Sorry I misunderstood what you were suggesting, but moving the British forward from Malaya (not to mention the Dutch from the NEI) is even less likely and even less desirable. Remember, the US wasn't in the war and refused to make any precommitment to their actions if Japan attacked the British or Dutch until very later in the day. The British and Dutch might have been willing to reinforce the Philippines in return for the guarantee they were desperate for. It wasn't an allied mistake not establishing greater coordination, it was a US mistake.
Considering what the USN was doing at the time and what American forces were being staged into the Philippine Islands from Jan 1941 onward I would respectively disagree. US naval and air forces were in a an almost warlike reinforcement schedule. It was the British mistake to misinform the Americans during
the ABC conferences during that crucial period. When the Americans discovered it, the prevarication about the Battle of the Atlantic and the true state of British situation in Southeast Asia, it was perhaps not wise of them to overlook the British duplicity, but then came the Southern Road and further British lies and what especially happened at Manila 6 December 1941 local time, when Phillips refused good Hart advice to fall back on Sri Lanka.
One forgets that little piece of contretemps. One was competent and able, the other was an utter fool. Both were obstinate and I suspect (Andrew Boyd is my source; though he does not come out and so state in his thesis on Eastern Command.) that Phillips might have been an America-phoebe. I know Hart hated him at first sight. In addition, I doubt there was an Allied command, aside from Stalin and his gangsters, more deluded or out of touch with reality that the fools of Eastern Command, a situation Hart knew from his own dealings with those buffoons. To be fair, ADM Hart also held his own co-joint commanders, MacArthur, Brett, Withers, Brereton, Short, Kimmel and those fools in Pearl Harbor (Kimmel's crew) and the fools in Washington (Stark and Leahy) in equal dour contempt.
I don't think concentrating all forces on the Philippines makes sense though. It is entirely possible Japan says great, occupies Malaya and the NEI unopposed and then starves the Philippines out. The further forward the allies deploy the easier it is to encircle them so the more forces are needed to cover their lines of communications, forward deployment without significant reinforcements from outside the theatre is a recipe for a quicker disaster.
Sea Map. The map is an air force view of the problem, but note the South China Sea (star) and imagine 50 submarines (29 American 15 Dutch and 6 British boats.) operating under a competent naval staff, (US Asiatic Fleet, after Withers is sacked.) The Americans, British and Dutch have 6 cruisers, and 19 destroyers and unfortunately not enough mine warfare or torpedo craft to operate in area, but if someone had paid adequate attention (to ADM Hart.)), one can build or modify a lot of small craft for sea denial purposes. That would be a serious problem for Terauchi and his assorted fools to contemplate for the Southern Road. I still think Matador (south Thailand) and at least an attempt at Southern IndoChina (Mekong Delta specifically) is worth the force projection risk on land. Keep IndoChina out of Japanese hands.
As for the claim that the Philippines forces would fight where they were told by the US, this definitely wasn't true at the start of the war. The idea of deploying these understrength, poorly trained units in another other than the defence of the Philippines is totally unrealistic (and isn't needed in your plan in any case).
For defense of the air garrison on Luzon and for power projection, they most certainly are.
Finally, I know the Japanese were operating on a shoestring, but so were the Allied defences, and the Japanese had more powerful naval and air forces in the theatre, giving them the initiative and the ability to isolate any allied concentration of land forces that they couldn't quickly defeat.
The US can build B-17s and PT boats in a year. Just need the "will".
For the type 89 is that frontal or all around? Considering the guns light size perhaps you could set up small ambush teams to either fire at the rear or sides from concealment or perhaps jury rig a donated/ commandeered local civilian car or truck.
Or as fire support for Russian style tank hunting teams. The Malaysian terrain is tailor made for infantry ambush of tanks. Why it was not done, is because the British, who knew how, did not train for it in region under the notion that it was "impassible tank country". Always wondered after France 1940, how anybody, British, could be so stupid about that assumption. There is nothing that is impassible to a tank as long as human beings are there to engineer the means to pass it through.
Still kind of seems better then nothing.
Insert antitank rock joke here.
Or perhaps modify old small caliber RN QF guns with a land carriage or fired from a truck. Something like the old Hotchkiss 37mm-47mm Anti torpedo boat guns?
A good idea; the British were trying for 2 pounder portees in North Africa, and the Americans, after failing with the anti-tank rock, (France 1940 panic.), were trying to plonk a 37mm AT gun on anything with wheels and tracks. They would successfully mount the French 75 on anything with wheels and tracks by June 1942.
Possibly or even probably, or a better governor might not have been so obstructing.
Stenton Thomas was a bigot. Racism clouds good judgement. He was not the only Allied racist *(Sutherland, Willoughby, Wilkes, Brereton, Brett and Wainwright, but not so much MacArthur.). For those who do not think racism was a major problem with British and American planning and execution...
The Japanese built world class equipment and trained hard. Just the 1942 horror show of the F4F Wildcat pilots trying to fight the A6M Zero China veterans revisited, as I read John Ludstrum's "The First Team", again reminds me that one may have the best trained aviation on Earth, but one still gets slaughtered if one underestimates the ability and intelligence and the technical superiority of one's foes.
Lesson Learned? If one prepares, as if the enemy is better than one is, and manages to figure out
coping methods to overcome enemy training and technical superiority as the USN finally did; then when the enemy falls short of expectations, the opportunity to crush him will present itself. The Japanese, with their own racism, could not conceive a situation in which the Americans would be imaginative enough to find those coping method (exploits). But then the Japanese held the Chinese in contempt, and look how that turned out for them. (Korean War lesson learned for the Americans, too. Too bad they forgot it in time to be beaten in Vietnam.). Racism clouds the reason, clouds the judgement, and leads to outcomes which are "negative" in the PRACTICAL as well as the moral sense. Show me a "moral" army with practical realistic leaders, and I will show you a deadly effective one.
Funnily enough Brooke Popham did a good job as governor of Kenya 1936-39 during the Italian and Ethiopian crisis, preparing Kenya against the threat this war would spill over. If he did the same in Malaya from 1939 it would provide a good basis for whomever commanded the military forces.
Do not know what went wrong with him, but he historically folded like a ripped tent in December 1941. He was useless.
The biggest change would be to have the belief that the Japanese could actually pull it off at all. In the 30s the Japanese (and Asians in general) were viewed by western powers as ”less than equal”. The possibility of the fall of Malaysia, the Philippines, and the attack on PH, were about as ASB as you could get back when something could actually have been done to prevent it.
See my previous remarks. 1942 was a bitter learning experience for all of the allies. Racism did and does not work. Kinetics (effective ones) and outsmarting that brilliant and tough other fellow was/is the only option.
Not quite sure about the level of certainty given to various outcomes.
Surely the question is the following
A. What do the British need to commit to keep lines of communication open and thus the theatre in play.
Fleet in being at Sri Lanka is the only British option for Force Z, while forces in place have to be integrated into a combined ABDA under competent direction and planning (ORANGE) BEFORE the balloon ascends. The desert army in North Africa and the Suez Canal is the highest priority after the UK itself. Even Russia comes behind North Africa. With the Japanese naval threat, there is only one correct solution. Fight them where inferior numbers and means can win.
Shoreline dictates that choice.
B. What is the force loss in men, material and above all shipping for the Japanese that makes the theatre a drain on the Japanese war effort and thus a net strategic win for the Allies.
Kill tankers (AOs). Kill troop transports (AKs). Go for bottleneck kills. 60 AOs and 40 AKs and the Southern Road stops cold. Hence... submarines.
Then we work backwards from there for various scenarios.
As I have done.
1. Keeping a toe hold Until the general advance - preventing Japanese breakout into Indian Ocean and usage of Singapore as a base of operations.
2. Blocking the enemy advance - victory by stalemate - a meatgrinder - British Stalingrad.
3. Effective victories that throw the enemy back and bring forward OTL operations.
It just seems we always have one side in these threads being a dug up golf course and a couple of crap tanks will send the Japanese packing vs. if the British don't enact a 52 point omniscient SIOP where if they fail to take four centres of gravity the Japanese pull off a flawless victory, teleport behind Singapore with a katana and "eh nothing personal kid" even a spirited committed entrenched defence.
As I have suggested (^^^), use the terrain, existent forces and ditch the attitudes and adopt realistic courses of action. One of those courses is to write Singapore off and make the stand where it makes sense.
I'm sure between these two poles there's a solution where the British can sink enough Japanese shipping and kill enough Japanese invasion forces to pull it off.
Never happen if the South China Sea is not denied and it is not the British who can do it. It has to be the Dutch and Americans. The British should plan accordingly.
