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Development of what, though? The belief that some miracle weapon could save the cause was not exactly beneficial to the Nazi's, either.

Also, this technology would have to be developed ridiculously quickly, put into service, and then manufactured like mad. The US was on a war footing days after the Pearl Harbor attack, and was in full IJN curbstomping form six months later.

If you want a miracle weapon - here you go: bio weapons.

 Tadashi wrote:
Tell me...what happened to those Americans who remained loyal to the British during the American Revolution? Why the American Indians were forced from their native lands and have yet to receive just recompense for all their sufferings? Or why the Air Force Generals responsible for the fire-bombing that killed millions were never tried? Or President Truman who ordered the use of nuclear weapons for that matter. The use of chemical agents in Vietnam. Why the issue of Guantanamo Bay is avoided by the US military and politicians? As to why the War in Iraq failed to find the WMDs that Saddam was supposed to be stockpiling? And why does every time another country gets an economic advantage, the US complains about cut throat business?

Why do Latin Americans hate the US? Why do Russians and Chinese distrust them? Why do even their allies in Europe and Asia consider them with caution?

Hang on... you're trying to have a go at the US over the apparent sins, in a thread you started about dreaming how Japan might have won WW2?

Japan. WW2. And you want to talk about someone else's atrocities.

This is really weird.


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 LordofHats wrote:
If they're going to magically invade Hawaii, they'd probably end up destroying a lot of stuff. Materials would surely survive, but as has been pointed out, having examples doesn't equate to realizing strategic and tactical value of a system. The Battle of Britain showed the value of radar but it wasn't until the 1950's that it was actually proposed that radar had been vital to victory. Prior to that, most people assumed a combination of British badassness and German silliness were the only key factors. Radar as a system was something that countries developed independently for a great deal of time, and there wasn't much discourse before WWII on the technology. Everyone had it, and thought it was useful, but not until later in the war did anyone start thinking what they really had.

A lot of the concern over radar was over the ability to turn knowledge on the ground into decisions in the air. Having a bunch of machines on the ground finding out where enemy planes are seems pretty useless given pre-war understanding of command and control. I mean hell, the French didn't even like the idea of radios.

Really, the real genius of the Battle of Britain wasn't the radar network, but Operations Control making its information useful.


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 Galdos wrote:
Mkay lets trying going back on topic. No more America or Tadashi bashing today please

That is the topic. He started a thread on how Japan could have won WW2 based on an anime, and just claimed he 'likes more traditional forms of government'.

The only useful thing that can come out of this thread is if he gets mocked into being more sensible.


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 Tadashi wrote:
What makes you think its an invasion? More like suppression bombing of the Naval Yards...and the alternate timeline would have Japan forcing through accelerated weapons development and industrialization.

I didn't say it was an invasion. Read more closely. I told you what happens when light cruisers try to engage coastal defences, and then gave an immediate example of what kind of fleet capacity is needed to do anything to coastal defences.

Want another example? Go read about the Dardanelles. That was against pretty mediocre Turkish defences, with a number of battleships, and it still failed badly.

Aha! Unit 731 and some of the most heinous atrocities of the war! (sebster, the irony is yours)

The problem is, however, that the bioweapons being developed by the unit would not be effective at all against opposing fleet operations, and there is very little to suggest that the IJN could get at all close enough to the continental US in enough numbers to deliver the quantities of bioweapons necessary to damage the population. The Kaimingjie attack in late 1940 (airdropped wheat, grain and cloth infected with plague!) killed only about 100 chinese, where the attack by fleas during the battle of Changde killed some 9500, about 1500 of which were Japanese soldiers. The public health system in the US would minimize these losses.

Alraz_ka wrote:
Where are you getting that Yamamoto didn't understand the nature of industrial war? He understood just fine that the US could simply outproduce and defeat Japan in a war of attrition.

From the continued obsession with chasing a decisive naval engagement with the Americans, while Americans subs sunk massive numbers of almost completely unprotected merchant ships.

It's an interesting thing people focus so intensely on the sub battle in the Atlantic, and are almost entirely unaware there even was a sub battle in the Pacific. I think in the end this is because there's a story to tell in the Atlantic, the u-boats were deadly for a time, but a series of countermeasures were developed by the Allies over time and slowly the war there was won. There is no similar story in the Pacific, where the US submarines were deadly... and then kept on being deadly while the IJN basically ignored the problem.

Not if the delivery system was designed to avoid detection until too late...by then an epidemic of unusually virulent flu erupts across the West Coast ultimately reaching Spanish Flu Epidemic levels. With the Soviets marching down Western Europe in the absence of Nazi Germany to deter them, choose, mortals, choose and perish (yes, from Ghostbusters ):

1) Concentrate on Japan and let the USSR win in Europe.
2) Accept Japanese victory in the Pacific and work with us and the Europeans to stop them commies!

 prime12357 wrote:
Aha! Unit 731 and some of the most heinous atrocities of the war! (sebster, the irony is yours)

Just looked this up. Fething disgusting. Gotta wonder what the frak is up with fascists and vivisections...

Like Horkheimer said, the 20th century will have seen the Death of Reason.

Yeah, some really horrible stuff all around. While most people think of Mengele and the Nazi's, it was the Japanese who were really up to no good in the twisted "science" division. Of course, the atrocities of WWII is another horribly depressinghorribly depressing thread...

 Galdos wrote:
Seems plausable to me

Sounds like the Imperium of Man actually.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Galdos wrote:
Seems plausable to me

Sounds like the Imperium of Man actually.

There's nothing wrong with the Imperium...Inquisition paranoia and Ecclesiarchal bs aside.

To me alternate history is fun but should never be presented as being possible unless actually plausible. Most alternate reality fiction isn't plausible in the slightest, and should never be presented as such.

What if Japan never invaded China...

Actually an interesting possibility. Would again though need to look more into the outcome of the Boxer Rebellion and the first Sino-Japanese war. Manchuria was already occupied by Japan in 1937. At that point, conflict might have been inevitable, but going further back it might have been avoidable.

but since nothing stood in his way in the West, Stalin invades Western Europe and China.

Stalin didn't want to invade either of those places. What would prompt him to want to? The only reason the East Bloc was even created was to counter NATO and a European/American alliance (very prudent that he saw that coming btw) and the only reason he invaded Poland was because he wanted to attack Hitler before Hitler attacked him.

Yamamoto gets the backing he needs to launch a coup to replace the over-eager and suicidal Generals who want to fight the Soviets, but is forced to concede his support for a Pacific campaign to give Japan offshore (even Korea is abandoned) territory and resources for a war against the USSR, while the Chinese and Koreans are sacrificed to buy time for Japan to expand and advance its technology.

Barring that Yamamoto was never going to get that kind of support from the IJ political system, I do think things would have turned out much better for Japan had they taken some patience, secured China, and took their time. That said, I'm unsure Japan could take China. China was their version of Vietnam, the war that just wouldn't end. They'd been in it for 5 years by the time Pearl Harbor happened. With the US and Britain backing China, I'm unsure if they could have really 'won' as much as just never lost.

What does that mean in the long term? Probably more Japanese troops free to defend against the US, which probably just means more US deaths, but doesn't really change anything. Could it mean the IJA had enough capability that the US couldn't commit so much to the European theatre, or does it just mean Europe remains priority #1, and the defeat of Japan is simply a slower operation.

Yeah. I think all it would achieve is to prolong the war (I should see if I can find how much of the IJA was committed to China cause I don't know off the top of my head). Like most of Asia at this time, its not that there are no resources, its just that what China had wasn't really accessible. The infrastructure wasn't there. It would take years for Japan to really tap into the resources by which time I think they'd have already passed the breaking point in a war against the allies.

[I've always been a little puzzled by the negative reputation of the Sherman. It was a decent tank, able to be produced in mass numbers.

It boils down a bit to people trying to figure out why their sons were dying. There was a study on the myth of the Sherman being a 'bad tank' among others a few years ago (a historical-psychological exercise if you will) and what the study found was that crews were very positive of the Sherman. But then you go to families and their friends and gradually you see this myth get built up the further you get from actual troops that the Sherman was a horrible tank and that it was getting men killed because it was so bad. This same thing actually happened to the M1 rifle at the time, where people at home though the 'ping' of the cartridge being ejected was getting soldiers killed (even if you think about it that myth makes no logical sense).

The reality is the Sherman had only two main problems. 1 the gun wasn't strong enough for 1944 German armor. This was rectified heavily by the facts Germany didn't have that much armor left. They only had about 2000 tanks in western Europe in 1944. And most of those tanks weren't really tanks (EDIT: Oh, and to top it off when D-Day started, we struck gold and a flight of B-17's bombed the of the Panzer Lehr, wiping out over half their vehicles). They were StuG's and self-propelled guns. There were only a little over 1000 Tigers total in 1944 and most of them in the East. And 2, the Sherman liked to catch fire. Nick the engine and the Sherman goes up like a roman candle and burns the crew alive. This was a major problem that wasn't fixed in until, I think, late 1943? But the myths about the negative aspects of the Sherman weren't really there until late 1944.

The Sherman was a wonderful tank overall however. Its reputation has mostly been sullied by popular culture from the 1950's and some early histories that overly relied on the internal histories of the Ordnance Department. There's a book that actually covers this subject from the 1970's called Faint Praise: American Tanks and Tank Destroyers During World War II by Charles Baily. It's mostly about the development of the Pershing, but it does cover the Sherman's negative reputation as well.

At the same time people gush over Panthers and Tigers, and fail to realise that every one of those put into the field meant scores of less sophisticated tanks that couldn't be deployed, and that their lack of operational mobility meant they weren't even capable of doing what tanks are supposed to do - exploit breakthroughs.

Yeah. It's actually baffling when you think about it. A state with no where near enough oil, designs a gas guzzler as its next generation of armored vehicle?

Sherman's flaws were:
*Caught fire easily. This was rectified over time with armor appliques on critical areas and other items such as wet storage of ammo. Frankly, although a good idea initially, a better diesel engine should have been developed and installed as soon as feasible once this was discovered.
*Armor/gun too weak. Its not correct actually. When the Sherman first came out it at was equal or superior to anything it was up against. However in time the Germans developed longer range firepower in the PZIV, and obviously much superior armor and firepower in the PZV and PZVI. It was the same problem the Russians had with the T34. Unlike the British, and Russians however, the Americans delayed upgunning the Sherman line until later in the war. Once they did so, although still not equal to the best German heavies, they had a fighting chance at shorter ranges and were very equal to their true STg and PZIV counterparts.

Gamers and historians get stuck on the strength of the Panther/Tigers, but forget the logistical nightmare behind maintaining them - typical German overengineering. While horrible to contemplate facing one on the Western Front, they were a rarity (unlike in commonly seeing them in wargames). Franky, forget the King Tigers. The real threat was the Thunderbolt fluttering about over Hans’ head, or the FOB radioing in artillery, something far more advanced than the German system.
Had the war extended any further than it did, both Britain and the US would have fielded heavy tanks in numbers (tanks who became the base for a generation of future tanks in both countries) and the Germans would have faced lots of upgunned M4s.

Ok, three pages of posts over night, so I'm not going to hit you all with a wall of text to refute each and every point.

The Allies and direct attacks on ports : for being a bad idea, they did it a lot.

Carrier armored flight decks: Wrong, that's slightly more than half the number of Casablanca class carriers alone. It's actually a small minority of carriers produced even after the war started.

The M4: the original M4 was, in fact, a gak tank. The improved variants, however, were much superior. The first Sherman that was comparable to the Pz 4 was the M4A3E2 (Jumbo), followed the M4A2E8 (Easy 8). Do not confuse 'technologically superior' with 'shooting a deer an Anti Material Rifle'. Light tanks at the time were not meant to engage other tanks, they were designed to give recon a little extra punch. By nature, they couldn't carry heavy armor, and this applies to both US and Japanese light tanks. Or was the US 'technologically inferior' for producing thousands and thousands of M3s and M5s?

US readiness Dec 7 1941 = US Readiness, Jun 6th, 1944: WTF? Yes, guys, FDR would have gotten in his magic time machine and brought the US military from the future back in time with him. But why go to that, why not just go far enough forward to bring back US made tanks from the year 2040 with graviton beam cannons? You do realize that military build up took years to put together and, again, came within one order of failing spectacularly. Thank God, Hitler was insane.

US aircraft stopping shore bombardments: WHAT aircraft? At that time, we had 11 pursuit squadrons FOR THE ENTIRE WEST COAST. RAF fighter command had 68 (IIRC) squadrons for a much smaller area and still had a hard time of it. While, yes, US land based planes outnumbered carrier based planes, the problem is concentration of force. The Japanese could have brought all their forces against a target, while the US could only bring a fraction of it's total air power against the Japanese fleet.

You also have to consider how much damage this would do to the US ability to produce ships and planes, in the short term. The US won because of hundreds of slipways up and down the west coast that were safe from attack. Never mind that the population of California gak themselves when a single submarine fired on a refinery. Imagine the panic and logistical issues that would happen if real attacks took place.

Seeing as we had broken Japanese naval codes by may of '42 I think it wouldn't have been that hard for us to concentrate our forces. It worked at Midway, pretty sure it would have worked off the coast.

That the Allies thoroughly kicked the crap out of the Axis when it came to cryptography and signals intelligence hasn't really been brought up in this thread, but it was a major factor in the war.

At that time, we had 11 pursuit squadrons FOR THE ENTIRE WEST COAST.

... Hey Ford. How fast can you build a plane?

"Give me a few weeks and I'll build you a couple hundred."

The amount of time it would take to secure Hawaii would be at least a month. Taking it would be fast and quick but establishing it as a suitable site would take weeks. Japan wouldn't ready to just jump on over to the west coast. And in that time, we'd be building new planes and pushing out pilots. An initial raid, maybe two (depends on time) would work well, but then we'd just swarm them down with aircraft.

Oh and of course, dem oil supplies. Pearl Harbor's "2 year" oil stash wasn't designed to keep a fleet operating 2000 miles from port. It was designed to give them enough fuel to maintain regular operations within a few dozen miles of Pearl. Maintaining a war stance would need regular shipments which was infeasible for Japan.

The US won because of hundreds of slipways up and down the west coast that were safe from attack.

Because Japan attacking the west coast is an absurd idea, even in alternate reality, assuming we're talking about within the real of prossibility.

You do realize that military build up took years to put together and, again

You do realize the US military was invading Africa within 6 months of Pearl, right? We built up at an insanely fast rate (helped that factories were already going) and island hoping doesn't take the same force as invading mainland Europe.

 Frazzled wrote:
Sherman's flaws were:
*Caught fire easily. This was rectified over time with armor appliques on critical areas and other items such as wet storage of ammo. Frankly, although a good idea initially, a better diesel engine should have been developed and installed as soon as feasible once this was discovered.
*Armor/gun too weak. Its not correct actually. When the Sherman first came out it at was equal or superior to anything it was up against. However in time the Germans developed longer range firepower in the PZIV, and obviously much superior armor and firepower in the PZV and PZVI. It was the same problem the Russians had with the T34. Unlike the British, and Russians however, the Americans delayed upgunning the Sherman line until later in the war. Once they did so, although still not equal to the best German heavies, they had a fighting chance at shorter ranges and were very equal to their true STg and PZIV counterparts.

Gamers and historians get stuck on the strength of the Panther/Tigers, but forget the logistical nightmare behind maintaining them - typical German overengineering. While horrible to contemplate facing one on the Western Front, they were a rarity (unlike in commonly seeing them in wargames). Franky, forget the King Tigers. The real threat was the Thunderbolt fluttering about over Hans’ head, or the FOB radioing in artillery, something far more advanced than the German system.
Had the war extended any further than it did, both Britain and the US would have fielded heavy tanks in numbers (tanks who became the base for a generation of future tanks in both countries) and the Germans would have faced lots of upgunned M4s.

Yeah, Panthers and Tigers were superior only on an individual basis. And then only in weapons and armor development. As far as internal systems were concerned, especially later in the war, they were quite shoddy.

One major flaw was they were not easily repairable in the field. Not all the parts were accessable without actually taking it into a shop and taking the entire tank apart.

Shermans could be repaired in the field by their crew most of the time. And if a part needed replacing they could get a replacement part and put it in themselves.


Not to mention, later in the war, the Shermans had started carrying guns that could penetrate Panther and Tiger armor even from the front.

If the Germans had focused on producing more Panzer IVs they would have had the numbers to counter the Allied numbers.

No no BaronIveagh has spoken. Japan was a shoe in for maximum pwonage, if only they had thought of invading Hawaii. Despite their months of planning, preparation, strategizing, and actual playtesting of scenarios, somehow this was overlooked by the Japanese. Curses oh cruel misfortune, their fair empire dead, destroyed by the lack of whispered dreams in the night.


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 sebster wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
If we had invaded, the entire Island would likely have been annhilated. The entire populace was ready to fight, down to the last women and child.

That's a matter for debate. It was certainly believed to be true at the time, but then back then we didn't have much of a problem putting alien mindsets onto Asian people.

It probably would have ended up a really bloody, ugly invasion with loads of casualties on both sides, more or less like the Russian capture of Berlin. But most civilians would have probably fled the fighting, and looked first to protect their families, same as everywhere else in the world.


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 Jihadin wrote:
Ugh. You know one of the last act of the military if Japan were going to take over Hawaii is to destroy everything of military value. Drydock, fuel storage, military supplies, and basically everything of military use.

Maybe. Panic sets in, especially when people aren't pschologically ready for the invasion, or properly trained in the event it does. There's no shortage of stories of bridges, water supplies and munitions being captured when it simply should not have happened.

I think it's unlikely the Japanese could have captured meaningful levels of supplies from Pearl Harbour, but you can't just decide it never would have happened.

The mindset was based on attacks from civilians on US troops in Okinawa, and propaganda from the Japanese themselves. They didn't know about the thousands of suicide planes the Japanese had secretly stored. If anything actual casualty rates for US forces would have been substantially higher.

Whomever has the resources and/or lack of humanity usually win these wars.

The Japanese and US were certainly brutal... but, the Japanese couldn't hope to keep up with the US' resources capacity.

There is no clean wars.

There was a famous book (for life of me, I can't remember) that a tactician was brilliant in warfare... but had no empathy what so ever. HE's your ideal General.

 Tadashi wrote:

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

Lol. That's not even in their country... A democracy can be as much a dick as anyone else in a war. Like I've said many time, you'd gain a lot by picking up a book about politics.

They may not be a dictatorship...but they sure as hell act like one.

No if we acted like dictators there would be no Japanese. You would all have died.

The Japanese depended a lot on their high altitude observer planes to know where their targets were.
In one instance, they had reports of one of the American carriers, (Enterprise I think) being sighted in widely different locations. This was partly because they based the estimated maximum speed on their own carriers. The ship in question would run at 2/3 speed during the day then ran at max speed at night at an angle to their actual course. Result: The IJN refused to believe reports without verification, thus deploying more planes on recon which pulled fuel from the fighters.

Intersting point though, If they had waited one day, they would have caught 2 of the American carriers at Pearl, Enterprise and Hornet. Enterprise was supposed to port on Dec7 and Hornet on the 8th. Fighters from Enterprise actually took part in the defense of the Harbor.

 Frazzled wrote:
No no BaronIveagh has spoken. Japan was a shoe in for maximum pwonage, if only they had thought of invading Hawaii. Despite their months of planning, preparation, strategizing, and actual playtesting of scenarios, somehow this was overlooked by the Japanese. Curses oh cruel misfortune, their fair empire dead, destroyed by the lack of whispered dreams in the night.


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 sebster wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
If we had invaded, the entire Island would likely have been annhilated. The entire populace was ready to fight, down to the last women and child.

That's a matter for debate. It was certainly believed to be true at the time, but then back then we didn't have much of a problem putting alien mindsets onto Asian people.

It probably would have ended up a really bloody, ugly invasion with loads of casualties on both sides, more or less like the Russian capture of Berlin. But most civilians would have probably fled the fighting, and looked first to protect their families, same as everywhere else in the world.


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 Jihadin wrote:
Ugh. You know one of the last act of the military if Japan were going to take over Hawaii is to destroy everything of military value. Drydock, fuel storage, military supplies, and basically everything of military use.

Maybe. Panic sets in, especially when people aren't pschologically ready for the invasion, or properly trained in the event it does. There's no shortage of stories of bridges, water supplies and munitions being captured when it simply should not have happened.

I think it's unlikely the Japanese could have captured meaningful levels of supplies from Pearl Harbour, but you can't just decide it never would have happened.

The mindset was based on attacks from civilians on US troops in Okinawa, and propaganda from the Japanese themselves. They didn't know about the thousands of suicide planes the Japanese had secretly stored. If anything actual casualty rates for US forces would have been substantially higher.

Based on numerous WW2 diaries... the Marines knew that it would be a bloodbath had they invaded.

Okinawa was a big clue on what would happen if they invaded Japan

 Tadashi wrote:

 prime12357 wrote:


Japan might have been able to delay the inevitable, but defeat was really the only outcome. Like a pugnacious twelve-year old picking a fight with a MMA fighter, we all know who's going to win...

How about a smart twelve-year old who plays to his strengths?

A better analogy would be a 12 year old with a knife vs. a Longhorn bull. You may bloody the bull a little bit, but once he gets going you're a smear on the ground.

 BaronIveagh wrote:


Carrier armored flight decks: Wrong, that's slightly more than half the number of Casablanca class carriers alone. It's actually a small minority of carriers produced even after the war started.

Actually thats wrong. Casablanca is an escort carrier. The Yorktown class was the last class to have unarmored flight decks. Essex were the first to armor the deck and NONE of the Essex classes were lost in the war (of the 24 of them made) with only 2 baddly damaged (Bunker Hill and Franklin)

The M4: the original M4 was, in fact, a gak tank. The improved variants, however, were much superior. The first Sherman that was comparable to the Pz 4 was the M4A3E2 (Jumbo), followed the M4A2E8 (Easy 8). Do not confuse 'technologically superior' with 'shooting a deer an Anti Material Rifle'. Light tanks at the time were not meant to engage other tanks, they were designed to give recon a little extra punch. By nature, they couldn't carry heavy armor, and this applies to both US and Japanese light tanks. Or was the US 'technologically inferior' for producing thousands and thousands of M3s and M5s?

The first Sherman was the equivlent of the Panzer 4. With both being armored with a 75mm gun and the armor being roughly the same (Panzer 4 had a LITTLE bit more, Sherman was slopped) with similar top speeds. The difference between the two was Sherman blew up easily from ammo issues.
Roughly around Italy the Panzer 4 started getting armed with 76mm while the Shermans starting getting wet ammo racks. This fixed the explosive problem of the Sherman and gave the Panzer 4 a bit of range on them.
By Normandy, many of the Shermans were equped with 76mm and meaning they could pen Panzer 4s and roughly the same range and could now pen Tigers.

Jumbos, were another beast all together, Jumbos were the American Heavy tank in a way. They grew tired of having Tigers feth gak up, and put so much armor on a Shermans front that when equpied with a 76mm, they could actually pen the Tiger the same range a Tiger could pen a Jumbo. The E8 was leagues superior to the Panzer IV and was a damn fine tank but they didnt come to france a bit after Normandy.


Okay let me get this straight. Japan, does not build medium tanks and instead focuses on light tanks. Their main battle tank this means is a light tank. The Americans make Stuarts that are roughly equal to the Jap tanks. To fix this problem America says feth it and starts to deploy medium tanks which are completely superior to Lights. So from Guadacanal to Okinawa, Japan soldiers have to deal with American armor with limited infantry Anti-tank weapons or using their light tanks that history showed performed SOOOO HORRIBLY against the American tanks. This means that America has an advantage in technology in dealing with armor units. I dont understand why you think that because Japan doesnt use medium tanks and their light tanks can not defeat Shermans, that means that Japan is... I dont know level footing when comparing armor?

US readiness Dec 7 1941 = US Readiness, Jun 6th, 1944: WTF? Yes, guys, FDR would have gotten in his magic time machine and brought the US military from the future back in time with him. But why go to that, why not just go far enough forward to bring back US made tanks from the year 2040 with graviton beam cannons? You do realize that military build up took years to put together and, again, came within one order of failing spectacularly. Thank God, Hitler was insane.

I have no idea what this statement is refering to. I simply missed the first part of the post

US aircraft stopping shore bombardments: WHAT aircraft? At that time, we had 11 pursuit squadrons FOR THE ENTIRE WEST COAST. RAF fighter command had 68 (IIRC) squadrons for a much smaller area and still had a hard time of it. While, yes, US land based planes outnumbered carrier based planes, the problem is concentration of force. The Japanese could have brought all their forces against a target, while the US could only bring a fraction of it's total air power against the Japanese fleet.

Okay the physical act of invading the USA is actually possible, the US didnt have an Atlantic wall to defend them. In fact, a smart commander would let the Japs come onsure, move a bit inland and than hit them hard with Carpet Bombers (a tactic that was very effective in Operation Cobra) to soften them up, land based aircraft to tangle with the Japs who would be outnumbered because they are limited to the aircraft craft carriers, the US can move planes once they know where the Japs landed, and a good armored offensive which Japan, having only light tanks, would have gotten destroyed in. Actually invading America would play to every single one of the American strengths.



Also worth remember, the major manufactoring plants are in the Eastern US, which means America would be cranking war material out

 Tadashi wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 Tadashi wrote:
Hence the professionals saying it as not impossible, but very difficult to achieve in reality

I'd question the credentials of anyone simultaneously claiming these to be possible in any reality and to be 'professional.'

They also presented a different strategy: Japan stays out of the Atlantic, but still annihilates Pearl Harbor and the Panama Canal - regardless of Australia and the West Coast, a long-distance war in such a situation (especially with Japan entrenched across the West Pacific) would have been hopeless.

Guadalcanal. Tarawa. The Solomans. New Gunea. The Carolines. The Phillipines. The Marianas. Iwo Jima. Okinawa. All places where the entrenched Japanese military got removed by the combined might of the United States Armed Forces.

Adding Oahu to the list (not much need to retake the others immediately, Pearl is by far and away the best anchorage there and the garrisons on the other islands wither and fall into American hands once isolated) isn't really that much of an additional stretch for the forces that kicked Japan clear across the Pacific... and was building up to do the same to the Japanese mainland.

Besides, if I'm not mistaken, the number of American troops on Oahu (much less the entire archepelgo) would have outnumbered the amount of troops Japan could possibly have transported in an amphibious capacity at the time. And resources spend building MORE transport before the war were NOT spend on surface combatants and (more importantly) aircraft carriers. It's just barely possibly they could have taken Oahu... but they would have been bleed so badly there's no way they could have held off the inevitable counterattack.

Destroying the Panama Canal wouldn't have helped the Japanese all that much. It would have meant longer transit time for ships built on the east coast... and that's about it. There are many decent ports on the west coast, and a good train system to move supplies built in the east to the west coast. Besides, going after the Panama Canal would have meant even more attritional losses inflicted on the Imperial Navy... losses they could not afford. And bomb Los Alamos? Why? As far as the Japanese knew at the time (assuming they'd ever heard of the place in the first place!) it's just a tiny desert town in the middle of nowhere, nearly a thousand miles from the sea and well out of range of a carrier strike. Far better to try bombing the fleet base at San Diego, at least that has the potential to harm the U.S!

Besides, the nukes probably saved Japanese culture from being wiped out. If there hadn't been a surrender, the U.S. would have invaded. American losses would have been heavy. Given the way Tojo was psyching up the Japanese people to fight to the death, Japanese losses would have been... pretty near total, and a tragic loss to the world.

I'll grant you that one-on-one the Japanese soldier was as good as any American soldier. But when an army five times the size of yours arrives offshore, and has absolute naval supremecy (because we have the resources to wage attritional war on your navy and you don't), you've got to be five times as good just to hold your own. And I'm not willing to grant the WWII Japanese soldier being that good... with his bolt-action rifle vs. the M-1 Garand.

Not to mention that by '43/'44 American aircraft had far supassed the performance of the Zero... and outnumbered them over 5-to-1 again. Japan simply did not have the resources to outbuild America... and was doomed to loose. Yamamoto - generally acknowledged by Americans as the best stragegist Japan had in the war - understood this before the war... and it's a damn shame no one listened to him. It would have saved a large number of lives.

Anime is (generally speaking) fiction... this one more than most.

(Sorry. The Pacific War is one of my personal special interests and I've researched it pretty heavily... )


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tadashi wrote:
Not if the delivery system was designed to avoid detection until too late...by then an epidemic of unusually virulent flu erupts across the West Coast ultimately reaching Spanish Flu Epidemic levels. With the Soviets marching down Western Europe in the absence of Nazi Germany to deter them, choose, mortals, choose and perish (yes, from Ghostbusters ):

1) Concentrate on Japan and let the USSR win in Europe.
2) Accept Japanese victory in the Pacific and work with us and the Europeans to stop them commies!

Okay, I'll bite. What delivery system, what infectious agent, and what makes you think Japan at the time could handle a weaponized agent of that lethality without it getting loose in Japan and doing far worse there? I don't think any country at the time had enough understanding of epdiemiology to make it work - or the technology to make the level of sterile work environment to make it safe.

 sebster wrote:

Alraz_ka wrote:
Where are you getting that Yamamoto didn't understand the nature of industrial war? He understood just fine that the US could simply outproduce and defeat Japan in a war of attrition.

From the continued obsession with chasing a decisive naval engagement with the Americans, while Americans subs sunk massive numbers of almost completely unprotected merchant ships.

It's an interesting thing people focus so intensely on the sub battle in the Atlantic, and are almost entirely unaware there even was a sub battle in the Pacific. I think in the end this is because there's a story to tell in the Atlantic, the u-boats were deadly for a time, but a series of countermeasures were developed by the Allies over time and slowly the war there was won. There is no similar story in the Pacific, where the US submarines were deadly... and then kept on being deadly while the IJN basically ignored the problem.

Indeed. The Americans did what the German Uboats couldn't do-starve a nation of vital supplies.

The United States Submarine Service in WW II saw action in both the Atlantic, in a very limited way, and in the Pacific in a major way. The Submarine Service accounted for about 55% of all Japanese tonnage sunk in the war. This was done by a branch of the Navy that accounted for about 1.6% of the Navy's wartime complement.

The Japanese lost 1,178 Merchant Ships sunk for a tonnage total of 5,053,491 tons. The Naval losses were 214 ships and submarines totaling 577,626 tons. A staggering five million, six hundred thirty one thousand, one hundred seventeen tons, (5,631,117 tons), 1,392 ships.

Japan ended the war with a bare 12% of her merchant fleet intact but not fuel at hand to run more than a few of them.

Action in the Atlantic showed far fewer successes, mainly due to poor torpedo performance. By May of 1943 US submarine involvement had almost ceased in the Atlantic except for training and sea trials of new subs. US submarine losses in the Atlantic were few and may have been the result of an aggressive anti-submarine program by US and allied powers.

The U.S. Navy lost 52 submarines sunk and 4023 men of the submarine service died while on boats. These boats and crews left port and never returned. Their final resting place, and the circumstances surrounding their fate is, for the most part, unknown. We, in the Submarine Service, refer to these boats and men as being on Eternal Patrol

http://pigboats.com/ww2/ww2sinkings.html

 LordofHats wrote:


... Hey Ford. How fast can you build a plane?

"Give me a few weeks and I'll build you a couple hundred."

The amount of time it would take to secure Hawaii would be at least a month. Taking it would be fast and quick but establishing it as a suitable site would take weeks. Japan wouldn't ready to just jump on over to the west coast. And in that time, we'd be building new planes and pushing out pilots. An initial raid, maybe two (depends on time) would work well, but then we'd just swarm them down with aircraft.

Oh and of course, dem oil supplies. Pearl Harbor's "2 year" oil stash wasn't designed to keep a fleet operating 2000 miles from port. It was designed to give them enough fuel to maintain regular operations within a few dozen miles of Pearl. Maintaining a war stance would need regular shipments which was infeasible for Japan.

8 billion gallons. And no, it wasn't. Remember that the US Navy was not staying 'within a few dozen miles of Pearl'. The existing stores would have sufficed if that was their plan. The Navy's operations at that time extended all the way to the Philippines.

And, again, it took months to convert those factories, not weeks. In all of 1942, the US managed to produce 24k combat aircraft of all types. At the same time, Japan manged to produce approx 20k of all types. It wasn't until 43 that US production managed to seriously outpace everyone elses.

 LordofHats wrote:

Because Japan attacking the west coast is an absurd idea, even in alternate reality, assuming we're talking about within the real of prossibility.

Napoleon winning at Austerlitz was thought absurd, an impossibility. As the man himself later observed 'Impossible is a word found only in the dictionary of fools'.

 LordofHats wrote:

You do realize the US military was invading Africa within 6 months of Pearl, right? We built up at an insanely fast rate (helped that factories were already going) and island hoping doesn't take the same force as invading mainland Europe.

Operation Torch was November of 1942. That's not 'six months later'. And major action didn't happen until Jan-Feb of 43. That's one of the things that drives me nuts on this board.

Guadalcanal was called 'Operation Shoestring' by the Marines for a REASON. They started off without even close to enough supplies. Further, if the Japanese had taken Pearl, the US would have gone from three carrier task forces at Guadalcanal to one, maybe.


On the Sherman's 75 = the Pz 4's 75:

7.5 cm StuK 40 L48 loaded with Pzgr.Ptr.39 (as opposed to a Pzgr. 40, which throws the M3 out the window) Pen at 500 yards and a angle of 30 degrees from vert, 96mm.
US M3 firing an M72 AP shell at a flat on testing plate (one at 90 degrees rather then having a 30 degree slope) pen at 500 yards, 76mm

So, even giving the M3 an advantage, it still does not perform at the same standard. Further, the Sherman's frontal armor, at 76mm was easily penetrated by the Pziv, while the Pz IV's 80mm frontal armor was not easily penetrated by the Sherman.

Granted, soft armor, side skirting, angle of shot and so on are all factors, but the Pz VI is the clear winner.






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 Vulcan wrote:

Besides, if I'm not mistaken, the number of American troops on Oahu (much less the entire archepelgo) would have outnumbered the amount of troops Japan could possibly have transported in an amphibious capacity at the time. And resources spend building MORE transport before the war were NOT spend on surface combatants and (more importantly) aircraft carriers. It's just barely possibly they could have taken Oahu... but they would have been bleed so badly there's no way they could have held off the inevitable counterattack.

Incorrect. As I pointed out earlier, the 14th Army not only grotesquely outnumber the defenders in Hawaii grand total, but were already mounted in with enough amphibious transport to move them in preparation for Luzon

 Vulcan wrote:

Destroying the Panama Canal wouldn't have helped the Japanese all that much. It would have meant longer transit time for ships built on the east coast... and that's about it. There are many decent ports on the west coast, and a good train system to move supplies built in the east to the west coast. Besides, going after the Panama Canal would have meant even more attritional losses inflicted on the Imperial Navy... losses they could not afford. *snip* since I agree with the Los Alamos bit, but have no idea who was saying that, as it's in New Mexico. And the Nuclear program was not even there at the time, it was in White Oaks *snip* Far better to try bombing the fleet base at San Diego, at least that has the potential to harm the U.S!

You are not very familiar with conditions along the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn, are you? Picture a hurricane. Now have it go on for weeks. There wasn't just one reason that tehy built the Canal. Ships are to this day lost trying to 'round the horn'. Not sure why you think that there would be much by way of losses hitting the Panama Canal. It was very, very weakly defended in the time frame we're looking at here.

 Vulcan wrote:

(Sorry. The Pacific War is one of my personal special interests and I've researched it pretty heavily... )

Obviously not heavy enough.

 Vulcan wrote:

Okay, I'll bite. What delivery system, what infectious agent, and what makes you think Japan at the time could handle a weaponized agent of that lethality without it getting loose in Japan and doing far worse there? I don't think any country at the time had enough understanding of epdiemiology to make it work - or the technology to make the level of sterile work environment to make it safe.

Because the Japanese were the source of just about everything we know about weaponized germs. One of their more ingenious designs was a bomb composed of a minimum amount of explosive, and porcelain containers filled with anthrax spores. When the bomb detonates the spores are spread over a wide area. Further, anyone struck by shrapnel is almost immediately infected with anthrax.

Napoleon winning at Austerlitz was thought absurd, an impossibility. As the man himself later observed 'Impossible is a word found only in the dictionary of fools'.

Have a hard time comprehending the concept of hindsight? People in their own time don't usually realize what has happened and what could or might happen. We have the advantage of actually having a much larger amount of information than they did.

And, again, it took months to convert those factories, not weeks.

Most of those factories already existed (it was methodology and streamlining that sped things up). And Japan only had 10 carriers (4 of consequence), needed to keep at least 4 in the west Pacific, leaving only six free to do other things. Their largest carriers only carried roughly 70 plans. That's 280, a max of 700 (assuming 70 for all 10, which isn't true but for the sake of numbers) that could ever go against the US coast line.

Obviously not heavy enough.

Says they guy who assumes oil lasts forever and can take you anywhere you want to go? 8 billion may seem like a huge number, but a battleship alone will go through hundreds a day just steaming along. An entire fleet could go through a two or three million gallons in a week just going along. We're talking about ships that are getting a few dozen feet to the gallon. Large ships guzzle fuel insanely fast, especially when spending almost all their time at sea. Japan would burn up that Pearl supply in a year maintaining combat operations just in the pacific. Going all the way to the west coast let alone the panama canal and blockading it is horribly unrealistic and one of the reasons they hedged their bets on trying to produce a short war.

Once it was gone, Japan didn't have the means of replacing that supply. They barely managed to keep their own fleet running through 1943 with a reserve supply in excess of twenty-five billion gallons operating at no where near the ranges your suggesting. By 1944, Japan had exhausted its pre-war oil surplus (which they'd been building since 1922).

As I pointed out earlier, the 14th Army not only grotesquely outnumber the defenders in Hawaii grand total, but were already mounted in with enough amphibious transport to move them in preparation for Luzon

So who is going to deal with the Phillipines? EDIT: And that's not even going into feeding and supplying the invasion force for the two weeks it would take to reach Hawaii.

Also, the M3 is the Lee. Not the Sherman. Not sure if typo. Also, depending on what the source for the ballestic penetration is it could be way off. The US vastly overestimated the penetrating power of tank arms, and the Ordnance Department's figures get cited a lot, even today.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

1) Guadalcanal was called 'Operation Shoestring' by the Marines for a REASON. They started off without even close to enough supplies. Further, if the Japanese had taken Pearl, the US would have gone from three carrier task forces at Guadalcanal to one, maybe.

2) You are not very familiar with condition along the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn, are you? Not sure why you think that there would be much by way of losses hitting the Panama Canal. It was very, very weakly defended in the time frame we're looking at here.

3) Because the Japanese were the source of just about everything we know about weaponized germs. One of their more ingenious designs was a bomb composed of a minimum amount of explosive, and porcelain containers filled with anthrax spores. When the bomb detonates the spores are spread over a wide area. Further, anyone struck by shrapnel is almost immediately infected with anthrax.

1) Being that the IJN missed the carriers in the attack, they would have gone to the west coast. The Pacific is a huge area to search, and Japan used seaplanes to augment their search. Given my previous comment on the Enterprise being "sighted" in what the IJN thought was imposible locations based on their own ships abilities, They would have had a difficult time hunting what were, at the time, three small (less than 10 ships) fleets.

2) Plus the Yorktown was dispatched from Norfolk on Dec 16 with a much larger fleet that included several battleships. They would have likely been exiting the Panama Canal at the time of the proposed attack. Something that the Japanese plan did not allow for.

3) There is no known record of the Japanese having experimented with weaponising Anthrax. There are records that the Brits did and had a weapon ready for depolyment in Germany.

 helgrenze wrote:


3) There is no known record of the Japanese having experimented with weaponising Anthrax. There are records that the Brits did and had a weapon ready for depolyment in Germany.

Maybe not...but your bio-weapons tech is based on ours - our scientists were granted amnesty in exchange for the bio-weapons data.