AHC: Make Japan win the Pacific War.

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trurle

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Why would the war end as the Japanese intended?
It would not, but planning for the contingency beyond acceptable would degrade the Japanese efficiency in case the contingency (too long war) do not occur. Simplifying, longer war need less armaments and more ammunition, opposite to the case of the short war. Therefore, the Japanese High Command planning has allocated war resources (including ammunition, spare parts and reinforcements) for exactly 6 months of operations in December 1941. Of course, lower-rank commanders have hoarded resources too, based on personal estimations.
Furthermore, Finland lost more after the Continuation War and was forced into Finlandization by the USSR.
Not a bad result for 54:1 power ratio. Finnish soldiers thought against Soviets for longer than Japan against US (1:9 power ratio), and got a better peace treaty at end. Example of Finland shows the Japanese performance could be potentially far "better" in WWII.
 
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@trurle

Furthermore, Finland lost more after the Continuation War and was forced into Finlandization by the USSR.

Then again, looking at the fate of other small Axis allies and Germany itself, it was not a half bad result for Finland given the uneven power parity between Finland and the USSR. Like I keep saying, the OTL result was pretty close to the very best Finland could realistically achieve in WWII given that a) it was on the opposite side than the USSR (and targeted by Stalin for occupation in '39 and '44) and that b) the Soviets were among the winners in the end.

To be fair, though, Finland generally benefited from the fact that it was not seen as a "main enemy" by the USSR, nor was it located strategically in a "do or die" direction (like Poland, say, towards Central Europe) but as a small, peripheral country that Stalin could look through the lense of a more "relaxed" cost-benefit calculation.

These are things that would be more difficult to replicate for Japan vis-a-vis the USA especially after such a blatant and reviled attack against the US beginning the war like Pearl Harbor was. I'd go as far as to say that after Pearl Harbor the US attitude towards seeking a crushing victory against Japan was more "emotional" (for lack of a better word) than Stalin's attitude about winning against Finland.
 
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The best way for Japan to expand and retain all its territories is to (a) somehow avoid spitting in America or the USSR's eye and become part of the Allies, and (b) be able to spit at everyone else's in the vicinity anyway. In which case:

500px-Flag_of_JCP.svg.png


Note that turning communist does pose several problems, mainly that Asian communists such as Kim Il-Sung and Mao Zedong would definitely lobby for Stalin to get the Japanese communists to GTFO. Even if they think the JCP is a safer bet than Uncle Joe, and some measure of autonomy like the SSRs is created, it's hard to say how that could work out given Japan's repressive colonial policies. An alternative to the communist Japan scenario would be to have the colonial powers turn fascist and strain relations with the US, but that's harder to pull off unless it's a Central Powers victory, an earlier POD.
 
Let me remind everybody of something. Even if every single USN surface ship was beamed away by the Romulans on 7 December, the U.S. Sub Force would destroy Japan's commerce & bring her war economy to a halt by no later than the end of 1945, changing nothing else.

IJN was incompetent to defend SLOCs. Unless that changes, the above doesn't.
 
Let me remind everybody of something. Even if every single USN surface ship was beamed away by the Romulans on 7 December, the U.S. Sub Force would destroy Japan's commerce & bring her war economy to a halt by no later than the end of 1945, changing nothing else.

IJN was incompetent to defend SLOCs. Unless that changes, the above doesn't.

"If I had to give credit to the instruments and machines that won us the war in the Pacific, I would rate them in this order: submarines first, radar second, planes third, bulldozers fourth." - Admiral William Halsey
 
If Japan attacks the US she loses unless ASB's interfere. Japan's only chance is to either withdraw from China to end the US Embargo (given the political climate ASB right there) or attack UK and Dutch possessions ONLY and hope the US doesn't get drawn in. That's possible but a gamble...
 
Not a bad result for 54:1 power ratio. Finnish soldiers thought against Soviets for longer than Japan against US (1:9 power ratio), and got a better peace treaty at end. Example of Finland shows the Japanese performance could be potentially far "better" in WWII.
That's not really an example of how the Japanese could have done better, but of how the U.S. could have done worse, and expecting the U.S. to do worse is highly unrealistic. To get a U.S. Army on the level of incompetence and utter disregard for human life shown by the Red Army during the Winter War requires some serious ASB and a PoD way before Pearl Harbor.
 
That's not really an example of how the Japanese could have done better, but of how the U.S. could have done worse, and expecting the U.S. to do worse is highly unrealistic. To get a U.S. Army on the level of incompetence and utter disregard for human life shown by the Red Army during the Winter War requires some serious ASB and a PoD way before Pearl Harbor.

Yeah - not even Lloyd Fredendall on his worst day could produce a debacle on the scale of the Soviet attack at Suomussalmi.
 
OTL August Storm only knocked out the Kwantung Army, you're right, but that's just because the rest of the Army was deep in China. If Japan was to pull out of China and send those units against the Soviets, they'll get destroyed just as thoroughly. Japan has no equivalent to the Il-2, the Katyusha, the IS-2, the PPSh or any other type of heavy equipment that the Red Army is spewing out in multi-thousand quantities.

The second front idea is good, but it also doesn't depend upon the US having actually beaten Japan. Okinawa is close enough for the US to threaten the Soviet Pacific coast and Manchuria, so Stalin has to keep troops there regardless of which flag is flying in Tokyo. Maybe he keeps a few more troops if B-29s are flying out of Tokyo, but in a war between the Allies and USSR, the main battlefield is Europe, numbers are above 100 divisions on both sides (once both sides are committed that is). 50,000 extra men guarding Vladivostock isn't going to influence anything.

Simply put, a war with Stalin doesn't impact the war with Japan in any way beyond possibly slowing it down (Hiroshima not getting nuked may delay the surrender of Japan by a few months). Different parts of the US Armed Forces are involved in the two conflicts, so they can be conducted simultaneously.



Japan in 1945 contributes nothing to America's interests no matter who's side it is on. If it fights, it dies and dies fast, so it might as well not be there in the first place. The Americans are angry at Japan, they can't get anything from allying them and they will beat them fairly easily if they don't change what they've been doing.

- BNC

If you're gonna blockade the islands with the USN, then how do you deal with the Kamikaze? Isn't that the whole reason why the US was considering a Marine assault on the Home Islands, even though it would've probably cost more men than the entire war heretofore?
 
If you're gonna blockade the islands with the USN, then how do you deal with the Kamikaze? Isn't that the whole reason why the US was considering a Marine assault on the Home Islands, even though it would've probably cost more men than the entire war heretofore?

The point of the invasion was to end the war. Kamikaze attacks mostly ceased after the main defenses had been overcome on Okinawa, as the Japanese were husbanding their surviving fighters to defend Kyushu when the invasion came.
 
The point of the invasion was to end the war. Kamikaze attacks mostly ceased after the main defenses had been overcome on Okinawa, as the Japanese were husbanding their surviving fighters to defend Kyushu when the invasion came.

Why didn't OTL US consider a blockade?
 
Because here is after 1900 Discussion,So you have 40 years to inprove power of Japan.Although I haven't find suitable POD yet
 
Have japan declare war on Germany, send part of the IJN to assist in convoy escorts, and put all those troublesome mid level commanders into a single corps and let em slaughter themselves to a man storming ashore on "Sakura" beach on June 6th. There. You've won "The Pacific War", which will be what popular history in Japan calls WW2, despite very few battles being fought in the Pacific.
 
That's not really an example of how the Japanese could have done better, but of how the U.S. could have done worse, and expecting the U.S. to do worse is highly unrealistic. To get a U.S. Army on the level of incompetence and utter disregard for human life shown by the Red Army during the Winter War requires some serious ASB and a PoD way before Pearl Harbor.

To be fair, I believe trurle is referring also to the Continuation War here (moreso than to the short Winter War in fact) as that war lasted from June 1941 to September 1944. The Finns managed to fight the Soviets to a standstill even in the summer of 1944 when the Red Army was a quite different beast than in late 1939.

Now, I'm not sure how this all would apply to the Japanese war effort, I would just generally rather see people understanding that the Winter War was not the sum total of the Finnish military's participation in WWII - even if the Continuation War presents issues of its own, to do with the Finnish alliance with Nazi Germany, and shows the Finns in a rather different light than the pure, heroic struggle of the Winter War.
 
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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.
I think this premise could work, but with a bit of a modification.

So the Chinese are crushed following Shanghai and peace sets in. Japan, still wary of US intervention, but less so than OTL due to peace being signed in China, is a bit more relaxed, and does not join the Tripartite Pact. There is much economic cooperation, but no outright military alliance aimed at the US, choosing to let the sleeping dogs lie.

Still, they need the Southern resources, but wish to avoid US intervention, so they dance around US territory. The US makes this really hard, as they provide intelligence to the British and the Dutch about the Japanese navy movements. Regardless, the offensive is still successful, and the US decides to intervene. The war is not popular in the first place, and after a series of catastrophic defeats, everyone gets cold feet. After a defeat from the IJN near Midway, the war gets really unpopular at home and the sides agree on terms, which are basically status quo ante, with the Philippines remaining with the US, but Japan can keep the territories conquered from the rest of the Allies.

Not sure if this US would eventually fight the Germans though, as this is considered a separate war.
 
Would they need the Southern resources though? An early win in China means that they don't get sanctioned by the US, removing the reason to fight the US in the first place.

- BNC
Good question. I assume they would want to resume the war in China sooner or later, and they will need more resources for that. If the militarists could be reined in somehow, the whole Pacific War could be avoided, but that is highly unlikely at that point. The Japanese military wanted war, and they would find a way to have it. Especially if the Chinese are broken, the IJN would want to prove themselves.
 
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