DBWI-Japan doesn't attempt invasion of Hawaii

Well, the war may have gone on years longer, the Japanese lost 50% of their naval vessels and 43% of their aircraft during their foolish Hawaiian Gambit, it was amazing luck that they were able to occupy Oahu for the few months that they did anyway.
 
Those forces, if they had instead been used in the Philippines and Indonesia like originally planned, could cause them to fall in a matter of weeks. Instead the allies held out for several months. Japan would be in a much better position overall.
 
Those forces, if they had instead been used in the Philippines and Indonesia like originally planned, could cause them to fall in a matter of weeks. Instead the allies held out for several months. Japan would be in a much better position overall.

In a short term. However if they took Hawaii, then they could have taken both PI and Dutch East Indies at their leisure, completely safe from US interference. That gambit was pretty much an all-or-nothing gambit typical to the Japanese mentality in the period. It was also typical Yamamoto gamble. It made sense, had the Japanese had access to full intelligence and appraised the US combat strength in Hawaiian Islands accurately and realistically.
 

nbcman

Donor
Field Marshal Percival wouldn't have earned his VC for his skillful training and handling of the forces in the Far East. He crushed General Yamashita's forces and broke any further attempts by the Japanese to advance into the Dutch East Indies.
 

Ming777

Monthly Donor
We wouldn't hear the legends about the defence of Hong Kong, which lasted over six months before Allied Forces were able to relieve them.
 
In a short term. However if they took Hawaii, then they could have taken both PI and Dutch East Indies at their leisure, completely safe from US interference. That gambit was pretty much an all-or-nothing gambit typical to the Japanese mentality in the period. It was also typical Yamamoto gamble. It made sense, had the Japanese had access to full intelligence and appraised the US combat strength in Hawaiian Islands accurately and realistically.

It was pretty much impossible for the Japanese to take all of Hawaii, the islands were at the end of their logistical chain as it was, and it was an absolute near chance of luck that the Empire was not only able to pull off the Pearl Harbor attack (which destroyed 98% of the US Pacific Fleet thanks to the Japanese being lucky enough to catch the fleet sleeping in the harbor); but also land troops on and occupy Oahu as it was.

It was inevitably that the island would be retaken by the US once they regrouped, the need to replace their naval losses in the attack is perhaps the only reason the Japanese Occupation of Oahu lasted as long as it did; through the occupation left many scars on Hawaii.
 
Why would they attack Pearl Harbor at all, if not as the start of an invasion?

To take out the US Pacific Fleet so that they could attack the Dutch East Indies and Philippines unabated? that was apparently the original plan before Yamamoto forced the government to chance course to the Hawaii-West Coast Plan.
 
Field Marshal Percival wouldn't have earned his VC for his skillful training and handling of the forces in the Far East. He crushed General Yamashita's forces and broke any further attempts by the Japanese to advance into the Dutch East Indies.
OOC: VCs are for bravery in the face of the enemy... not a position a General is likely to find himself in. Probably best to replace it with a Peerage.
;)
 
Well, the war may have gone on years longer, the Japanese lost 50% of their naval vessels and 43% of their aircraft during their foolish Hawaiian Gambit, it was amazing luck that they were able to occupy Oahu for the few months that they did anyway.

OOC: How in hell could the Japanese even hold Oahu a day? With maximum luck on their side the logistical situation was such that they might have enough ammo to last them a couple days or so. They are lucky if they make it a mile off whatever deserted beach they land on not talking about taking the entire island.
 
OOC: How in hell could the Japanese even hold Oahu a day? With maximum luck on their side the logistical situation was such that they might have enough ammo to last them a couple days or so. They are lucky if they make it a mile off whatever deserted beach they land on not talking about taking the entire island.

OOC: I went with a more successful Pearl Harbor scenario here, it's not terribly realistic; but it was more interesting then the ROFLSTOMP scenario that would have been likely to crop up otherwise.
 
OOC: I went with a more successful Pearl Harbor scenario here, it's not terribly realistic; but it was more interesting then the ROFLSTOMP scenario that would have been likely to crop up otherwise.

OOC: The problem isn't tactics it's logistics. The Japanese could only drop them off to die. Whatever they carried in the transports is all they would ever get. The ships would have to leave almost immediately after dropping them off as they were running out of oil. The point is that they didn't have the oil to stay and support the invasion they would have to go back the thousands of miles it took to get home, refuel and come back. Long before that happens the troops run out of ammo and the US troops completely slaughter them.
 
OOC: The problem isn't tactics it's logistics. The Japanese could only drop them off to die. Whatever they carried in the transports is all they would ever get. The ships would have to leave almost immediately after dropping them off as they were running out of oil. The point is that they didn't have the oil to stay and support the invasion they would have to go back the thousands of miles it took to get home, refuel and come back. Long before that happens the troops run out of ammo and the US troops completely slaughter them.

OOC: That is why the occupation only lasts a few months at best.
 
The Japanese could have done quite well if they had attacked the Philippines and Dutch East Indies first instead of Hawaii; in actuality.

Agreed. As unprepared as the U.S. was for an invasion of Hawaii, it was also extremely unprepared in the Philippines. McArthur was pretty negligent, to say the least.
 
Agreed. As unprepared as the U.S. was for an invasion of Hawaii, it was also extremely unprepared in the Philippines. McArthur was pretty negligent, to say the least.

He was, especially when one considers how long Japan had already posed an active threat to U.S. Interests at that point, the only reason MacArthur and his army was able to hold out on the Philippines was because the Japanese decided to waste nearly their entire navy of note and thousands of troops on their ultimately failed Hawaiian Gambit.

If the Japanese had not attempted said gambit, the war in the Pacific might have lasted far beyond the Fall of 1943; the time when Tokyo fell in OTL.
 
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