Japan invades Australia after Coral Sea

they would have no chance of even a partial victory the whole idea is a disaster in the making... they would have been better off trying to take india via land and sea at least there was some political opposition there that could be exploited. australia does absolutely nothing to improve japan's strategic position

every trooper being sent there is getting a death sentence. the massive air superiority that the americans would build up would prevent transports from reaching their beachheads even at night.

the australians were not friendly fighters either i think few prisoners would be taken from someone who invaded their homeland. japan's lack of motorized capability will also prevent their troops from getting too far off the beach thus few trenches and little defensive capability will exist

its not that they wouldnt be crazy enough to do it... they were crazy enough to attack the us when yamamoto told them not to; its that there isn't a worthwhile objective in Australia short of conquering the whole country which was utterly impossible
 
THe Japanese knew that Australia was beyond their means. To chaange that perspective, the following might get the job done -

Coral Sea - US loses Lex and Yorktown. They do no damage to the Jap ships. Jap TF invades and takes Port Moresby.

Jap plan for Midway goes forward - Enterprise/Hornet both sunk - two Jap carriers damaged but can return to service in a few months. As a result, let's cap it off with Midway falling to the Japanese.

Under these circumstances, the Japanese would build up their airfield on Guadalcanal and in the Fall of 42 could consider a landing in Northern Australia. Whatever forces they send will be inititally successful since the Aussies will fall back to an extent. The Japanese just don't have the assets to move south to Brisbane let alone further. The logistics are just too insane for them. Whatever they send will end up being evacuated or cut off.

Clearly though, the Aussies will be royally pissed considering how the Japanese treated civilians.
 
IIRC, and it was ages ago when I read it and haven't been able to find the reference since, the plan was two landings. One at Roper Bar, 140km up the Roper River and another up the Adelaide or Aligator river. These inland lodgements would pinch off the top of NT with a handful of forces and give the Japnese control of the inland ends of the railway system.

Also there was at least one commando raid in the Kimberly, but failed miserably due to breathtaking underestimation of Australian conditions.
 
THe Japanese knew that Australia was beyond their means. To chaange that perspective, the following might get the job done -

Coral Sea - US loses Lex and Yorktown. They do no damage to the Jap ships. Jap TF invades and takes Port Moresby.

Jap plan for Midway goes forward - Enterprise/Hornet both sunk - two Jap carriers damaged but can return to service in a few months. As a result, let's cap it off with Midway falling to the Japanese.

Under these circumstances, the Japanese would build up their airfield on Guadalcanal and in the Fall of 42 could consider a landing in Northern Australia. Whatever forces they send will be inititally successful since the Aussies will fall back to an extent. The Japanese just don't have the assets to move south to Brisbane let alone further. The logistics are just too insane for them. Whatever they send will end up being evacuated or cut off.

Clearly though, the Aussies will be royally pissed considering how the Japanese treated civilians.
I'm actually doing preliminary research on a time-line on this subject for when I get tired of The Raptor of Spain. The PoD was going to be that the confirming aircraft for the Neosho and Sims sighting instead got it right saying "No way! This is not the force we're looking for!" Thus when the 820 sighting comes, the full attack gets launched against the actual carriers while their planes are going after I think it's Shoho. So Lexington, Yorktown and Shoho die.The idea is basically to allow the Japanese to 1) Do better at Midway (probably just a less catastrophic loss) and 2) strengthen their naval position in the Coral Sea area and slow a Guadalcanal type attack for a period of time. The only land attacks I'd contemplated would be some sort of forward base at Port Morseby--again more to harass the allies than anything else. I'd started to look into better luck in India for them as a result but it hasn't really gotten that far. I've always really wanted to find a way to make make the Japanese serious players in India and/or the revolution to kick out the British but it's hard to figure out how.

But well there you go, after reading the thread, looks like probably ASB.
 
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Markus

Banned
Sealion bad.

Worse! Northern Australia is a big, unpopulated, trackless nothing. All the industry and almost all the people live in the south-east. IIRC that south-east was fairly well protected by the australian militia. Not that an invasion that far south is even remotely realistic.

After winning Coral Sea the best option is to take Moresby and than move down the Solomons to threaten the SLOC to the USA.
 
Essentially, the only possible good thing that Japan could get out of this scenario is earlier defeat. By which I mean, if they see just how screwed over they are everywhere with their common sense they surrender without an invasion of the home islands and the atom bomb not developed yet. That's really Japan's best scenario, and I'm not even too sure about that.
 
IIRC, and it was ages ago when I read it and haven't been able to find the reference since, the plan was two landings. One at Roper Bar, 140km up the Roper River and another up the Adelaide or Aligator river. These inland lodgements would pinch off the top of NT with a handful of forces and give the Japnese control of the inland ends of the railway system.

They aimed to go after the Alice Springs and Mount Isa railheads from the top end?!

There's no way the Japanese high command were that reckless in their planning--it must have been very low level staff who dreamt that up.

Riain said:
Also there was at least one commando raid in the Kimberly, but failed miserably due to breathtaking underestimation of Australian conditions.

I've heard of this.

I've written before of the possibility of the Japanese taking Darwin or Broome in 1942 as a tropical version of the Attu & Kiska occupations.

That would have made a lot of sense as as diversionary strategy, it would have absolutely terrified Australia, and might have lead to the refusal of Curtin to send the AIF reinforcements to PNG for the Kokoda campaign.

That is a much better use of resources for Imperial Japan than a doomed attempt to take heavily populated areas on the east coast.
 
They were not going for Mt Isa, but snipping off the top end and using the small NT rail system by capturing the Tennant Creek (or whatever) end and working back to Darwin. This would be a lot like capturing an island, but isolated by the empty desert.
 
They were not going for Mt Isa, but snipping off the top end and using the small NT rail system by capturing the Tennant Creek (or whatever) end and working back to Darwin. This would be a lot like capturing an island, but isolated by the empty desert.

Ah, that makes more sense. Defending a perimeter.

Though there was a certain amount of road traffic capacity between Alice Springs and the railhead up north, so the AIF/AMF would have just moved forward that way.

Seizing Broome is probably an even better strategy for a military feint in 1942--it's part of a state; there isn't as much overland communication as there is to Darwin; it prompts the Curtin government to want to move all possible forces to Darwin, Katherine, and to the northern coast of WA.

I guess the Torres Strait islands are the other plausible target for a limited invasion, but I think that would necessitate a Japanese victory in the Coral Sea.

Darwin or Broome could have been invaded in the months after the Japanese had taken care of the ABDA naval forces, and unless the USN had decided to send its carriers into the Indian Ocean I don't think the chances of repelling a serious landing at either port were that great.
 
The japanese invading Australia is a horrible idea which makes almost as much sense as having them invading the mainland US. I say this as someone whose timeline features a japanese invasion of Australia, but only after having given them all kinds of lucky breaks and having the US act too cautiously. and still, the japanese themselves see it as a last-resort attempt to end a war that they see as hopeless even after having won every single battle.
 
People also have to remember that in WW2 the Australian Army made a name for itself fighting the Germans in North Africa. The Australian army was very good at desert warfare while the Japanese army had little to no experiance fighting in the desert (which is a huge disadvantage).
 

Markus

Banned
The Australian army was very good at desert warfare while the Japanese army had little to no experiance fighting in the desert (which is a huge disadvantage).

No unnecessary humility please! :D

The Australian army was very good at almost any kind of warfare while the Japanese army sucked at anything but fighting understrenght, inexperienced, ill epiupped and poorly lead forces.
 
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No unnecessary humility please! :D

The Australian army was very good at almost any kind of warfare while the Japanese army sucked at anything but fighting understrenght, inexperienced, ill epiupped and poorly lead forces.

Don't get me wrong the Japanese army was very powerful and well trained but they didn't have experiance fighting in the desert while the Australian army did.The American army in WW2 proved that if you don't have experiance fighting in the desert then you are going to get beaten.
 
Don't get me wrong the Japanese army was very powerful and well trained but they didn't have experiance fighting in the desert while the Australian army did.The American army in WW2 proved that if you don't have experiance fighting in the desert then you are going to get beaten.

The Japanese did fight the British in semi-arid conditions, in the northern Irrawaddy River valley of Burma.

A landing in northern Australia would be carried out in terrain more like that than the Western Desert campaign.
 

Markus

Banned
Don't get me wrong the Japanese army was very powerful and well trained but they didn't have experiance fighting in the desert while the Australian army did.

The IJA had few havy and automatic weapons and their quality was questionable. Even worse, their tactis were ignorant of that little conflict called "The Great War". It was not a problem as long as they were fighting the Chinese but whenever they enoutered well-armed and capable opponents they took a beating.
 
The top end bears absolutely no resemblence to the western desert. The western desert is a long narrow strip dotted with coastal towns, small ports, roads, rail lines and strategic objectives such as Alexandria, Tripoli, the Suez canal etc.
 
I have considered a Japanese capture of Darwin as part of their outer defense perimeter. Take Darwin and the islands north of Darwin; they expand the defensive perimeter further from the vital DEI.

This may also have been a better area for destroying the US Pacific Fleet than the Midway area. The IJN would have the benefit of land-based recon and strike planes, and nearby bases. The US would still have land-based recon and strike planes, and more than at Midway, and have the Australian navy present. But the USN would be operating at the end of a long, long supply line.

Would a capture of Darwin compel the US to commit the fleet and the Marines to retake the area?
 
the japanese can only move a few miles inland from wherever they land. ill accept that following a few successful battles beforehand at coral sea and midway they could make a landing in maybe division or corps strength but they would never make it more than like 20 miles inland.

the japanese have zero capablility for beachhead supply. they had to rely on warships which lacked the necessary cargo capacity, were needed elsewere, and were precious to be risked in simple resupply ops.

their beachand would be like anzio except ten times worse. the americans would base a full air force in australia and launch round the clock strikes against the beachead destroying any stockpiled supplies or troops in the open.

an attack on california would actually have more achievable objectives ie destroy the docks then get the hell out. australia is stalingrad south plain and simple
 
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