Nope, I am not convinced. The Northern Route is the way to go.
If the US can retake Guam (to secure the LOS to Australia) there is little benefit of taking the Central or Southern Routes (or worse yet, both as was the historical case).
While the islands of the north are steep-sided and volcanic so are the islands of the south. We build airfields on them.
The legendary fog of the reason is a problem, however blind-landing gear was coming on line and it is reasonable to expect it could have been speeded up. The fog them becomes a huge smoke screen to protect our bases. Our bombers can take off through the fog, bomb the Japanese using radar to find their cities and get back to base day or night, fog or no fog.
Further we would have the Japanese on the horns of a dilemma. They would have to commit to the ASW war in the South as well as supporting their armies, or go north to try to recapture the islands and stop the bombing. A tough decision.
As I mentioned, the bonus would be pinching the Soviets off from marching into Japan.
Oh, in any event, assigning the very-long range Liberators to the Navy would probably be a good idea.
If the US can retake Guam (to secure the LOS to Australia) there is little benefit of taking the Central or Southern Routes (or worse yet, both as was the historical case).
While the islands of the north are steep-sided and volcanic so are the islands of the south. We build airfields on them.
The legendary fog of the reason is a problem, however blind-landing gear was coming on line and it is reasonable to expect it could have been speeded up. The fog them becomes a huge smoke screen to protect our bases. Our bombers can take off through the fog, bomb the Japanese using radar to find their cities and get back to base day or night, fog or no fog.
Further we would have the Japanese on the horns of a dilemma. They would have to commit to the ASW war in the South as well as supporting their armies, or go north to try to recapture the islands and stop the bombing. A tough decision.
As I mentioned, the bonus would be pinching the Soviets off from marching into Japan.
Oh, in any event, assigning the very-long range Liberators to the Navy would probably be a good idea.