DBWI Japan had taken the 'Southern Option?

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The wheels would've come off after Stalin's death - it was pretty much Stalin The Country when Barbarossa happened - but that's still a few more years of grace. God knows what that would've meant for post-war Europe. At the very least, all the intellectuals in post-war Paris wouldn't be touting how great Stalin's USSR was when they could actually see the fucking place.
That is certainly what Hitler thought in 1941 and it didn't quite play out that way. I mean the reason it fell apart was the famines, defeats, and general undermining of the legitimacy of Stalin's rule, which was pretty much the formula of the fall of the Czar and the Habsburgs. That and the Germans really working on the ethnic separatism (eventually) of the Ukranians, who had the ability to build up their core of training manpower during the war and inherited so much German equipment at the end while the Soviets themselves were too weak and unstable to crack down on them effectively. When Stalin then went to purge Zhukov and the army fought back that was the end of the Soviet regime and the start of their warlord period. I know a lot of people think the collapse of Communism was inevitable due to the inherent contradictions of the system of the nature of the Soviet regime, but its pretty clear that the Nazi invasion and resulting problems ripped out the seems on all the sutures that they had used to stitch together their Red Empire. Good for the world, bad for Hitler that his prediction about the fall of the Soviets took longer than was needed to beat the Nazis. The post-Soviet communist intellectuals so have some points about the regime being an improvement over the Czarist state even with all the failings of the Soviets right up to the invasion, but then the war pretty much dashed it apart. Who knows what it would have turned into without the war or had the Japanese not invaded the east and allowed for US supplies to come in via Siberia.



Now to the OP, where did the Japanese get their OTL oil for the war? IIRC they had 2-3 years stockpiled and managed to stretch that out by severe rationing during the war; perhaps if they went south and caught everyone with their pants down in 1941 they could have taken the DEI and gotten all the oil they needed, plus all the minerals and destroyed the US defenses in the area, rather than the US building up first and catching the Japanese relatively unprepared and then having the DEI themselves to supply oil. Maybe then the US wouldn't have had to invade the Home Isles of the Japanese and then mainland Asia to wrap up the IJA on the continent in those murderous campaigns before even getting a foothold in Europe. If the Japanese stretched themselves out instead over the Pacific and Southeast and South Asia they could have been defeated guarding a wide perimeter and then by the time the US A-bombs were ready they'd have had them to use against Japan rather than Germany.

As it stood IOTL even with a Germany first program the war against Japan really got moving first to try and open up the Siberian ports to supply the Soviets so they wouldn't fall to the Nazis. That meant Operation Downfall because the US started so far forward when they got involved, which meant huge US losses pretty early into the conflict in the East, before they really got stuck in in Europe. So maybe if the Japanese attacked south they would have lasted longer and made it easier for the US to move against Europe first and been able to use less resources to fight through the island perimeter that Japanese would have erected, rather than having to go for the jugular against Japan in 1943 because they were pretty much already on their doorstep. That was a bloodbath pretty early on in the war that soured the US public and may have been the factor that made the 1944 election so close.

There are all sorts of huge butterflies really if the Japanese go south rather than north.
 
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One theory I've seen is that as soon as the US declared war, Japan would launch a long-range attack on Pearl Harbor - I'm not entirely sure how feasible that is to be honest (they'd surely be seen coming*) but a blow to Pearl Harbor would delay any US attacks by months and give Japan time to do their aforementioned sweep across Asia. Could also seriously shake the presidency.

Well, with the Northern option chosen the US counter offensive did not start until late 1943. There were of course many raids & the battles around the Phillipines, Indonesia, & SE Asia. But, the killer offensive across the central Pacific to Japan did not start until the logistic element - the fleet train was ready in 1943. USN war games run from the early 1920s right up to 1941 showed it was impractical to attempt a sustained offensive across the the pacific until that logistic element existed. Every exercise where the USN 'Blue Force' attempted to went badly. That was the basis for all the itterations of War Plan Orange, for 'Plan Dog' & the subsequent Rainbow plans. That is it would require 12 to 24 months of preparation before the USN could project decisive force across the Pacific to Japan. Until then only raids or periphrial campaigns could be conducted.

So no. If Japans navy somehow manages a early suprise victory against the US Pacific fleet & sinks a few capitol ships, either BB or CV its not going to make any difference vs a intact US fleet. That fleet cant directly threaten Japan until it has the necessary logistics support, the mobile fleet train & that took approx 18 months to build. The alternative, building capable bases ashore on captured atolls takes even longer as it reqiured months to to relocate the support base forward to the next location.

* Maybe less of an issue if Japan hits first but even the Southern Strategy, willing to battle three colonial powers, wasn't planning to actively draw in the United bloody States.

If you poke through the books based on research of Japanese sources its clear that the Japanese leaders expected the US to join imeadiatly had the southern option been chosen. The US had been instituting trade sanctions against Japan since 1937, had started a program to quadruple the land and air combat power in the Phillipines from early 1940, had rebased the Pacific fleet from the US to Hawaii in March 1941, had been selling increasing quantities of arms to the Chinese & Dutch before September 1940.

What the US leaders may or may not have done can be debated, but the critical point in Japanese planning is that they expected the US to join imeadiatly. So, they planned accordingly.
 
As it stood IOTL even with a Germany first program the war against Japan really got moving first to try and open up the Siberian ports to supply the Soviets so they wouldn't fall to the Nazis. ... .

Would not be necessary. Most of the material to the USSR 1941& 1942 went via Murmansk & then Persia. OTL the Soviet Maritime Ministry shut down the Pacific route in October 1941 in anticipation of a US/Japan war. The Soviet Pacific cargo fleet was redirected to the Atlantic. A trickle of Sovet flagged cargo ships crossed the Pacific in 1942 & then a slowly increasing number in 1943. When the charts show "50%" went via the Pacific route the bulk of that crossed in latter 1943 through 1945. The majority in 1941-42 went via the Atlantic to Murmansk. Persia was similar to the pacific route. Inadaquate ports and a low capacity railway limited the material to a couple hundred thousand tons in 1942. Improving the ports and rebuilding the entire length of the railway sent the capacity to well over one million tons in 1944.

The USSR survived 1941-42 OTL without the Pacific/Siberian route, so there is no great incentive for the US to change its prewar plans & attempt a 1942 offensive that could not be started anyway.
 
I'm betting it'd be horrible. If Japanese forces needed to be driven from Indochina, Hồ Chí Minh'sgoing to be even more militant (with even more experienced soldiers) and the People's Republic of China could have an excuse to send troops over the border. Instead of a "small" conflict and negotiated independence, it'd be a massive war that'd escalate into France VS China over client regimes. And France would lose that war in the 50s.

Try having good relations with the People's Democratic Republic of Vietnam Wot Remembers All Their Family You Killed.

Eh? How is the rump Communist Renegade Soviet "Protectorate" Manchurian state gonna send troops to Vietnam? They were already holding onto dear life after WWII and weren't gonna do anything to rock the boat without the Soviets say so. Hell they were lucky in finally being allowed to peacefully reunite with RoC proper after 40 years of separation when the Post Soviets finally decided that they'd rather have a neutral/friendly resurgent China instead of a revanchist one. Sadly after that as well as demilitarizing a good chunk of their border meant both nations can focus on other borders rather than each other. Remember how freaked out Rep of Japan and Kingdom of Vietnam got and practically begged the US to increase existing commitments and permanently station 2 additional CTGs.

Striking North was a disaster for the Chinese front. It bled off a good deal of their best troops to die in the godforsaken wasteland of Siberia for nothing (well actually they did take lands with untapped oil reserves and other goodies but its not like they had the tech to exploit them). The KMT got a MASSIVE boost in supplies through the Haiphong railway (despite desperate strikes and costly losses to IJN naval aviation forces) from the Allies and were thus able to eventually repel the Imperial Japanese practically back to their jump off points in Manchuria until the surviving IJA units established a defensive front along with help from their fleet providing vital fire support. The Allies quite treacherously thereafter shut the flow of supplies to a trickle (although by that point they had their own issues with the European front and the massive US military expansion), leading to the inability of the KMT to push IJA into the sea and preventing a total reunification of China proper. The RoC never forgave the WAllies for that but then had to focus their anger at the Soviets for taking in and sheltering surviving communist elements led by Zhou En Lai and Zhu De in newly "liberated" Manchuria towards the tail end of the war.

Post Soviet Russia took a big gamble in letting China "reunify" and it paid dividends by letting them menace Eastern Europe for concessions with the vastly beefed up border forces as well as the sell off of the obsolete Chinese border garrison equipment, most of which found their way to African warlords. China had to spend much time and treasure de-communizing Manchuria, but it seems to be paying off now that they can finally properly exploit the natural resources of the area. All of those freed up Chinese border troops that flooded into Manchuria and sure as hell made that area shape up right quick.

I shudder to think what a freed up IJA army left unchecked in China would do. If Indo China got handed over to the Imp Japan and little to no supplies/trainers coming in for the KMT to reform and rebuild their armies after the debacle of the Battles of Shanghai/Nanjing, man the existing terrible death toll woulda likely increased many fold.
 
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Anyone have a take on the actual attacks, air, naval, & land, Japan could have undertaken in the South Option? It appears between eight and ten IJA infantry divisions would be available & 4 IJA Army (corps) HQ with support units. About six SNLF regiments would on hand. The army air forces had at least 1,000 aircraft it could devote to this offensive. At sea there was a small amphibious fleet, enough for two corps worth of near simultaneous landing operations, plus of course the battle fleet.

What looks like the biggest problem in the merchant or cargo fleet. Over ten million tons annually serviced Japans ports 1938-1940. But Japans home flagged fleet amounted to around six million tons. The use of the other four million tons were lost to Japans use when Soviet, US, British & Brit Allied cargo ships ceased callingg in Japans ports. With the Northern Offensive there were only a few SNLF regiments and a couple IJA inf brigades remaining for land ops in the Pacific. Than never strained Japans cargo fleet, however how restrictive would the shortage of cargo ships were Japan attempting to seize strategic areas in the south?
 
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