Pearl Harbor before Barbarossa

WI either the sanctions Japan occured earlier so that Pearl Harbor happened in December 1940 or Hitler was persuaded he needed to start the invasion of Russia in May rather than June and attacked Stalin May 1942.

Assume Hitler still goes to war with the US
 
PH isn't going to happen more than a couple of months earlier than it did, and I can't see Hitler holding off on Russia a whole year.
 
Ends

Japan went to war on the assumption that there would be a "reverse Versailles" soon, after Germany defeated the USSR probably within Yamamoto 6 months deadline. The Japanese actions were meant to size a better negotiating position, not to fully defeat the US. without Barbarossa there are no conditions for Pearl. When the IJN carriers sailed for Pearl, the Panzers were still moving towards Moscow. The Russians counterattacked before the IJN striked, but in the conditions of early December 1941, not in time to cancel the attack.
 

sharlin

Banned
Also the IJN didn't have its full compliment of carriers and any strike would have been weaker than the OLT Pearl Harbour attack.
 
I don't think the USN was forward based in 1940 so the IJN would have to go after san diego to get the fleet. Even if they had the range. I doubt they'd be that suicidal...
 

Hoist40

Banned
The US Fleet went to Hawaii in May 1940 as part of a training exercise and that is when Roosevelt ordered it to stay there. So it was forward deployed in December 1940.

Also this was prior to Roosevelt splitting the US Fleet into the Atlantic Fleet and Pacific Fleet and sending ships from the Pacific to the Atlantic so there might be more ships in Hawaii in December 1940 then in December 1941.
 
Okay sorry. Though I doubt the IJN would have been ready to pull a pearl harbour in dec 1940. It would onky be a couple of months after the british attack on tarranto, so probably not enough time to come up with the modified torpedos let alone the battleplan for the attack.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
The US Fleet went to Hawaii in May 1940 as part of a training exercise and that is when Roosevelt ordered it to stay there. So it was forward deployed in December 1940.

Also this was prior to Roosevelt splitting the US Fleet into the Atlantic Fleet and Pacific Fleet and sending ships from the Pacific to the Atlantic so there might be more ships in Hawaii in December 1940 then in December 1941.

Admiral Richardson did not have the fleet at Pearl, but at another Hawaii harbor. You need Kimmel in Feb 1941 to have a Pearl Harbor.
 
I'd been thinking of posting a WI Pearl Harbor December 7th 1940 scenario, so its a coincidence that someone else did it just yesterday!

For me the interesting WI, is what if Stalin's WW2 plan had worked out? Stalin had expected WW2 to play out like WW1 and planned to keep the USSR while the capitalist west destroyed itself. He would then step in to take the spoils hopefully in conjunction with a post-war revolutionary wave.

I think its an interesting military question of whether the Western allies could launch an amphibious assault on the european continent against the full-weight of the nazi army. The US army would have to grow to Soviet-sized proportions. If Japan attacks PH in 1940, Hitler will declare war on the USA as in OTL. If anything the case for going to war with the USA is much stronger for Hitler in 1940 when the UK stands alone, than in 1941 when his Moscow attack is faltering. Hitler launches a massive Middle Eastern offensive in mid-1941 following his Balkans campaign, in order to finish off the UK before the US can intervene in sufficient numbers. West Africa provides the closest possible geographical location for a buildup of US ground forces. US industrial might should be enough to eventually secure the southern Mediterranean and air superiority over Europe. Since in this timeline Turkey is either occupied or an Axis, one possible invasion route is across the Dardanelles into the Balkans. The war might eventually have to be resolved by atomic weapons. In OTL the US army reached 15 million by 1945, but was never fully engaged.

Another interesting question is how much does Stalin's best case scenario actually benefit the USSR? Soviet industry is in much better shape having not been devastated by the war. But the military, while not devastated by the horrific casualties, is less combat-hardened and resembles more the army of 1940 that could hardly handle Finland rather than the victorious army in Berlin. The Western allies are far less sympathetic to a USSR that sat the war out and are unlikely to accept Soviet moves into E.Europe as easily. Perhaps in 1945-6 the Soviets, at allied request, conduct an August Storm style campaign in Eastern Europe against already exhausted Nazi forces. The other thing is that Communist partisans are far less likely to play as leading roles in the resistance movements without the blessing of the comintern. Thus the European Communist parties enjoy far less prestige than they do in OTL.
 
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