomonhan incident" discussed by German planners? If so, at what level?

Any references would be much appreciated.

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  • A cursory search found this - request the paper from the authors and see if it helps answer the question researchgate.net/publication/… Commented Oct 15, 2024 at 12:46
  • @SPavel: thank you, I requested, though the author does not have an RG account, and that seems to be a bit hard to track down... Also, I'm more interested in how this influenced German thinking for Barbarossa, not all that much about the 1939 pact (which was concluded on August 23, when the battle had just started on August 20). Commented Oct 15, 2024 at 12:51
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    It's not perfect but as far as I can tell it may be the best you'll get. The fighting had been escalating over a period of months. The Germans would have already received reports that the Soviet army did not simply roll over, which itself would have impacted their calculus. And they would have already been planning an invasion of the USSR at that point. Of course, the dismal Winter War performance later on would have been much more influential. Commented Oct 15, 2024 at 13:41
  • Given the German-Soviet military cooperation through the 1920s, when the German army was developing its tactics, it would not surprise me if German thinking was more along the lines of "we have the right idea (large envelopment) and are far better equipped than the Soviets so we can do it to them." Commented Oct 16, 2024 at 13:32
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    IIRC correctly, in Tank Warfare Eastern Front Vol 1, Forczyk states that German generals were well aware of previous wars with Russia. But their sad story was Napoleon 1812 and their happy story was the Finland Winter War. I don't think anyone thought much about Khalkin Go at all, at the opposite end of the continent. If they had, they'd probably have focused on how unsuited the Japanese Army was to open terrain warfare against a mechanized opponent and how little risk Soviet tanks would be to German Commented Oct 16, 2024 at 18:08

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I think the question should consider a fact: even if the Soviets encircled some Japanese forces, it was a movement closer to the 1904-1905 battle of Mukden than to a German WWII Kessel tactic.

First, the Soviets were defending against the Japanese and to let them grab some ground. Then the Soviets performed several attacks backed up by firepower and combining tanks and infantry in order to advance in Japanese positions, and ultimately join the different forces. In the process, the Japanese had the time to try multiple counter-attacks, with limited success.

The speed, the depth and the "I don't fight strong points but turn them" principles of German tactics were not used by the Soviet. Khalkin Gol was more a careful offensive with several forces mounting attacks only after they have been backed up by firepower, rather than a Blitzkrieg attacks aimed at going deep in ennemy territory in order to disrupt his logistics. Example given, Soviet air forces mostly attacked Japanese ground forces instead of their logistics.

Also, the overall Japanese weakness in armour, motorization and artillery hampered their counter-attack effort: thus, the Germans could not take lessons of this battle for fighting France or Soviet troops, that had far better tanks and artillery for open-groun fighting.

For these reasons, the battle of Khalkin Gol was no better teaching than the Spanish war. And given that Germans had soldiers involved in Spanish war, this was an easier way to learn how to fight the Soviets than the Khalkin Gol battle, a short, far conflict in a ground without much ambassadors or journalists to report how it behaved.

EDIT: This question also needs to think about how a military institution behaves.

It's nearly true (because every is difficult to be sure of) that every battle happening everywhere is studied by one or two guy in every army of the world. But for the study to be significant, you need more people in the army to take it seriously than one or two guys. If the battle is not useful to study, then there will not be massive interest in the battle's study made by a guy alone and so there will be no impact of this battle on the army (in that case, of Khalkin Gol on German).

If you define "the Germans" as the German military institution, then not useful mean not studied If you define "the Germans" as any German guy of the time, then the answer is certainly yes, but with no consequence

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    Hm. Thank you, but my question was more about whether the Germans did study Khalkin Gol and especially Nomonhan (and I know it's hard to prove a negative), not whether they would have found it useful. Commented Oct 19, 2024 at 11:01
  • @StephanKolassa I understand that you make a difference at first sight, but the question are closely question linked: I edited the answer to explain why Commented Oct 19, 2024 at 12:43

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