How far could Japan get towards the west coast after Pearl Harbor

Of course, there is a reason they didn't sail from Truk in OTL. By coming from the north, they could attack from an unexpected direction. They avoided busy shipping lanes, to preserve the element of surprise. These are all compelling arguments. I'm not sure why the IJN would decide to launch a sustained, days-long attack, instead of a surprise raid from an unexpected direction. But if for some reason they did so, they could have pulled it off.

I just have trouble believing that they could maintain an invasion over such a vast distance. Sustained attack from the sea I'm unsure of but the convoy they would need to bring an invasion force would be massive and way to risky to ever be considered.
 
But how plausible would it be for the Japanese to send commando teams to the west coast to cause mischief? Not overly successful, but enough to give the US a headache.

With careful planning and preparation they might be able to damage something important. There was a oil refinery on the waters edge in the Los Angeles area. Harbors and dry docks as well. Setting a cargo ship afire in a harbor can produce spectacular results. It does take extremely good preparation. Not a operation that can be scratch built in a few weeks or a couple of months.

Didn't the Germans tried it, to little effect?

The Germans landed spies from submarines. The several teams were to collect information and transmit it to Germany. One of those teams was instantly caught by coastal guards. Another collected after a member turned traitor. i dont recall if there were any others or what their fate was. A few other spies or agents came to the US before the war, or from Mexico. From surving Abwehr & other records we know a very small number of agents managed to operate for a while. At least one to the end of the war. Mostly they sent information on ships arriving/departing New York harbor, and information they gleaned from the newpapers and bars.

There is a claim the manager of Brewster aircraft manufactoring and a production engineer were German sympathizers and sabotaged the companies production. It is a fact the production facility was occupied by a US Navy team, with expertise in aircraft engineering and factory management, who took over management. Perhaps there were German sympathyizers there, or perhaps they were simply incompetent. Either war the aircraft parts the Brewster company made for others had serious quality problems and late deliveries.
 
I just have trouble believing that they could maintain an invasion over such a vast distance. Sustained attack from the sea I'm unsure of but the convoy they would need to bring an invasion force would be massive and way to risky to ever be considered.

No, I said already agreed that they couldn't invade. What they could do (although it wouldn't be worth it, which is basically why they didn't) is keep the fleet in place longer for more strikes. With the shorter distance, they'd have feul to hit the islands again the next day, or to hunt for the absent carriers.

At any rate, I don't think they would. I was just pointing out that the fuel problem was actually because they chose that harbor and that route, and not because they lacked a shorter alternative.
 

CalBear

Moderator
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I just did about half an hour of fiddling with numbers. Keep in mind that this proposal is in the "no way" categorey.

Assuming an invasion of 10 divisions, you're looking at about 2.5 million tons of invasion shipping, plus another million tons in the supply chain. There's 4 million tons available, and the navy takes 1.8, so the requirement for California means no operations anywhere else, no supply of China.

Your oil cost for one year between supply and warships might be about 4.5 million tons (ie, 75% of the entire Japanese strategic reserve).

There would be no possiblity of resupply from the NEI, because there can be no offensive to the south.

I believe the USN's strategic oil reserves in California were about 40 million tons. I think California's indiginenous production was about 20 million tons per year. Since the entire Japanese reserve is exhausted for the offensive, you need to capture or produce 5 million tons per year in California, or you will run out of oil.

So, your plan of campaign would be to capture the USN's strategic reserves as intact as possible and then base your fleet in California. So, before invading California, it would be a good idea to see where those reserves and production were located and whether it was possible to capture them.

INVADE the CONUS?

That is all the way into ASB land.
 
Isn't Alaska a part of CONUS? If it was, then wouldn't the invasion of Attu count as the invasion of the CONUS? If I remember it correctly, the IJN did launch an attack on the Santa Barbara oil fields in California.
 

katchen

Banned
Seconding the welcome to this site RabbitHunter. :cool:
BTW, CalBear, on top of being a moderator, is also one of our resident WWII experts so if you ever have questions, or wanna write a TL, he's a go-to person for that sorta thing. :D

Hope you enjoy your time here. :)
The Japanese could not have gotten home from the West Coast, I agree. I'm also inclined to agree with Newt Gingrich's assessment that if Japan destroys Pearl Harbour as a naval base (destroy the oil storage facility, destroy the dry dock and shore facilities) the US will have an equally difficult time getting all the way across the Pacific to Japan--especially if one or more of it's Pacific carriers is hunted down and sunk ala the Gingrich Scenario (Gingrich & Fortschen Days of Infamy, I believe is the title).
Buuuut....
That does not mean that the US is either beaten or permanently driven from the Pacific. Even if the Panama Canal is also destroyed. It simply means that the US must take a radically different tack, both strategically and in rebuilding the Pacific Fleet from Atlantic ports.
I'm wondering if Newt will see the necessity in his later books, according to his scenario, of a) building up Alaska as America's forward base against Japan which will mean a crash program to build both a paved set of AlCAN highways and an AlCAN railroad, both of which will go all the way down the Alaskan Peninsula to Port Moller, a short ferry ride to Dutch Harbor, and all the way to Nome, and b) building an icebreaking capability into much of the fleet that is being rebuilt so that both the Northwest and the Northeast Passage (and to Hell with Russia's thin skin on the subject of Russia's Arctic border) and the Bering Strait. This is where the US is closest to Japan and the hardest place for Japan to defend against.
 
the Aluetian Island and Bering sea area are also home to some of the worst weather on the planet. In some cases 500 ft freighters have been endangered by the weather in that area. I wiould be surprised if Flight ops could be conducted more than 150 days a year. Add to that the sparsity of good airfield sights due to mountainous terrain. There is a reason The US did not conduct major ops after Kiska and Attu were retaken
 

katchen

Banned
True, but if the Panama Canal is effectively destroyed (Galliard Cut caved in, Gatun Dam dynamited, MIraflores and Gatun Locks blown up) and the Northeast and Northwest Passages and Bering Strait are the only quick ways into the Pacific ITTL, the Aleutians start to look a little bit better. And Kiska has a good harbor and Dutch Harbor and Port Heiden and Port Moller are better harbors and Ports Heiden and Moller, if developed, are actually on the North American mainland, able to be connected by road and rail with Zone Inteirior.
 
With careful planning and preparation they might be able to damage something important. There was a oil refinery on the waters edge in the Los Angeles area. Harbors and dry docks as well. Setting a cargo ship afire in a harbor can produce spectacular results. It does take extremely good preparation. Not a operation that can be scratch built in a few weeks or a couple of months.

The most important thing that the Japanese could damage on the West coast would be the Pacific side locks at the Panama canal. Damage the gates on both sets of locks on the Pacific side and you could really through a monkey reach into the US Navy's ability to rapidly move ships between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Especially if you damage the gates on both the Upper and lower set of locks on the Pacific side enough to breach them and you would basically have all the water in the canal empty out. Refinery's etc can be quickly repaired, lock gates cannot.
 
But how plausible would it be for the Japanese to send commando teams to the west coast to cause mischief? Not overly successful, but enough to give the US a headache.
If they can get a submarine there, they could land a half dozen or so commandos (or equivilent thereof).

If the Germans were genuinely serious about doing Operation Long Jump, and doing it as a one way ticket, then IMHO all the Japanese need, preferably after a Midway victory, is someone in their parachute or naval infantry arms with the same grand vision.

But from my admittedly shallow reading of ground troop raider Japanese ops, I don't think they were oriented to doing something as out-of-the-box as that.

Also, they might have had pre-war human intelligence assets on Hawaii, maybe even the mainland, but by 1942 I guess they're really unlikely to have any good sense of the American military and naval HQs strung along the West Coast; so any attack on US leadership cadre ala Long Jump doesn't seem like an easy planning exercise, even if the imagination was there.

But a Long Jump against CINCPAC at Pearl, surely someone here has considered that before?
 

katchen

Banned
The most important thing that the Japanese could damage on the West coast would be the Pacific side locks at the Panama canal. Damage the gates on both sets of locks on the Pacific side and you could really through a monkey reach into the US Navy's ability to rapidly move ships between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Especially if you damage the gates on both the Upper and lower set of locks on the Pacific side enough to breach them and you would basically have all the water in the canal empty out. Refinery's etc can be quickly repaired, lock gates cannot.
Yes, and faced with being thrown back on "rounding the Horn" and taking several years to repair or rebuild the Panama Canal locks (and possibly the Galliard Cut), the US Navy might well start thinking "outside the box" when it came to ship design and take a harder look at two already existing passages between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans that are open at least part of the year and with enough icebreaking infrastructure, at least one might be kept open year round. With the added advantage that one of those passages could be used to pass ships quickly between the European and Pacific theatres (within about two weeks). I am speaking of course of the Northwest and Northeast Passages.
To use them would require that many of the new vessels that the US Navy is building be built with reinforced bows and rounded hulls for icebreaking. It also requires that the US really commit to roads, railways, electrical and phone lines, airfields in the Arctic and not just in Alaska but across the Canadian Arctic as well. Ice roads must be blazed in the winter to be followed by graded roads laboriously carved out in the summer months at intervals to places like Inuvik and Tuktoyatuk, Point Barrow, Alaska, Coppermine, District of Mackenzie, Cambridge Bay, Keewatin, Boothia Peninsula, Melville Peninsula and down Baffin Island to Frobisher Bay and from Quebec north to Ungava Bay. These roads go to harbors on the Arctic Ocean where there are coaling or oiling stations for icebreakers. If those icebreakers can be kept supplied with oil or coal at sufficient intervals, they may be able to keep the Northwest Passage open during the winter. Which is important because the Russians are not about to cooperate in doing so for their Northern Sea Route, which they do not like foreign vessels using.
That is how the US Navy can start to get back into the Pacific by 1943. Other means may involve building an alternative to the Panama Canal through the Choco and Respedura in Colombia that does not require locks but goes up the Atrato River and down the San Juan, only requiring one 5 mile stretch of canal to be dug. Probably both alternatives will need to be pursued. And Australia will need to be supplied from the Indian Ocean. Hopefully, the Japanese will not attempt to conquer it and New Zealand.
 

sharlin

Banned
Welcome to the board :)

There's a few wonderful resources online about how badly the Japanese were stretched doing what they did (and that they pulled it off is a bloody miracle!)

http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm is by far the most simple to read, clear and concise break down of the Economic stick the Japanese were on

http://www.combinedfleet.com/pearlops.htm also details actually how difficult it would be to invade Pearl.

And I do remember reading about the Japanese sending a sub to lob some shells at something, it did nothing and they scurried off with little to no results from the raid. The reality of the sheer distance involved and the forces the Japanese had meant that they really could not head further east than Pearl. And to get that far with what ships were involved in the attack they had to load them up on their decks with fuel drums for the small ships so they would not run out of gas on the trip home. The distance from Hawaii to the US is about the distance the carriers covered again so its a massive distance to go with fuel hungry ships, too far for the IJN to do.
 
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Even with a win at Midway they'd probably get not much further west than Hawaii, they'd know they'd have to reduce it before hitting CONUS, lest they get caught out on the return.
 
You're absolutely right about what the goal was, there was never any real operation planned to capture Hawaii. (1)

However, they could have spent more time near Hawaii if they really wanted to. It's true that the Kido Butai was on fumes when they returned to Japan, but that's because they sortied from Hitokappu Bay. Militarist Japan actually had an excellent fleet anchorage at Truk, which is only half as far from Hawaii. (2)

Of course, there is a reason they didn't sail from Truk in OTL. By coming from the north, they could attack from an unexpected direction. They avoided busy shipping lanes, to preserve the element of surprise. These are all compelling arguments. I'm not sure why the IJN would decide to launch a sustained, days-long attack, instead of a surprise raid from an unexpected direction. But if for some reason they did so, they could have pulled it off. (3)

1) There was a feasibility study done prior to the forming of Operation MI, but even at the height of their victory disease the IJN could see that taking Oahu six months after Pearl Harbor was simply beyond their means.

At best, following a successful MI in which the USN gets curbstomped with no loss for the IJN, they could plan a later series of carrier raids with everything they had, to neutralize Pearl without invasion. Assuming the US 7th Air Force by that time wasn't stronger than the entire Kido Butai!:eek:

2) Except the whole concept of the attack on Pearl was Yamamoto's brainchild. He was a gambler, but he wasn't a fool. Sending out the Kido Butai from Truk puts it in the shipping lanes, all but insuring exposure and loss of surprise, not to mention going up against an alerted US Pacific Fleet.

Nagumo could face a Battle of Tsushima in reverse!:eek:

3) I can't see Yamamoto taking such a risk. Even his planned attack was relatively safe compared to a Truk route.

There is a claim the manager of Brewster aircraft manufactoring and a production engineer were German sympathizers and sabotaged the companies production. It is a fact the production facility was occupied by a US Navy team, with expertise in aircraft engineering and factory management, who took over management. Perhaps there were German sympathyizers there, or perhaps they were simply incompetent. Either war the aircraft parts the Brewster company made for others had serious quality problems and late deliveries.

By those standards of proof, the operators of NTS Newport, their workforce and unions, their Rhode Island congressional supporters, and the entire USN Bureau of Ordnance were Japanese spies and saboteurs!:eek:

No, I said already agreed that they couldn't invade. What they could do (although it wouldn't be worth it, which is basically why they didn't) is keep the fleet in place longer for more strikes. With the shorter distance, they'd have feul to hit the islands again the next day, or to hunt for the absent carriers.

At any rate, I don't think they would. I was just pointing out that the fuel problem was actually because they chose that harbor and that route, and not because they lacked a shorter alternative.

Yamamoto may have been blind to grand strategy, or even just plain strategy, but he certainly was a man who understood operations. He knew what he was doing with the northerly route. He couldn't have known how far away the carriers were (in fact, only the Enterprise was in range), and the KB did far better both in terms of damage inflicted and scarcity of casualties than he ever expected.

True, but if the Panama Canal is effectively destroyed (Galliard Cut caved in, Gatun Dam dynamited, MIraflores and Gatun Locks blown up) and the Northeast and Northwest Passages and Bering Strait are the only quick ways into the Pacific ITTL, the Aleutians start to look a little bit better. And Kiska has a good harbor and Dutch Harbor and Port Heiden and Port Moller are better harbors and Ports Heiden and Moller, if developed, are actually on the North American mainland, able to be connected by road and rail with Zone Inteirior.

There's this place called the Cape of Good Hope. And Australia. Long LOCs, but convoys could still use Pearl as a depot (and California as the source), while giving MacArthur his dream of having the war against Japan directed from his area.

If the Germans were genuinely serious about doing Operation Long Jump, and doing it as a one way ticket, then IMHO all the Japanese need, preferably after a Midway victory, is someone in their parachute or naval infantry arms with the same grand vision. (4)

But from my admittedly shallow reading of ground troop raider Japanese ops, I don't think they were oriented to doing something as out-of-the-box as that.

Also, they might have had pre-war human intelligence assets on Hawaii, maybe even the mainland, but by 1942 I guess they're really unlikely to have any good sense of the American military and naval HQs strung along the West Coast; so any attack on US leadership cadre ala Long Jump doesn't seem like an easy planning exercise, even if the imagination was there. (5a)

But a Long Jump against CINCPAC at Pearl, surely someone here has considered that before? (5b)

4) How long will Japanese agents last in a land swarming with US troops, National Guardsmen, and constabulary with both eyes out for anyone even remotely looking Japanese? Remember, the internment camps have already been completed by now, so they can't "disappear" into the Japanese-American population, even if the Nisei let them, which they wouldn't.

5) Logistically impossible, insane LOCs, no bases for operations locally (no safe houses), too much defense, no way to avoid being seen.

<snip>(6)
That is how the US Navy can start to get back into the Pacific by 1943. Other means may involve building an alternative to the Panama Canal through the Choco and Respedura in Colombia that does not require locks but goes up the Atrato River and down the San Juan, only requiring one 5 mile stretch of canal to be dug. Probably both alternatives will need to be pursued. (7) And Australia will need to be supplied from the Indian Ocean. (8) Hopefully, the Japanese will not attempt to conquer it and New Zealand. (9)

6) Ice, clouds, fog, high winds, snow, polar bears. Not a place to make war. At least in Russia they had summer and fall. In the far north they have July & August. Or sometimes just August.

7) Time-time-time-time-time. The Russians will be halfway to Tokyo (and more than a few atomic bombs will be ready) before these routes are ready. Making canals bisecting continents takes a VERY long time.

8) And it'll have to be by the US. As far as Winston Churchill was concerned, the Lands Down Under could go hang. I don't think he ever said that, even in his own most private thoughts. But his policies certainly showed that. No matter what the strategic situation, even if all other situations the UK was responsible for were relatively stable at any given moment, Churchill would always prefer to use fresh forces to build up for new offensives elsewhere, rather than succor Australia and New Zealand in their hour of need.

Rather churlish, considering how much effort the Aussies and Kiwis had exerted on behalf of Britain before Japan's entry.

9) ATL's to the contrary, the only people in Japan who ever proposed an invasion of Australia was the Imperial Japanese Naval General Staff, and only AFTER a successful MI, destruction of the remaining Pacific Fleet, taking Port Moresby, taking Fiji-Samoa, taking Johnston-Palmyra, and raiding Oahu again.:eek:

After looking at the projections of what would be needed for such a Napoleonic scale invasion in terms of transports, troops, tanks, artillery, ammunition, fuel, food, water, (Australia is 70% desert!) and time, the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff just about had a collective coronary! They argued that such an invasion would cost them a whole year's worth of fighting in China. With the full support of Combined Fleet, the IJA won that argument decisively.
 
4) How long will Japanese agents last in a land swarming with US troops, National Guardsmen, and constabulary with both eyes out for anyone even remotely looking Japanese? Remember, the internment camps have already been completed by now, so they can't "disappear" into the Japanese-American population, even if the Nisei let them, which they wouldn't.

Well, usertron, considering I essentially already answered my own question in the negative (note what I said about Japan only having useful intel for the West Coast in the pre-war period), then thank you very much for further rectifying my thought experiment for me with your 'fisk cites'.

5) Logistically impossible, insane LOCs, no bases for operations locally (no safe houses), too much defense, no way to avoid being seen.

Eh, logically, yes. For every day of the Pacific War after December, 7th, 1941.

But, despite the fact you lump in that hypothetical of the West Coast '42 (5a), with the hypothetical of Pearl Harbor Date Unspecified (5b), I do reckon that in the early morning, pre-dawn hours of OTL's Day of Infamy attack, it actually sounds pretty damn technically feasible; just as long as they can get a nighttime sub landing on a good stretch of Oahu coastline, and they have agents with trucks waiting, then a physical land assault on USN or army HQ during the chaos of the carrier raids becomes a live option.

However, seeing as it is totally unimaginable from their OTL doctrinal perspective for them to deploy a 100% suicide mission of highly trained marines at the very launch the Pacific War, and God knows why they'd need to send armed men physically into the CINCPAC offices, plus the risk of the night landing raising a general alarm (not that the OTL Ward depthcharging incident raised a general alarm), then I leave it to others to create a fictional TL universe where this is a thing worth doing from the PoV of the Japanese.
 
I just have trouble believing that they could maintain an invasion over such a vast distance. Sustained attack from the sea I'm unsure of but the convoy they would need to bring an invasion force would be massive and way to risky to ever be considered.

A million tons in the supply chain breaks out like this -

The average rate of advance of Japanese merchant ships was about 2kt. Since the average speed was maybe 9kt, that meant that for every 2 days at sea a transport spent 7 in port. Assuming the average voyage was 2,500 miles, then it's 12 days at sea for 54 in port. So, let's assume for California it's a bit better than that - 12 days at sea for 35 in port, 10kt at sea.

Assume this army of 200,000 men can somehow get by on 15lbs per man per day. That's 45,000 tons per month. Double that to 100,000 tons per month for combat attrition replacements in ground fighting in California.

It's 10,000 miles round trip = 41 days + 35 in port = 76 days round trip. 365 days in the year / 76 = 4.8 trips per transport, rounded up to 5 trips per year. The shipping requirement is 60 transports per month x 12 months / 5 trips per transport x 6,000 tons per transport = 900,000 tons in the chain + 100,000 for wastage = 1 million tons.

That's for 1,500 tons per day at the sharp end. I'm guessing that the US rail net from the east coast would be good for 15,000 tons per day to the continental divide or beyond, so the logistics battle is already 10:1 against the Japanese.

So the OP is already looking for his AH story, beyond capturing some of the USN's strategic oil reserves, to an advance that disrupts the US rail net and drops US supply per day to its frontline units to not more than 3,000 tons.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
1) There was a feasibility study done prior to the forming of Operation MI, but even at the height of their victory disease the IJN could see that taking Oahu six months after Pearl Harbor was simply beyond their means.

At best, following a successful MI in which the USN gets curbstomped with no loss for the IJN, they could plan a later series of carrier raids with everything they had, to neutralize Pearl without invasion. Assuming the US 7th Air Force by that time wasn't stronger than the entire Kido Butai!:eek:

2) Except the whole concept of the attack on Pearl was Yamamoto's brainchild. He was a gambler, but he wasn't a fool. Sending out the Kido Butai from Truk puts it in the shipping lanes, all but insuring exposure and loss of surprise, not to mention going up against an alerted US Pacific Fleet.

Nagumo could face a Battle of Tsushima in reverse!:eek:

3) I can't see Yamamoto taking such a risk. Even his planned attack was relatively safe compared to a Truk route.



By those standards of proof, the operators of NTS Newport, their workforce and unions, their Rhode Island congressional supporters, and the entire USN Bureau of Ordnance were Japanese spies and saboteurs!:eek:



Yamamoto may have been blind to grand strategy, or even just plain strategy, but he certainly was a man who understood operations. He knew what he was doing with the northerly route. He couldn't have known how far away the carriers were (in fact, only the Enterprise was in range), and the KB did far better both in terms of damage inflicted and scarcity of casualties than he ever expected.



There's this place called the Cape of Good Hope. And Australia. Long LOCs, but convoys could still use Pearl as a depot (and California as the source), while giving MacArthur his dream of having the war against Japan directed from his area.



4) How long will Japanese agents last in a land swarming with US troops, National Guardsmen, and constabulary with both eyes out for anyone even remotely looking Japanese? Remember, the internment camps have already been completed by now, so they can't "disappear" into the Japanese-American population, even if the Nisei let them, which they wouldn't.

5) Logistically impossible, insane LOCs, no bases for operations locally (no safe houses), too much defense, no way to avoid being seen.



6) Ice, clouds, fog, high winds, snow, polar bears. Not a place to make war. At least in Russia they had summer and fall. In the far north they have July & August. Or sometimes just August.

7) Time-time-time-time-time. The Russians will be halfway to Tokyo (and more than a few atomic bombs will be ready) before these routes are ready. Making canals bisecting continents takes a VERY long time.

8) And it'll have to be by the US. As far as Winston Churchill was concerned, the Lands Down Under could go hang. I don't think he ever said that, even in his own most private thoughts. But his policies certainly showed that. No matter what the strategic situation, even if all other situations the UK was responsible for were relatively stable at any given moment, Churchill would always prefer to use fresh forces to build up for new offensives elsewhere, rather than succor Australia and New Zealand in their hour of need.

Rather churlish, considering how much effort the Aussies and Kiwis had exerted on behalf of Britain before Japan's entry.

9) ATL's to the contrary, the only people in Japan who ever proposed an invasion of Australia was the Imperial Japanese Naval General Staff, and only AFTER a successful MI, destruction of the remaining Pacific Fleet, taking Port Moresby, taking Fiji-Samoa, taking Johnston-Palmyra, and raiding Oahu again.:eek:

After looking at the projections of what would be needed for such a Napoleonic scale invasion in terms of transports, troops, tanks, artillery, ammunition, fuel, food, water, (Australia is 70% desert!) and time, the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff just about had a collective coronary! They argued that such an invasion would cost them a whole year's worth of fighting in China. With the full support of Combined Fleet, the IJA won that argument decisively.

By Midway any invasion of Oahu was impossible. Not just by the IJN, but flat out impossible.

The organic air power and fortification on Oahu were exceptionally formidable, along with ~3 heavy divisions if one includes AAF ground echelons (all it 100,000 trained men.

I am not entirely sure that the U.S. could have managed it much before January of 1945 (using the classic war game OPFOR = your actual strength) and even then it would have been a bloody mess. That would have been with 3rd/5th Fleet's 16 fast carriers and its fast BBs, 7th fleets 30+ CVE and bombardment gun line of old BB, four Marine divisions, and MacArthur's troops that were used to take the PI.

Since that force is about four-five times the strength of the IJN at its strongest and represents about three times the total ground force the Imperial staff ever deployed outside of the inner defensive ring (Formosa, Okinawa & the Home Islands) or China in a single group (and is far larger than the Japanese could support in their wildest dreams) it is pretty clear that any attempt would have been Dieppe writ large.
 
INVADE the CONUS?

That is all the way into ASB land.
During WWII by the Axis, yes, it is.

But seeing as that was essentially what he was trying to say, you really don't need to bite his head off about it.

True, but if the Panama Canal is effectively destroyed (Galliard Cut caved in, Gatun Dam dynamited, MIraflores and Gatun Locks blown up) and the Northeast and Northwest Passages and Bering Strait are the only quick ways into the Pacific ITTL,

There's also the Drake Passage and Strait of Magellan.

They could also take the long route, from the East Coast to South Africa, across the far southern Indian Ocean to Australia, and then northeast into the Pacific.
 
But seeing as that was essentially what he was trying to say, you really don't need to bite his head off about it.

A ‘wank’ such as this is actually a good way to crunch logistic numbers. The idea being that rather than just make sweeping statements about what “can’t” be done, it’s possible using a simple list of maybe 10 logistic values to assess the basic requirement for virtually any Japanese Pacific operation. Comparing that to national means, what strategy looks like if the option is executed.
In this instance, its sort of like Gandalf and Aragorn leading the Army of the West to the Black gates, but there is no Frodo-san trying to dunk the ring to win the war.
 
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