I look forward to seeing this, there is plenty of data out there that will show what it would take to seize and occupy Hawaii. The problem with the overall Japanese strategic plan, as well as many tactical plans (like Midway/Aleutians) is that for the plan to work the enemy has to read and follow the script closely. If your war plan depends on this you are screwed before you start. This was not just in WWII with Japan vs USA or Germany vs USSR, ask "shock and awe" Rummy.
PC: Attack on Pearl Harbor as an invasion of Hawaii?
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None - part of the discussion group thinks its impossible, let alone could ever reach 50/50.
Taking the NEI and sitting on the defensive is a 100% chance Japan is defeated. How can the odds of the Hawaii first strategy be more problematical than a 100% chance of defeat? In terms of your question, the solution was to drop the shipping allocation to the Home Islands. Historically the military decided that 1.6 million tons was the minimum to sustain the economy. Under the Hawaii first theory, the Japanese war economy doesn't matter anyways, because the US has to negotiate by its own choice, and whether the Japanese Home Islands are producing at 10% of the US economy or 8%, that calculation won't change one bit. Drop that figure below the minimum amount, down to maybe 1 million tons.
The US wasn't going to let the Japanese have the southern resource areas. At most, the Americans might engage the Japanese premise of independence in Asia and break up the European empires there after the war. That's about as much as Japan could possibly imagine.
The IJN became irrelevant to the outcome of the war when the 20mm, 40mm and F6F Hellcat entered the fleet in numbers. That happened by mid 1943. Once that happened, the IJN was a fleet in being. Fleets in being don't need to burn 20 million barrels of oil per year.
The A-bomb was not a sure thing until Trinity went boom in July 1945. If the US is calculating strategy options in 1942 the A-bomb is a backup plan, not the plan.
As before, NEI first is a strawman argument to avoid the premise. You argue its "too risky" to something else, but you don't suggest taking the NEI alone can help Japan win the war. The point of wars is to win them, not lose them slowly, correct?
Why not have the POD be 203 BC with the Battle of Zama instead? Rewinding the POD is just another form of strawman argument - it's made to avoid discussing the premise. The POD is July 1941 with the US oil embargo. The Japanese military concludes that to have any shot of winning the war they need to take Hawaii immediately. That's the POD.
We haven't yet had a reason for the Japanese Imperial Council to take that decision, with the facts as they thought them, at that time. But, leaving that aside:
1) What do you think the Japanese will conclude they need to pull off a successful invasion immediately after the PH strike? Troops, shipping, additional warships, additional fuel and tankers.
2) Which of the offensives planned for December 1941-February 1942 have to be delayed until this operation is complete?
3) What would be the effect on Japan's ability to occupy the key southern resource areas of these delays, compounded by losses taken in the Hawaiian campaign?
Because it will profit Japan naught if it occupies the Hawaiian islands and doesn't get Borneo, Malaya and the DEI with at least the oil installations intact. It will lose the war even quicker than iOTL.
Logistics,logistics, and more logisti s..all oilers would be with this huge force, no oilers, or capital ships or cruisers to go after the prize of the resources of the DIE and Malaya, and Borneo.. no ammo reloads nearer than Truck. What if no fog and Japanese air attacks in PI arrive while CAP, up and airfields empty..
Is Hawaii more valuable than anything else?
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All this has been looked at up thread, and no definitive numbers have been arrived at, as far as I know. What has been determined, is that this needs to be looked at, and then posting of the sources will be done. Before that, though, we need to have an idea of which plan is actually going to go forward.
If we are using my first rough draft of a plan, no ground invasions of the PI, and no attacks against the UK/DEI. The air campaign against the PI should proceed as OTL, as the FEAF cannot be left intact.
Good questions, for down the road, but first things first. My "So called plan" involves occupation of the other Hawaiian islands, as soon after the OTL PH air raid as possible, along with IJA aircraft being ferried forward and staged to the Kauai and Molokai island airstrips. Getting Japanese boots on ground on all of the other islands is a top priority in my version, both to deny any and all access and use of these islands to the US forces, but to make use of them for Japan. Before your questions can be answered, we need to know what, if any, US forces were stationed on these other islands on Dec 7th. My plan is not the only one under discussion in this thread. My ASB forum thread, Invasion Hawaii, was created for discussion about my plan/campaign, but it isn't going to be moving forward very quickly, as I want to take my time and do things right, and this means research and time, plus the inevitable restarts/revisions, to get the worst of the bugs out and then, maybe, we can start looking beyond this, once we have some good numbers to work with.
You're asking good questions.
Well, we know that the Japanese didn't exactly get the SRA intact even in OTL, and shockingly, even the limited production they did manage to extract, they lacked the shipping to send home, so... No doubt that the OTL resource extraction is not going to be matched in this posited ATL, but then, the question remains, given somewhat less total resources extracted, do the Japanese even have the shipping capacity to get this home? Only in the case of them having a surplus of shipping over a reduced production is going to have any detrimental effect on their war effort.
Basically, they had a surplus of production in the SRA over and above what they could actually ship home, despite never reaching or exceeding pre-war production levels, because Japan lacked the shipping to haul even the limited production they did achieve in OTL back to Japan. When I have time, and my health decides to behave, I am going to want to take a look at this aspect, and compare vs expectations of a latter start date for the SRA, and the possibility of lesser production than OTL
AFAIK, no invasion convoy was ever discovered in transit in the Pacific.
The notion that the taking of Borneo is delayed 4-6 months is absurd. The others are debatable. What is far less debatable is that between the NEI and Hawaii, the window for Hawaii closed while the window for NEI was still open.
Going to war with the US in the first place was the insane risk. What you're suggesting would be like Hannibal going to war with Rome and then not crossing the Alps to crush them at Cannae because he didn't like the risky logistics.
Remove the population of Hawaii to California or Japan using (a) the returning supply ships which are otherwise coming back empty and (b) the 500,000 tons (or so) of idle Japanese passenger liners, (these were unsuitable for military or civilian economy purposes but handy for moving civilians).
Here's a better question. If Tokyo has 100,000 US citizens in it, will the USAAF drop an A-bomb on it?
The principle is that the better the position the more chance the US will talk. No one is saying the US will even talk. But, when Hannibal went over the Alps, he sure as well knew that Rome was less likely to talk about peace terms with him sitting in Spain than with his army in Italy.
The underlined is the caveat that confirms you yourself do not believe the NEI strategy, in isolation, mattered to the outcome of the war.
This is the continuation of the above caveat - again you avoid stating that the NEI matters to the outcome. You just say, "continue the war", as if (a) there is some prize in losing the war more slowly and (b) there is some connection between the NEI and the USN 1944 blitzkrieg across the Pacific, (like the one was going to slow the other down at all?).
Better to lose in 12 months and 200,000 dead than 45 months and 2,000,000 dead.
The IJN is ineffective after 1942 so 1941/42 was the time to fight all out, not later. Potential ship losses in 1941/42 are therefore irrelevant to the calculation, as this was the only period of parity.
Holding Hawaii eases Japanese perimeter defense by preventing the US from developing a counterattack in the South Pacific in 1942, perhaps even 1943. If - even better - Australia goes for a separate peace, then the entire southern perimeter would be neutralized.
Unconditional surrender doesn't get worse than unconditional surrender, so this is another strawman argument.
Seapower is exercised by navies. If Japan takes Hawaii there is no navy that can prevent it from taking the NEI. Mahan, 101.
July 1941 is a reasonable POD.
Direct invasion? 80,000 troops.
Luzon would have to be delayed, the Civilian shipping pool would have to be smaller.
If successful at Hawaii, none. If unsuccessful at Hawaii, none. In either case, the USN had no intention of defending the Malaya Barrier.
First off, so what if the war ends faster?
Second off, what evidence is there that the war ends faster? The USN counteroffensive can only begin in 1944, and when it starts whether the IJN is idle or active will make no difference.
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A direction invasion requires x3 effective defenders so you want 80,000 troops. You're not bringing horses for a beach assault, so call it 600,000 tons of shipping. Oahu has coastal artillery so you need to do a night landing under smoke cover to negate it.
Forget Luzon but continue with Malaya and Borneo. Drop the civilian pool allocation from 1.6 million to 1 million tons to get the shipping you need.
Very little. Battalion or less strength per island. There were plans to sabotage the outer air fields with explosives to prevent use.
How do NEI resources allow Japan to win the war? By 1944 US aircraft were shooting down Japanese aircraft at a rate of 4:1 while out producing them 4:1. That's a 16:1 advantage. The US lost maybe what, 5,000 aircraft in 1944 in the Pacific? They produced 100,000 aircraft. There's nothing the NEI is bringing to the table that changes that equation one inch.
While most of your other points are arguable was is not arguable is that the the Invasion of the Gilbert Islands is November 1943 (first step in Central Pacific Offensive), the Invasion of Attu/Kiska is Summer 1943, the first major raid involving the Essex class and Independence class ships is Summer 1943 (Marcus Island and Wake Island), and for that matter, the Invasion of Sicily, involving a landing of 7 divisions, is July 1943
If Hawaii is seriously threatened or taken, a major USN invasion can be mounted in the summer or fall of 1943 at the cost of operations in Europe. Hawaii would certainly take priority over Europe in the eyes of the United States.
July 1941 may be a reasonable time to have the POD but there still needs to be a reason for the Japanese decision.
So the invasion of the Philippines is delayed - can the assaults on Malaya, Borneo and the DEI still go ahead on schedule. IF not, then Japan will not be able to make any attempt at defending against the US and allies from 1943. The US can still attack in SW Asia, though I expect political pressure to liberate Hawaii asap.
The war ending faster seems a downside for Japan, though I suppose an ending before the A-bombs were ready and the Soviets invaded Manchuria and Korea might seem a good by-product.
You need horses to move artillery once you get it ashore. The likely invasion beaches are not within artillery range of the major garrison areas on Oahu or the other major objectives. Or the Japanese need to lift a lot of trucks. A night landing has its own problems indeed was rarely conducted. The Japanese did one at Malaya and it was full of problems offset only by the fact that the British lacked the troops to fully defend the beach (Kota Bharu) and was a brigade sized affair.
Do those merchant ships have sufficient range on average to steam from say Truk or the Marshal Islands (nearest protected anchorages for refueling) to Hawaii and back?
It should be noted that aside for Maui and Hawaii, none of the other islands had any particularly useful airfields, fuel storage, and their harbors are relatively small anchorages at best and port facilities are small in 1941. Hilo and Honolulu are the significant civilian ports and of course Honolulu requires taking Oahu. That leaves Hilo on the big island, which has a relatively small port in this time period (it gets expanded during the war as do facilities elsewhere). Lacking bulldozers in quantity, any seizure of other islands by the Japanese would require many weeks of labor to expand facilities using hand tools, requiring significant construction personnel. The local population could be forced to work, but population sizes vary and many of those people are going to hide or resist or both.
Cancelling Luzon gives you the troops (129,000 men) but it is 3347 nautical miles Tokyo to Honolulu, but only 1600 nautical miles Tokyo to Manila (and about half that from forward Japanese bases). There can be no land based air support, so its carriers or nothing. Cargo shipping for resupply takes twice as long if you are comparing Japan to Luzon, four times as long Formosa to Luzon.
The Gilberts and Aleutians were not major bases. When the USN counteroffensive got rolling was in February 1944 when it went straight at the Marshall Islands, followed by Truk and Saipan.
Hawaii would not take priority over the defeat of Germany. Hawaii could not be assaulted until sufficient number of CVL and CV types had commissioned to tackle its airpower backed by the IJN carrier fleet. If the USN were retaking Hawaii the outlying islands (Midway, Johnston, Palmyra) might be assaulted first, then Hawaii after that.
In AH threads the reason can be quite threadbare, just to set up the premise. In this case, something like the IJA and IJN concluding in July 1941 that the plan to take the NEI was insufficient to forcing a conclusion to the war and Hawaii needed to be taken in order to do so, (ie, what they should have realized anyways).
The idea of Borneo holding out must be some sort of joke I'm not getting - it's defenses in 1941 were negligible. Borneo's fall needs to be accelerated, the oil fields captured quickly, the ones not subject to immediate repair, (ie, higher priority than historical).
Luzon can be bypassed into 1942 - it was impossible to defend. IJN SLOC could use the Chinese side, (German convoys to Norway hugged the Norwegian coast to remain distant from British airpower all the way into 1945). Mindanao would need to be taken to blockade it.
NEI (Java) is a 2nd phase landing. It's scheduling is trickier and requires more analysis.
I'm not following how losing a shorter war than a longer one is a downside for Japan.
The frequency of IJA night assault landings is irrelevant - if there is an assault landing on Oahu, it has to come over the south shore, it has to be at night under cover of smoke, and it has to be 80,000 troops. Those criteria set the training standards from July 1941 - the earmarked divisions start training for the mission.
An objective a few miles inland does not require horses and trucks to assault. Artillery support would have to be naval gunfire.
Yes.
The outer island airfields could not match Oahu's airfields, but they might make up about 1/3rd or 1/2. The USAAF was constructing a series of B-17 bases, (not yet complete but possibly useable). Civilian authority could prevent the USAAF from flying off roads and whatnot, but not an invader.
Where are you getting 24,000 from? Because there were actually closer to 45,000.
Regarding the speed of defeat being a bug or bonus, it depends on whether you react as an ordinary person spared the firebombings and collapse of the economy. Or that of the elite who started the war. For the former it's a benefit, not so the latter? I'll think through the rest of your points when I've time and respond then.
OTL the American occupation of Japan was pretty benign. You can have many more executions and war crimes trials, execution of the emperor and exile of the imperial family, all the way to "Japanese will be a language only spoken in Hell" where the remaking of Japan goes further than democratization to eradication of cultural traditions, making English instruction mandatory from grade 1 on, even changing the side of the road you drive on and the numbering system for houses. It is not that unconditional surrender is the ultimate - it is what you do afterwards. For an example, who did better short and long term in germany, those in the US/UK/France zones or the Russian zone?
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