Japanese victory in the pacific war - is it really ASB?

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.
Did you completely miss everyone tearing the "Invasion of Hawaii" scenario to shreds?
 
Based on OTL behavior, you're right.

I recall reading a survey of African-American newspapers during the war. The tenor of it was that while they were unhappy about Jim Crow, they recognized that the Nazis and the Japanese militaristswere worse. "Grind 'em into the ground."

At any rate, this sort of thing was a blind spot for the Japanese. Too much racial animus, and it's also why their efforts to prop up independence movements in SE Asia didn't pan out for them.
 
WI task force 8 and 12 with the carriers were in PH on Dec 7? US loses the carriers and then Saratoga is sunk by a sub. USA also loses more ships playing defence. The public might want peace soon. Midterms in 42 could be a bloodbath for FDR
 
If Japanese policy towards captives can't be changed for the purpose of this thread, then the next most useful thing would be to knock out Pearl Harbor as a naval base. Since Japanese military valued sacrifices, getting some commandos into PH seems a good idea, with orders to blow up as much infrastructure as they can. Perhaps an old cruiser could be sent with the idea to shell the hell out of oil fields and docks, with the expectation that it shall go down fighting.
 

marathag

Banned
then the next most useful thing would be to knock out Pearl Harbor as a naval base. Since Japanese military valued sacrifices,

Put the almost finished Yamato on a suicide run right into Pearl Harbor firing all guns, with plans to scuttle in the Sea Channel, blocking everything for a long time
image001-1.png

She would do more as a blockship than anything else she possible could accomplish during the War
 
Put the almost finished Yamato on a suicide run right into Pearl Harbor firing all guns, with plans to scuttle in the Sea Channel, blocking everything for a long time
image001-1.png

She would do more as a blockship than anything else she possible could accomplish during the War
Of course surviving the coastal defences to reach the channel might be a little difficult even for the Yamato
 
WI task force 8 and 12 with the carriers were in PH on Dec 7? US loses the carriers and then Saratoga is sunk by a sub. USA also loses more ships playing defence. The public might want peace soon. Midterms in 42 could be a bloodbath for FDR

Oh, we've had multiple threads on just that scenario - I mean, it's not impossible that Yamamoto picks a weekend where Lexington and Enterprise are both at Pearl.

1) But the U.S. Navy had seven fleet carriers in December 1941. Even if you sink three of them in the opening weeks - which is very unlikely, but not impossible - the U.S. could still redeploy the remaining four (Wasp, Yorktown, Hornet, Ranger+) to EastPac quickly, and given the higher aircraft complement most of them had relative to Japanese fleet carriers, that would actually be a reasonable match for the full Kido Butai. And since Lexington and Enterprise would have sunk in the shallow waters of Pearl, you'd likely have a pretty decent chance of raising and repairing them, like the USN did with California and West Virginia (admittedly, after extensive time and work - you probably have to wait until 1943 to get either of them back in operation). Additionally, in the short term there is *also* the live probability that one or more British Illustrious class carriers in the Indian Ocean get redeployed to the South Pacific to work alongside Nimitz's carriers - this was something Admiral King had already proposed in May 1942 of our time, and which actually *did* happen with HMS Victorious in early 1943.

2) But meanwhile, the United States under the modified Two Ocean Navy Act has 30 - note that, 30!* - Essex class carriers being built under a crash program, with the first reaching commission at the end of 1942; up to 100 (!) escort carriers being built; and an emergency conversion program for Cleveland class cruisers into light carriers, which in OTL ended up delivering 9 Independence class CVL's to the Pacific in 1943 but could on my calculations have delivered an additional 6 more in 1943 if necessary. And that doesn't count all the other construction of surface ships (starting with ten(!) fast battleships and up to 22 heavy cruisers) and aircraft. The United States can count on a freaking tidal wave of new construction hitting the Pacific in 1943-44, and everyone from Franklin Roosevelt on down knows it full well.

3) Meanwhile, Japan has zero realistic capability to take Hawaii, Alaska, Australia, New Zealand, or India, or for that matter even New Caledonia (which had 22,000 troops in place by spring 1942, and 30,000 by August) or Samoa. Its realistic outer defense perimeter was pretty close to what they actually ended up with. And again, American leadership understood this, too.

The worst case scenario for the U.S. here is just that you probably butterfly away WATCHTOWER and most of the Solomons Campaign, at least through mid-1943; the U.S. just stands largely on defense in the Pacific until the tidal wave arrives.

4) So that's what the leadership knows and assumes. So we're left with American popular opinion. Do we really think that the U.S. public would be ready to cry uncle because they lose a few more capital ships early on? Everything we know about the mood of the public in 1941 and early 1942 suggests it would only make them more enraged, Republicans and Democrats alike. (Look at what happened when word got out that the USS Houston was sunk; within days, over 1,000 "Houston Volunteers" had shown up and been accepted at the recruiting offices in Houston, TX to replace the lost crew. That's the mindset at work in those days.) This was something even Yamamoto, who had lived and studied in the U.S. for several years, fully appreciated, which is why he made his famous quip that Japan would have to dictate terms from the White House - which was of course a manifest impossibility.

Even if the Republicans took the House back in 1942, this wouldn't change; in fact, it would only increase pressure on the administration to smash the Japanese hard. Forexample, the House Republican leader in 1942 was Rep. Joseph W. Martin Jr.. An avowed anti-internationalist before the war, he immediately transformed into a warhawk on December 7, 1941; all of his energies as Speaker would be pushed into pursuing the war against Japan, not terminating it. As he said after Pearl Harbor, " There is no politics here. There is only one party when it comes to the integrity and honor of this country.”

___
+ It's true that this means losing Ranger for Operation TORCH, but this could easily be compensated for by redeploying a British fleet carrier.
* In our timeline, 6 of those 30 would later be cancelled in 1944-45, because they proved to be unnecessary; but in a timeline where the US loses more fleet carriers up front, that's additional construction the USN could keep in the pipeline if it wanted to.
 
Last edited:
Of course surviving the coastal defences to reach the channel might be a little difficult even for the Yamato

Yeah.

On December 7, 1941, the 16th Coast Artillery on Oahu had, by my count, fourteen 12"-14" guns that could reach a surface ship like Yamato well out to sea. On top of that, you have four U.S. battleships that might not be deployable but still afloat and which could use their batteries from where they were in the harbor, so that's potentially an additional 34 14" and 16" guns that could reach well out to sea, too.

That's not counting smaller guns and surviving bomber aircraft.

Of course, if this is a late 1942 scenario, then there's going to be a lot more available to fire on Yamato before she ever gets close to the channel. And even for a ship as tough as Yamato, that's a hell of a lot of firepower raining down on her.
 
Yeah.

On December 7, 1941, the 16th Coast Artillery on Oahu had, by my count, fourteen 12"-14" guns that could reach a surface ship like Yamato well out to sea. On top of that, you have four U.S. battleships that might not be deployable but still afloat and which could use their batteries from where they were in the harbor, so that's potentially an additional 34 14" and 16" guns that could reach well out to sea, too.

That's not counting smaller guns and surviving bomber aircraft.

Of course, if this is a late 1942 scenario, then there's going to be a lot more available to fire on Yamato before she ever gets close to the channel. And even for a ship as tough as Yamato, that's a hell of a lot of firepower raining down on her.
Not to mention a ship like Yamato on her own would be the wet dream of the skippers of the numerous destroyers in Pearl Harbor and quite frankly while USN torpedoes at this point were terrible in reliability with that many torpedoes it wouldn't matter
 
Last edited:
What I meant with "guarantees territorial integrity" was "give all the occupied american islands, uncluding Hawaii, back".



Ok, I admit that 2 Divisions are not enough. But with 3 to 4 japanese divisions plus air and naval superiority, you can't really say that the japanese stand no chance. Don't get me wrong, victory is never a certainity, but in this situation they got a good chance in my opinion.

And if were talking long run here (i.e. 43, 44) it's unlikely the japanese are able to hold Hawaii anyway. It's not so much about holding Hawaii than about taking it in a decisiive battle that cripples the US navy.



Didn't the japanese have air superiority during the Pearl Harbour attack? And fun fact, over the course of the war, the japanese had 350k soliders on Papua New Guinnea (i.e. not the best place supply wise), which only surrendered after the central government in Tokio did so. Yes, New Guinea is not as far away as Hawaii, but it has a lot less infrastructure and means to sustain troops. If the japanese take Midway on top, they would have pushed their defensive perimetre a lot further east (as someone allready mentioned), so a shipping route to Hawaii should be secured for at least a year (of course there would still be harasment by american subs).



.

If the Japanese would behave anywhere near as they did everywhere else in Hawaii then the war would resume the next day unless you think the 1940s US would tolerate the raping of is women!

Not that good, unlike the USMC in 1944 the fleet couldn't stay for much longer than it did. A few hours bombardment at most as it was at the very limit of it logistical capacity. Besides it would be against Japanese naval doctrine. It was against Japanese Naval Doctrine to bombard the shore with battleships, they were seen strictly as anti-ship weapons and usually had few HE shells. They would have to be slugging it out with coastal guns which was a huge no-no.

Translation , the Japanese wasted 350,000 on a bypassed , isolated island that the Allies weren't going to waste time and lives taking. After it was bypassed it was nothing more than a self-administrated POW camp.
 
The only way this 1950 attack isn’t running into a wood chipper is if the US has been huffing lead paint.

I'm not saying it would be bloodless. But a US that remains decidedly isolationist in the face of a rapid fall of the USSR and a major defeat of the UK would give Germany, Italy, and Japan a chance for massive building programs with military technologies that might be 5-7 years ahead of the US. Potentially moreso if US leadership decides not to consider further research or remains blissfully ignorant of Axis ambitions.
 
I'm not saying it would be bloodless. But a US that remains decidedly isolationist in the face of a rapid fall of the USSR and a major defeat of the UK would give Germany, Italy, and Japan a chance for massive building programs with military technologies that might be 5-7 years ahead of the US. Potentially moreso if US leadership decides not to consider further research or remains blissfully ignorant of Axis ambitions.
The US response to the Fall of France was to order a 70% increase in Naval Strength, the House passed it 316 to 0. This was in addition to the buildup already initiated from the invasion of China and Anschluss which was a mere 20% increase in strength, as well as a smaller increase when WWII was declared. Similar increase occurred for the Armty at the same time

One really thinks that the US response to Britain or the USSR going down won't be to put this on roids? And in naval technology the US was in most regards decently ahead of the Axis, and wasn't that far behind in other fields if behind at all

The US not doing something like this is OOC, hence the lead paint comment
 
Nazi Germany didn't have the resources or doctrine to even try Sealion once. The USA had both of those and the grit, in spades. The USA is not surrendering in any conflict that looks remotely like OTL Pacific Theater. Hell, in our timeline, they didn't even give it first priority and they still out produced Japan to an outrageous degree. Political will was not lacking as I can't think of a single pro-peace voice in American politics after Pearl Harbor.
When you are outnumbered literally an order of magnitude in destroyers and escort carriers you are going to have a LOT of bad days!:biggrin:
 
And here's the great problem with every one of your scenarios: this is a problem the Japanese neatly solved for the US Navy by attacking Pearl Harbor. Well, for the next four years or so.

If you want Japan to have any sort of chance at a negotiated peace, you need to ditch Pearl Harbor.
Ot at least not attack during peace negotiations!!
 
Top