japanese victory at midway

That lucky five minutes of bombs never happens due to a mistaken navigation on the part of the pilots sent on that suicide mission. The Imperial Japanese Navy wins a comprehensive victory on sea, the Imperial Army fails to occupy Midway Island. The result is a Chickamauga scenario of a great victory that could never be fully completed and is a dubious benefit for an IJN which now has won a tactical victory at the end of its tether and must retreat for refueling.

Japan can win it at sea, they can never invade the island. Any failure to do both enables the USA to find a rose in the pile of manure.
 
If I read the figures in this article correctly, Japan would have had a 2 to 1 advantage in carriers from June of 1942 through June of 1943. This was what Yamamoto was aiming for. He was hoping not so much for a successful invasion of Midway as a chance to smash the American Fleet. Assuming he got his wish here and based on the figures in this article my question is what could the Japanese have done with this numeric advantage during the "year of grace" they now had? Also, how would this have affected U.S. war plans?

Geon
In Carriers but not in pilots... qualify carrier pilots..
I'm not sure but I don't believe that the IJN had changed their policy yet in mass-producing their pilots at higher levels in 1942 when their original policy was to weed out the moderate and poorly capable while training the heck out of their best of the best...

That means leaving a Japanese air base within range of the fuel depots in and around Pearl Harbor and hoping no Japanese pilot ever gets lucky.
Midway should be within USAAF B-17 and B-24 bomber range and should be interdicted by such air assets by aerial bombardment against whatever surviving airfields that they might be able to repair by their best engineers if they did or could have capture Midway ...
 
If I read the figures in this article correctly, Japan would have had a 2 to 1 advantage in carriers from June of 1942 through June of 1943. This was what Yamamoto was aiming for. He was hoping not so much for a successful invasion of Midway as a chance to smash the American Fleet. Assuming he got his wish here and based on the figures in this article my question is what could the Japanese have done with this numeric advantage during the "year of grace" they now had? Also, how would this have affected U.S. war plans?

Geon

This would be an interesting scenario. Would the Japanese try Coral Sea II and go for Port Morseby again or would they possibly go raiding again in the Indian Ocean?

In terms of the US planning. The prospect of only having Wasp and Saratoga could lead to the delay of the Guadalcanal campaign, which would give the Japanese more time to reinforce and fortify their gains.
 
I envisage with the US Carrier force incapacitated that the Americans will place greater emphasis on their submarine force, as it is the only striking element within the USN. Possible expansion of US Army Air Force tac and strategic air assets in the Pacific.

The IJN after a crushing victory could use the opportunity to refit some of their carriers, after a couple of years of hard work. Ideally after this crushing victory they realise that the war is a total war and the Americans will continue indefinately... expand their training capacity for carrier pilots, mechanics.
 
If I read the figures in this article correctly, Japan would have had a 2 to 1 advantage in carriers from June of 1942 through June of 1943. This was what Yamamoto was aiming for. He was hoping not so much for a successful invasion of Midway as a chance to smash the American Fleet. Assuming he got his wish here and based on the figures in this article my question is what could the Japanese have done with this numeric advantage during the "year of grace" they now had? Also, how would this have affected U.S. war plans?

Geon

True, the USN would have to go on the defensive for a year, but I dont know if that will prolong the war by much because the new construction will come on with a faster rush when resources are diverted from OTL offensive to TTLs buildup.

The biggest problem for Japan is that the US went to the Hem,isphere Defence construction programme (US re-armament) in 1940, over a year before PH and even before the oil embargo etc. The US was not unprepared for a war with Japan and by Midway was 2 years into re-armament.
 

burmafrd

Banned
The IJN squandered its fine pilots by the end of 1942 and had not stepped up its training system to replace them; and fuel for training got cut again and again.

Much like Germany, the critical material weakness of Japan was its lack of fuel.
 
That lucky five minutes of bombs never happens due to a mistaken navigation on the part of the pilots sent on that suicide mission. The Imperial Japanese Navy wins a comprehensive victory on sea, the Imperial Army fails to occupy Midway Island. The result is a Chickamauga scenario of a great victory that could never be fully completed and is a dubious benefit for an IJN which now has won a tactical victory at the end of its tether and must retreat for refueling.

Japan can win it at sea, they can never invade the island. Any failure to do both enables the USA to find a rose in the pile of manure.

There was no 'lucky 5 minutes'. As it was, the US planes were unlucky that more of them didnt find the IJN.
The one 'lucky' hit was the one on Akagai, the other two carriers hit in the first strike were hammered under by a few squadrons.

That in itself would make the carrier battles far more even, however the problem is the Japanese hadnt located the twp TF's even at that point.
Likely result in carriers is IJN loses 2, USN loses one, then the Enterprsie and Hornet retreat as they were intended to - Nimitz never planned a battle of annhialation. His orders were quite esplicit, attrit the Japanese carriers if you can, dont lose ours to do it.
The IJN MIGHT take the island if they hammer it enough with gunfire, at which point they are left with a little bitty island of no real use whatsoever...
 
Midway was historically not strategic in itself for Japan, as mentioned by Mitsuo Fuchida, the top aviator of the IJN during the battle (grounded by illness and therefore survived the battle). The primary role of the Midway operation always had been to force a decisive battle against the USN Pacific Fleet, for which Midway was the bait. Midway itself was to be taken, or at least temporarily hold, as long as it was needed to lure in the US Fleet, after which it could, if necessary, be evacuated, as tie supplylines to replennish it as a base, were far too overstretched.

see:
Midway, The Japanese Story, Mitsuo Fuchida & Masatake Okumiya
ISBN-13: 978-0304361540
 
There was no 'lucky 5 minutes'. As it was, the US planes were unlucky that more of them didnt find the IJN.
The one 'lucky' hit was the one on Akagai, the other two carriers hit in the first strike were hammered under by a few squadrons.

That in itself would make the carrier battles far more even, however the problem is the Japanese hadnt located the twp TF's even at that point.
Likely result in carriers is IJN loses 2, USN loses one, then the Enterprsie and Hornet retreat as they were intended to - Nimitz never planned a battle of annhialation. His orders were quite esplicit, attrit the Japanese carriers if you can, dont lose ours to do it.
The IJN MIGHT take the island if they hammer it enough with gunfire, at which point they are left with a little bitty island of no real use whatsoever...

I know. One of the dive bombing divisions flew to the place were the japanese were belived to be, only that they had changed course and headed for the US carriers. That squadron landed on Midway. If that division had also found the japanese then Yorktown might survive
 
A victory at Midway would actually be more telling than just delaying the US until it had replaced the carriers it lost, it would have given the Japanese a big edge in its island-hopping operations, which would probably have made the Japanese somewhat harder to root out.

Still wouldn't have been as advantageous to the Japs as hitting the support facilities instead of the ships at Pearl Harbour would have been though.
 
I think before the Midway operation got the go ahead, there was debate about instead going south-east. So with Midway a success, at least in the Naval sense, the next step IMO for the Japanese would be to continue to reinforce the Solomons e.g. airfield at Guadalcanal and head for Samoa and Fiji - to isolate Australia from the US.
 
In order for the Midway operation to succeed, it has to be so radically different it wouldnt be recognised

The rot set in during the intial planning stages (in fact it could easily have ben said it set in when the thing was contemplated). Shattered Sword goes into lots of detail as to what went wrong (its probably one of the worst set out operations of WW2), and it wont respond to any little fixes.
It would be possible to make it likely things go less wrong for the IJN, but without radical changes it is very difficult to see how they generate a success, as many of the problems were tied into the IJN doctrine and teh mindset of the admirals in charge.

The real problem for the IJN at this point in time is they have, as it were, run into the logistical buffers as to what they can accomplish in the Pacific. Yet they have all these big shiny naval asets, with huge pressure to use them for something. They cant sit pat, as then the USN just steamrollers them in 1944. Hence the pressure to do SOMETHING, even if it isnt a very sensible something.
 
War stretches on longer and US is forced to commit to the Pacific more than the European theater, but end result isn't changed for either, just kicked back a bit. Atomic bombings will still happen on schedule, though target list might be a bit different.
 
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