How successful can Japan be in WW2?

Rubicon

Banned
Edit: paragraph removed after rechecking data.

Did both sides do what they could to make the most out of the Battle of the Atlantic in the court of public opinion? Of course.

However, Britain was also under severe rationing due to U-boat sinkings. Tens of thousands of merchant ship crewmen died. The U-boat force lost the Battle of the Atlantic, but it was a battle.

Wanting it to be otherwise does not make it so.

There was fighting going on no doubt about that and that both sides did their best to win. But for there to be an actuall 'Battle' both sides must have a chance of winning it, otherwise the fighting does not become a battle but a slaughter. The Germans due to the convoy system never had any chance at all of starving the British Isles to submition.

And indeed there was rationing in the Great Britain I do not dispute that. Mostly the rationing was actually caused by the convoy system itself, and indeed British imports dropped by a third after it's implementation. It is because the convoy system in itself was (and proabaly still is) inefficent. Ships have to sail at the the same pace as the slowest ship in the convoy instead of at their best speed.

However I can conceed that centimetric-radar, more planes with longer range becoming available to Coastal Command, more escorts with greater experience, more and better ASW equipment and breaking the Enigma code did one thing, it killed U-boats. What the convoy system did was win the 'Batle of the Atlantic' or perhaps a more accurate way to express it would be that it made sure that Great Britain couldn't lose it and that Germany couldn't win it.

If you haven't read Blair's two books about Hitlers U-boat war I suggest you do so, they are very enlightning and kills of a bunch of myths about the U-boat war. :)

So IMHO if Japan had implemented the Convoy system, it would have made sure that the US subs would have sunk a lot less merchants. Did they have enough escorts for a complete and adequate protection of said convoys? Doubtfull, but neither did Great Britian in September -39 ;) With the disclaimer that I haven't read Blairs book about the US sub war against Japan yet, I might change my mind after I do so :D
 

CalBear

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There was also the colonel of German General Staff Emmanuel who wrote a monograph on the RJW. I read it in Russian. A very detailed review of the war having solid conclusions.

BTW, AFAIR, Nagumo had brought to Pearl Harbor several small submersibles with him but they genarall performed poorly having not achieved their tasks with one exception: one of those mini-subs managed to sneak into the harbour and under the veil of the twilight with the periscope lifted they observed the American ships and then as they came out of the harbour they radioed to Nagumo about the US ships they observed from within the Pearl Harbor itself. I also read about two bigger subs that also assisted the IJN in attack on Pearl Harbor. I wonder who refueled them or tugged them to the place?

The Japanese had a number of boats around the Hawaiian Islands. They had the five mother ships for the mini-subs and a dozen more I-Boats in patrol lines around the Islands to hopefully pick off stragglers (a total of over 20 full sized subs were dedicated to the overall operation). Japanese I- Boats, like the American fleet boats, had incredible range. 14,000 miles was about average for the large IJN subs.

So, would there have been any plausible chance of the fuel depots being hit whether by accident or by design?

Also, leaving aside political considerations and the fact that the Japanese navy absolutely wanted its giant battleships, would it have made a difference if the resources invested in building the Musashi had been used more rationally?

The addition of one, even two decks, would not have been a huge help. The Japanese yards were not the most efficient, as noted earlier in the thread they took 40-44 months to build the Shokakus (as a comparitive, the U.S. took around 18 months to build the Essex class decks), so it is unlikely that the change to carrier construction would have given the IJN much in the way of additional resources in the critical 1942 battles.

Long term the only difference is where the ship wreckage settles.
 

Rubicon

Banned
My a whole 15 posts from you, which basically start off with a trolling post.

Pretty obvious who the troll is here.
I take it that your personal adage then is that "Quantity has a quality in it's own"? :D
In your last two posts before this one you have called me stupid, moron and idiot, that last one has a pscyhological definition that I would have an intelligence quotient under 25, I'd like to see any documentation that you can provide to support that claim :D

In my posts in this thread I have given my opinions cordialy with actual facts written by a well renowned author in the area backing them up. What have you given other then personal attacks?
 

Ian the Admin

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You, Sir, are an idiot.
My father served on tankers in WW2, including the Atlantic run.
2/3 of his prewar class at Pangbourne didnt survive the war.
One-sided slaughter of Germans my ass!

No it makes you a moron who hides behind the internet.
Your information is as stupid as you are.

Stop playing the role of a small child and act with some decorum on the forums. Insults aren't tolerated here.
 
When considering the likelyhood of a Strategic Japanese Victory in WW2, two main components had to be achieved primarily:

1. The USA had to be dealth a devastating blow, it could not recover from within a half year. By doing so, it denied the USA to fight back effectively as a force, giving the Japanese the upperhand in the Pacific and freedom to do as they pleased.

2. Force the British out of SE Asia, as far as to their primary colony India. The missionobjecitve would be to get the British outside range to threaten the Japanese transports of goods, from captured Burma and Malaya, which was together with the Dutch East Indies the primary warobjective for Japan. The goal was unobstructed transport of the wanted goods and resources from SE asia to Japan. (India itself was not a goal, being toovast and to densely populated, giving it the same potential strength as China, which already was being problematic at best for Japan.)

To achieve these conditions, Japan had to defeat the USN Pacific Fleet decisively. This was already planned, but the execution failed in the OTL. With the USN Pacific Fleet out of the way, the Allied support to the South Pacific and Australia would be compromised seriously, preventing the quick built up of forces for at least a considerable time. Japan nearly achieved this goal at both Pearl Harbor and Midway, if the execution had been performed much better, than historically. In theory the loss of the USN at Midway, would have meant that the first Allied offensive in the Pacific would have to be delayed, untill new additional units were worked up and send to the region, to replace the lost units.

To achieve the second part of the goal, the Japanese had to force out the British fleet out of the Indian Ocean, as far as Africa, so supplies and shipment of troops and goods to India and Burma were to be compromized. With an obstructed transportationline the British would be seriously hampered in regaining their strength in Asia. To achieve this goal, the USN in the Pacific had to be out of the way, so the IJN could transfer its attackgroups to the Indian Ocean, without the need to keep and eye on the USA.
 
Japan's best hope was to take Pearl and refloat the ex us navy,using some of the battleships as gunships but turning others into aircraft carriers.While these "carriers" would probably be limited in size of air group(maybe 50 planes) they would still come in handy,especially if they built 4 of them.
If Japan had taken Pearl they would then have radar,self sealing tanks,advances in aircraft engine design.Plus multiple subs,destroyers and a few light cruisers.
Even with all this Japan would still be in trouble but they would be able to stretch the war on for a few extra years at the very least..
 

Hendryk

Banned
If Japan had taken Pearl they would then have radar,self sealing tanks,advances in aircraft engine design.Plus multiple subs,destroyers and a few light cruisers.
Perhaps, but it's a moot point since Japan could not have taken Pearl Harbor. Such a feat was beyond its military capabilities.
 
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewto...&start=0&sid=31a2a94843594bf5bae8a79a5fee8416
This is the most indepth plan I have seen and I would change very little-but would go to a more"blitz" version -using the many subs available and the original strike force (plus 2 CVL and Yammoto)-The idea is to cause the surrender of the islands,which given the devestation of just the 2 waves of aircraft is possible with 3 or 4 strikes from the carriesr that day plus nells from Marshall(landing on the occupied Kauii airbase).If 1 day doesn't do it 2 or 3 days might.
But it would not be easy.
 
FDR actually WANTED to provoke Japan into going to war against the U.S. ; the oil embargo was imposed on the Japs with this on mind . Japan would have to choose between an endless land war against the chinese OR try an all out pacific war after having settled for Manchuria (no Marco Polo event) . Japan's eventual defeat was a matter of industry , logistics and geography , the yankees could not be defeated in a prolonged war , unless they gave up ,which they would never do , after the Pearl .
 
There was this funny timeline in this board once about the Japanese putting a blockship into Pearl, then shelling the harbor with battleships.
That would be fun!
 
Rubicon, Japan not only lacked the ability for full coverage of any convoy system, with a maximum of 60 destroyers at any time Japan had practically no capacity to cover even a small portion of the convoys which would have been required without stripping her fleet of destroyer protection.


Gurn, difficult as in utterly impossible. You might want to start searching the board before offering ideas which have been discredited so many times before.
 

CalBear

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http://forum.axishistory.com/viewto...&start=0&sid=31a2a94843594bf5bae8a79a5fee8416
This is the most indepth plan I have seen and I would change very little-but would go to a more"blitz" version -using the many subs available and the original strike force (plus 2 CVL and Yammoto)-The idea is to cause the surrender of the islands,which given the devestation of just the 2 waves of aircraft is possible with 3 or 4 strikes from the carriesr that day plus nells from Marshall(landing on the occupied Kauii airbase).If 1 day doesn't do it 2 or 3 days might.


But it would not be easy.
Preposterous.

Japan couldn't support a force that far away from Japan for an extended period. As was several of the DD in the escort force were running on fumes when they reached port (and this was AFTER they had sailed with extra fuel stored in drums as deck cargo.

The Kido Butai has lost (mission kill and shot down) over 70 aircraft in the first two waves. Each additional wave would have been worse (and most losses were to the attack aircraft as one would imagine) even a third wave would have been brutal, figure 75 aircraft lost in that wave (combined shoot down & mission kill). Attacks the following day would have been equally problematic, with losses likely to bleed the JNAF white. (One thing that is oft forgotten when the fragility of IJN aircraft is discussed is that it wasn't only .50 cal fighter rounds that were able to shred the extremely lightweight Japanese designs.)

Japan DID NOT HAVE THE TROOPS available to invade Oahu. It could try (and almost certainly FAIL) to invade Hawaii or it could invade the DEI, Malaya and the Philippines. Since the entire reason for the war was to secure the DEI's resources this is a no brainer.

Japan lacked the logistical lift to support even a three division force in Hawaii. Japan lacked sufficient bottoms to FEED and supply the Home Islands at the outbreak of the war. Now you want to send SLOW transports across half of the Pacific into water that would have been heavily patrolled by U.S. subs (which, even with the early war torpedo problems, did damage to the Japanese merchant marine from day one).

John Parshall has a fairly detailed post on this. It is at his excellent CombinedFleet.com site. It discusses both a December 7 and post successful Midway attempt to take the Islands.

http://www.combinedfleet.com/pearlops.htm
 
This is the most indepth plan I have seen...


Gurn,

If by "in-depth" you mean lengthy, I'll agree.

It is very long and it is utter nonsense however.

While slogging through it's many pages, I was struck again and again by how the author could take all the information his research produced and then go on to draw all the wrong conclusions.

It's as if you gave him all the ingredients for Duck à l'orange only to watch him screw it all up and phone out for pizza instead.

... and I would change very little...

I would change little too as it's little effort to throw the whole thing out.

Let me suggest that you follow the link CalBear kindly provided and read about how such an invasion is ASB fodder.


Bill
 
Japan's best hope was to take Pearl and refloat the ex us navy,using some of the battleships as gunships but turning others into aircraft carriers.While these "carriers" would probably be limited in size of air group(maybe 50 planes) they would still come in handy,especially if they built 4 of them.
If Japan had taken Pearl they would then have radar,self sealing tanks,advances in aircraft engine design.Plus multiple subs,destroyers and a few light cruisers.
Even with all this Japan would still be in trouble but they would be able to stretch the war on for a few extra years at the very least..

While the crazy starts with the idea that Japan could take Pearl, and it seems everyone else stopped there, I would like to point out that what followed is a heck of a lot crazier.

Capturing Pearl and then somehow refloating the wrecked American warships and running them despite everything being built to different standards and unable to accept Japanese ammunition or spare parts? Converting Standard Battleships into carriers? Somehow coming up with crews to man these manpower intensive ships despite everything working differently than on Japanese ships? Doing this very, very far from Japan's industrial base and with Pearl's own infrastructure wrecked by the attack? And of course, through the magic of reverse engineering, Japan can gain advanced radar despite not having the necessary engineers, scientists, or electronics industry, self-sealing tanks despite their original lack due to concious choice to reduce weight and demands on industry, and more powerful engines despite lacking the precision machinery and advanced alloys that make them possible.

Dear God...
 
I see there is quite a lot to fantasy about this theme, but most are far from practical, as Japan itself is what it is. You cannot do things without the means to do it, so the best Japan could do was what it tried historically.

Primarily the Japanese goal was to get freedom in the Pacific and East Asia region for up to six months. To get this window of freedom of operations, Japan badly needed the USA and UK out of the way, as these were considered to be the most threatening opponents in the planned war. To achieve this, Japan needed to strike a deadly blow in the first strike, against these opponents, which meant the removal of the USN Pacific Fleet as a fighting unit, as well as the British forces in and near Malaya/Singapore.

Japan knew, the industrial might of the West, especially the USA, would be able to outbuilt and outproduce Japan in any long term conflict, so the war had to be short. Within this period of maximum six months, the Japanese would need to force the Allies to their knees, to get a good chance at the negotiation tables, when the Japanese had got its warobjectives. So Japan needed to conquer the entire land of Malaya and Dutch East Indies, before these crucial six months were over, while not being hampered by Allied raids and other countermoves.

Crucial for the Japanese was to finish off the USN Pacific Fleet as a fighting unit. Without the USN prowling around in the Pacifc, Japanese forces would not need to keep an eye on the USA for a while.

Simmilarly the British forces in Malaya and Singapore had to be neutralized somehow. These forces outnumbered the Japanese more than 3 to 1, dispite their poor equipment and training. Japan was actually quite surprised these forces were rolled up so easily.

In the OTL, Japan nearly succeeded in getting its objectives done, appart from the failure of the Pearl Harbor Strike. Had the Japanese done a bit better at Pearl Harbor, namely, the destruction of the base, instead of the ships only, the USA would be in a much worse condition to react so quickly as it did historcially.

A few details on the Pearl Harbor Attack:
The second strike nearly completely focussed on divebombing the ships in the harbor, already damaged. Had it been redirected to attack the landinstallations and fueldepots, the base would have been propably out of operation for quite a while. (USS Neosho, docked at Battleship Row, was also a good target to create much damage, as she was loaded with aviationfuel at the time of the attack. Had she been destroyed, she could have acted as a floating bomb, with her 18,000 tons of highly explosive fuel.)
So, instead of hammering at the already heavily damaged USS Nevada, the damage to the base could have been much more severe, forcing the USN out of the Pacific to the West Coast for a considerable time, giving the Japanese the controll of the entire Pacific Ocean.

With Pearl Harbor gone as an effective base for a couple of months to come, Japan got what it needed. This failure to achieve this, was the first great mistake in the war to come.

So the Japanese plans were correct, but the execution failed.
 
Considering that Pearl Harbour and the following invasions sill happen how successful could Japan have been. Actually winning, or even surviving the war with their holdings seems pretty implausible to me but could they however be in a much stronger position by the time the Allies begin to turn the tide?

They did their best IOTL. They managed to for six months curbstomp the enemy and executed one of the best offensive plans of the entire war, one which knocked out the US Navy, critically weakened the Brits, and took out Singapore and the Philippines. The only way to get better is to have outright ASB scenarios.
 
USS Neosho, docked at Battleship Row, was also a good target to create much damage, as she was loaded with aviationfuel at the time of the attack. Had she been destroyed, she could have acted as a floating bomb, with her 18,000 tons of highly explosive fuel

http://warships1discussionboards.yuku.com/topic/11758/t/Trial-by-Ordeal-Pt-1.html

http://warships1discussionboards.yuku.com/topic/11779/t/Trial-by-Ordeal-Part-2.html

http://warships1discussionboards.yuku.com/topic/11814/t/Trial-by-Ordeal-Part-3.html

http://warships1discussionboards.yuku.com/topic/11836/t/Trial-by-Ordeal-Part-4.html
 
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