Because of this, the Japanese Navy was not able to escort ground forces into an attack on New Zealand until the following month after the Battle of Midway, but because Wegener's fleet was stationed in Argentina and completely cut off the supply lines of the Australian and New Zealand Allies, it and especially the Allies in New Zealand were in an extremely difficult situation. In addition, after losing the protection of the fleet, the defenders of the north and south islands of New Zealand were unable to support each other, and were finally broken by the Japanese army. As a result, the Japanese army completely annihilated more than 300,000 Allied troops in New Zealand at a very limited cost, and took advantage of the victory to launch a two-sided attack on Australia, and the 200,000 Japanese troops who had previously occupied the northwest and northern regions of Australia could only be responsible for containing them due to the sparse population and supply difficulties in the hinterland of Australia, and the main force was still forced to land from the southeast coast of Australia, the most elite of Australia, under the escort of many naval ships.

However, Australia is much more difficult to gnaw than New Zealand, which has no industry, although the industrial system is not complete, but Australia can still produce the most basic ammunition, and food and other necessities are basically not worried, so even if the supply line is broken, only the heavy equipment such as aircraft and tanks will be greatly affected, but the light armed troops of the Allied forces still have a certain combat effectiveness, and the ammunition is sufficient. Under MacArthur's command, the Australian Allies held out for several months of resistance before they were finally defeated, but they were able to make the Japanese pay a painful price of permanent attrition of more than 100,000 troops, and MacArthur was still hailed as a hero by the American media even if he finally surrendered

What amused Yamaguchi Tawen was that Isoroku Yamamoto, who was deeply afraid of the United States in his bones, wanted to make unilateral peace with the United States without the other Axis powers. On the other hand, they did not dare to give up attacking Australia and New Zealand before, and even did not dare to give up after occupying the two countries, or even only partially, the Americans can agree that there is a ghost, and even if the Americans really did not refuse the peace talks, it was just a show to buy time.

As Yamaguchi had expected, the Americans did send a delegation to negotiate peace with the Japanese government, but the asking price was ridiculously high, and no matter how you look at it, there was no sincerity in seeking peace, but Yamamoto Isoroku, who was anxious to stop the war, believed that Japan was exhausted by the war, even if it could not reach an agreement. It would be nice to be able to tacitly maintain the de facto truce, and let the military and civilians of the whole country rest for a while and recover a little. At the same time, it is also conducive to digesting the occupation zone, which is now becoming more and more extensive.

Yamaguchi scoffed at Yamamoto's idea, believing that although Japan could recover a lot of strength after resting, the United States, which had fully mobilized its huge industrial strength, would certainly increase its strength more than Japan, and it would by no means be twice as large as Japan. Time dragged on. The United States is bound to surpass in military strength. And it will quickly widen the gap in strength between the two sides to the point that Japan can no longer catch up, so Yamamoto's idea is no different from waiting for death. As a result, the two who had been working together happily finally turned against each other, but compared to someone who had murderous intent towards Yamamoto. It's just that Yamaguchi Tawen, who complains on his lips, is already quite polite

The Japanese occupation of Australia marked the culmination of their victory in the Pacific theater, but in the eyes of the great Chinese greats, it was the beginning of a "boom and a bust," if not taking into account political and economic factors, from a purely military point of view. The reason is very simple: In the case of a permanent attrition of no less than 300,000 troops and more than 500,000 people recuperating in hospitals, the Japanese Government also has to disperse its huge force of more than 1 million people into the vast occupied areas and become "dead children" who cannot be mobilized

A similar situation arose on the Soviet-German battlefield, but because Stalin committed the taboo of "haste is not enough", the Soviet Union's strategic counteroffensive was likely to come later than the United States in the Pacific theater. Considering that the weather would be too cold after the complete winter, that the roads would be muddy due to the thawing next spring, that oil extraction had been hit hard, and that fuel reserves would only dwindle before American aid arrived in the Soviet Union, Stalin decided to launch a major counteroffensive while there were still some oil stocks at that time, and that he would have to regain some land anyway.

In this way, the Soviets could safely consolidate the regained territory, while patiently waiting for the arrival of American aid, and the absence of major battles for several months would be enough to restore the Soviet army's fuel reserves to a considerable level, so that as soon as the spring thaw was over, a full-scale counterattack could be launched.

However, the German resistance was stubborn, and the increasingly cold weather was even more unfavorable for the attacking Soviet troops. The worst thing is that in order to quickly restore the strength of the armored forces, the Soviet Union turned too many automobile and tractor factories to the production of tanks and other armored vehicles, and as a result, the number of tanks was obviously surplus relative to fuel and personnel (training takes time), while the number of cars was seriously insufficient, which led to a big problem in the logistics supply of the Soviet army, especially during the offensive.

At the same time, the German army in this time and space adopted multi-line defensive tactics earlier than in history, and they would also place at least two lines of defense against the Soviet attack, one at the front and then another 8-10 kilometers behind. As a result, because of the serious lack of Soviet means of transportation, when the second line of defense of the German army was hit, it was difficult for the front-line troops to gnaw this line of defense because heavy weapons and supplies could not be transported, and then they often had to use the second echelon of the campaign outflanking in advance. In addition, the German army often left armored units to form mobile reserves, which specifically targeted the short but rapid counterattacks launched by the Soviet army when the old strength was exhausted and the new strength was not born, causing huge casualties, and the harsh military law of the Soviet army required the troops not to retreat without permission, which further increased the casualties.

Historically, this problem has plagued the Soviet army for a long time, and it was not until the sixties and seventies of the 20th century that it was basically solved by perfecting its tactics, and the counteroffensive stage of the Soviet-German war was thanks to the Red Air Force, which was reborn in the flames of war, and if the army continued to crash into the southern wall like this, I am afraid that the Soviet Union's losses during World War II would be much greater (to be continued......