That wasn't my definition of victory. My point was that, if the US american public was that tired of the war and people like Lehy belived that unconditional surrender could not be enforced in OTL, how much better of a peace Japan could have gotten if defeats at the Coral Sea, Midway or Saipan were avoided.
Japanese victory in the pacific war - is it really ASB?
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That wasn't my definition of victory. My point was that, if the US american public was that tired of the war and people like Lehy belived that unconditional surrender could not be enforced in OTL, how much better of a peace Japan could have gotten if defeats at the Coral Sea, Midway or Saipan were avoided.
And as I and others have pointed out you're comparing apples and cabbages when you make that comparison.
The air burst at Hiroshima leveled almost every building within 1,000 yards of the blast, and killed, or seriously injured almost every person in the area. People a mile away were killed, or seriously hurt. Since the Japanese would have no notice of the bombing not every man would be laying down in a deep bunker, when it hit. Most of the men would be walking around, preforming normal military functions, training, patrolling, improving positions, bringing in supplies, playing sports. All but the deepest bunker would cave in from the over pressure. Your vision seems to be every man is living 24/7 in a stone tunnel, dug into a maintain side. That's not reality.
Alright, since I think we've sufficiently established that Japan is fucked up the ass with no lube with the Pearl Harbor attack, what are the possibilities if they don't do that?
The way I see it, there are two high-level possibilities without a very early POD. First, Japan strikes south but does not attack any US holdings. Or at best, Wake. This leaves the US with the options to either stay out of it, or go on an offensive war to protect European colonial holdings, which wouldn't be very palatable.
I'm not going to go into much more detail in this scenario because it's as ASB as the post-Pearl scenarios, and for very similar reasons, just on the Japanese side. Namely, that Japan is not going to pass up attacking US territories. For one, the Philippines are well positioned to interdict Japanese supply lines and while the US had no real plans to do so the Japanese didn't know that. And second, and perhaps more importantly, the Japanese were not going to try and avoid war with the US. The Japanese believed that there was going to be war for dominion over the Pacific between them and the US at some point, which explains the air of resigned inevitability many of their plans have.
The other is to not attack Pearl Harbor but otherwise keep to their OTL plans. For this to go right for Japan they need someone in Washington to pressure the US Navy into enacting the Thruster plan in spring 1942, at which point the Japanese can enact their Kantai Kessen plan. The problem is that the Kantai Kessen plan is batshit insane and has way too many failure points, and worse, even if the Japanese win if morale holds then the US will just be back in 1944 with a bigger fleet.
There is a chance here, but it's a very small one.
The way I see it, there are two high-level possibilities without a very early POD. First, Japan strikes south but does not attack any US holdings. Or at best, Wake. This leaves the US with the options to either stay out of it, or go on an offensive war to protect European colonial holdings, which wouldn't be very palatable.
I'm not going to go into much more detail in this scenario because it's as ASB as the post-Pearl scenarios, and for very similar reasons, just on the Japanese side. Namely, that Japan is not going to pass up attacking US territories. For one, the Philippines are well positioned to interdict Japanese supply lines and while the US had no real plans to do so the Japanese didn't know that. And second, and perhaps more importantly, the Japanese were not going to try and avoid war with the US. The Japanese believed that there was going to be war for dominion over the Pacific between them and the US at some point, which explains the air of resigned inevitability many of their plans have.
The other is to not attack Pearl Harbor but otherwise keep to their OTL plans. For this to go right for Japan they need someone in Washington to pressure the US Navy into enacting the Thruster plan in spring 1942, at which point the Japanese can enact their Kantai Kessen plan. The problem is that the Kantai Kessen plan is batshit insane and has way too many failure points, and worse, even if the Japanese win if morale holds then the US will just be back in 1944 with a bigger fleet.
There is a chance here, but it's a very small one.
Maybe you have to clearly define the outlines of what "victory" is. What would qualify as "victory?" Or, probably better: What would the Japanese leadership of 1941 consider the minimum that counts as "victory?"
To take History Learner's scenario for example: Japan somehow negotiates an outcome sometime in 1946 where it retains the Home Islands, Ryukus (minus Okinawa), Formosa, maybe the Kurils, and averts Allied occupation and war crime trials. Of course, something like 90% plus of its urban areas are incinerated wastelands, multiple cities have been nuked, most of its industrial economy is destroyed along with nearly all of its once proud navy and nearly all of its merchant marine, its rail network is smashed, and after a more or less failed invasion it has likely suffered 3 million dead in the military and another couple million dead civilians, various levels of starvation or malnutrition are at work in many provinces. And, yes, it has lost most of its empire as it existed on the ground even in 1931.
It is hard to think that Hideki Tojo in the fall of 1941 would consider this to qualify for even a pyrrhic victory.
EDIT: I just saw your other post sort of addressing this:
That's certainly a different question.
But I think even History Learner would agree that America is not going to agree to terms after getting licked at Coral Sea or Midway. An outcome likethis essentially leaves Japan dominating the Pacific Basin. This would amount to a *defeat* for America, a defeat in which a surprise attack destroying its battle line is not avenged. There is simply no reading of American public sentiment of 1942 that would allow any administration to get away with that. The war would go on, and the Two Ocean Navy Act production would turn the tide by 1943.
So what we're left with is whether there is an attrition strategy that could pay off for Japan with something short of Allied occupation (and presumably avoiding some other things it suffered in 1945) after 1942. This is at least a question worth considering.
Personally I don't see how Japan can avoid the loss of at least some of the Marianas, which means the bombing campaign is going to happen, and it's going to be awful. Which is not to say that Japan couldn't have made the Marianas a considerably more expensive and time-consuming exercise for Nimitz - they clearly could have.
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And if you give America another year on a full war footing (which it would be after a Japanese surprise attack on Great Britain and the Netherlands) to reinforce and fortify the Philippines, Japan would find it an untakeable bulwark aside those supply lines when the war *did* break out. And the bulwak by that point *could* be in a position to interdict. Plus, of course, the first fruits of the Two Ocean Navy Act will be hitting the waves...
Honestly, I think Japan's best bet would be to find a face-saving way to undertake a withdrawal from French Indochina in the spring of 1941. This, perhaps combined with a vague promise to undertake negotiations with Chiang, is very likely enough to keep the oil flowing for the foreseeable future. A promising corollary strategy might be to aggressively and covertly support the independence movement in the DEI as a way to secure a long-term alternative to American petroleum.
But then, this is the avoidance of war altogether, not a strategy for *winning* one.
And given the hasty and ad hoc nature of many of those fortifications, more than a few would be killed by cave-ins, too.
Why do folks think that the US was willing to give up if Japan justcheld on a few more weeks?
i had 7 uncles in that war, one was in the Pacific on his ship on December 7th. One was injured and sent home. two were in Europe/Africa. And in two VERY good friends (both in Europe, one was a B24 pilot).
i had all branches represented. I had Aunts that worked in military plants (we are from Detroit area so lots of plant jobs). I had two uncles and my mother that were kids and of Course grand parents and many friends of the family and to a person they NEVER suggested they were getting tired. And they all disliked Japan until the day they died.
i just don’t see the US giving up. Yes some troops in Europe did not think they should have to fight Japan as well as they had done a hell of a nasty job in Europe but that is not even close to “let Japan negotiate terms””
The best Japan would every get is the US pounding every building flat then telling them they are never allowed to build anything the US does not approve of. The US WAS going to dictate terms. The only question is does the US invade or does the US blockade then sit back and bomb them flat until nothing but huts exist. And with the Atom Bomb starting to roll off that was a possibility.
yes the US may still be bombing Japan in 1950 but realy how many men does it take to keep the blockade and the bombing going?
But odds are it all ends 46 one way or the other.
i had 7 uncles in that war, one was in the Pacific on his ship on December 7th. One was injured and sent home. two were in Europe/Africa. And in two VERY good friends (both in Europe, one was a B24 pilot).
i had all branches represented. I had Aunts that worked in military plants (we are from Detroit area so lots of plant jobs). I had two uncles and my mother that were kids and of Course grand parents and many friends of the family and to a person they NEVER suggested they were getting tired. And they all disliked Japan until the day they died.
i just don’t see the US giving up. Yes some troops in Europe did not think they should have to fight Japan as well as they had done a hell of a nasty job in Europe but that is not even close to “let Japan negotiate terms””
The best Japan would every get is the US pounding every building flat then telling them they are never allowed to build anything the US does not approve of. The US WAS going to dictate terms. The only question is does the US invade or does the US blockade then sit back and bomb them flat until nothing but huts exist. And with the Atom Bomb starting to roll off that was a possibility.
yes the US may still be bombing Japan in 1950 but realy how many men does it take to keep the blockade and the bombing going?
But odds are it all ends 46 one way or the other.
marathag
Banned
Lack of desire to do a ground invasion doesn't mean that there wasn't desire to have everything from B-29s to PT Boats shooting/destroying everything that existed on the Home Island for the next couple years.
Gets you closer to that 'Japanese will only be spoken in Hell' as they get the full Atomic Biological Chemical treatment.
Japan: we will never surrender!
USA: that's what we are counting on. We're quite enjoying shooting everything that moves on the Home Islands, and bombing that what doesn't move
Japan: !!!
Gets you closer to that 'Japanese will only be spoken in Hell' as they get the full Atomic Biological Chemical treatment.
Japan: we will never surrender!
USA: that's what we are counting on. We're quite enjoying shooting everything that moves on the Home Islands, and bombing that what doesn't move
Japan: !!!
When USN battleships are firing on the home islands does that really apply?
By mid 1945 the USN should be able to simply force convoys under heavy escort and simply use them to absorb any remaining Japanese (air/sea) forces that could anyway later be used to attack an invasion.
Bigger problem here would likely be IJN minefields and submarines in the Sea of Japan, I think. It would be a high risk endeavor, and the question then would be whether King would be willing to divert the necessary forces to do this, and in turn whether Truman would force him to do so if he wasn't.
and here i thought they were just ignored and left to wither on the vine
I was more thinking north via Sea of Okhotsk to accesses Soviet territory. The Soviets hold northern Sakhalin so it should be safe to sail to the moth of the Amur river and then send barges up it to supply the TSR up at Khabarovsk and beyond? Some of the aid being used to supply Sakhalin force itself attacking south potentially with USAAF bombers based from Sakhalin and or USN/marines sea lift to get round defences?
Yeah, I thought about it, and it's an option. But port handling capacity is lot more limited at Magadan and Palana than at Vladivostok, so . . .
Good points, if it's a long war. I would only add that the U.S. was flying Lendlease Aircraft from Alaska, and other then midgets, there are literally only a handful of Japanese Submarines left. Mine fields would definitely be a problem.
The strength of the OP is simply that it guarentees the US carriers get destroyed. The US is not going to sit an wait for the Japanese to occupy all of Hawaii. So, Japan probably suffers more losses, such as a carrier or battleship, but they take out both carriers and take Hawaii. If this occurs, Japan pretty much can take Midwau unopposed soon after, and with the right roll of the dice win an engagement in 43 against a reconstituted US navy. In this scenario, US probably focuses on Europe and west coast defense. The bomb gets invented, and what follows is probably an invasion of Manchuria by the USSR. All of East Asia goes Communist and America makes peace with the Japan after Korea and northern Japanese islands are lost. USSR probably makes peace concurrently, not looking to fight alone. USSR, in this scenario, is also given much larger concessions in Europe, so they are the real winners.
How many non-white soldiers served in the U.S. military units that fought in the Pacific? Asking because one dirty idea Japanese could perhaps try is play on ethnic and racial differences of Allied soldiers.
Most of them would have been Philippine and considering what the IJA did they will not be convinced to do anything......