WI Midway ends in a descisive Japanese victory

So WI at Midway the Japanese manage to deal a crushing defeat to the US navy in which all the US naval carriers in the battle are crippled or sunk. Is it even possible? If so, With a complete and utter US naval defeat at Midway and moderate losses for the IJN. How long can IJN hold out against the USA. What implications would this have in the pacific theater. Yes Japan is screwed anyway but what can they do now, after winning at Midway and what will the American public's reaction be to it. Thoughts?
 

CalBear

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No real difference.

BTW: This is REALLY well plowed ground. You might want to search for similar threads.
 
http://combinedfleet.com/economic.htm

This extensively breaks down the economic situation in full detail, including a comparison of carrier assets USN vs IJN even with a situation like you describe. By 1943, USN would have parity again with IJn, and by mid-1944 a 2:1 advantage. But this is all (as CalBear said) well-treaded ground, so try searching around.
 
So WI at Midway the Japanese manage to deal a crushing defeat to the US navy in which all the US naval carriers in the battle are crippled or sunk. Is it even possible? ....
Yes it is possible for Japan to win a naval victory. For example, I once imagined that Yamamoto's “Main Force”, battleships Yamato, Mutsu and Nagato, carrier Hōshō, seaplane carriers Chiyoda and Nisshin, cruiser Sendai and nine destroyers might have been closer to the Kido Butai so that McClusky's dive bombers sighted them to the North West before they turned North East and found Nagumo's force. The result would probably have been that Japan lost Soryu and Hosho and possibly either or both of Chiyoda and Nisshin, while the Americans would have lost their three carriers and possibly other ships http://counter-factual.net/upload/showthread.php?t=14721.

It is not clear that Midway will fall after a Japanese naval victory because the marines on Midway outnumber the Japanese landing forces. Thus it is possible that Midway is remembered by America as a victory for the Marine Corps. Both sides might try to learn lessons from such an outcome which might change the details of how the war was fought later. However, it is fairly clear that the war still ends in August 1945 more or less as OTL.

One big difference is that there will be no Guadalcanal Campaign during 1942, which will also slow the attack on the Japanese position on New Guinea. Whether the Japanese take or don't take Midway, they will likely be exhausted and will have lost many aircraft and trained crews at Midway. Thus they will not be launching too many operations of their own in late 1942.

It is just possible that the Japanese submarine force will be committed to the Indian Ocean from July 1942. Until the Guadalcanal Invasion, Japanese submarines were actually starting to be quite successful against merchant ships (see “The Japanese Submarine Force and World War II” by Carl Boyd and Akihiko Yoshida http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=UFJdpxXkIBoC&pg=PA90&lpg=PA90&dq=mozambique+submarine+august+1942&source=bl&ots=Av2546fmOm&sig=TeWypRAQXdBQs8YDuLAXtEV4MRk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=qlKET6vZOYbF0QXNicC1Bw&ved=0CEgQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=mozambique%20submarine%20august%201942&f=false). Possibly this weakens the British 8th Army and changes or delays the British attack at El Alamein http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_El_Alamein. Again there is no big change to WW2 because the Anglo-American landing in North Africa would still go ahead and take Tunisia at roughly the same time as OTL. However, it would completely change how British opinion would view themselves and their place in the World because El Alamein was a big battle in British eyes. If Rommel is ordered to withdraw because of Torch before Montgomery attacks, there will be some interesting but unpredictable changes. There might also be some reduction in Lend – Lease sent via Iran to the USSR due to the Japanese submarine campaign.
 
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If there is no Guadalcanal Campaign during 1942, the campaign towards Rabaul http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cartwheel will start much later. Thus General MacArthur will not be much in the news until late 1943. If the USN campaign in the Central Pacific starts more or less as OTL, it is possible that no decision to retake the Philippines is taken before the Marianas are captured. Then it might be attractive to continue the USN advance to Iwo Jima and Okinawa in late 1944. Thus Japan might be cut off from all imports a few months earlier than OTL and might just possibly feel forced to surrender earlier (rather unlikely). However, again General MacArthur will have difficulty getting much attention as he captures Northern New Guinea. Thus I assume that someone else will be on Missouri for the surrender and will become the new Shogun. Chester Nimitz would probably do a good job but there are several other candidates.
 
If there is no Guadalcanal Campaign during 1942, the campaign towards Rabaul http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cartwheel will start much later. Thus General MacArthur will not be much in the news until late 1943. If the USN campaign in the Central Pacific starts more or less as OTL, it is possible that no decision to retake the Philippines is taken before the Marianas are captured. Then it might be attractive to continue the USN advance to Iwo Jima and Okinawa in late 1944. Thus Japan might be cut off from all imports a few months earlier than OTL and might just possibly feel forced to surrender earlier (rather unlikely). However, again General MacArthur will have difficulty getting much attention as he captures Northern New Guinea. Thus I assume that someone else will be on Missouri for the surrender and will become the new Shogun. Chester Nimitz would probably do a good job but there are several other candidates.

MacArthur or no MacArthur the US will invade the Philippines. Being a US colony before the war (albeit one already slated for independence before the war broke out) national pride will make it necessary for it to be invaded. The political pressure to do so would still be too strong for it not to be done.
 
Wouldn't it give the Japanese free reign in the pacific for a time? I mean it will still take some time for the US to rebuild it's force and train the men.
 
Wouldn't it give the Japanese free reign in the pacific for a time? I mean it will still take some time for the US to rebuild it's force and train the men.

Not really. The Japanese carrier forces were badly worn down going into the Midway operation. Take a quick look through "Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway" if you want a lot more detail than I feel like hand-typing, but the Cliff's Notes version is that even relatively light losses at Midway would've left the IJN's carriers so short on aircraft that further operations of any size would be out of the question. Unfortunately for the Japanese, the USN will be rebuilding and reconstituting units at the same time, but with an industrial and human resource capacity that's orders of magnitude larger.
 
Speaker Martin

Democrats lose control of the House (but not the Senate) in the 1942 elections. Don't see this having a major impact on the course of the war but could generate some interesting butterflies. Maybe it allows Joseph Martin to become the Republican Presidential candidate in 1948.
 
Wouldn't it give the Japanese free reign in the pacific for a time? I mean it will still take some time for the US to rebuild it's force and train the men.

It might take a handful of islands but the Japanese Empire was already overstretched. They had a hard enough time maintaining it as is. They had a major shipping shortage and adding islands will only make it worse.
 
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