Pacific War, 1954

MacCaulay

Banned
Just a crazy thought I had at work last night...

...what if the Pacific War (Japan vs. The Known World) had been fought not in the mid-40s but in the mid-50s?

Say...the Japanese decide that in order to accomplish their goals they'll wait for a few years and build up their forces before striking against their enemies and 1954 is the year that all those conflicting problems come to a head.

What would the Japanese Navy and Air Force look like in the mid-50s? How would a post-European War world respond?
 
It would depend whose team they are on, and how ww2 ended without them.... do they still have positions in China, Vietnam, etc? Have they gone buddy buddy with the Russians, or have they made up with the west... as a neutral who stayed out of the war; their affections would be highly desired by both sides

I assume this butterflies away the Korean war since it will still be Japanese territory?

If you could give a little more background into how they got by the 13 years I could answer your question
 

MacCaulay

Banned
Basically, I'm going with the assumption that the European War ended with a German defeat on more-or-less similar terms to OTL. (I don't care how realistic that is. That's how I'm positing it.)

The Japanese basically kind of sit out this whole thing and are politically not really wanting to side with either the Soviets or the West. So you've got them trying to make a third Bloc in the Pacific by taking what they want while the West and Soviets are staring at each other over Europe.
 

pnyckqx

Banned
Just a crazy thought I had at work last night...

...what if the Pacific War (Japan vs. The Known World) had been fought not in the mid-40s but in the mid-50s?

Say...the Japanese decide that in order to accomplish their goals they'll wait for a few years and build up their forces before striking against their enemies and 1954 is the year that all those conflicting problems come to a head.

What would the Japanese Navy and Air Force look like in the mid-50s? How would a post-European War world respond?
A lot of this would depend on some butterflies that would be generated by Japan not entering WWII.

Does the US enter the European war?

Does Japan still have an alliance with the other Axis powers?

Does the embargo against Japan still happen?

(I'm assuming that Japan DOESN'T go into Manchuria, right?)

If the embargo still happens, I don't see how Japan can last until 1954 without using force to get needed resources.
 
Basically, I'm going with the assumption that the European War ended with a German defeat on more-or-less similar terms to OTL. (I don't care how realistic that is. That's how I'm positing it.)

The Japanese basically kind of sit out this whole thing and are politically not really wanting to side with either the Soviets or the West. So you've got them trying to make a third Bloc in the Pacific by taking what they want while the West and Soviets are staring at each other over Europe.

If they still get their land grabs in China and Vietnam I can't see them really wanting anything else, especially when the power of nukes will have been demonstrated by the US... I can't see them launching an independant offensive without being in either the Soviet Camp or the Western Camp

Their non involvement; does that mean whatever rump of china is still under the nationalists?

in 1950 whilst having to maintain an occupation of japan the US peacetime army had 10 poorly equipped and unready divisions... it might be even lower in your scenario since 4 of those 10 divisions where involved in occupation in the east... against the west Japan might be able to do a considerable land grab if they kept their army huge and mobilized and somehow not tied down in guerilla war... however; they would run the awfully high chance of being nuked a lot
 
What would the strategic/diplomatic background for such a conflict be? What's happened in China from 1941-present? What about the colonial possessions in Eastern Asia--are they independent or still colonies? Is the cold war going on, and if so who would the Japanese align themselves with? Why is Japan going to war (is it for the same resource-related reasons of OTL?)? Whether Japan would even consider going to war would depend a lot on those specifics.
 
I see what you're going for. I'd be interested in what would happen too if you did the Pacific War with 1950s tech.

But you've somehow got to keep the Cold War out of it (hard) and somehow keep nukes out of it (almost impossible if you're keeping the Cold War out of it, so no USSR deterrent).
 
I see what you're going for. I'd be interested in what would happen too if you did the Pacific War with 1950s tech.

But you've somehow got to keep the Cold War out of it (hard) and somehow keep nukes out of it (almost impossible if you're keeping the Cold War out of it, so no USSR deterrent).

Well, it can be done with a harsher war for the soviets,although winning they recover more slowly from the horrors of the war and Stalin ( controlling quite the same of the east Europe ) tries not to go in the bad side of the WAllies, after all he still has a bad neighbor ( the Japanese ).

The problem with this scenery is that I can imagine a renewed alliance and a fast curb stomping of the Japanese ... and a ( beginning later than OTL ) Cold War.

If one side has nukes ( or more than one ) I see this scenery quite difficult ( not impossible, if they have not used them yet )

EDIT: I really woud like to see the IJN planes in that war ( second generation jets made of wood or something like that? mite mitai! )
 
Mac - I just don't see it easily.

Say they decide to wait. That means that almost certainly they're not at war with China etc. and their war-party that couped the government turned out to be paper hawks. By the time the 50s roll around, the competing interests of the USSR and the USA within the KMT government are so deeply entrenched that to go to war with China is to invite an instant smackdown from both. It would be really really hard to justify as well; it's not an opportunistic attack that later becomes a war of desperation as OTL, it's deliberate suicide.

Say they are at war with KMT on schedule. That means the problems that forced them into an early war are still all there - allied embargoes, expensive occupation, manpower drainage, and no oil and no rubber.
They have to get those resources to defeat China, and to get them without someone trading it to them (and to be honest, can they even afford them in the quantity needed?) they have to attack someone. The Dutch, probably, but that means the English and the French too. And the Americans, who were looking towards containing Japan for some time.
Therefore schedule similar to OTL.

Say they manage to get some kind of neutrality from the US in regards to Chinese meddling and manage to get Chiang to ally with them vs. the Soviets, or something like that. Chiang would be in trouble and very likely the Japanese lose their mainland Empire quite rapidly. If they go for quick peace, and decide to try again in '54, the Soviets are probably indirectly controlling China anyway, so it's suicide, and doesn't fulfil the conditions of "Japan vs. World". Early China+USSR vs. Japan is even worse, though it makes the Soviets potentially weaker in the pacific in '54 (Chiang is coversely stronger).

The only thing I can think of is:

1. The USA ignores China and picks Japan, perhaps in response to greater Soviet successes/meddling in China; moreover, the Americans are supporting the Japanese with oil and rubber and whatever else they need through reasonably cheap trade deals. That way the Japanese can declare opportunistic war AND not be forced to attack the WAllies early.

At the same time the USSR has to be preoccupied with something else (Germany?) AND China can't be an outrightly communist state (USSR has to fight for them to save face). Perhaps Soviet interventions in the 20s and 30s lead to some kind of permanent results, the KMT's left wing is not purged, KMT stays divided and open to Soviet influence;

In 194x, the Germans attack the USSR as per OTL, to make things simple, and the USSR does slightly worse/panicks more, leading them to leave China unsupported and without guarantees. The Japanese pick this moment, and the Americans back them for now.

By '54 some of China remains still unconquered (with Soviet support), Germany is no more, the US has rapproached with the USSR a tiny bit, and Japan's atrocious behaviour has become widely known. Embargo, attack on war-weary WAllies for oil and rubber, Pacific war in '54.

I don't know if I like this one, though. As i said, it's not easy.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
How far are they down the bench did they sit?

Are they in Manchuria?

China?

Formosa?

If they are in Manchiria, the Red Army will have mopped them up. Stalin would not be willing to have a well armed Japan along his frontier, not when he had a tool like the May 1945 Red Army in hand. To quote a very different character in a movie "I'll have a war with S.O.B.s in six weeks and I'll make it look like their fault!"

If they are in China, they are done by 1954. There wouldn't be enough living Japanese males left after nine more years of war, not when the U.S. is supplying the Nationalists with a whole pile of lethal toys and Mao is getting the same from the USSR.

If they are just in Formosa there is a CHANCE that they have avoided war with either the USSR or the West. Not a great one, but a chance.

In any case the IJA and IJN are not any sort of a factor by 1954. Whoever the Japanese attack, be it the U.S., UK or USSR just turns anywhere from 1-5 Japanese cities into green glass.
 
Does Japan have nukes of their own in this scenario?

Assuming the A-Bomb is used in the European War (probably the US against the Germans), they'll know it's possible.

If there's a Cold War, perhaps the Soviets supply the Japanese with nuclear aid in order to make them more likely to cause trouble with the West in the Pacific.

(They'll hope that they can deter the Japanese with their own nukes or much greater conventional power.)
 
If it's 1954, the Phillippines is already independent (it was planned for 1944 prior to the Japanese attack) and European states are decolonizing. Many of them have been bled white by the war and/or have problems closer to home.

If the Japanese avoid the Phillippines (which will likely host US troops at Subic Bay or other locations) for the time being, they could rampage through recently-decolonized areas or knock over/vassalize weak post-colonial regimes.

Heck, if they take out Hong Kong, Macau, and Singapore, they could gain a lot of popularity with legit nationalists and with India, which has just gotten out from under Britain.

A Japanese-Indian Asian Axis? Whoa.
 
The Pacific War, with jets, and the B-36, with a little B-47 action on the side. Well, we wouldn't have to take the Marianas to bomb Japan; could do it from Alaska. Which means Alaska would be a target for the Japanese. Can you bump it back a few years so that F-8 Crusaders and A-4 Skyhawks can be part of the war?
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Does Japan have nukes of their own in this scenario?

Assuming the A-Bomb is used in the European War (probably the US against the Germans), they'll know it's possible.

If there's a Cold War, perhaps the Soviets supply the Japanese with nuclear aid in order to make them more likely to cause trouble with the West in the Pacific.

(They'll hope that they can deter the Japanese with their own nukes or much greater conventional power.)

The Soviets despised the Japanese. Japan had scarred the Russian collective soul in 1904 and Japan had been the last outside power to accept the inevitible and withdraw forces at the end of the Revolution (in 1922). The Soviets giving the Bomb to anyone is almost unimaginable, this becomes near ASB when it is Japan.

Independently the Japanese have virtually no chance of developing the Bomb. The British, who had been part of Manhattan didn't get on the board until 1952. The French didn't get a weapon until 1960. Even IITL the Japanese are still a resource poor (actually just POOR) island nation. None of the players in the Nuclear Club have any interest in providing the Japanese with a weapon or plans for one, and Japanese HUMIT was simply dreadful. Combine all those together and there is no chance in the world that the Japanese have the Bomb by 1954.

Something that frequently is missed when Japan is discussed is that it was NOT, in any way, a significant industrial nation before the MacArthur reset of the whole damned country. It was capable of excellent innovation, but it was seriously far behind the West in engineering on pretty much every level. The country also had a very poor balance of trade, with a currency that was not accepted by foreign states as a trade currency. Effectively the Yen was useless outside of Japan (and the Japanese controlled parts of Asia). Before the war the only real sources of foreign exchange for Japan were in cheap toys & knick-knacks along with silk. The introduction of lower cost man-made substitutes for silk nearly destroyed Japan's economy. Nothing IITL is going to change the Japanese economic weakness.

The Japanese economic powerhouse of today is a result of free trade encouraged by the U.S. and Western Europe. The U.S. NEEDED Japan to be strong economically to counterbalance the PRC. IITL that will not be the case. Japan will, quite properly, be seen as a serious rival and likely a threat to American control of the Pacific. The only way the Japanese are not seen as a treat is if their military is so small that it can't be a threat. That scenario, of course, would totally derail the POD under discussion, so it isn't in play.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
Does Japan have nukes of their own in this scenario?

Assuming the A-Bomb is used in the European War (probably the US against the Germans), they'll know it's possible.

My thought is that the whole nuclear clock is pushed back 4 or 5 years, as the US didn't develop it for Europe.

Then we'll just say that what nuclear weapons the US does have (like...8 or 10) are being earmarked for the Red Army should it decide to go apeshit and aren't being let go for use by SAC in the Pacific.

I see what you're going for. I'd be interested in what would happen too if you did the Pacific War with 1950s tech.

Right on the money!

The problem with this scenery is that I can imagine a renewed alliance and a fast curb stomping of the Japanese ... and a ( beginning later than OTL ) Cold War.

This started in my mind with a photo I had of a Wessex helicopter on the deck of a carrier with an island in the background while troops were getting loaded onto it. And the caption popped into my mind: "British troops load onto helicopters for assault landings in Japan, 1957."

Then from there it was this whole thing where the Japanese basically attack south, capturing the Dutch East Indies, slamming the Philippines, basically everything they actually did in 1941 but with mid-50s technology. My only big change was that instead of striking Pearl Harbour they'd sink a carrier group or something near Midway. So...roughly what happened in OTL without China and without Pearl Harbour.

Then the Soviets decide that it's better for them politically and militarily if the West takes on the Japanese so they sit it out as there doesn't appear to be any IJA troops on their soil. While the West is busy doing that, Stalin figures, the Red Army can finish it's consolidation in Western Europe.
 
Just a crazy thought I had at work last night...

...what if the Pacific War (Japan vs. The Known World) had been fought not in the mid-40s but in the mid-50s?

Say...the Japanese decide that in order to accomplish their goals they'll wait for a few years and build up their forces before striking against their enemies and 1954 is the year that all those conflicting problems come to a head.

What would the Japanese Navy and Air Force look like in the mid-50s? How would a post-European War world respond?

Werent they spending something silly like over 30% of GDP on their military by the late 1930's?

Somehow i doubt Japan would be much of a threat come 1950 or 1955, they just didn't have the economy to support their military long term, especially if they stayed in china.
 
European states are decolonizing. Many of them have been bled white by the war and/or have problems closer to home.
The thing is, the decolonisation of at least of the Dutch East Indies, but probably also the other colonial powers in the region, is directly related to the occupation and fighting during the second world war. The decolonisation of Indonesia, which is probably unavoidable, would look very different. If there was no war in the east, I could see colonial troops being used in the battles in Europe, probably while promising various degrees of autonomy. This will change both the war against Germany as well as the future war in the pacific.

If you want to talk about a delayed Pacific war, you should first talk about the war against Nazi Germany, how it was won and what happened in the European colonies in the east during that war.
 
Werent they spending something silly like over 30% of GDP on their military by the late 1930's?

Somehow i doubt Japan would be much of a threat come 1950 or 1955, they just didn't have the economy to support their military long term, especially if they stayed in china.

Right on the money IMHO.

By the '50s the Japanese economy would have imploded.
This would have resulted in the IJA having most of the scarce funds, with would result in basically a huge, lightly armed mob.
The IJN would probably consist of mostly '30s and early '40s carriers with several battleships around.

So, in essence a bit like Stuart Slade's depiction of Japan in his TBO-verse.
In that timeline Japan has conquered China without turning against the Allies and staying out of WWII while digesting more and more of China.
One interesting tidbit in his timeline is that the IJN develops and operates quite successfull jet floatplanes, a bit like the F2Y Sea Dart.

I don't remember why, but that probably has something to do that in the case of war (which is pretty much bound to be nuclear at first) their carriers would be targets. Also their old carriers are probably too cramped to operate decent jet fighters.
 
If the Japanese avoid the Phillippines (which will likely host US troops at Subic Bay or other locations) for the time being, they could rampage through recently-decolonized areas or knock over/vassalize weak post-colonial regimes.

Heck, if they take out Hong Kong, Macau, and Singapore, they could gain a lot of popularity with legit nationalists and with India, which has just gotten out from under Britain.

A Japanese-Indian Asian Axis? Whoa.

No way, exhausted or not, the European nations are going to let their recently decolonised holdings get colonised by somebody else.

Sure, at first the Japanese will be popular with the Malayans, Indonesians etc, but that'll change quickly once those will find out the Japanese just want to replace their former European colonisators.
 
It's pretty much impossible, the Japanese strategy in WW2 was a mixture of insanity, desperation and pragmatism in that order. To do against several enemies with at least two of them nuclear powered with no large second front for them to worry about is lunacy. And by that point it's unlikely the embargo wouldn't have crippled them or the Soviets would have finished them off.
 
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