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Wait, how does Stauffenberg killing Hitler win WWII for Germany? Am I the only one who writes alternate history with an eye towards plausibility XD

 LordofHats wrote:
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.

Sure, but the Japanese were also really, really pissed about Germany signing a deal with the Soviets. Had things gone differently and the push North faction in Japan had won out*, then Japan would have been looking for someone new to help them in their war against the Soviets. Now, from there any situation that ends up with Japan finding allies in a war against the Soviets is pretty far fetched, but then the actual events of the war often seem pretty fanciful.




*The push North faction winning is in and of itself pretty fanciful, as getting trounced by the Soviets in full scale engagement was inevitable, they somehow would have had to win that political debate through border skirmishes alone, and avoided any full scale operations, which would have been very hard... especially when they had no idea that full scale operations would result in their defeat.


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

Being a skilled, professional career soldier doesn't mean you know gak about the basic industrial and demographic realities that decide warfare. In fact, being skilled, professional soldiers with little understanding of the basic industrial and demographic realities that decide warfare sums up pretty well why Japan got themselves into a load of wars they couldn't win and ended up bringing ruin and death upon themselves.

There is just no getting past the basic reality that Japan's very skilled, very professional naval fleet wasn't enough. The USA had the industrial capacity to overwhelm any losses inflicted and come back with a better, numerically superior force.

And there is just no getting past the basic reality that despite the disciplined and tactially skillful nature of the IJA, they lacked the logistics capability that could make them a truly modern army. It's why they got stomped at Khalkhin Ghol, and it's why the Soviet invasion of Manchuria was like a hot knife through butter.

 LordofHats wrote:
Wait, how does Stauffenberg killing Hitler win WWII for Germany? Am I the only one who writes alternate history with an eye towards plausibility XD

It's not detailed in Jin-Roh, but chances are that the assassination that takes place in the setting of the Kerberos Saga would have been very different from Stauffenberg's failed attempt.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
American carriers had wooden decks until the close of the war. It's why The Divine Wind enjoyed such a terrifying success against the American fleet. Not that advanced at all Fraz, they just made a lot of them quickly.

That was less of a technological issue and more one of design preference. A wooden deck reduced top weight, allowing you to build larger hanger areas and thereby launch more aircraft more quickly.

That design was a mistake, and one the US corrected after the war, but it hardly represented any major deficiency in aircraft carrier design during WWII.

And considering the US lost only 4 or 24 carriers fielded in WW2, and none were lost to kamakazi attacks it'd be very hard to make any claim that Divine WInd had terrifying success because of wooden flight decks.


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 Frazzled wrote:
(ok not fair, our planes would have blown your out of the sky in about 18 seconds-biplanes? Seriously???)

There's this weird thing that goes on among war buffs, even among well considered academics, where they look at UK war readiness in 1939 when war broke out with Germany, and compare it to US war readiness in 1941 when they entered the war and think the two things are equal. When both the UK and US began their military modernisation drives in 1936, comparing the UK in 1939 to the US 1941 produces pretty farcical results.

For the record, by 1941 when the US had eventually decided to enter the war, the UK had carrier born Spitfires.


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 Happygrunt wrote:
Everyone seems to forget that most of the oil Japan used came from the good ol' US of A.

Sort of. A lot of it came from south east asian sources that weren't owned by the USA, but were controlled by them.

The USA cutting off those sources to Japan in response to Japan's military expansion is basically why Pearl Harbour happened.

Also, a coup against the EMPEROR? You are aware that he was viewed as a GOD!

It wouldn't be a formal coup that overthrew the Emperor, but an informal coup whereby one militay faction announced to the Emperor that they were running things now, and the Emperor said 'okay'. That kind of thing was fairly common place.

The Japanese were conquering Asia for the same reason the Nazis was manufacturing the Holocaust. It was all about racial supremacy and a land grab.

There are massive differences between Lebensraum and the Co-Prosperity Sphere.


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 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Not to mention we had rewards for civilians who came up with good weapon ideas that actually worked...

This is why we used napalm bats on Japan to neutralize some of their industrial capabilities.

Uh, the bat bombs weren't actually deployed. Their readiness was put down for late 1945 and it was considered too late to impact the war and was cancelled.


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 LordofHats wrote:
Wait, how does Stauffenberg killing Hitler win WWII for Germany? Am I the only one who writes alternate history with an eye towards plausibility XD

I think you probably are. I think most peope imagine a setting that they'd like or think was cool, and then basically just line up a string events to get there, often with very little knowledge of the context of those events that made them play out like they did.

none were lost to kamakazi attacks it'd be very hard to make any claim that Divine WInd had terrifying success because of wooden flight decks.

They got at least two escort carriers. USS St. Lo and USS Bismark Sea

 Fafnir wrote:
It's not detailed in Jin-Roh, but chances are that the assassination that takes place in the setting of the Kerberos Saga would have been very different from Stauffenberg's failed attempt.

It doesn't matter if he assassinated him by jumping on him SuperMario style. It doesn't change the basics of the military situation Hitler faced. The Russians had loads of stuff and were making even more every day, and the Germans couldn't match that.

The only really sensible outcome for Germany winning the war has to go back to the encirclement at the beginning of Barbarossa. Change that, trap greater Soviet forces so that less are available for the defence of Moscow and/or the Southern counter-offensive, and maybe then you can argue for German victory. Or just agree with Hitler and say the Soviet state collapsed due to inherent Russian weakness.

Maybe it's just me, and I've only seen a few such works, but Japanese alternate history just strikes me as unprecedented ego stroking. Like there's a whole school of writers and artists in Japan who just think "damn our first half of the 20th century sucks, and we're so awesome. Lets do this instead." And it just turns out... Bad...

But maybe I'm just crazy

 LordofHats wrote:
Maybe it's just me, and I've only seen a few such works, but Japanese alternate history just strikes me as unprecedented ego stroking. Like there's a whole school of writers and artists in Japan who just think "damn our first half of the 20th century sucks, and we're so awesome. Lets do this instead." And it just turns out... Bad...

But maybe I'm just crazy

I suggest you see Jin Roh then. Japan still loses, and the social situation there is pretty dismal.

 Jihadin wrote:

none were lost to kamakazi attacks it'd be very hard to make any claim that Divine WInd had terrifying success because of wooden flight decks.

They got at least two escort carriers. USS St. Lo and USS Bismark Sea

Out of the 80 odd that were built? I'm having a hard time seeing that as 'terrifyingly effective'.


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 LordofHats wrote:
Maybe it's just me, and I've only seen a few such works, but Japanese alternate history just strikes me as unprecedented ego stroking. Like there's a whole school of writers and artists in Japan who just think "damn our first half of the 20th century sucks, and we're so awesome. Lets do this instead." And it just turns out... Bad...

But maybe I'm just crazy

It isn't just the alternative history. I mean, ask yourself why there was a major anime like Grave of the Fireflies on Japanese suffering at the end of the war, and by and large media silence on what Japan did in China.

Here's an alternate history for you. Ghenghis Khan doesn't die during the initial Mongolian invasion.

The only reason that massive war of conquest ended with Ghenghis's death, because all the nobles and generals had to return East to elect I think is the term the new Khan. This is an army that stomped all comers and had just made the greatest empire the world would ever see.

How would the world change with a Mongolian ruled Europe?

Ok, this thread seems to be going in circles, so I'll start punching holes:

Pearl Harbor invasion: This actually would have been brutally effective in the short term, and likely, though not certainly, eliminated the majority of US surface forces in the Pacific, including the carriers who were not actually present, as they had insufficient supplies on hand to reach depots other then Pearl, unless they sacrificed their escorts. Remember as well that taking Pearl would have given Japan the US fleet to salvage and take as it's own, which is something that seems to have been overlooked so far. Remember that many of the ships were sunk fairly near drydocks capable of accommodating the largest of them, and a huge stockpile of supplies to repair and maintain the US fleet. That would have been quite a leg up, particularly since our radar technology would likely have fallen into their hands.

Long term, it's more questionable. It would depend on how effective they were at following up Pearl with raids against US ports. This likely would have sped up production of the proposed I-400 boats that specialized in exactly that sort of surprise raid.

Alternate Yamamoto Strategies: Yamamoto actually proposed several strategies, as he opposed confronting the US directly. The most likely to succeed was his plan to concentrate on the South East resource area. This would have denied the US a good pretext for war, at the same time remedying one of Japan's largest issues, raw materials. No super carriers and mega battleships needed.

US winning anyway: In the long term, yes, but there are too many factors to juggle here. One of the most difficult would be raids against west coast ports and the Panama Canal. While Frazz will be quick to point out the US does not back down when attacked, they also have always had a way to fight back. Constant harassing raids against port facilities, and wrecking the canal every so often, would have crippled US attempt to rebuild their surface forces.

I think that Germany shows pretty well what happens when your Navy is unable to defend your ports effectively.

US Nuclear Power in a Japanese dominated Pacific: Frazz, not going to happen, for one reason: even on a one way trip, no US bomber built before 1952 had sufficient range with a nuclear payload to leave the US and reach Hawaii, let alone Japan. The bombs had to be shipped to airfields very close to Japan, due to the changes required to the B29 in order to carry the bomb load. Remember that early nuclear devices were VERY heavy.

If the Japanese had gone with the Army's plan to invade Siberia to get oil and materials rather than the Navy's plan to go south and take the oil from South East Asia, I believe the war would've had a different outcome as the United States' entry would've been prolonged, if they entered at all, and the Soviets would've been fighting on two fronts. As with any point-counter point made in alternative history talk, it's all speculation.

As for the Nazis not existing, the outcome of World War I, including the Treaty of Versailles, and the rise of fascism in Italy would also have to be vastly different. IF the entente had lost World War I, who is to say there wouldn't have been French fascism and British National Socialism?

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Pearl Harbor invasion: This actually would have been brutally effective in the short term, and likely, though not certainly, eliminated the majority of US surface forces in the Pacific, including the carriers who were not actually present, as they had insufficient supplies on hand to reach depots other then Pearl, unless they sacrificed their escorts. Remember as well that taking Pearl would have given Japan the US fleet to salvage and take as it's own, which is something that seems to have been overlooked so far. Remember that many of the ships were sunk fairly near drydocks capable of accommodating the largest of them, and a huge stockpile of supplies to repair and maintain the US fleet. That would have been quite a leg up, particularly since our radar technology would likely have fallen into their hands.

Raiding is a long term strategy. There's no feasible way Japan could have held Hawaii. It's just too far away from any meaningful port (on their side).

US Nuclear Power in a Japanese dominated Pacific: Frazz, not going to happen, for one reason: even on a one way trip, no US bomber built before 1952 had sufficient range with a nuclear payload to leave the US and reach Hawaii, let alone Japan. The bombs had to be shipped to airfields very close to Japan, due to the changes required to the B29 in order to carry the bomb load. Remember that early nuclear devices were VERY heavy.

Seeing as Japan taking Hawaii is an infeasible prospect to begin with, I think this is a moot point.

Japan's only shots at winning in the Pacific were to follow up the damage done at Pearl Harbor with a decisive naval engagement (which they attempted at Midway and Coral Sea), but the Japanese Navy just couldn't bring this kind of engagement to conclude in their favor. Midway was a disaster for the IJN, all over a piece of land that was strategically useless to Japan. Coral Sea was the consequence of a Navy that continued to hold to the theory of the big gun ship when faced with a Navy that had few battleships but a good number of carriers.

Destroying battleship row inadvertently helped the US win the Pacific war. Carriers at the time were cheaper and faster to produce, so we built them and it turns out that at the time the naval strategy of swarming a big gun fleet with planes just worked out marvelously.

If the Japanese had gone with the Army's plan to invade Siberia to get oil and materials rather than the Navy's plan to go south and take the oil from South East Asia

Japan tried this, and it ended in disaster. The Russians beat them senseless. The IJA just, didn't have it in them to fight in China and Russia at the same time. They couldn't fight two large states so directly. It's why they hedged their bets on a southern expansion, as the islands of the South Pacific were pretty easy pickings. Problem is they underestimated how much the US would want to kick their butts.

As with any point-counter point made in alternative history talk, it's all speculation.

Speculation can be logically supported by known evidence. Especially when dealing with plausible events, the outcome can be fairly accurately predicted.

 LordofHats wrote:

Raiding is a long term strategy. There's no feasible way Japan could have held Hawaii. It's just too far away from any meaningful port (on their side).

Having played this game with you in the past, I'll have to ask you to define 'meaningful port'. Several large ports that were Japanese held at the time were at least as close to Pearl as the US west coast is. And without the US fleet, Wake and Midway would likely have been easy pickings.

 LordofHats wrote:

Seeing as Japan taking Hawaii is an infeasible prospect to begin with, I think this is a moot point.

Ok, explain to me, in a paragraph or less, why the Japanese taking Hawaii was infeasible? Japan was able to supply larger operations than occupying Hawaii would require at greater distances than separate Hawaii from what were Japanese held ports and military depots at the time. Hell, Trukk was pretty close to Hawaii, and was a massive supply depot.

Guys. really, there was no way for Japan to win. It wasn't in their cards. Their hope was that the US would make terms at some point based on the advantage that Japan held, based on X. But short of X being massive thermonuclear bombardment of every major city is the US, the US wasn't going to back down.

The Japanese of the time were disdainful of the Americans, and considered them farmers and businessmen, not warriors. They had not yet realized that industrial scale warfare make warriors irrelevant.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Several large ports that were Japanese held at the time were at least as close to Pearl as the US west coast is.

There are only two of them. The only major IJN ports were in Satsuma and Tokyo. They had other ports sure, but nothing compared to those in Seattle or San Diego or even LA at the time. The US west coast makes Japanese port ability in 1940 look pathetic. They did not have the logistic ability to fight a long range war with the US. They didn't have the oil, they didn't even have the ships to supply their fleet. With no major port between Hawaii and Japan, Japan was left incapable of projecting power to US soil (or surrounding waters) for any long period of time. Sure they got some Alaskan islands, but look where those islands are.

Here's a map:



And even more importantly, they're pointless islands with no real value.

It's just under 2000 miles from the US west coast to Hawaii. And the US has HUGE supplies of domestic oil at this time period and near infinite raw materials. Japan is about 3000 miles from Hawaii, and have virtually no oil supply, limited natural resources, and are surrounded by Britain, China, the US, and the USSR. There's just too many battles to fight and too many enemies to watch for to dedicate their fleet to holding Hawaii.

And without the US fleet, Wake and Midway would likely have been easy pickings.

And what do Wake or Midway give Japan? Nothing. They're useful to the US, but to Japan are essentially meaningless. The key goal of going to Midway and Wake was to draw out the US fleet with the hope to engage them in a decisive battle that would result in peace negotiations. That plan failed, obviously.

 LordofHats wrote:
Ok, explain to me, in a paragraph or less, why the Japanese taking Hawaii was infeasible? Japan was able to supply larger operations than occupying Hawaii would require at greater distances than separate Hawaii from what were Japanese held ports and military depots at the time. Hell, Trukk was pretty close to Hawaii, and was a massive supply depot.

Its not infeasbible because they couldn't take it its infeasible because they'd never be able to hold it. It's too far away. The oil expenditure to keep ships operating all the way to Hawaii would run the Imperial Navy dry, and contrary to what they thought, there wasn't that much oil in the south pacific (and even with there was, hi British Commonwealth, got airfields?), and the means to get what oil there was were too primitive to maintain such a long distance war effort. Taking Hawaii is an obvious resource drain, which is why they never planned to do it, especially not against the vastly superior population and industrial capacity of the United States.

 LordofHats wrote:

There are only two of them. The only major IJN ports were in Satsuma and Tokyo. They had other ports sure, but nothing compared to those in Seattle or San Diego or even LA at the time. The US west coast makes Japanese port ability in 1940 look pathetic. They did not have the logistic ability to fight a long range war with the US. They didn't have the oil, they didn't even have the ships to supply their fleet. With no major port between Hawaii and Japan, Japan was left incapable of projecting power to US soil (or surrounding waters) for any long period of time. Sure they got some Alaskan islands, but look where those islands are.

Um, I think taking Pearl probably would have solved that. The Navy was preparing to store approx 8 billion (with a B. Of their maximum storage capacity of 10 billion gallons) gallons of fuel oil at Red Hill, a few miles from Pearl, a 2 year supply for the US Pacific fleet. This facility was known about, but not attacked, due to the depth the tanks were buried at. Further, at the time, Pearl had been expanded to be every bit as large as fleet servicing facilities on the Main land. This does not even get into things like the massive fuel reserves that were at Honolulu at the time, or the gigantic aircraft fuel reserves.

The opposition to the landing would have been approx 3 divisions.

 LordofHats wrote:

And what do Wake or Midway give Japan? Nothing. They're useful to the US, but to Japan are essentially meaningless.

Wake, to a degree. Midway, however, would have been useful to anyone, the airfields and aircraft fueling depots would have allowed the deployment of large numbers of land based aircraft in the region of Hawaii.

 LordofHats wrote:
The oil expenditure to keep ships operating all the way to Hawaii would run the Imperial Navy dry, and contrary to what they thought, there wasn't that much oil in the south pacific (and even with there was, hi British Commonwealth, got airfields?), and the means to get what oil there was were too primitive to maintain such a long distance war effort. Taking Hawaii is an obvious resource drain, which is why they never planned to do it, especially not against the vastly superior population and industrial capacity of the United States.

Well, one, as I said, taking Hawaii would have devastating in the short term, effectively putting the US fleet out of action in the Pacific for three years or so. Eventually the US would have produced enough ships if Japan just stopped at Hawaii and didn't keep the pressure on. Taking Hawaii would have given them the entire supply reserve the Navy had built up, which was a several YEAR supply, and within striking distance of the US West Coast. Remember the facilities that churned out that mass of ships didn't exist yet in 41/42, and no matter how many men and how much material you have, it's hard to build dockyard facilities if you're getting raided every now and again. The US was able to build that huge fleet because their production facilities were effectively out of range. If Hawaii was lost, that situation radically changes.

How many forces does Japan have to try to take Hawaii?

How are they going to transport them?

Even assuming you destroy the Pacific Fleet with both carriers, that leaves and entire additional fleet. Plus they didn't get out of Malaya and the Phillipines for several months. If the US viewed Hawaii as a threat they would have bolstered those defenses substantially. Remember in August of '42 the US invaded Guadalcanal.

By the time Japan would have been capable of anything Hawaii would have been full of troops and material.

 Frazzled wrote:
How many forces does Japan have to try to take Hawaii?

How are they going to transport them?

Even assuming you destroy the Pacific Fleet with both carriers, that leaves and entire additional fleet. Plus they didn't get out of Malaya and the Phillipines for several months. If the US viewed Hawaii as a threat they would have bolstered those defenses substantially. Remember in August of '42 the US invaded Guadalcanal.

By the time Japan would have been capable of anything Hawaii would have been full of troops and material.

Well, first of all, they didn't land yet in the Philippines yet either. The entire 14th Army was saddled up for an amphibious invasion at the time, (5 divisions with 4 more in reserve, IIRC). If by 'entire additional fleet' you mean the single heavy cruiser and assorted World War I leftovers of the Asiatic fleet, there was not much to worry about (19 of 40 were sunk by May of 42, and the rest fled to Australia) . The Atlantic fleet at the time consisted of six battleships, four carriers (counting the escort carrier Long Island), and what could best be described as a 'mixed bag' of everything else, (the Pacific fleet having taken the best and the Asiatic fleet having gotten the worst) having only just been reformed a few months prior. Hitting the Canal would have more or less made them a non-issue for the foreseeable future.

Basically my plan would have been to use the 14th to hit Hawaii first, mop up there, set up a garrison and start looting supplies while the majority of the fleet moved on the harass the US mainland, with a detachment to escort the troopships to the Philippines. MacArthur was in no real risk of being resupplied or reenforced with Pearl in Japanese hands and could have been dealt with.

So what if one zealous clerk, on seeing the waves of Japanese coming ashore, blows the fuel supplies?

Well, first of all, they didn't land yet in the Philippines yet either.

***Then you’re saying you’re going to change all Japan’s plans and attempt an invasion across a great distance. Meanwhile your oil is running out, because you don’t have the capacity to invade Malaya and the East Indies. Plus this gives time for the British to get their act together in said area. So Japan runs out of gas by February. War ends.

The entire 14th Army was saddled up for an amphibious invasion at the time, (5 divisions with 4 more in reserve, IIRC).

*But not for a 2,000 mile trip. Again, this means Japan has left British and Dutch possessions alone and loses the war in weeks instead of years. Brilliant!

*Also, you're trying to invade an actual state. Three army divisions, plus civilians. You don't have a high enough force ratio. Instead of Guadalcanal happening in late 1942 it occurs in December 1941 and Japan gets stuck in a land war with people who are good at it. Japan's forces get mauled.

If by 'entire additional fleet' you mean the single heavy cruiser and assorted World War I leftovers of the Asiatic fleet, there was not much to worry about (19 of 40 were sunk by May of 42, and the rest fled to Australia) .
The Atlantic fleet at the time consisted of six battleships, four carriers (counting the escort carrier Long Island), and what could best be described as a 'mixed bag' of everything else, (the Pacific fleet having taken the best and the Asiatic fleet having gotten the worst) having only just been reformed a few months prior. Hitting the Canal would have more or less made them a non-issue for the foreseeable future.

***You glossed over the 4 carrier part.

Basically my plan would have been to use the 14th to hit Hawaii first, mop up there, set up a garrison and start looting supplies while the majority of the fleet moved on the harass the US mainland, with a detachment to escort the troopships to the Philippines. MacArthur was in no real risk of being resupplied or reinforced with Pearl in Japanese hands and could have been dealt with.

1. Japan runs out of gas in weeks. That’s the whole point of their WWII adventure. They needed the oil You just denied it to them.
2. Attack the US mainland and you get hit with real aircraft. Your precious carriers are put at risk for no real benefit.
3. Assuming Japan magically doesn’t run out of oil. You now have the full attention of the US now. Philippines goes on war alert. Malaya, Dutch East indies on alert. British troops may move into Thailand or otherwise get their act together just slightly. You’ve doomed Japan utterly.

 Frazzled wrote:

***Then you’re saying you’re going to change all Japan’s plans and attempt an invasion across a great distance. Meanwhile your oil is running out, because you don’t have the capacity to invade Malaya and the East Indies. Plus this gives time for the British to get their act together in said area. So Japan runs out of gas by February. War ends.

Malaya and the East Indies was handled by a different portion of the Southern Expeditionary Group. This is just what they lined up to take Luzon.

 Frazzled wrote:

*But not for a 2,000 mile trip. Again, this means Japan has left British and Dutch possessions alone and loses the war in weeks instead of years. Brilliant!

Except, again, these are not those troops.

 Frazzled wrote:

*Also, you're trying to invade an actual state. Three army divisions, plus civilians. You don't have a high enough force ratio. Instead of Guadalcanal happening in late 1942 it occurs in December 1941 and Japan gets stuck in a land war with people who are good at it. Japan's forces get mauled.

Um, Frazz, you do know how small the population of Hawaii was at the time, right? Counting US service personnel, the entire population of the chain was barely 400k.

 Frazzled wrote:

***You glossed over the 4 carrier part.

The four carriers out of gas in the middle of the Pacific or the four carriers that can't get there due to damage to the canal? The only Carrier that would have been still in the Pacific would have been the Saratoga, which was laid up in San Diego at the time.

 Frazzled wrote:

1. Japan runs out of gas in weeks. That’s the whole point of their WWII adventure. They needed the oil You just denied it to them.

Except the staggering stockpiles on Hawaii. Enough for the US navy to run on for 2 years. Plus the civilian stockpiles at Honolulu.

 Frazzled wrote:

2. Attack the US mainland and you get hit with real aircraft. Your precious carriers are put at risk for no real benefit.

As of Dec 7th, there were only 11 fighter squadrons (mostly armed with the obsolete P-40 Warhawk, who's inability to engage the Oscar and Zeke in particular is well known) scattered up and down the west coast, and six bomber squadrons, in addition to the Saratoga's compliment. While that would have rapidly improved, that Navy lost it's main coastal reconnaissance in system in 1936 (IIRC) with the loss of the Macon. (It's theorized that if the Macon had not gone down and transferred to Pearl with the rest of it's command, that Pearl Harbor would never have happened. The Macon could sweep an area the size of the state of California in 24 hours.)

 Frazzled wrote:

3. Assuming Japan magically doesn’t run out of oil. You now have the full attention of the US now. Philippines goes on war alert. Malaya, Dutch East indies on alert. British troops may move into Thailand or otherwise get their act together just slightly. You’ve doomed Japan utterly.

Frazz, the Philippines was on war alert the moment Pearl got hit anyway. The Dutch East Indies landings were handled by an entirely different portion of the Southern Expeditionary Group. (And do you think they didn't have the full attention of the US anyway?)


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 Bromsy wrote:
So what if one zealous clerk, on seeing the waves of Japanese coming ashore, blows the fuel supplies?

Because the Navy specifically designed them to prevent that, as they felt the real risk was Japanese agents blowing the fuel and munition reserves. Remember that the Japanese made up a significant minority among the civilian population on Hawaii.

Why do people think we need the Panama Canal to move ships into the Pacific?

Also, how are you going to move a complet SLOW MOVING invasion force under cover of complete surprise all the way to Hawaii?

it will take several months to take all the chains (assuming the same length of time as the Phillipines). However it will be contested all the time.
Again. You're talking Guadalcanal 9 months early. Except this time. We can just boot scoot right back to the Phillipines. Plus the foces supposedly available to cover Malaya and the Dutch East Indies now have no support, but the British have at least one carrier. How are you going to land troops when all your carriers are duking it out off Hawaii?

No. The Japanese did the most aggressive actions they could. They didn't hold back. If they could have done something more they would have.

 Frazzled wrote:
Why do people think we need the Panama Canal to move ships into the Pacific?

Also, how are you going to move a complet SLOW MOVING invasion force under cover of complete surprise all the way to Hawaii?
it will take several months to take all the chains (assuming the same length of time as the Phillipines). However it will be contested all the time.

Two things: the US Navy had no idea where the Japanese fleet was or what they were doing until the last minuet. They had lost track of them more than a month earlier. That's way more then enough time.

Two: not really. Hawaii is primarily open and had 400k people, counting US military. The Philippines had large amounts of jungle, and had 19m civies and 151k troops. How do you figure that Hawaii would take as long as the Philippines to overrun?

 Frazzled wrote:

Again. You're talking Guadalcanal 9 months early. Except this time. We can just boot scoot right back to the Phillipines. Plus the foces supposedly available to cover Malaya and the Dutch East Indies now have no support, but the British have at least one carrier. How are you going to land troops when all your carriers are duking it out off Hawaii?

Um, Frazz, what carrier? Major forces included two seaplane tenders (USS Langley and Childs), two heavy cruisers (USS Houston and HMS Exeter), seven light cruisers (HNLMS De Ruyter, Java and Tromp, USS Marblehead and Boise, HMAS Hobart and Perth), 22 destroyers, and 25 American and 16 Dutch submarines (although the Dutch submarines were outdated and short of spare parts).

And how are you scooting anywhere, you'd have no Navy. That's like say that the Japanese forces could have just scooted from Java and stopped the landing at Okinawa.

I was saying you can't land in Malaya/Dutch East Indies without proper carrier support. Sallying those carriers for Hawaii for an extended period means you either have no support or you have to wait. Both are good for the British.

Wiki on the Atlantic Fleet:

On 7 December 1941 the Fleet comprised eight separate components. Battleships, Atlantic Fleet was made up of Battleship Division Three (BB-40 New Mexico, BB-41 Mississippi and BB-42 Idaho) and Battleship Division Five (a training division made up of the older battleships BB-34 New York, BB-35 Texas, and BB-33 Arkansas. The other components were Aircraft, Atlantic Fleet, which included Carrier Division Three with USS Ranger (CV-4) and USS Wasp (CV-7), and additionally Yorktown and Long Island; Cruisers, Atlantic Fleet, Patrol Wings, Atlantic Fleet (Patrol Wings 3, 5, 7, 8, and 9); Destroyers, Atlantic Fleet,[4] Submarines Atlantic Fleet; Train, Atlantic Fleet, and Amphibious Force, Atlantic Fleet (PHIBLANT, COMPHIBLANT).[5] During World War II "Transports, Amphibious Force, Atlantic Fleet" was part of this command (ComTransPhibLant). Smaller units included the Antisubmarine Development Detachment, Atlantic Fleet (ASDEVLANT) located at Quonset Point, Rhode Island.[6] The detachment was responsible for the study and development of antisubmarine gear during World War II. The Commander of the detachment was known as COMASDEVLANT.

 Frazzled wrote:
I was saying you can't land in Malaya/Dutch East Indies without proper carrier support. Sallying those carriers for Hawaii for an extended period means you either have no support or you have to wait. Both are good for the British.

You do realize that at the same time the fleet was hammering Pearl, the Japanese had a battleship and carrier support already at the Dutch East Indies, right? The only time they pulled in larger numbers was for the battle of the Java sea, where they more or less wiped out the commonwealth surface forces at the time. Of the 8 odd carriers the Japanese had, 4 were at Pearl. Afterwards, some were shuffled around to support the invasion of Java.

 Frazzled wrote:

Wiki on the Atlantic Fleet:
*stats*

Yeah, I pointed those out, including the fact that Long Island was not a CV but a CVE. Big difference. You also left out, unless I missed it, the wooden sailing ships that were assigned to it too, as well as the gunboat squadron.

As to 'Why the Canal'? Because crossing at Good Hope or Cape Horn takes months and costs ships.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Ok, this thread seems to be going in circles, so I'll start punching holes:

Pearl Harbor invasion: This actually would have been brutally effective in the short term, and likely, though not certainly, eliminated the majority of US surface forces in the Pacific, including the carriers who were not actually present, as they had insufficient supplies on hand to reach depots other then Pearl, unless they sacrificed their escorts. Remember as well that taking Pearl would have given Japan the US fleet to salvage and take as it's own, which is something that seems to have been overlooked so far. Remember that many of the ships were sunk fairly near drydocks capable of accommodating the largest of them, and a huge stockpile of supplies to repair and maintain the US fleet. That would have been quite a leg up, particularly since our radar technology would likely have fallen into their hands.

Long term, it's more questionable. It would depend on how effective they were at following up Pearl with raids against US ports. This likely would have sped up production of the proposed I-400 boats that specialized in exactly that sort of surprise raid.

Alternate Yamamoto Strategies: Yamamoto actually proposed several strategies, as he opposed confronting the US directly. The most likely to succeed was his plan to concentrate on the South East resource area. This would have denied the US a good pretext for war, at the same time remedying one of Japan's largest issues, raw materials. No super carriers and mega battleships needed.

US winning anyway: In the long term, yes, but there are too many factors to juggle here. One of the most difficult would be raids against west coast ports and the Panama Canal. While Frazz will be quick to point out the US does not back down when attacked, they also have always had a way to fight back. Constant harassing raids against port facilities, and wrecking the canal every so often, would have crippled US attempt to rebuild their surface forces.

I think that Germany shows pretty well what happens when your Navy is unable to defend your ports effectively.

US Nuclear Power in a Japanese dominated Pacific: Frazz, not going to happen, for one reason: even on a one way trip, no US bomber built before 1952 had sufficient range with a nuclear payload to leave the US and reach Hawaii, let alone Japan. The bombs had to be shipped to airfields very close to Japan, due to the changes required to the B29 in order to carry the bomb load. Remember that early nuclear devices were VERY heavy.

My biggest issue is that the Japanese didn't have any military forces capable of capturing the Hawaiian islands in position to actually follow up the Pear Harbor attacks. You actually have to take the islands to salvage the US ships, which you probably don't have the resources to do. Especially with the US carrier fleet hovering nearby.


US Nuclear Bombers would still be viable in a unlikely scenerio of Japan's dominance. The US would just have to maybe borrow some Russian airfields in Kamchaka. Russia would probably be happy to let the US use some Airfields there, in exchange for some of Japan's land. Which at this point the US is not going to mind giving up.

lol. I can't believe someone thought they could begin a discussion about an alternate reality where the USA doesn't exist without an American getting their knickers in a twist.

It's like when you played cops and robbers as kids and you shot your mate but he proclaimed he couldn't die because he had a force field.

Glorioski wrote:
lol. I can't believe someone thought they could begin a discussion about an alternate reality where the USA doesn't exist without an American getting their knickers in a twist.

It's like when you played cops and robbers as kids and you shot your mate but he proclaimed he couldn't die because he had a force field.

I don't know about you... but, I'm enjoying this thread...

Quite frankly, the solid truth is that US at the time was the last person you wanted to aggrivate.

The Japanese lost the war because they attacked Pearl Harbor. In the words of their own Admiral Yamamoto "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."


If Japan had not gotten greedy and concentrated on what they could hold and take without aggrivating the US they could have simply consolidated their holdings and maintained their Asian conquests.