AHC&WI: Japan Wins at Guadalcanal

The Guadalcanal Campaign was pretty important for the war effort, it was the first American offensive of the war.

Your challenge, with a POD no earlier than 1942, is to have the Japanese win the battle and then, if you wish, explore the effects of the victory on the of the Pacific theater.
 

sharlin

Banned
One possible thing you could have happen is after the battle of Savo island have the IJN cruisers push on to the transports that were their main and now mostly unprotected target. That would seriously impede the US troops ashore although it would expose the IJN cruisers to air attack the next day as they left the region.

In reality there's little the Japanese can do to win and then exploit their victory, they were at the end of their tether with regards to economics and troops and shipping. Remember not many months ago the IJN lost its main carriers and its best crop of trained pilots so there's little the remaining carriers can do to exploit it.

Perhaps if the IJN had been somehow willing to get their very narrow birds eye view away from the concept of the Decisive Battle and be more willing to risk something like the Yamato in the region (fuel hog that she was) then perhaps they could have held the US up more but win, in reality once the US troops got ashore there was no real way the Japs could win.
 
I'm sure CalBear will make my slam of this seem tame

Guadalcanal was important IOTL to show the US and Aussies and other allies that the US was a worthy combatant.

In the great scheme of things, the US wasn't hoping for much more than a draw, but they managed to sucker a large amount of IJN resources the longer they held out.
In fact, if the IJN managed to "Win" it'd be a Pyrrhic victory hanging a big "Kick Me" sign for the RAN, USN, and so forth to harass at will and dare the IJN to spend the resources tor reinforce it.
Rabaul could hold out for the whole war. Guadalcanal couldn't.

That's not to say the US Navy, Marines, and Army weren't happy to get the "W" and the experience of finding the tactics that worked against the Japanese, but it was a bloody mess even by WWII standards.

For Guadalcanal's fall to be really worrisome, you'd need the Battle of Coral Sea to be an epic IJN curb-stomp of the Allied navies and airpower which is possible but unlikely.
 
Guadalcanal was important IOTL to show the US and Aussies and other allies that the US was a worthy combatant.

In the great scheme of things, the US wasn't hoping for much more than a draw, but they managed to sucker a large amount of IJN resources the longer they held out.
In fact, if the IJN managed to "Win" it'd be a Pyrrhic victory hanging a big "Kick Me" sign for the RAN, USN, and so forth to harass at will and dare the IJN to spend the resources tor reinforce it.
Rabaul could hold out for the whole war. Guadalcanal couldn't.

That's not to say the US Navy, Marines, and Army weren't happy to get the "W" and the experience of finding the tactics that worked against the Japanese, but it was a bloody mess even by WWII standards.

For Guadalcanal's fall to be really worrisome, you'd need the Battle of Coral Sea to be an epic IJN curb-stomp of the Allied navies and airpower which is possible but unlikely.

As you say given the resources that would have to be spent to succeed it would be a pyrrhic victory; especially as it would in no way reverse the decisive defeat at Midway. Midway itself is far harder to change than some people might imagine, the plan and the defeat had a lot more to do with the military culture of the opponents than it had to do with luck. Unless someone can come up with a plausible scenario for the US agreeing to negotiate Japan will lose; it's just a matter of how bloody the outcome is.
 

Orry

Donor
Monthly Donor
As you say given the resources that would have to be spent to succeed it would be a pyrrhic victory; especially as it would in no way reverse the decisive defeat at Midway. Midway itself is far harder to change than some people might imagine, the plan and the defeat had a lot more to do with the military culture of the opponents than it had to do with luck. Unless someone can come up with a plausible scenario for the US agreeing to negotiate Japan will lose; it's just a matter of how bloody the outcome is.

Alien invasions or Godzilla not being plausible.....

After Pearl I find it difficult to think what would plausibly cause the Americans to negotiate. You kick their puppy and they are going to put you down.
 

sharlin

Banned
I'm reading the superb http://www.shatteredswordbook.com/http://www.shatteredswordbook.com/http://www.shatteredswordbook.com/ which is about the Midway campaign before, during and after with a lovely ammount of detail and its all from the Japanese side with lots of info about the planning that went into the Midway campaign and it really does highlight the problems the IJN and Japanese in general had with their warfighting.

The inter-service rivalry that tears at the Japanese makes the problems the Germans had seem like a mild disagreement between firm friends. Admiral Yamamoto at one point threatened to resign and take the IJNs command staff with him to force the Government to do what he wanted to do. If you want a good (And bloody BIG) book to read about the naval war in the Far East that book is well well worth a read.
 
I'm reading the superb http://www.shatteredswordbook.com/ which is about the Midway campaign before, during and after with a lovely ammount of detail and its all from the Japanese side with lots of info about the planning that went into the Midway campaign and it really does highlight the problems the IJN and Japanese in general had with their warfighting.

The self delusion before Midway is remarkable. When the senior IJN officers were wargaming the battle plan the officer playing the US commander put his carriers off Midway ahead of the predicted schedule. He was ordered to remove them because it was too impropable . :confused::eek:
 

sharlin

Banned
Aye they re-did the wargames results three times, once because the Red force did exactly what the US actually did and got a similar result and that was written off as being something the US would not do. The other times they scaled back the damage done to their carriers when caught by the hostile forces in an attack so it was more favourable for the IJN :s
 
Aye they re-did the wargames results three times, once because the Red force did exactly what the US actually did and got a similar result and that was written off as being something the US would not do. The other times they scaled back the damage done to their carriers when caught by the hostile forces in an attack so it was more favourable for the IJN :s

Well, to be fair to Japanese almost everyone tends to do this. I mean they really wanted to do this operation and then comes some admiral and says 'But we will lose!'. So what do they do? Call off the war? No. They say there are no that many carriers in US Navy and their planes cannot do that much damage, because if they could we would loose the war. 'And surely, admiral-san, you are not saying we Nihon Kaigun could loose the war?' asks Yamamoto, kempeitai watching ominously at admiral representing Americans in the war game.
 
Well, to be fair to Japanese almost everyone tends to do this. I mean they really wanted to do this operation and then comes some admiral and says 'But we will lose!'. So what do they do? Call off the war? No. They say there are no that many carriers in US Navy and their planes cannot do that much damage, because if they could we would loose the war. 'And surely, admiral-san, you are not saying we Nihon Kaigun could loose the war?' asks Yamamoto, kempeitai watching ominously at admiral representing Americans in the war game.

The problem here was not just tweaking the results to make the results more palatable, it was the basic contradiction in that they refused to believe the Americans would be bold enough to send their carriers out early in the battle, while at the same time the plan required the USN to come charging into the middle of another smashing Japanese victory. There's a fundamental disconnect.
As to what it has to do with the OP well further victories in early '42 would just lead to Yamamoto raising the stakes and taking ever bigger risks to try and break the US will to fight until eventually some catastrophic disaster will befall the IJN.
 

sharlin

Banned
Aye with the midway wargames it was a case of 'They can't do that so they wont!' I'm reading the book now and its still headshakingly bad how the IJN didn't really plan this and went along with a lot of assumptions and an almost official level of disregard. In the wargames before Midway the US force commander was made to act according to Yamamoto's script which always resulted in a crushing IJN win, but when they went outside the script thats when things went pear shaped.

With the OPs request of a POD no later than 1942 there's really little that can be done to bitchslap the IJN and IJA into thinking rationally and not beliving their own hype.
 
Aye with the midway wargames it was a case of 'They can't do that so they wont!' I'm reading the book now and its still headshakingly bad how the IJN didn't really plan this and went along with a lot of assumptions and an almost official level of disregard. In the wargames before Midway the US force commander was made to act according to Yamamoto's script which always resulted in a crushing IJN win, but when they went outside the script thats when things went pear shaped.

With the OPs request of a POD no later than 1942 there's really little that can be done to bitchslap the IJN and IJA into thinking rationally and not beliving their own hype.

The reality is for the first six months of the war Japan was the beneficiary of a lot of luck; where luck is defined as poor leadership, inadequate/poorly equipped troops, and a total underestimation of Japanese capabilities on the part of their enemies. It's arguable that they were lucky Coral Sea and or Midway didn't come out worse. They could easily have lost a carrier at Coral Sea and it could have been four IJN carriers lost without scratching the USN force at Midway if, for example, Yorktown had committed to a full strike.
Having Japan do better in 1942 is pushing the boundaries of ASB, and it won't save them from catastrophic defeat in the end.
 
With the OPs request of a POD no later than 1942 there's really little that can be done to bitchslap the IJN and IJA into thinking rationally and not beliving their own hype.

Well, I also read the first part of the book, actually I got to the battle diary. I really liked it how Yamamoto reacted to Nagano reasoned criticism of Midway operation. Incredible. I feel if somehow someone got rid of Yamamoto, Japanese might have made a more rational decision to go with Southwest option. They would still loose however.
 
Japan might win it if they really, really get lucky and the US Army and Marines and Navy really, really bungle their attempts to land and capture Henderson Airfield, meaning that Japan "wins" because the enemy messes up worse than they do. However this would be a rapid victory and in all probability due to Allied censorship at the time irrelevant to the Western Allies even if Japan in hindsight magnifies it to be more than it is. In an attrition battle there is only one end for a US-Japanese fight to end: US victory. Japan wins quickly or not at all. Meaning likewise that in terms of the US war effort this is nothing but a pinprick and you likely see the equivalent land fighting in New Guinea instead of in the Solomons.
 
The benefit to the allies in the campaign (and it would be the same in any follow-on campaign if the Japanese did win round one) was the terrible attrition it caused to the Japanese pilot pool. That was the real allied victory.
 
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