Without nuclear weapons and with the US engaged in the war just like it did (at least in the beginning). You can do whatever you want with Hitler and the European Allies, including Soviets.
Define "Win"
If you mean Pearl Harbor still happens, no way the Japanese will be able to win against the USA, they could simply replace their losses far quicker than Japan can ever hope to sink them.US engaged in the war just like it did (at least in the beginning).
At the end Japan retains vast majority of its conquered territory.
At the end Japan retains vast majority of its conquered territory.
In May 45, the US has troops on Okinawa. All they have to do to beat Japan is keep their navy in the Pacific. Stalin doesn't have a navy, so there's no need to move the USN to fight him. And the IJA was annihilated in August Storm, so the Japanese won't be keeping anything in China either.Well, how about this: POD is Hitler’s assassination in early ‘45. War in Europe ends soon after in German surrender. Three months later, in April or May, Stalin attacks the Japanese as he had promised. But soon after there is a falling out among the Allies, as the Red Army pushes far beyond what was agreed to with the West. This eventually escalates into Operation Unthinkable during the summer. As Japan is also fighting the Russians now, the Americans make a strategic calculation that burying the hatchet with the Japanese is preferable to having the Red Army conquer all of Europe. Japan gets to keep everything north of Singapore and the Philippines as well as what it takes from the Russians, plus pays significant reparations for Malay, Indochina and the cost of the war effort once the Soviets are defeated.
The surrender of OTL Japan in 1942 would mean nearly instant coup by army and navy elements who think they are still winning. To prevent this, you likely need a POD related to Japanese information media policies deep into 19th century, and that change will likely prevent Japanese participation in WWII too.Easy. They surrender in 1942 and change sides (a la OTL Italy). Anyth9ng else requires literal divine intervention.
In May 45, the US has troops on Okinawa. All they have to do to beat Japan is keep their navy in the Pacific. Stalin doesn't have a navy, so there's no need to move the USN to fight him. And the IJA was annihilated in August Storm, so the Japanese won't be keeping anything in China either.
My best offer is that the Chinese army gets utterly smashed after Shanghai and is forced to make peace in late 1937 or 1938. Seeing as the Japanese defined winning in the Pacific as "being able to keep beating China", they've won. And they keep all their islands too. America goes "well that sucks" but doesn't do anything.
- BNC
That doesn't match the OP's conditions that "the US engaged in the war just like it did (at least in the beginning)."
The poorly performing torpedoes of US Navy has happened because US Navy during interwar period has very limited funding specifically for torpedo testing. Making joint and larger budget for aerial bombs and torpedoes testing will likely catch the design failures of torpedo detonators earlier, without much effects on bomb detonators development.The best chance for Japan would be to have the Navy design all of its own aircraft ordnance. Since bombs look like torpedoes the torpedo ordinance bureau would be in charge of designing aerial bombs for used by US Navy aircraft. Knowing those incompetent bureaucrats incompetent bureaucrat anything they developed would not work.
Imagine how the Coral Sea and Midway would turn out if American bombs had the same failure rate as American torpedoes.
Soon afterwards the IJN sends a few long range subs near the Panama canal, where they ambush and sink US reinforcements for the Pacific including a carrier. So the Japanese have relatively little trouble with the US in '42. They then send the bulk of their navy and army westward to overwhelm India late in '42 and go on to take the Persian gulf.
The USN isn't going to throw one carrier at the Japanese at a time if reinforcements will be built fairly shortly after. If they lose all their carriers in a major battle like Coral Sea (unlikely, but possible enough), they will pull back to Hawaii, or at worst the West Coast, and assemble a new force. Someone a few posts above posted a video showing that the US built more ships 1942-1944 than the IJN would have had if it didn't lose a single ship until the end of the war.Or, the IJN mostly stays in the Pacific where in 1942-44 it tries to lure into battle and destroy piecemeal new US forces before they can accumulate into an invincible force.