Garrison
Donor
And that's the fundamental problem, a Japan that had the wit to avoid Pearl Harbor and bypass the Philippines is a Japan that isn't going to start a major war in the Pacific in the first place.
No Pearl Harbour raid. Victory for Japan?
- Thread starter Draconis
- Start date
And that's the fundamental problem, a Japan that had the wit to avoid Pearl Harbor and bypass the Philippines is a Japan that isn't going to start a major war in the Pacific in the first place.
Fair point. IJN was notorious for ignoring the results of its exercises when they were inconvenient, so the ones showing the traditional attrition on approach/"decisive battle" to be a total failure could reasonably be expected to be ignored, too.
Not really answering the question raised, which is, "Was there reason Japan could believe the U.S. would ignore an invasion?" It's not, "How many reasons might the U.S. have to respond with towering rage?"
Not in question. And not just the American mindset: they'd completely misread the grand strategic situation they found themselves in. They had no idea they were facing two united enemies (Britain & the U.S.) capable of fighting a blue water war, neither a thing Japan had ever done before, & didn't (by appearances) understand the difference between tactical & strategic victory.
It's that terrible grasp of the situation that leads me to the view Britain, alone, could have beaten Japan: Japan just did not know how deep a mess she'd gotten herself into.
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Where did I say, OTL, the U.S. wasn't fighting Germans? Exactly?
And I applaud their effort, almost every single day. Which has nothing to do with the position I took whatsoever.
And I said this, or so much as hinted this, where, exactly?
It's a matter of resource distribution, not liking or disliking the U.S. There's only so much production to go around, so if U.S. forces are getting any of it, Britain & the SU are, perforce, getting less.
Two examples: the Brits needed B-24s for maritime patrol in the Atlantic. Where were large numbers going? To U.S. forces in the Pacific, for long-range PR.
And RCN corvettes badly needed centimetric radars. Canada was producing such sets. Where were they going? To the U.S. Army, of all places.
It's a resource distribution issue, not a problem with the U.S. qua U.S.
Not from me.
Because he took a conventional view, the same one you're taking, & didn't have the benefit of 70-some years of hindsight.
Winston, in hindsight, might have agreed with me, too. (I'm less sure he'd have admitted being wrong.
)It's that terrible grasp of the situation that leads me to the view Britain, alone, could have beaten Japan: Japan just did not know how deep a mess she'd gotten herself into.
I'm sorry, are we talking about the same Britain who was badly overstretched already? The Same Britain who couldn't spare more then a pair of capital ships to deter the Japanese? Those British?
LOL
Not in question. And not just the American mindset: they'd completely misread the grand strategic situation they found themselves in. They had no idea they were facing two united enemies (Britain & the U.S.) capable of fighting a blue water war, neither a thing Japan had ever done before, & didn't (by appearances) understand the difference between tactical & strategic victory.
Well, technically, Tsushima was certainly a blue water battle.
But yes: in taking on Britain and America, it was taking on far more powerful and skillful maritime powers than Russia ever was.
Yes, Britain likely could have - but only once it had won the war with Germany, or otherwise extricated itself satisfactorily from it. It would have taken a good deal longer, though.
Japan can not avoid a confrontation with the United States in the Pacific if it truly wants to become a hegemon without significant PODs before 1940. By November 1941 the gas gauges on the IJN are running out, and unless an alternative is found the Navy is SOL. There were attempts to develop a synthetic fuel production system but they were not able to achieve significant production in the pre-war days. If Japan can successfully transition to this in quantity (having begun work in the 1920s it is plausible), we might have a different military situation for Japan in 1941. If nothing else their priorities may shift with less concern about US oil embargoes and that may avoid Pearl Harbor in and of itself.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00033799300200211
https://www.e-education.psu.edu/egee120/book/export/html/237
https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a425684.pdf
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00033799300200211
https://www.e-education.psu.edu/egee120/book/export/html/237
https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a425684.pdf
Ian_W
Banned
When the US is completely at peace, there is very little war production, and the Allies get most of it as exports because in peacetime, the US military is really really small.
When the US gears up for war - for example, in passing the Vinson-Walsh Act on July 1940 and the Selective Service Act in September 1940 - then there is a whole mucking whackload of production to go around.
As an example, this is some of what Admiral Stark told Congress - https://usnhistory.navylive.dodlive...ansion-act-came-when-platformsmatter-ed-most/
'The next day, June 18, Adm. Stark testified before the Committee to break down the tonnage as 200 combatant and 20 auxiliary ships. Although he did not provide the Committee with numbers, he was expecting this increase would furnish his service with an additional seven battleships, 18 aircraft carriers, 27 cruisers, 115 destroyers and 43 submarines, and to maintain or purchase up to 15,000 “useful” naval aircraft.'
To put this in perspective, 115 destroyers. "Destroyers for Bases" in September 1940 involved 50 old destroyers ... less than half of the planned pre-war build under Vinson-Walsh (and as a plus for the USN, they get to take the crews out of their old destroyers, and put them in new, better ones).
18 aircraft carriers. That's, what, double the IJN's carrier force of 1941 ? It's tripling what the USN had.
Fifteen thousand useful naval aircraft. Per wikipedia, this is Coastal Command's wish list in 1941. "Coastal Command's requirement programme was 150 Catalinas and 76 Sunderlands for 26 flying-boat units; 32 Liberators and 32 Wellingtons or Whitleys to equip four long-range GR squadrons; 64 Mosquitoes and 180 GR Hudsons for 15 medium to long-range units; 128 Beauforts for eight torpedo-bomber squadrons; and 160 Beaufighters for 10 long-range fighter squadrons." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Coastal_Command_during_World_War_II)
So. If Roosevelt can redirect 10% of the USN's *peacetime* buildup to the British, the British get to completely re-equip all of Coastal Command.
It's a similar story for the Army. 230 000 men in April 1940, then in September 1940 the Selective Service Act envisioned a million men under arms by the beginning of 1941 and 1.4 million by July - the details are here. https://history.army.mil/books/wwii/Framework/ch02.htm
And with aircraft, the "54 Group program" speaks for itself.
This is the reality that the Japanese and Germans are facing. A clock, powered by US industrial production, is ticking.
And remember, this is what is approved in 1940, when no one has attacked the US.
There is also the fact that GB was running out of manpower, particularly infantry. Montgomery by the end of the war was canabilizing units to get infantry. The US was providing a lot of infantry, where is GB getting it?
Could they recruit even more troops than OTL? The Indian Army was already huge.
Ian_W
Banned
You use Indian divisions in Europe, or wherever else.
If necessary, you take the artillery, tanks and so on out of one understrength in infantry British division (remember, a British infantry divisions has more tanks than a 1944 German panzer division) and use them to bring two Indian divisions up to Western Front standards.
You've effectively made my argument for me. U.S. maximum capacity was enormous, & I never said otherwise. If the U.S. is at war, much of it is being used to supply an expanded (& expanding) U.S. military, not the Allies.
If the U.S. is at peace, available production capacity is (almost) 100% for Allied supply. Who benefits more from that? Right, the Allies (especially Britain).
I'd argue slightly differently. A U.S. at peace, with FDR surplussing off what's being replaced by new production is even better in the immediate term (when Britain really needs it). Like all the 115-odd DDs, for a start. Like the .30-'06 ammo that seems to have kept MacArthur from signing off on a .275 Garand. (Or am I too late...? Hell, do it anyway & rechamber the ones already produced.)
And again, you're making my point: they all have to be supplied, equipped, fed, moved...& that all takes material & vehicles & shipping not available for the Brits (or Sovs).
All the U.S. expansion is in the face of fear Britain would fall, I suspect. Doesn't it make sense for FDR to sell the idea of bolstering Britain, rather than increasing the risk of U.S. "entanglement", given widespread public opposition?
That's not counting the Bomb program, of course. It might need to be carried out in Northern Ontario or somewhere, & wouldn't be spending nearly so much on dead ends (so no US$2 billion pricetag). It might not be done by war's end, either, as OTL...& that means it might be in time for Stalin feeling frisky, & so a major nuclear exchange in Europe around 1953.
(Can you say The Iron Dream? )There is India, yes, tho even in the midst of the infantry crisis of '44, Britain had something over 5 div (I can't recall the number, or, sadly, the source), untouched, available at home.
Then there's Free France & her colonials...
Canada is problematic, but more French recruiting might encourage more Quebecois. (Or they might not care at all, & the '44 Conscription Crisis still happens.
)I'd also add, if you're acutely aware casualties are an issue, you're less inclined to use the manpower you have stupidly, so it's probable wasting men by bombing cities is looked on as a bad idea, & RAF is switched to another, less-lethal, approach (namely, bombing canals & railyards, & mining rivers).
Okay, but not by a genuinely blue-water navy. And in a conflict that's really pretty geographically constrained.
Given on both counts.
If we're going to consider even syngas & such, let me offer a couple of earlier options: no invasion of IndoChina (cut a deal with Vichy to allow transit?), & no oil embargo (which, AIUI, wasn't meant to be total by FDR, just on the likes of avgas).
Given the U.S. desire to aid China, we're now (likely) in a *Neutrality Patrol situation, just waiting for Japan, or Congress, to blink... (And FDR's head will be spinning so much, he'd make Regan MacNeil dizzy.
)
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So somehow France (Occupied) and Great Britain are going to take 100% of the equipment and materials that the uS could make? And do WHAT with it? Put it in a park? Because they sure didn’t have the manpower to use it.
Also is the US supposed to just give it away? If so. Why?
And why do you persist in the belief that it would be better for Britain to use the Equipment then it was for the US to us this equipment?
s far as I can tell this is just more bull crud anti US/the US sucks and never did anything useful revisionist history that is becoming (unfortunately) more and more common on this and other web sites
Also is the US supposed to just give it away? If so. Why?
And why do you persist in the belief that it would be better for Britain to use the Equipment then it was for the US to us this equipment?
s far as I can tell this is just more bull crud anti US/the US sucks and never did anything useful revisionist history that is becoming (unfortunately) more and more common on this and other web sites
Why don't you try reading what I actually wrote, instead of attributing to me views you think somebody else has? Your attitude on that is beginning to irritate me.
McPherson
Banned
I'll bite.
You are correct that the USNGS (General Board) had given up on "The Through Ticket to Manila". The problem with not attacking Pearl Harbor is that the IJN (falsely as it turns out) was wedded to the 70% rule. They really believed in the old quadratic rule, even more so than the Russians of the time. They thought they faced an enormous risk if they left the USN alone free to run around while the IJN charged down to Indonesia and Malaysia to seize oil and rubber. The China war was going nowhere and it is kind of hard to truck troops around that big country without those two commodities.
Now where would the USN plonk itself, once the IJN introduce Britain and Holland to the new landlords of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere? My guess is that given FDRs advisors, the PACFlt goes to wartime manning and there is the ruffle duffle with LANTtFlt and we get what RTL was planned; emergency airpower buildups in the Philippine Islands, Hawaii, Guam, Wake Island, and the PACFlt starts live fire warshot training in earnest for the kickoff in March 1942. First item on the plate? The Caroline Islands.
The war would be a tough sell, but there was the China lobby and it was effective. (Pearl S. Buck and Madam Chiang).
Clark airbase complex will do for Pearl Harbor. There's your outrage.
Sneaky enemy attacked us in the Philippines? When we're through, etc.
Need to PoD around the time of the Tanaka premiership. Chances? NGTH.
Japan RTL had her bargaining chips and tried to use them a couple of times. What happened RTL? War to the knife.
"MacArthur is trapped; we must save him and our army." Roosevelt's opening words to Congress as he asks for a lot of money and authority to replace Japanese with English as the second language spoken in China. The American people will be newsreeled to death.
Speak to the few surviving UK and especially Australian veterans of the Pacific War? They were/are surface polite as they talk about letting bygones be bygones, but look at their eyes. There is no forgiveness. I doubt that things would have turned out much differently, even if the IJA was inclined to follow the Geneva and Hague conventions. Same for US Marines.
I don't think that happens. The Japanese cannot afford limited war. Their enemies will be all in, because humiliation is a powerful motivator. It is not just an east Asian concept, that "loss of face". Even if there was no (I have to bring it up, no matter how distasteful, because it was a historical fact that the despicable aura of racism infected the Pacific War.) bigotry and mutual contempt exhibited by both sides, there was such ill will leading up to the war that something akin to the kind of animosity would have emerged. "They look different from us! They humiliated US! Kill Them All!" Add to that problem of cultural animosity, the tendency of governments to dehumanize an enemy nation to desensitize their own soldiers to the act of murder of another human being who comes from another culture. It is not murder to "put down a dog." ACTUALLY it is murder to kill human beings in war as SPRUANCE tersely reminded his foolish staff officers at Midway. Great man, Spruance. He tended to cut through bullshit with a sharp knife.
They did.
I do not agree that avoiding Pearl Harbor changes much. One can argue Minutiae but once the Japanese seriously attack the Americans anywhere "on American soil", (Look how close war came over the Panay and Shanghai Incidents and that was not "American soil".), they are doomed.
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"I do not agree that avoiding Pearl Harbor changes much. One can argue Minutiae but once the Japanese attack the Americans anywhere, they are doomed."--- @McPherson
Thank you for that point by point analysis of my premise. You do make a concise and convincing case.
Thank you for that point by point analysis of my premise. You do make a concise and convincing case.
Exactly, this not sinking some gunboat on the Yangtze River, this is a sneak attack against major US military installations where thousands of American service personnel are assigned. Add in a heroic stand at Wake Island (that probably still happens), the loss of Guam, and reports (even if they are fake news to use a modern term) of Japanese spies and saboteurs in Hawaii and California and you have yourself a full blown shooting war.
Also, Japan’s actions will be followed by a DOW, just like OTL? What is the US going to do, not reciprocate?
That man deserves a statue or two. One at Pearl, at least.
Publicly. In private, I'd expect FDR to be thinking (if not openly saying...), "Is there a way we can save the Army & let the Japanese have MacArthur?"
(Keep him out of DC, in any event. And if you can, keep him out of Oz, with USN subs at his beck & call.)It doesn't matter if the U.S. & Britain go flat out; the barrier strategy is a loser. It gives initiative to the enemy. More than that, Japan can't control her own SLOCs. Give the PacFleet only its subs & only a limited mandate, Japan still loses, on roughly the OTL schedule.
It's easier for Japan if it's Brit subs out of Oz, because that limits access to the choice patrol areas. (I don't see basing out of Prince Rupert happening, or being any better if it did.) The difference isn't huge; RN boats might just bottle up fleet units in Truk & Rabaul, & destroy enough tanker tonnage around Hanoi & in DEI it wouldn't matter.
For the record, I never suggested the Brits would get all the U.S. production--only all of what they needed, which wasn't always true OTL. How Britain pays for it, I'm less sure of, since I'm not entirely clear what her finances look like, but the idea of credit comes to mind (repayable when the war ends). So does the prospect of making (probably sweetheart) deals with Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, & Spain (to name a few) to raise US$.
Given the thread's OP & apparent goal, keeping the U.S. out of war, it's unclear to me how suggesting the Brits would benefit as a result is an anti-U.S. bias.