I still want to know what Japan is giving up to pull this off? Japan can’t just make trips, ships and supplies appear out of thin air.
They delay the SRA campaign and probably have to restructure Singapore and Burma as overland campaigns. It also probably means an earlier Ichi-go to make the land adjustments to the southeast Asian components of the SRA campaign.
So where do the resources to invade come from?
if that is all you have, that is what you use.
Where do the resources to occupy Hawaii come from ? (As far as I know Hawaii was a sink for resources not a gain. Unless you have need for a lot of Pineapples.
The strategic reserve the Japanese government squirreled away from purchases on the US markets from 1938-1940. They estimated they had 2 years operating tempo for war. They were wrong. It was more like 8 months, but it was enough for the SRA campaign. Hawaii will burn up 4 months, so their cushion just evaporated.
Frankly I think ultimately this screws Japan. As they will have to give something up for it and they [the US] just went from Germany first to Japan NOW. And I think you will find that the US pulls together an invasion fleet sooner then you may think. As priorities will change and the Atlantic will not get ANYTHING until Hawaii and California are both safe.
This does not follow, and I will explain in a moment.
After Japan proves they can invade Hawaii then the west coast will have “proof” that they can be attacked/invaded. So ALL effort goes to protecting the West Coast and retaking Hawaii. The only thing going East is things that are of NO use in the Pacific. At least until Hawaii is safe and even after that Germany will be a side show.
The B-17, until it is modified (B-38) is of no use in the Pacific except insofar as it can be used in the southwest Pacific and that means Australia, New Guinea and the Solomon Islands groups. That geography and region however, with the lack of a powerful surface fleet to escort amphibious forces, means shore based anti-ship strike units (Rikkos to the IJN, named after the G4 "Betty" bombers they flew which they nicknamed "Rikkos") to cover allied assault forces. That means a whole flock of medium bombers (A-20s, B-25s, A-26s and B-26s) and the only long ranged US fighter present that is worth a damn, the P-38.
As for the west coast, they get fighters and the Rikko treatment, too. The US is a powerful nation. The UK will get what she needs too, to stay in the war. It will just be weirder than in OTL. AAA, oil, tanks, liberty ships, raw stock materials for industry and more help in the Atlantic to beat down Mister U-boat, since the USN has nothing better to do until the new fleet can be built to replace the one lost during Walrus.
This also has consequences for the SRA campaign because it is there that the US fights right away. An airplane takes 90 days to build from mine to roll out. A tank about the same. Time to Australia is 4 weeks by ship. If the Japanese take 120 days after Hawaii to organize and figure the new SRA campaign out, that means they will be fighting a much tougher defense than even they expect as they close on Australia by August 1942.
My bete idee of
hanging onto Rabaul becomes practical and necessary. That reversal alone means the Japanese suddenly are in very very bad shape as they come to that party way too late. It, alone, shaves a whole year off the war. Geography drives a naval campaign. (Who said that? Mahan?)
Subs, subs and more subs.
If the Germans thought 1500 subs was something, what is Kaiser told to make along with liberty ships? From mine to hull in the water is 14 months in 1941. If it is Kaiserized, it can be 9 months (1944, only earlier). War of 1812 desperation? Any river bank that can claim a nearby railroad and a path to the sea, becomes a shipyard. Where is the bottleneck? Torpedoes. Goat Island? Fish don't work? Factor War of 1812 type desperation? Prison terms and private enterprise for all involved. Torpedo crisis still happens, but if that is the one weapon and the only one that sinks Japanese shipping THAT is your number 1 priority above everything. Albert Einstein's funny fish sees the light of day and American submariners learn to live with hydrogen peroxide as a fact of life. It takes time, about a year. Hawaii starves.
Actually the real question should be If Japan invades Hawaii does Germany win? As it helps Germany more then it helps Japan. As very little support is going to England and nothing will go to Russia. If you tell the American people that Hawaii is invaded and we can’t take it back because we don’t have enough resources then you try to give The USSR resources you will see such a backlash that you will end up with Roosevelt being Impeached.
FDR may be impeached anyway. But suppose he is not? Navy President and a Germany first guy. He will have a tough sell, but the Berlin maniac will help with his 11 December folly. The US will be at war with the Axis, so it is a given, that whoever is POTUS has to fix the Berlin maniac.
Fighters and medium bombers, troops and shipping is headed to Australia (RTL, this happened. First four months of the war, more stuff was headed to the Pacific and Australia than to the UK. Expect about the same.)
What can be headed to the UK way? Strategic bombers. Maritime patrol aircraft, fighters, raw stock, shipping and troops. You can train a US soldier in Egypt just as well as you can train him in California. So he picks up a few weird Britishisms? You go where the fight is, and you fight.
Russia needs oil, planes, railroad stock and trucks. What changes here? Nothing.
Australia changes, though. You know that dirt road from Alice Springs to Darwin? The AlCan highway was one Pacific War project. Guess where a lot of construction troops should be headed? More trucks, planes, oil, rolling stock, railroad rails and sleepers and so forth.
MacArthur? He's cooling his heels, in the Presidio, as Sam Rayburn fires him for not getting with the program.
So Germany will get a boost as the US won’t be bombing them. The US Navy will not be hunting German subs as much. The US will be sending a LOT less to England and NOTHING to the USSR.
Nope. Rainbow 5 is still in effect. Marshall has not gone anywhere, neither has Stinson or Knox. It may look a bit different (For example; the British 8th Army may have an American component instead of Torch.), but the usual outlines of a Mediterranean, Italy first, and then invade France outline geographically follows. SEAPOWER is defined by coastal proximities. Where navies touch shores expect invasions. Goes for airpower, too, in a similar fashion. Where the fighter bomber reaches, expect an amphibious assault soon thereafter.
So while Germany will still ultimately lose unless they get very lucky the reality is they will do better the originally and they have a very slight chance to come to terms.
Berlin goes poof.
Oh and I would expect that Germany could avoid war with the US in this case if they don’t declare war in the US as congress will never declare war on Germany until California is safe and Hawaii liberated.
This presupposes that the Berlin maniac shows different behavior from OTL. I have seen nothing in any credible circumstance that deviates from or indicates he will not make his 11 December 1941 mistake. He's toast. It just depends who gets him first, Churchill or Stalin. And with
Manhattan, the US is in the hunt, too.
credit; not my research McP.)
