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What if...in the improbable but not impossible event...that Japan uses superior tactics and technology (which they had) to win the Pacific War, then switched sides and replaces the defeated USA among the Allies, defeats the Nazis, creating an alternate world where instead of having the USSR and the USA as twin superpowers, we have three: Britain of the Atlantic, Japan of the Pacific, and USSR of Northern Eurasia.

Read up on Harry Turtledove

 Jihadin wrote:
Read up on Harry Turtledove

I just did...turned out my mom had the first book, Day of Infamy...but I still prefer the Japanese OVA Konpeki no Kantai, upon which this is based, and whose DVDs I acquired a year ago.

Wait how exactly would Japan defeat the USA?

If I remember correctly they landed on Hawaii.

 Jihadin wrote:
If I remember correctly they landed on Hawaii.

And? Thats just makes Japan much more radioactive in late 1945 and early 1946.
The US built 29 Essex class carriers in WWII and 9 independence class carriers. We built 12,000 hellcats, and 12,000 corsairs alone, not to mention 7,800 wildcats. Thats just the Navy.
The moment they attacked the US they signed their collective death warrant.

Ancient Budha say: never get involved in a land war in Asia and never with the US Navy.

 Frazzled wrote:
Wait how exactly would Japan defeat the USA?

From a non novel standpoint, if the USA had lost more of its fleet and the Japanese had more resources to threaten other naval assets of the USA, the war would of been a moot point in the Pacific. An invasion of mainland America would of be improbable, and it could of been likely the United States would of conceded the Pacific War, at the very least a standstill.

No Nazis? Hmph, and here's me about to start reading Hitler's War....

I enjoyed the one with the alien invasion durinng WWII. Was a good read

 WarOne wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Wait how exactly would Japan defeat the USA?

From a non novel standpoint, if the USA had lost more of its fleet and the Japanese had more resources to threaten other naval assets of the USA, the war would of been a moot point in the Pacific. An invasion of mainland America would of be improbable, and it could of been likely the United States would of conceded the Pacific War, at the very least a standstill.

When has the US conceded anything when attacked?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Now a history without the Nazis would be interesting. Does someone else similarly replace them, do they go communist?

Rememberman military was looking for someone they ould support to rebuild the Fatherland's military. If not Hitler they would have likely found someone else, maybe not so crazy.

Disclaimer - I know little about the Pacific war, my interest is more the European theatre, more specifically the events in Normandy. But I will give this a shot anyway.

I don't think that would work. At all...

Firstly, I'm not certain whether they had more advanced technology at the time, although I doubt it. Japanese armoured vehicles of the time were usually considered inferior to their American counterparts. I think they had decent aircraft, but I know practically nothing about that, so I will leave that for more educated minds. As well as superior vehicles in general, the US also had a much larger manufacturing base, and one that was virtually safe from attack. (I believe the M4 Sherman is the most widely produced tank of the war, if not in history - Not certain though.) The US was able to bring far more men and machines to the battle. Remember that they were also fighting through Normandy and France as well, and still had reserves enough to keep both the Western and Pacific fronts manned and equipped. The Japanese just wouldn't have the resources available to compete with the US.

I know Italy changed sides late in the war, but the Japanese mindset just wouldn't allow them to. The Italian people were generally against the war, and when Mussolini was overthrown after the Allies invaded, support for the war vanished and the Italians changed sides. The Japanese were pretty much die-hard fight-to-the-last types.


I hope that made sense... Again, these are parts of the war I have little knowledge of - if I've slipped up on anything let me know

EDIT: Got ninja'd by about 10 people

You'd have to do some pretty radical alterations to make Japan winning the Pacific War probable. Resource disparity between Japan and the US is just too high and being tied down in China really sucked up more of those limited resources.

EDIT: I'll also add the idea of Japan switching sides is, highly unlikely. They grew really close to the Germans in the 30's after Britain 'stabbed' them in the back and stopped supporting the Imperial Navy's training program. Plus, the Commonwealth remained an obstacle to Japanese expansion in Asia, USA or not USA.

I think they had decent aircraft

Barring that they actually stole the Zero's design from Howard Hughes, they had awesome planes overall. Problem was that like their navy, they just couldn't build them fast enough to the point they were making planes out of wood and paper. A big problem was also the use of veteran pilots, consolidating them into units with themselves. As these units dwindled in numbers, there was no one around to teach green pilots to fly. EDIT: My bad. They took the design of the Zero from Chance Vought, not Hughes. That's what I get for watching the Aviator last week

I believe the M4 Sherman is the most widely produced tank of the war, if not in history - Not certain though.

T-34. Sherman #2 though

Thanks for the corrections LoH

 Tadashi wrote:
What if...in the improbable but not impossible event...that Japan uses superior tactics and technology (which they had) to win the Pacific War, then switched sides and replaces the defeated USA among the Allies, defeats the Nazis, creating an alternate world where instead of having the USSR and the USA as twin superpowers, we have three: Britain of the Atlantic, Japan of the Pacific, and USSR of Northern Eurasia.

This is the same Japan that had an ongoing war with Britain correct? The Japan attacked the French and Dutch, and the one the Soviets kept 30 divisions in the East to watch for?

I think a better alternate is what if Latin America gets involved or what if Japan never attacks the US but attacks everything else?

 Frazzled wrote:
Wait how exactly would Japan defeat the USA?

1) Yamamoto successfully lobbies for the construction of advanced battleships and super-carriers, a secret fleet of nuclear-powered submarine carriers, and a covert mass production of advanced combat aircraft in the years prior to the war.
2) Once the Pearl Harbor Task Force has left, Yamamoto, the other admirals, and the moderate army generals launch a coup and seize control - Japanese troops are withdrawn from the mainland except for Korea, lulling the Americans into a false sense that Yamamoto is more cooperative.
3) Pearl Harbor is a complete Japanese victory: the first wave sinks all American ships in the harbor - the entire battleship fleet, half of the cruiser fleet, and one-quarter of the destroyer fleet - and the entire combat aviation wing on the islands, but the second wave destroys the oil depot, the military headquarters, the naval yard, the power plant, and the submarine base with two-thirds of the submarine fleet - including the naval intelligence assets in the basement, rendering the USN blind and deaf in the Pacific.
4) The Japanese regroup, then ambush the three Pacific carriers racing back to Pearl Harbor - after which Hawaii is occupied. The USN is effectively emasculated and is forced to withdraw to the West Coast.
5) Japan overruns the West Pacific, granting independence to all European and American colonial possessions, but do not impose governments or garrisons - except in New Guinea, to draw the Americans into the South Pacific.
6) Japan ambushes four carriers diverted from the Atlantic in the Tasman Sea and the Torres Strait, destroying them all and ensuring uncontested control of the Pacific.
7) Submarine carriers destroy the Panama Canal, then Los Alamos, preventing the Americans from bringing anymore ships from the Atlantic, and setting their nuclear research back by ten years (whereas the Japanese already have nuclear-powered subs).
8) Roosevelt dies from a shock-induced heart attack, and Truman opens peace negotiations.
9) Germany declares war on Japan, who respond by using inter-continental flying boat bombers to destroy German nuclear research facilities in Nuremberg, setting back their nuclear research by ten years as well.
10) Germany invades India - in exchange for assistance in India and repatriation of European POWs, the British and the European Allies make peace with Japan, who send troops to India together with a fleet in the Indian Ocean. America, in an effort to regain hope in the war effort, begins bombing German convoys in the East Atlantic.
11) Japan secretly leaks strategically-vital Soviet intelligence to the Germans - Germans win at Stalingrad and Petrograd, Russians retreat, Stalin commits suicide and Germany gains control over the Soviet industrial heartland - all to force the Western Allies to overcommit.
12) America invades Brittany Peninsula but are driven into the sea by the Germans - as planned, the failed war effort throws America back into isolationism, but peace negotiations with Japan continue.
13) Operation Sealion - Germany invades and occupies Southern England.
14) Japan's carriers destroy German command centers across India as the submarine carriers cut off troops and supplies passing through the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, allowing British-Japanese forces to check German advance in India. Trotsky becomes Premier with Japanese support.
15) Nationalist Chinese forces repel German attempt to break the Indian deadlock with a flank attack through Xinjiang Province. A German strike at Washington DC catalyzes successful negotiations with Japan - Hawaii is returned with US POWs, and Japan sends a fleet into the Pacific.
16) Soviet-Japanese forces defeat the Germans in Mongolia, and British-Japanese forces achieve complete control over the Atlantic.
17) As the European Allies assemble troops to drive the Germans off the British Isles, Japan's Atlantic Fleet destroys strategic German assets across Western Europe.
18) Hitler's Bavarian HQ is destroyed by Japanese commandos, and the counter-offensive begins - Japanese support proves critical.
19) With Britain 'liberated', peace negotiations with Germany begin. Germany retains Poland, the Baltic States, and Alsace-Lorraine. The Jews return to Israel.
20) As Hitler vows revenge, Japan withdraws to the Pacific to prepare for a new war in a few decades...

EDIT: this is basically the condensed plot for Konpeki no Kantai, and I had looked over by my maternal grandfather (a retired Philippine Army general) and my maternal uncle (an intelligence lieutenant-colonel in the Philippine Army) - the response: difficult, but not impossible. If the real life Japanese had done this, nothing could have stopped them.

1) Yamamoto successfully lobbies for the construction of advanced battleships and super-carriers, a secret fleet of nuclear-powered submarine carriers, and a covert mass production of combat aircraft in the years prior to the war.
***As the first nuclear powered vessels didn’t come into service until the 1950s that’s way out there.
The Japanese already had very advanced battleships and super carriers. US battleships just had better fire control systems and radar. Carriers, well in the words of the immortal bard: “We better than you. “
2) Once the Pearl Harbor Task Force has left, Yamamoto, the other admirals, and the moderate army generals launch a coup and seize control - Japanese troops are withdrawn from the mainland except for Korea, lulling the Americans into a false sense that Yamamoto is more cooperative.
***Once you attack Pearl harbor we amazingly wouldn’t give a gak. Nuke clock starts at 4 years and counting when the first toredo bomber lifts off.
3) Pearl Harbor is a complete Japanese victory: the first wave sinks all American ships in the harbor - the entire battleship fleet, half of the cruiser fleet, and one-quarter of the destroyer fleet - and the entire combat aviation wing on the islands, but the second wave destroys the oil depot, the military headquarters, the naval yard, the power plant, and the submarine base with two-thirds of the submarine fleet - including the naval intelligence assets in the basement, rendering the USN blind and deaf in the Pacific.
***So what? That gives you six months. That just means we make more nukes. More of Japan gets radiated.
4) The Japanese regroup, then ambush the three Pacific carriers racing back to Pearl Harbor - after which Hawaii is occupied. The USN is effectively emasculated and is forced to withdraw to the West Coast.
***So what? Assume everything goes swimmingly. Nuke clock starts at 4 years and counting. What part of ‘the US built 29 carriers’ (not counting little escort carriers) is not clear to you? And that’s assuming the US doesn’t say “Sorry Europe we’re focusing on Japan first.”
5) Japan overruns the West Pacific, granting independence to all European and American colonial possessions, but do not impose governments or garrisons - except in New Guinea, to draw the Americans into the South Pacific.
***Japan did that, well they conquered them anyway. The slaughter of the native population continued until US, UK, and Kriekie! Aussies armed with drop bears and 5 inch crocodile cannons drove them out.
6) Japan ambushes four carriers diverted from the Atlantic in the Tasman Sea and the Torres Strait, destroying them all and ensuring uncontested control of the Pacific.
***Unless you’re brilliant you’ll take casualties at about 1:1 (Coral Sea). Again, 29 carriers, a sub fleet that will strangle you utterly, and something called the B29 means its not going to go well for you. Note: Japanese didn’t start getting radar until mid 1943 which means you’re at a strategic disadvantage.

7) Submarine carriers destroy the Panama Canal, then Los Alamos, preventing the Americans from bringing anymore ships from the Atlantic, and setting their nuclear research back by ten years (whereas the Japanese already have nuclear-powered subs).
****Los Alamos is in New Mexico. Besides b eing the devil’s donkey-cave, it means its out of range of anything Japan/Germany/well anyone but the US can get to.
8) Roosevelt dies from a shock-induced heart attack, and Truman opens peace negotiations.
***Truman nuked Japan. Besides Patton or MaCarthur, he’s on the top ten list of Americans least likely to open peace negotiations.
9) Germany declares war on Japan, who respond by using inter-continental flying boat bombers to destroy German nuclear research facilities in Nuremberg, setting back their nuclear research by ten years as well.
***That won’t work. The Nazis have already developed Ubermensch using nuclear powered VWs with Nazi ray guns.
10) Germany invades India - in exchange for assistance in India and repatriation of European POWs, the British and the European Allies make peace with Japan, who send troops to India together with a fleet in the Indian Ocean. America, in an effort to regain hope in the war effort, begins bombing German convoys in the East Atlantic.
***Why? Although Indian food is excellent, this would sully Aryan taste buds and pollute the Thousand Year Reich’s cuisine with untermensch foodstuffs.
11) Japan secretly leaks strategically-vital Soviet intelligence to the Germans - Germans win at Stalingrad and Petrograd, Russians retreat, Stalin commits suicide and Germany gains control over the Soviet industrial heartland - all to force the Western Allies to overcommit.
***Not one step backwards Comrade! The Japanese didn’t know bupkiss about the USSR. The USSR, however had an excellent spy network in Japan.
12) America invades Brittany Peninsula but are driven into the sea by the Germans - as planned, the failed war effort throws America back into isolationism, but peace negotiations with Japan continue.
***not if John Wayne and Audie Murphy have anything to say about it they aren’t. Plus like Yellowbeard, us Americans are never more dangerous than when we’re dead.
13) Operation Sealion - Germany invades and occupies Southern England.
***We will fight them on the beaches. We will fight them in the pubs. We will fight them in the que for the morning paper.
14) Japan's carriers destroy German command centers across India as the submarine carriers cut off troops and supplies passing through the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, allowing British-Japanese forces to check German advance in India. Trotsky becomes Premier with Japanese support.
***Since Trotsky was killed by Stalin’s agents in 1940, this must be Zombie Trotsky. That would indeed be disconcerting.
15) Nationalist Chinese forces repel German attempt to break the Indian deadlock with a flank attack through Xinjiang Province. A German strike at Washington DC catalyzes successful negotiations with Japan - Hawaii is returned with US POWs, and Japan sends a fleet into the Pacific.
***Weren’t they busy fighting the Japanese? I guess if they were involved then the US 20th Air Force would be bombing Germany too in er India er what???
16) Soviet-Japanese forces defeat the Germans in Mongolia, and British-Japanese forces achieve complete control over the Atlantic.
***The Germans are in Mongolia? Man talking about taking the wrong turn at Albequerche…
17) As the European Allies assemble troops to drive the Germans off the British Isles, Japan's Atlantic Fleet destroys strategic German assets across Western Europe.
***I hope they brought their robot suits and Godzilla. I hear MechaHitler was a 50 foot badass who could fire Tiger Tanks at you!
18) Hitler's Bavarian HQ is destroyed by Japanese commandos, and the counter-offensive begins - Japanese support proves critical.
***Finish Him! Maximum Fatality!
19) With Britain 'liberated', peace negotiations with Germany begin. Germany retains Poland, the Baltic States, and Alsace-Lorraine. The Jews return to Israel.
***And thus begins the Mideast wars. Can’t we learn from Britain’s mistakes?
20) As Hitler vows revenge, Japan withdraws to the Pacific to prepare for a new war in a few decades...
***Careful Japan! I hear the Nazis are building a base on the Moon!

 WarOne wrote:
An invasion of mainland America would of be improbable

Impossible, actually. Japan's population did not support the number of troops needed for any serious conquering of the USA. They'd have trouble just conquering California, and half the country would be glad to give it to them.

@Frazzled Well, seeing as professional and career soldiers consider it as feasible, I'd say everything you said is moot.

The voice talking to you while you lay in your bed at night, alone, is NOT a professional soldier.

 Melissia wrote:
The voice talking to you while you lay in your bed at night, alone, is NOT a professional soldier.

My dogs tell me to do things. Bad things.

 Melissia wrote:
The voice talking to you while you lay in your bed at night, alone, is NOT a professional soldier.

Voice? What voice? Whoever mentioned voices?

 Tadashi wrote:
1) Yamamoto successfully lobbies for the construction of advanced battleships and super-carriers, a secret fleet of nuclear-powered submarine carriers, and a covert mass production of advanced combat aircraft in the years prior to the war.

Yamamoto was opposed to battleships. He lobbied for an air arm believing that the age of the Battleship was over (and he was right). Unfortunately, even had he succeeded, it's unlikely Japan could have built very many carriers. They just didn't have the resources, and they had more carriers going into WWII than anyone and a larger fleet by tonnage than the US navy.

2) Once the Pearl Harbor Task Force has left, Yamamoto, the other admirals, and the moderate army generals launch a coup and seize control - Japanese troops are withdrawn from the mainland except for Korea, lulling the Americans into a false sense that Yamamoto is more cooperative.

Yamamoto was not a moderate. And this was attempted. Several times actually. EDIT: It's actually kind of a theme with Imperial Japan. There was an attempted Coup two or three times a decade.

3) Pearl Harbor is a complete Japanese victory: the first wave sinks all American ships in the harbor - the entire battleship fleet, half of the cruiser fleet, and one-quarter of the destroyer fleet - and the entire combat aviation wing on the islands, but the second wave destroys the oil depot, the military headquarters, the naval yard, the power plant, and the submarine base with two-thirds of the submarine fleet - including the naval intelligence assets in the basement, rendering the USN blind and deaf in the Pacific.

While probable in a highly theoretical sense, the impact of such a thing were it to pass is highly debatable. The US by 1943, had 6x the tonnage of the Imperial Navy, not to mention an actual oil supply. The US would have replaced anything lost within two years and been back, at which point Japan would have gained no considerable advantage.

4) The Japanese regroup, then ambush the three Pacific carriers racing back to Pearl Harbor - after which Hawaii is occupied. The USN is effectively emasculated and is forced to withdraw to the West Coast.

Impossible. Japan would have been completely incapable of seizing Hawaii, leaving the USN no reason to withdraw to the West Coast.

5) Japan overruns the West Pacific, granting independence to all European and American colonial possessions, but do not impose governments or garrisons - except in New Guinea, to draw the Americans into the South Pacific.

Japan did this. It actually didn't help them at all, because the South Pacific is nearly completely devoid (at this time, and to a degree even now) of any meaningful resources beyond a very decent oil supply that Britain is fully capable of attacking from Burma and India. In the end, taking the South Pacific didn't really do much for Japan.

6) Japan ambushes four carriers diverted from the Atlantic in the Tasman Sea and the Torres Strait, destroying them all and ensuring uncontested control of the Pacific.

7) Submarine carriers destroy the Panama Canal,

Japan would never do that. No one would, least of all 'moderate' generals and admirals. Also, while recent historians have suggest Japan was closer to the atomic bomb than is traditionally believe, they had absolutely no access to radioactive materials sizable enough to do anything. They would never have achieved atomic ability, let alone the ability to create a nuclear reactor.

8) Roosevelt dies from a shock-induced heart attack, and Truman opens peace negotiations.

Umm... Truman? Peace negotiations? He's the guy who dropped the bomb.

9) Germany declares war on Japan, who respond by using inter-continental flying boat bombers to destroy German nuclear research facilities in Nuremberg, setting back their nuclear research by ten years as well.

Germany would never do this, given the Axis pact and the ties between the German and Japanese navies. Japan liked Germany, and Germany was at least in a sense that there was no need to have Japan as an enemy. While it's true Japan toyed with submersible aircraft carriers, they held two planes. Even today, it is completely infeasible to build a submarine able to launch a meaningful amount of aircraft. There just isn't a point to it, not to mention the vulnerability of such a ship to attack and mechanical complexity of making it work.

10) Germany invades India - in exchange for assistance in India and repatriation of European POWs, the British and the European Allies make peace with Japan, who send troops to India together with a fleet in the Indian Ocean. America, in an effort to regain hope in the war effort, begins bombing German convoys in the East Atlantic.

How on earth is Germany gonna get to India? Also, what convoys in the East Atlantic? Germany has no need to send any ships through that ocean, let alone would the US be able to airstrike them.

11) Japan secretly leaks strategically-vital Soviet intelligence to the Germans - Germans win at Stalingrad and Petrograd, Russians retreat, Stalin commits suicide and Germany gains control over the Soviet industrial heartland - all to force the Western Allies to overcommit.

If Japan is at war with Germany, why are they helping them in a war they can't possibly win?

13) Operation Sealion - Germany invades and occupies Southern England.

With what Navy do they achieve this feat? Especially if they've somehow manage to get all the way to India, while still at war with Russia?

14) Japan's carriers destroy German command centers across India as the submarine carriers cut off troops and supplies passing through the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, allowing British-Japanese forces to check German advance in India. Trotsky becomes Premier with Japanese support.

Trotsky? The guy who was kicked out of Russia in 1928 and who lost all his supporters in the great purge?

15) Nationalist Chinese forces repel German attempt to break the Indian deadlock with a flank attack through Xinjiang Province. A German strike at Washington DC catalyzes successful negotiations with Japan - Hawaii is returned with US POWs, and Japan sends a fleet into the Pacific.

How is Germany attacking China now?

16) Soviet-Japanese forces defeat the Germans in Mongolia, and British-Japanese forces achieve complete control over the Atlantic.

How did they ever not have it?

EDIT: this is basically the condensed plot for Konpeki no Kantai, and I had looked over by my maternal grandfather (a retired Philippine Army general) and my maternal uncle (an intelligence lieutenant-colonel in the Philippine Army) - the response: difficult, but not impossible. If the real life Japanese had done this, nothing could have stopped them.

This would be an interesting debate if the events leading up to it weren't so contrived and ridiculous...

 LordofHats wrote:


While as a piece of fiction it might be interesting, I'm kind of confused as to what relevance it at all has to reality. The amount of things that would need to be changed to make this scenario remotely plausible, are infinite. It's impossible for events to have turned out this way. Especially considering that Konpeki no Kanta was written by a Japanese hyper-nationalist who really wanted to stroke Japan's ego while having a poor understanding of why WWII even happened, or what Japan was like at the time. Its fiction. Suggesting it could actually happen is kind of outlandish.

Hence the professionals saying it as not impossible, but very difficult to achieve in reality - and not to the same extent as presented. But if done, Japan could have forced a negotiated peace on America and the Allies.

 Tadashi wrote:
@Frazzled Well, seeing as professional and career soldiers consider it as feasible, I'd say everything you said is moot.

I'm trying not to be hostile. I will say you need to research the topic more. You hav e made several statements that are literally impossible.

*Nuclear super subs. Ships using nucelar power were not invented until the 1950s, by the US and USSR I might add. Japan had no feasible nuclear program capable of creating such. If it did the Soviets would have stolen the tech...

*Attacking Los Alamos. Again. Los Alamos is in New Mexico. Its intentionally there. You can't reach it. As a reference its 968 miles from Galveston Island to Los Alamos. Thats on the Texas side. Its 888 from Los Angeles. Japan has no aircraft with that kind of range. Assuming some sort of sumo suicide run its conceivable but then again you have to get past US air defenses in California plus that whole navy thing in the way. Plus you have to find it. Los Alamos was a closely guarded secret.

Can someone explain why the Nazis are in India and Mongolia, and how they got there? Now it could be for the Lost Ark, but I don't envisage Heinz Guderian is rolling through the Mongolian outback in Panzer VI's (although it would be perfect tank country would it not).

 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.'

But if done, Japan could have forced a negotiated peace on America and the Allies.

The same Japan that likely would have surrendered has we not had the position of unconditional surrender, and the same allies whose ability to produce war materials was so high that by 1945 they had armies the size of Japan's population x5 and enough hard ware to take over the world if they wanted to? Right.

EDIT: Hell Japan would have loved to surrender in 1943. They never saw unconditional surrender coming.

Can someone explain why the Nazis are in India and Mongolia, and how they got there?

More importantly, how are they there while not controlling Malta or the Suez canal and having no means to control them, and while still at war with Russia? There's absolutely no feasible way anyone in 1942-1945 could have invaded across the entire continent of Asia. Let alone Germany, who couldn't even get the 25% of Russia that's in Europe.

You know, if you wanted to talk about Konpeki no Kantai, you could have just used the anime thread.

 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.

 Tadashi wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:


While as a piece of fiction it might be interesting, I'm kind of confused as to what relevance it at all has to reality. The amount of things that would need to be changed to make this scenario remotely plausible, are infinite. It's impossible for events to have turned out this way. Especially considering that Konpeki no Kanta was written by a Japanese hyper-nationalist who really wanted to stroke Japan's ego while having a poor understanding of why WWII even happened, or what Japan was like at the time. Its fiction. Suggesting it could actually happen is kind of outlandish.

Hence the professionals saying it as not impossible, but very difficult to achieve in reality - and not to the same extent as presented. But if done, Japan could have forced a negotiated peace on America and the Allies.

EDIT: Professionals - Major General Rodolfo Canieso (retired, PA - maternal grandfather), Lieutenant Colonel Romulus Canieso (PA - maternal uncle)

Its very difficult to achieve like raising Trotsky from the dead and developing nuke uber carriers decades before anyone else - meaning they would have first started the theory in the firstplace maybe a decade before fission was even discovered (and remember nuclear fission wasn't discovered until 1938). Thats 3 years before Pearl Harbor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fission

 Tadashi wrote:
They also presented a different strategy: Japan stays out of the Atlantic,

Why would Japan ever be in the Atlantic? They did the logistics of that back in WWI, decided it was absurd and when asked just shrugged and sent a few destroyers off that just hung around the Med. Sea for the whole war cause they really didn't care Britain and France wanted more boats.

but still annihilates Pearl Harbor and the Panama Canal

Why would they annihilate the most vital canal for them to trade through? Hint, Japan didn't use the Suez much. It doesn't even really get them anything, seeing as the US has more shipyards on the west coast than the east coast.

- 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.

Japan was entrenched across the west pacific in WWII... That's not altered history, that's actual history. It didn't really get them anything. They got hosed by the US Army and Navy striking upon an utterly brilliant operational plan to win a war against Japan in the 1920's, while having a nation that could materially support such an operation. And of course, they expended their resources taking strategically and materially worthless islands while still entrenched in an ongoing war with China that had become hopeless attrition in 1939.

The Pacific War was hopeless for Japan from the get go. They were never going to win.