WI: Japanese Victory at Midway

Ian_W

Banned
Correct.

Japan was outmatched completely by the US in WWII. They didn’t realize that fighting a democracy was different than the imperial wars with Russia or Germany. Once they decided to launch a surprise attack on the US they were in it until the US decided the war was over.

"Should hostilities once break out between Japan and the United States, it is not enough that we take Guam and the Philippines, nor even Hawaii and San Francisco. To make victory certain, we would have to march into Washington and dictate the terms of peace in the White House. I wonder if our politicians, among whom armchair arguments about war are being glibly bandied about in the name of state politics, have confidence as to the final outcome and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices."

1941 Letter, Admiral Yamamoto to Ryoichi Sasakawa
 

SsgtC

Banned
"Should hostilities once break out between Japan and the United States, it is not enough that we take Guam and the Philippines, nor even Hawaii and San Francisco. To make victory certain, we would have to march into Washington and dictate the terms of peace in the White House. I wonder if our politicians, among whom armchair arguments about war are being glibly bandied about in the name of state politics, have confidence as to the final outcome and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices."

1941 Letter, Admiral Yamamoto to Ryoichi Sasakawa
Actually, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't end even then. To use a fake Yamamoto quote, "to invade the United States would prove most difficult because behind every blade of grass is an American with a rifle."

Whether he actually said that or not (probably not) it's a true statement.
 
Don't all scenarios come to an end once/shortly after the US deploys nukes? Not like Midway stops atomic research.
Not necessarily. The US needs a good base to launch it from, and air supremacy to ensure the bomb gets through.
 
Actually, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't end even then. To use a fake Yamamoto quote, "to invade the United States would prove most difficult because behind every blade of grass is an American with a rifle."

Whether he actually said that or not (probably not) it's a true statement.

I think that was said by a German army officer when the German navy was talking about invading the US before WWI.
 
Not necessarily. The US needs a good base to launch it from, and air supremacy to ensure the bomb gets through.
And a loss at Midway blocks that?
They can’t win without Pearl Harbor, either.
They can win by staying out of the war. Certainly the necessary retreat in China to Korea and the economically-forced disarmament would require a change in Japanese government, with the emperor taking the lead.

As for Midway, a total Japanese victory would still deplete aircraft, men, fuel and ships. Meanwhile, the USN will have all four still, and more coming in.
 
Not necessarily. The US needs a good base to launch it from, and air supremacy to ensure the bomb gets through.

And even if the US lost big at Midway, they would have fully functional bases in the Mariana’s by July ‘45.
 
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They can’t win without Pearl Harbor, either.

IMHO, they can. Maybe. Skip invading French Indochina, go straight for the DEI, and leave both the US & the UK alone. FDR won’t have the votes to declare war (it may be close) and the UK won’t declare war on Japan w/o the US.
 
IMHO, they can. Maybe. Skip invading French Indochina, go straight for the DEI, and leave both the US & the UK alone. FDR won’t have the votes to declare war (it may be close) and the UK won’t declare war on Japan w/o the US.
That leaves two hostile countries ready to sever their supply lines as soon as they feel like it. And once the US goes to war with Germany they will go to war with Japan as well.
 
Three different ways you can take this, but I wonder about the outcome of each long term.

1. The Japanese take Midway, but at a high cost to themselves with most of their ships and planes being destroyed and a relatively low cost to the Allies

2. The Japanese force pushes the Allied navies out, with slightly more losses for the Allies than the Japanese.

3. A total Japanese Victory, with minimal casualties for them and almost the entire Allied force involved in the fight being destroyed.

Does any of these change the strategic situation at all? Is #3 even possible? What changes does this make to the Allied war effort?

Midway scenarios have been dug into at some length here at AHC.

The first scenario is probably easiest to address: Parshall and Tully in Shattered Sword (see appendix 5 - you can read most of it on Amazon preview) are almost certainly right that any attempted Japanese landing on Midway Atoll would have resulted in "outright disaster." The Japanese landing force was actually outgunned and outmanned by the defenders, who had benefit of extensive coral reefs surrounding the atoll, with extensive beach fortifications, defensive guns up to 5 inch, and a platoon of M3 Stuart tanks hidden in the underbrush. Worse, the Japanese had little experience attacking defended beaches and little proper amphibious doctrine. As Calbear has put it, think of Tarawa in reverse, only with a quick and bloody repulse. To get Japan Midway, you pretty much certainly need Nimitz (or whoever is CINCPAC) decide not to reinforce Midway at any point in 1942; and that almost certainly entails some even greater point of departure.

And even if they do get it, they won't be able to keep it long. Even without U.S. interdiction efforts, the logistics of supplying and reinforcing it would be tough.

The other scenarios can be more readily had with reasonable, modest points of departure. The Americans were very good but they had some lucky breaks, as Nimitz himself said ("brilliance shot through with luck").

The thing is, though, it doesn't really change the long term trajectory of the war. Let's say the Kido Butai survives in large part. What happens then?

Well, we know that Yamamoto's next plan after neutralizing the cream of CINCPAC's carriers was Operation FS, a projected offensive in July (with no operational pause!) to secure the New Hebrides, New Caledonia, Fiji and even Samoa, in order to isolate Australia from easy American reinforcement. But it is now apparent that the IJN had almost no chance of getting any farther than Efate/Espiritu Santu, with a strong probability walking into disaster, as they had no idea of how heavily the U.S. had reinforced these islands (they would have faced upwards of 22-35,000 Allied troops on New Cal alone, using nothing more than a brigade to try to take it!) and would have been operating at the fragile end of long supply lines under hostile land-based air cover even if Nimitz doesn't send Saratoga and Wasp to harass his flank. See my discussion here from a few years back. One suspects, in fact, that Nimitz would have felt much as Sherman did when he learned that Hood was marching north into Tennessee after the fall of Atlanta: "D -- n him! if he will go to the Ohio River I'll give him rations!"

But set all that aside. Whatever Yamamoto manages to accomplish at Midway or Efate doesn't matter, because nothing short of an asteroid was going to stop the tidal wave of American war production that was going to arrive in the Pacific by 1943, and the Americans absolutely had the will to see it through. Nimitz can start with Saratoga and Wasp (and even Ranger, if need be) and a goodly force of heavy cruisers, and by autumn of 1943 he'll be able to add at least five Essex class carriers and six Independence class light carriers, all operating their F6Fs and Avengers with vastly superior radar, dozens of escort carriers, as many as eight new fast battleships, and a massive array of escorts and amphibious landing craft and a vast logistical tail without precedent in naval history - all of which is already an overmatch for an intact Kido Butai let alone one that's been roughed up at Midway, the New Hebrides, et al. In 1944, the tidal wave becomes a tsunami, with the USN fast carrier task forces of legend fully coming into their own.

In fact, Japanese victory at Midway might well not even lengthen the war. The immediate butterfly of any sort of IJN Midway victory would be the cancellation of WATCHTOWER and pretty much most or all of the Solomons campaign. In our timeline, the Solomons had no real strategic end beyond the attrition of Japanese naval air and surface assets, because Melanesia doesn't lead anywhere useful. Instead, Nimitz starts his offensive rolling in the Marshalls and Gilberts in 1943, and the attrition of the IJN happens here instead of in Melanesia, and most of those Japanese garrisons in the Solomons simply get added to the list of cut-off island-hopped outposts eating their belts and coconuts.

One other probably butterfly might be a modest adjustment in U.S. production priorities. Roosevelt will see an even more urgent need for more carrier decks, if the USN has lost 2 or more at Midway. There is little that can be done to accelerate Essex class production (which was already running flat out), but you might see a few more Cleveland class hulls made into Independence-class CVL's, and a modest increase in escort carrier priority in the slipways.
 
Actually, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't end even then. To use a fake Yamamoto quote, "to invade the United States would prove most difficult because behind every blade of grass is an American with a rifle."

Whether he actually said that or not (probably not) it's a true statement.

The first quote can be interpreted in a number of ways. Personally, I'm of the opinion it was a politically correct way of questioning the wisdom of his superiors and co-equals in the government and army who thought a negotiated peace with the US in which they'd be able to keep the majority of their conquests; merely conceding the outer and redundant layer of their newly established protective perimeter, by pointing out the absurd requirements for the US to consider Japanese-dictated terms.
 
they thought about that ? I thought that was just in the novel 1901
Kaiser Wilhelm had this damnfool idea that if Germany defeated the US Atlantic Fleet and invaded the East Coast then Germany could annex parts of the Carribean. There were three general periods plans were developed in before WWI. They were all kinda dumb, and at the very least during the second the army more or less said it couldn't be done (though this was in part because they wanted no part in the whole venture).

Really a German war with the US in the early 20th century would be pretty pointless. Most likely Germany tries its thing, maybe defeats the USN, maybe not, and then the RN sorta "accidentally" puts a stop to it. Thus earning Britain improved relations with the US (and a likely ally in a war with Germany), knocks Germany down a peg, and prevents another power from getting a foothold in the Americas.
 
The only way Japan could win was not to play.That was not going to happen with the hardheaded twits in the military.
 

destiple

Banned
Kaiser Wilhelm had this damnfool idea that if Germany defeated the US Atlantic Fleet and invaded the East Coast then Germany could annex parts of the Carribean. There were three general periods plans were developed in before WWI. They were all kinda dumb, and at the very least during the second the army more or less said it couldn't be done (though this was in part because they wanted no part in the whole venture).

Really a German war with the US in the early 20th century would be pretty pointless. Most likely Germany tries its thing, maybe defeats the USN, maybe not, and then the RN sorta "accidentally" puts a stop to it. Thus earning Britain improved relations with the US (and a likely ally in a war with Germany), knocks Germany down a peg, and prevents another power from getting a foothold in the Americas.
ok thanks but dont tell this to the sealion fans shhhhhsh
 

SsgtC

Banned
Everyone knows the superior aryan race doesn’t care about logistics
See, that's the problem, it wasn't the Superior Arayns™ of the Glorious Thousand Year Reich™ that came up with this plan. It was those mongrols that served the Kaiser. Therefore, it obviously wouldn't have worked. Now if the Nazis had come up with the plan...
 
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Everyone knows the superior aryan race doesn’t care about logistics
You joke, but its actually kinda interesting how thorough this failing resonates in the German military (at least Imperial and Nazi Germany, largely because it was the same people). They could do the tactics fine, but fell down when it came to the larger picture. If you read accounts of German generals during WWII it becomes apparent. Its also a big part of the "Hitler's screwups cost Germany the war" myth came from.
 
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