He was very adept at deep operations as the Japanese first discovered in Manchuria when Zhukov kicked their arse. But as you mentioned much easier to be a “military genius” when you don’t have to worry about casualty figures unlike the Western Allied commanders.
The Japanese in Manchuria were easy pickins.
Japanese in Manchuria:
- No real tanks
- No real anti-tank guns
- Very little mechanization
- Extremely obsolete and small airforce
- Short on supplies with no hope of resupply
Soviets in Manchuria:
- Vast mechanized army of world class tanks and guns
- More troops than the Japanese
- Vast stockpiles of supplies and steady resupply
- Vast air armada vastly superior in capability.
Terrain:
-Open and rolling.
-Not suitable for point-defense holding/attrition tactics used on small, rocky Pacific islands
I think a TSA agent might have been able to have taken over as Grand Soviet Marshall at that point and had the same results.