Everything Japanese did "too little, too late" in WWII is done with maximal foresight

trurle

Banned
I know this timeline is fundamentally not all that serious but why did Chinese resistance just collapse because of the fall of Xi'an and Lanzhou?

Especially as all the South China enclaves are going to be very hard to support without a navy?

The Chinese government put all-out efforts to defend a logistical hub of Xi`an. Xi`an has become the symbol of Chinese resistance due heavy Japanese losses. Basically, an enlarged ATL equivalent of the OTL Changsha. When Japanese stab-in-back to Chongqing (a Chinese capital) has managed to pass through and encircle Xi`an, all most capable combat units of China were encircled too, putting an end to organized resistance. Lanzhou was just the last large Chinese-controlled population center. Not much fighting happened in Lanzhou because the Chinese army was already in the advanced state of the disintegration by the moment Japanese detachments entered Lanzhou.

As about South China (Guangxi etc), in that region Japanese controlled not enclaves, but rather thick (few hundreds km) coastal strip since late 1939 in this ATL. I have mentioned in earlier posts the Japanese victory in Battle of Kunlun Pass (Chinese victory IOTL) and other inland South China battles in 1939-1940. It has become possible because of heavy use of airlift and airborne units (including light airborne tanks) by Japanese. The greater Japanese army airlift and airborne capability has became possible exactly because of priority decisions following sinking of the entire IJN in February 1938 Disturbance.
 

trurle

Banned
In the Europe: the battle for Moscow

6 December, 1941, the Moscow Smolenskaya railway station.

The Fedor von Bock, the commander of German Army Group Center, held the speech after visiting the front-line positions.

-Therefore, i order an immediate end to the offensive. Our forces, after advancing up to just 3km from Kremlin, are stuck in house-to-house battle, and do not possess numerical advantage over the Soviet opposing forces even in our most advantageous positions. Our supply lines are over-stretched, flanks are exposed, tanks are either destroyed or damaged. Our artillery is grossy inadequate. At this point, a Soviet counter-offensive is imminent. We must dig-in, accumulate reserves, and prepare to smash the Soviets in a defensive battle.


In this alternative timeline, less forces and equipment was available to Soviets due fighting in China and Siberia. Also, Soviets, pre-occupied with multiple battles in homeland, did not participated in August 1941 British invasion to Iran. Without Soviet assistance, Iranian road for lead-lease opened a month later compared to OTL. Therefore, Soviet has were able to start the counter-attack only 26 December 1941, and even when their equipment and numbers were inferior to OTL by about 10% (committing just 1 million men to attack). Also, the Soviets have wasted over half of the very cold period 15 December 1941 -3 January 1942, when the Luftwaffe was unable to operate near Moscow. Finally, the ambitious political goal of liberating captured parts of Moscow by the New Year was utterly unrealistic and just led to high Soviet casualties against dug-in German forces. Although several cities, including most notably Kalinin (Tver now) were liberated, and German forces in Moscow were pushed about ten kilometers to outskirts, the Soviet offensive ended 20 January 1942 without achieving any strategic breakthrough.

P.S. IOTL, Fedor von Bock has ordered the stop of the offensive in the same day (6 December 1941) with front German positions 20-25km from Kremlin, but at this point the Soviets were already counter-attacking.
 

trurle

Banned
7 December, 1941: Japanese invasion to Thailand and Burma

The long series of fruitless negotiations over use of the Thailand (Siam) airbases against British invasion threat has resulted in outright land-based assault by Japanese starting 7 December 1941, augmented by bomber and airborne attacks to Siamese airbases. All resistance have ceased in evening, when Prime Minister Phibun has caved to Japanese demands. The infantry group comprising nearly 20 Japanese divisions has raced to Burma, encountering a fierce yet completely inadequate resistance. By 1 March 1942, the Japanese has advanced to the Myittha and Chindwin rivers, and even slightly beyond, taking the heights overlooking the river valleys. In South Thailand, Japanese in Kra Isthmus were acting more defensively, building and manning an extensive network of mountain fortresses and coastal defense sites, in anticipation of the inevitable British naval counter-attack.

At this point, the inevitable has happened. Despite the crop gathered in 1941 on Home Islands was larger than the crops in 1938-1940 period (the ceasefire in China in 1940-1941 has helped much), the food reserves in Empire were depleted. First hunger riots riots broke out in Shiga prefecture 27 February 1942. Simply too many men and women were making the implements of murder instead of growing rice or potatoes.

The emergency government response was to confiscate as much food as possible across China and newly-captured Burma territories, and order local troops to self-supply. Demobilization process was also initiated, although it was painfully-slow because of the shortage of transport and a need to allocate a large contingents to protect a stores of military equipment. Returning soldiers were also frequently mutinied, as the living conditions for Japanese civilian population has become outright hellish compared to the life in Army by 1942. To placate the populace, the government has issued a number of concessions, including re-establishment of work unions, reduced work hours, and the cancellation of the curfew. During 1942, over half of army, totalling 3 million men, were de-mobilized. By October 1942, the acute phase of the internal crisis has gone, leaving only long-term issues in form of the growing impoverishment, sagging industrial productivity and chronic problems with transport due lack of fuel. The first foreign oil from Yenangyaung and Sakhalin has started to arrive from August 1942, but until 1943 it amounted to meager 50 thousands ton. Additional drilling islands were constructed, and inclined wells drilled to fully utilize above-water area available off Sakhalin, but it was also slow process, requiring a lot of bulk transport, and interrupted by sea icing in winter.

After some initial delays, as Western Allies hoped the Japanese internal unrest will ruin the Empire without large-scale military operation, and Pacific typhoon season of July-November 1942, both British-Dutch and American forces have decided on joint plan to bring down Japanese Empire by a concerted naval attack.
 
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trurle

Banned
The Battle of Minamitorishima

27 November 1942, east of Minamitorishima
Isoroku Yamamoto feel a sort of irony tracing his recent life. From aircraft carrier captain to deputy minister and to prisoner, and finally back to the captain, but now of torpedo boat. Well, not a bad choice actually. Year of 1942 was cruel for Japanese navy. Destroyers, forced to cover evacuations, protect cargo and troop ships, and to perform a diversionary strikes, were lost one by one. At the beginning of year Japanese Navy had 36 destroyers. Now it had six, all undergoing repairs in Kure. No wonder the damned Americans turned wild..no longer satisfied with capturing outlying positions, now they are going to struck the core defenses of Japan.

- Radar radiation, front hemisphere, multiple stagger! - shouted radio operator
- Anti-shell maneuver, blind part, execute! - the words left the Yamamoto`s mouth before any conscious action. The boat have started a series of sharp turns.

Less then minute later, the shells have started to fall around. Shrapnel hit the roof of Gyo-Hei cabin once, twice..
Gun operator shouted, trying to overcome engine noise and explosions and roar of falling water from nearby shell splashes:
- Hole in forward bottom! S..t, second one! Do not drop speed!

-Steer to splashes. - commanded Yamamoto - Let`s spoil their targeting machines.

The mad evasion has continued for ten more minutes. A couple more holes has opened due hell fragments in the nose, and several ricocheted from the inclined wall of the cabin. But then the gunner, all that time scanning a horizon with binoculars on stabilized tripod, gave out the word.

- Twin tower, at 10 hours. It is floating "Wyoming" or "New-York" class battleship!

- Wait - responded Isoroku Yamamoto. Let`s clarify her course first, and wait an order from squadron commander.

The order to attack come after seemingly endless five more minutes. The splashes around torpedo boat has become visibly more dense and numerous, indicating they are now also within the range of the secondary artillery.

- We cannot hit at this distance at full speed, and under such shelling. Arming module tuning will fail - responded torpedo man.

- Ok, engine forward slow, hard left rudder - the bottom of torpedo boat hit the water, as shell splashes visibly moved forward and right - you have 20 seconds!

The reminder was unnecessary. The torpedo man have started the activation sequence at the moment he heard the first word, amplifiers were pre-heated even before the radar contact, and therefore his hands started to adjust a tiny sliders on stern panel of cabin less than second after torpedoes, still on hangers, turned over the board, into the sea. The training of men and continuous upgrades of arming mechanical computer has done the trick. Torpedo man hand has hit the release button just 16 seconds after the command. By the time a 15-cm shell hit nearby, knocking out the left motor and killing a torpedo man, the torpedoes were already fifty meters away, still accelerating.

- Cycloid evasion pattern, right side ! - ordered Yamamoto - Relay to commander, we are hit and getting out!


P.S. The contribution of the Japanese homing torpedo boats to the disaster which beset the US fleet is still debated, although most historians agree what the role of the torpedo boats was small. Because all of the American ships has towed an acoustic decoys, about third of torpedoes struck decoys instead of ships, despite adequate torpedo operator/acoustic training on Japanese side. Other 28 torpedoes (one torpedo boat of 24 was disabled before launching torpedoes) has sunk immediately 3 destroyers - out of fleet of eight battleships, six aircraft carriers, 18 cruisers and 70 destroyers the US assembled for the "Misericordia" operation. 22 other ships were also damaged, of them "Enterprise" carrier has listed so heavily what it has become unable to launch or receive any aircraft during the most critical part of the battle. But every historian agree what the battle was resolved in the air, when the combined air groups of five aircraft carriers of the US Navy seemingly were able to intercept Japanese bomber formation, tie their fighter escorts and force them to drop bombs and torpedoes aimlessly in the sea. The misunderstanding has cleared soon with devastating consequences, as Japanese development of the "homing naval minefield" concept has come to the complete surprise of the Americans. Simplified, pre-tuned homing modules of Japanese delayed-action aerial torpedoes have resulted in outright panic, as slowly drifting and diffusing homing minefields have reached the area of US concentration, and started picking off the most outward targets one by one. Continued attacks by Japanese coastal artillery, torpedo-bomber and dive-bombers has made stopping engines suicidal as well. Unable to hide from homing mines and avoid the air attack in the same time, the US fleets was essentially annihilated. Only a couple of the most durable South Dacota class battleships and a handful of destroyers were able to limp back to Wake Island. Some historians admit what the defeat location, within the long-range Japanese fighters range from Tokyo but outside of any shore aerial support for Americans, was obvious, and defeat was inevitable even without a technological trump card the Japanese pulled out. Clearly, even if invasion of Minamitorishima would be beaten of with conventional non-homing weapons only, the American losses would be far less.
 
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trurle

Banned
Dream come true: 15 January 1946

With the US catastrophically losing asymmetrical battle of Minamitorishima, while British had an inconclusive victory at Palau, the ATL completely diverges with the know history, making any analogies nearly empty, and turning this story to pure fiction. Therefore i jump to conclusion, leaving any intermediate events to the imagination of the readers.

The Privy Council meeting 15 February 1937 was quite inconclusive. A lot of complains on louse security in Manchuko, bad productivity, lack of resources, mismanagement, followed by oaths to fix and to do impossible deed. 32-years old Prince Takamatsu was having some difficulty avoiding yawing. The effort took his full attention..until gradually become the part of the open-eyes dream. And the dream has rapidly turned into the nightmare..

In the dream, his wife Kikuko Tokugawa has joined Privy Council, wearing an extremely gory outfit. Her one-piece dress was torn and burned, and in hand she had a rotten and fried piece of meat, holding it like going to breast-feed. Prince Takamatsu knew instantly what it was the son he never had. Kikuko was continuing some interrupted speech, and each word struck Prince Takamatsu with excruciation pain.
- Because we do not have uranium, we can not retaliate in kind. Our materials stockpile is inadequate, our industry crippled by bombardment, our communications infrastructure is on the verge of collapse. All we can do is to die with honour..

At this moment, the dream has vaporized under the loud voice of Hideki Tojo, the chief-of-staff of Kwantung Army (he was called to Privy Council for witness report).
-...inadequate. But we will overcome the difficulties or die with honour!

-The latter is far more likely. - mumbled Prince Takamatsu and suddenly feel unwell. The faint smell of curry dinner being cooked nearby has become the smell of the burned flesh, ruined city and dirty clothes of refugees. He had a big difficulty keeping the blank face while his mind raced to analyse the symbolic meaning of his dream.

The Privy Council meeting 15 January 1946 was conducted in grim yet determined atmosphere. Even the presence of the Kikuko Tokugawa, insane wife of the Regent, together with her already week-long dead son, who was killed in nuclear bombardment of Tokyo, did fit the mood fine.
At the moment, the Defense Minister Shigeyoshi Inoue was holding the speech.

- Because we do not have uranium, we can not retaliate in kind. Our materials stockpile is inadequate, our industry crippled by bombardment, our communications infrastructure is on the verge of collapse. All we can do is to die with honour..

At this moment, the gust of wind leaked through densely closed windows, bringing the smell of the burned flesh, ruined city and dirty clothes of refugees. Regent Nobuhito Takamatsu stand as paralyzed, captured by the terrible feeling of the "deja vu".

Meanwhile, in the White House..

- We cannot continue this war any more. After the Germans gave up following demonstration of our nuclear prowess in Dresden and Frankfurt-on-Oder, the similar reaction of Japanese was our only hope. We successfully dropped nuclear devices on Osaka, Nagoya and Tokyo - but for no avail. Japanese are still continue to churn out their homing mines, and their most recent version is only fitting description of the twisted evil. They simplified and miniaturized homing system to the point it now fit even at mini-mines with the 60 kg warheads. Their clockwork and multiple acid batteries setup is designed to pass an average of 100 sonic sweeps, and remains dangerous for 50 years after deployment. By the latest safety directive, our convoys speed is reduced to 6 knots in mine infested areas, making us sitting ducks for Japanese long-range coastal aviation. And we still getting over 30% of our transports sunk during round-trip, one way or another. Please see the map. The entire North Pacific has turned into a vortex of predating mines, preying on any ship regardless of nationality. Japanese have actually reduced much their mine dispersal flights, thanks to our concrete-build super-carriers. Nor it is really affect picture. Now Japanese just throws their daily norm of 100-thousand square kilometer sea-denial from the outlying capes and let the currents of Pacific to mix it up. Only relatively mine-free area is the Sea of Japan, protected by immense mesh barriers. Japanese lose "just" two percent per month of their bottled-up merchant marine, while we are losing in Pacific ten-fold. And this is only the beginning. A week before, Japanese homing mine was washed up in Greenland. It was a long-dead Type 2 mine, but we expect a live mines to appear eventually.
All of our airlift capacity is meanwhile consumed for the support of garrisons on Mariana Islands, and i admit the supply situations is bad enough, so we may be forced to evacuate some garrisons soon to avoid starvation.
Mister President, currently we are waging a war we can not win. To prevent a worldwide economic disaster due homing mines hazard, i beg for the diplomatic solution for our discrepancies with Japan.


P.S. The 5-way Peace of Chongqing treaty between United States, British, China, Japan and Soviet Union was concluded 29 January 1946, officially ending the Second World War. Manchukuo was split between China and Soviet Union, Japan was awarded concession to east of Amur River, and retained Taiwan island as a special federal territories. Korea has received an independence, but soon fractured in multi-factions proxy war. United States And British divided several islands of former Japanese South Pacific mandate, and also Marianes and parts of Kuril islands.

THE END.:)
 
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With the US catastrophically losing asymmetrical battle of Minamitorishima, while British had an inconclusive victory at Palau, the ATL completely diverges with the know history, making any analogies nearly empty, and turning this story to pure fiction.

But it already was pure fiction to begin with.

Even the late Vexacus would facepalm at this.
 

trurle

Banned
But it already was pure fiction to begin with.

Even the late Vexacus would facepalm at this.

I admit this. The work of imagination, using historical parallels and exploring the limits of "plausible" (although definitely not possible in strict historical sense). Basically, i dumped in this thread a lot WWII Japan-related marginally-historical decisions to produce a phenomenon alike classical glass of bottle boiling being heated by room-temperature air in violation of 2nd law of thermodynamics.;) It is even written in the initial post of the thread.:D
 
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