Munich Shuffle: 1938-1942
- Thread starter Garrison
- Start date
Garrison
Donor
Well ITTL any reasonable analysis of the balance of forces in 1941 will conclude the Japanese still somewhat overperformed given their success in the Philippines and elsewhere, so expecting them to do better is obviously ridiculous...
Hey when you insist on the overriding importance of the Bushido spirit then obviously if you failed you must have been lacking.
I,e, Kyushu; the invasion force would have to pass within 100 km of Kyushu. What are those aircraft being reserved for? To destroy Allied amphibious forces when they move into range. The Allies are not going to do that until they are ready to cover such a force with all available carrier. And there is a big difference between approaching the Japanese "heartland" from the open ocean and sailing up into the middle of it.
Yes, Japanese forces have been severely weakened, but that doesn't mean they are impotent. There was an incident in late April 1945: US 9th Armored Division reached the Elbe River, and established a bridgehead. German forces in the area counterattacked, wiped out the bridgehead, and captured several hundred US prisoners. This was when the German army had been almost destroyed.
The Japanese ignored raids by Allied warships because they were waiting to strike at amphibious forces.
You can't kill what you can't see; it's not like the Allies would politely inform Japan of their course and speed.
First, let's establish a baseline. The horizon, looking out over the sea, is just under 5km away if you're at sea level. Alternatively, one can draw from the days where territorial waters extender there nautical miles (~5.5km) from shore, because that was the reach of a cannon. That these are roughly similar, especially given you can get a bit more distance on your canon by putting it on top of a cliff, gives them credence.
Let's be quite generous and double the these. That gives you, generously, 12km of vision. This is, it must be noted, insufficient. I think it quite reasonable to say that an Allied Fleet could sail to a distance of 50km from Kyushu and no one standing on the shore would be any the wiser.
Well, what about all the tools of modernity at the disposal of Imperial Japan? These would be boats, submarines, airplanes and radar.
The issue with the first three of those is that, absent sailpowered fishing boats, those all need fuel. Japan is notoriously short on the stuff. The other issue is that the Allies vastly overmatch Japan in those areas.
On Radar, it has to be said that given the course of TTL, I can only imagine Japanese Radar development is behind OTL. Let us assume that there would have been an operational Radar set pointed in the right direction that hadn't been subjected to the loving attentions of the Oxcart order. Let us even assume that said Radar set would even have the range to reach out that far.
It still would have completely missed the fleet, because it would have been pointed up at an angle to detect Aircraft.
But let us indulge the, IMO, unlikely counterfactual of fleet being detected by the Imperial Japanese as it transited near Kyushu.
The most likely response would be Kamikaze strikes, I think we agree on that. The issue is that Aerial overwater navigation is really really hard.
The thing about attacking an in-progress Amphibious Landing is that the enemy fleet is polite enough to park itself in sight of land, and then stay there for an extended period. A naval fleet actively maneuvering beyond the horizon is a different prospect entirely.
And there is, of course, another matter. Let us assume that Japan can detect the fleet. Let us assume that it had the capability to meaningfully strike the fleet. That's not actually enough. Japan would need to be able to detect the fleet, process it, turn that detection report into a set of strike orders, and then get those orders executed... All in a timely manner. Because you have a report of where that fleet is now. But where is it going to be when your planes might actually intercept it? Guess right, because otherwise the only targets that your Divine Wind will fall upon is some particularly unfortunate whales.
The case study to give would be the Dowding System, and it was literally revolutionary in its ability to transform Aircraft detections into interceptions.
To conclude, I believe you are drastically underestimating the complexity of the task that Japan would be undertaking, whilst obliviating the material and organisational constraints Japan is labouring under that further deny them the ability to do so.
Japan at this stage is protecting the Home Islands. As much as there are some who want to defend the Korean area, the powers that be are reserving everything to make a large casualty list for when they invade the Home Islands. Anything used is just one thing that cannot be used to defend Dai Nippon from the Gai Jin. IOTL they were at wits end when the Russians invaded because they had nothing to send to Manchuria if they expected to defend against the invasion of the Home Islands.
20th – 30th January 1945 – USA – A New Era
Garrison
Donor
20th – 30th January 1945 – USA – A New Era
The inauguration of Thomas Dewey was a major occasion, this would be true of any presidential inauguration but after twelve years of Franklin Roosevelt in the White House it seemed to represent a sea change in US politics to many Americans, though whether they thought this change was for better or worse rather depended on how they had voted in November. The reality was that President Dewey would not have the free hand in setting US policy he wanted and instead faced a far more delicate balancing act than his predecessor. The Democratic Party might have lost the White House, with the blame squarely fixed on Harry S. Truman and his lacklustre campaign, but they retained a firm grip on Congress, indeed they had strengthened their control in the House of Representatives, meaning that whatever fresh agenda Dewey might want to pursue would require a negotiation with the Democrats. If Dewey had been committed to a wholesale repeal of the New Deal this might have made things fraught, but while there were certainly differences between the economic and social policies of Roosevelt and Dewey, they were far from irreconcilable and after some typical political horse-trading Dewey made significant headway with his economic and social policies while allowing the Democrats to protect some of those items they were truly committed to. In domestic politics then the early part of the Dewey administration represented far more continuity than change, it would be in matters of foreign relations and military strategy that Dewey made a clear break with previous policy [1].
Relations with the British had been growing cooler even before the election of the Labour government and since then things had gotten appreciably worse. Some of this has been blamed on the fact that members of the Dewey administration saw the creation of the NHS and plans to nationalize industries as Marxist and had doubts about whether Labour was truly dedicated to the democratic process. That these views were not precisely a closely guarded secret meant that it was hardly surprising that Dewey’s inauguration was not greeted with enthusiasm in London, especially given that as previously discussed there were already arguments about how to divide the spoils of war in Germany and British access to the Manhattan Project. As President it fell to Dewey to try and improve relations with the USA’s most important ally, however he struggled to establish the same sort of warm relationship with Attlee that Roosevelt had enjoyed with Churchill in the early part of the war. The blame for this cannot be entirely placed on the men involved. Winston Churchill had after all been half American and in 1939 and 1940 he had a desperate need to gain the support of the US President. On the other side Roosevelt feared the consequences for the USA if Britain were forced to make peace with Nazi Germany, meaning both men had powerful incentives to strengthen the relationship between the two nations. None of these conditions applied in 1944. Britain was certainly eager to receive a share of the funds being allocated to the Marshall Plan and to negotiate on the repayment of the debts the country had accrued with the USA during the war, but weighed against this was the need to rebuild the civilian economy and plot a course for the future of the British Empire [2].
A far bigger problem than the British for the Dewey administration was relations with the USSR and how to contain what were seen as Stalin’s expansionist ambitions. The anti-Communist rhetoric emanating from both camps during the election campaign had been reported to Moscow in great detail by the Soviet embassy in Washington and this had made Stalin even more determined to secure his piece of Germany and not to give up one metre of territory in Eastern Europe that the Red Army had conquered, which in turn simply fuelled the fear in Washington that Stalin intended to extend the reach of the USSR regardless of what agreements they had reached. The deal over the division of Germany and Central Europe was a fait accompli that the Dewey administration had to accept, but the idea of ‘containment’ would swiftly become policy for the Dewey White House, which created yet another complication when it came to formulating a strategy for the final defeat of Japan. Putting the Red Army into the field against the Japanese was regarded as a strategic necessity by the Joint Chiefs even if Dewey was far less enthusiastic. From the perspective of the White House a Soviet army attacking the Japanese in Manchuria opened the possibility of them seizing control in China, despite the recent successes of the Chinese Nationalist forces in the south. Combined with the omnipresent threat of the indigenous Chinese Communists and the perceived weakness of the Nationalist leadership and there was a genuine fear of a Communist block spanning the whole of Eurasia, or into the Pacific if the Soviets were able to conduct a successful amphibious operation against the Japanese Home Islands themselves, Dewey certainly didn’t want to see Japan carved up in the same way that Germany had been, which was at least an area of agreement with the military who were already worrying the prospect of a long term military commitment to continental Europe [3].
It has been easy for historians to portray the evolution of US strategy in the last months of the Pacific war in terms of Dewey’s desire to put his stamp on the Presidency with a swift decisive victory. Franklin Roosevelt was seen as the President who had won the war for the USA and while there was still a strong resolve to finish the job against the Japanese it was seen by many as a mopping up operation by many ordinary US citizens and one that needed to be completed without incurring too high a cost in American lives. Initially Dewey had favoured the army plan for a full-scale amphibious invasion of Japan. The plan was called Operation Downfall and it envisioned the use of a force substantially larger than that landed at Normandy. This certainly offered the prospect of a decisive victory, though not necessarily a swift one, but the estimates of the casualties involved in the landing and the subsequent operations to secure Japan were horrendous and to make matters worse even the most optimistic estimate of when such a landing could be carried out pointed to September 1945, the atomic bomb might be ready before that, assuming the weapon worked which even in January 1945 was not a given [4].
The increasingly gloomy predictions about the outcome of an invasion, and the timescale, explains why Dewey turned to the plans being offered by the USN and the USAAF, a combination of large-scale bombing and a naval blockade of the Home Islands to isolate them completely from one another. Shipping between Japan and the few pieces of conquered territory it still retained had all but ceased already, this expansion of these interdiction operations would extend into the Japanese home waters and target all Japanese vessels, regardless of how small or inconsequential. As one senior officer put it, ‘if a rowing boat leaves a Japanese harbour, we’ll sink it’. This would be combined with a series of bombardment missions and carrier airstrikes on coastal ports and harbours. These attacks would not be limited to targeting port facilities or military installations, civilian infrastructure and housing would not be exempted. Japanese propaganda claimed that every man, woman and child was prepared to die for the emperor and given the experiences of the US forces on Okinawa, and the British in Hong Kong, it was not a claim to be dismissed lightly. If the Japanese were determined to erase the line between military and civilian, then targeting civilians was simply a matter of strategic necessity [5].
Bomber Command had made similar arguments earlier in the war, when the USAAF had still insisted on pursuing their goals of precision bombing. Now the idea of dehousing the population of Japan’s cities was embraced. General Curtis LeMay had been reviewing the initial bombing attacks against Japan that had been underway since May of 1944 after he took command of air operations against Japan and he was not pleased with the results. Even with the liberation of Indochina supplying the B-29 squadrons operating out of China had been difficult and the daylight raids that were mounted achieved little while taking heavy losses as Japanese air defences proved far more effective than had been anticipated. LeMay now wanted to strip the B-29s of defensive armaments and shift to area bombing by night at lower altitude. Given the state of Japanese radar and night fighter defences this would reduce losses and increase the weight of bombs that could be delivered, especially as the lower altitude would also avoid the problems of bombing accurately because of the powerful jet stream over Japan, a weather phenomenon that had only recently been discovered, largely as a result of the problems the B-29s had encountered. These new attacks would also put the emphasis on the use of incendiaries since Japanese cities featured a high percentage of wooden buildings that would be highly susceptible to such attacks. LeMay was also hoping that with airfields in Korea and Okinawa it might be possible to bring USAAF B-17s and B-24s, and RAF Lancasters and Lincolns into the battle, further increasing the rain of explosives and incendiaries falling on Japan [6].
Broken down into its simplest terms the blockade and bombing plan would strip the Japanese population of food, water and shelter, exposing them to starvation and disease. This would in turn wreck Japanese industry and leave the military incapable of mounting an effective defence against an amphibious assault. In the decades since the plan has been branded as inhumane, or even a war crime by some. To President Dewey however the responsibility rested squarely on the Japanese government, they could end the suffering of their people at any time by surrendering and If even the deprivations caused by the conventional bombing and blockade were not enough, then assuming it worked the atomic bomb would be used, as often as needed to break Japan. Thus the plan to lay waste to Japan’s cities was endorsed, either the Japanese will would break or they would die, there was no third option on offer [7].
[1] The details of what Dewey and the Democrats domestic compromise might look like I leave to others to discuss.
[2] The two countries are diverging in too many ways to sustain the close relationship from the early part of the war, and that may be for the best, certainly from the British point of view.
[3] It’s getting chilly in Europe…
[4] Downfall is looking less and less appealing.
[5] And this will probably lead to more Japanese casualties than OTL, even including the A-Bombs.
[6] LeMay basically intends to level Japan before any US troops set foot in Japan.
[7] So will Japan crack or face utter destruction?
That's a brutal plan, but the Japanese leadership wanted a brutal war so what can you do.
As far as Dewey and a Democratic Congress deal making, I imagine reducing business regulations is his right wing priority and he makes concessions on federal spending to get it.
As far as Dewey and a Democratic Congress deal making, I imagine reducing business regulations is his right wing priority and he makes concessions on federal spending to get it.
Do you really believe that a fleet carrying four corps could pass through Formosa Strait and sail across the East China Sea (a three-day voyage, minimum) without ever being noticed?
Or that Japanese radio monitors would not detect and track the all the signals generated by this fleet? (No, the fleet cannot maintain radio silence; not if the carriers are operating aircraft, nor with hundreds of ships moving in close order by night.)
This fleet would be larger than the fleet for Operation NEPTUNE (D-Day): more troops to be landed, and all supplies for further operations have to be carried with the landing force, because the nearest base of supply is 1,200 km away.
ITTL, as in OTL, Japan would be very short of petroleum fuel. Japan had considerable domestic supplies of coal. And a very large part of Japan's merchant fleet burned coal. US submarines and minelaying destroyed most of Japan's shipping, but there was a significant amount left, Even near the end of the war OTL, there were still many coal-fired freighters operating between Japan, Korea, and occupied China, i.e. in the waters which the invasion fleet would have to pass through.
OTL, the Japanese airstrikes had no great difficulties locating the Allied fleets off Okinawa, 600 km from their bases in Kyushu in the open ocean. The entrance to Korea Strait is only 100 km from Kyushu.
A carrier task group (20-30 fast vessels) in open seas can maneuver evasively. A fleet of hundreds of slow transports and landing craft, in confined waters? Not so much.
I note that in the Original Timeline, the Germans ran several ships with almost complete impunity (a couple of the big German ships got dented in the final stretch by aircraft dropped naval mines, as I understand it) through the English Channel in early 1942, as part of 'Operation Cerebus'.
But that was the original timeline and this is this timeline.
But that was the original timeline and this is this timeline.
Last edited:
Did the US consider Biological weapons like Anthrax or crop diseases against the Japanese?
Considering they had plans to use them against Germany, I would think yes.
Problem #1: Traditional Japanese culture holds that to surrender is the greatest shame one can perform.
Problem #2: How to punish the political authority of a nation without targeting the ordinary people is still a major hurdle in the 21st century, let alone in the age where aerial bombing had only just reached 'maturity'.
nbcman
Donor
They definitely considered chemical defoliants against Japan; see this article on the development of those defoliants such as Vegetable Killer Acid
In 1945, the United States Proposed Dumping Weed Killer on Japan
The Army created at least nine potential weapons containing phenoxyacetics. Of the options, LN-8 performed best in tests and went into mass production.
nationalinterest.org
And the US did research the use of rice blast virus and chemical agents tailored against rice in the 1950s
United States herbicidal warfare research - Wikipedia
I wonder how far the British got with the production of Anthrax cakes for Operation Vegetarian. OTL, we had 5 million ready by spring 1944.