alternatehistory.com

Since lost causes are so popular here I thought I would try one.



In this alternate Time Line Yammamoto manages to work out something different.


And with more support (Tojo does not become PM) vs the Army he is able to get more resources allocated for the attacks.


China is placed in stasis basically and some of the resources used elsewhere.

Not so much troops but supplies and shipping are not sent there in the same numbers.



He realizes that a long war with America is probably going to have one result but has to plan for it. And also has to plan that the Decisive Battle might not happen. OR at the least might not happen the way they hoped it would
(Attrition of the steadily advancing US Navy to the point it can be wiped out in that Decisive Battle)


So he looks long and hard at the situation and makes one major change right away. No Philippine Invasion. decides that the forces there are not sufficient to pose a serious threat as long as they are cut off from further reinforcement.

So the priorities are this:

Destruction of the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, invasion of and holding of Hawaii. The forces earmarked for the Philippines instead are used there. As well as some of the other minor attacks also are aborted.

Malaya, Dutch possessions for Oil, those remain as is. Wake and Guam also taken. But virtually everything else is canceled. The movement as regards Burma is also postponed. Will be done at a later date.

The Idea is to isolate the Philippines rather then waste the resources taking them.

This way the US has no major Pacific Base available outside of the West Coast.

That delays the counter attack for quite a while enabling the Japanese to fortify their possessions and if necessary wear the US out by years of slow advances. (Island Leap frogging as the US did was not thought of).


Now as regards taking Hawaii.


Once again gambles must be taken. Risks employe.

Since it was already decided to attack on a Sunday morning, take it a step further and have light cruisers packed with soldiers sail right into the harbor just minutes after the attack begins. That could be done - very risky but Light Cruisers steaming at top speed could do it.

In this instance you do not attack the ships by air- you board them from the sea. Place those Light Cruisers alongside the BBs early that morning (right at dawn) and have hundreds of soldiers swamping the ships.

Meanwhile other ships pour into the harbor and land on the docks. Any way you can get troops ashore quickly.

The air attack concentrates on taking out the air corps - straffing and bombing all airfields. And just as importantly hitting all the barracks in order to kill, wound and confuse as many of the Marines and Army troops a possible.


Now this would be very hard and of course very risky but you introduce your best ground troops right in the middle of the installations.

Capture the base and the tank farm and suddenly the Strike Force has no longer any worry about fuel. Considering the size of the tank farm there - that has implications for months to come.

I know this is wild and crazy but I thought I would throw it out there.

Take lots of planning and lots of practice but they did that anyway for the original attack.

So guys have at it. Tear this apart. Ought to be interesting no matter what.
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