WI The war goes perfect for Japan in 1942?

Replicator

Banned
What if the war goes perfect for the Japanese in 1942?

They win at Coral sea.

At Midway

And at Guadalcanal,

Also there are some improvements on the Chinese front and in Southeast Asia that allws them to transfere a few hundred thousand men into the Pacific.

How does this change the war?

Less US stuff for Europe?
Less Navy units in the Atlantic?
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
If they win at Coral Sea, there wouldn't have even been a Battle of Midway, much less a Battle of Guadalcanal.
 
Also there are some improvements on the Chinese front and in Southeast Asia that allws them to transfere a few hundred thousand men into the Pacific.

Unless the Commonwealth and Chinese somehow completely surrender there's no chance of this.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Unless the Commonwealth and Chinese somehow completely surrender there's no chance of this.

Not only that, but Japan was logistically hard pressed merely to supply and support the men they had in the Pacific IOTL. Even if they had several hundred thousand men sitting around in China doing nothing at all, I don't see how all that many of them could have been deployed on the Pacific Islands where the fighting was taking place.
 
Well, if things go that well for the Japanese the US might perceive them as the greater threat (Germany is busy with the UK and the USSR anyways) and switch to a 'Japan first' strategy with the end result of Japan being defeated even earlier and Nazi Germany holding on long enough to be the first target for nuclear weapons (provided the Manhattan Project doesn't suffer from too many butterflies, of course ;))
 
The U.S. would speed up the construction of new carriers (even more of them) and the production of its new carrier aircraft. Remember, we couldn't do all that much in an offensive sense against Japan until early 1944 anyway--we had to wait for the carriers. Given that wait period, I don't see the priorities shifting all that much from Europe to the Far East. Maybe to a cosmetic degree, to keep West Coast members of Congress and the foolish China Lobby happy. One good outcome might be a speeding up of the submarine war against the Japanese merchant marine as well as the Japanese navy, with torpedo defects being corrected earlier. I've always felt this problem was ignored too long because the navy had not yet fully grasped the potential of the submarine as a war winner.
 

burmafrd

Banned
political pressure would have forced Roosevelt to put more resources into the Pacific. Most likely air assets. Torch might have been canceled or at best delayed. In the end Japan still gets beaten like a old rug.
Now any delays in Europe might have some effect there, but probably not that much. One good effect might be that we bypass Sicily and directly land on the Boot of Italy.
 

Hkelukka

Banned
Only grand effect that MIGHT follow is Australia being forced out of the allies. it is incredibly unlikely to happen and even if it does, it won't change that the US will most likely still beat japan like, as someone said, an old rug.
 
Even if the Japanese were very successful at this point they still would have lost. They had the wrong type of government, no support outside of Japan and they had no way to match the industrialism of the USA. All this would do is postpone the inevitable.
 

Hyperion

Banned
If they win at Coral Sea, there wouldn't have even been a Battle of Midway, much less a Battle of Guadalcanal.

Care to explain why?

Even if both Yorktown and Lexington are sunk at Coral Sea, Japan has not logistics to land in Australia if that is what you had in mind.

Likewise, Enterprise and Hornet are still on hand, USS Saratoga will be back from Puget Sound and arrive at Pearl Harbor at the end of the first week of June, and USS Wasp and the battleship USS North Carolina will arrive in late June.

A loss at Coral Sea would be bad, but not disasterous.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Care to explain why?

Even if both Yorktown and Lexington are sunk at Coral Sea, Japan has not logistics to land in Australia if that is what you had in mind.

Likewise, Enterprise and Hornet are still on hand, USS Saratoga will be back from Puget Sound and arrive at Pearl Harbor at the end of the first week of June, and USS Wasp and the battleship USS North Carolina will arrive in late June.

A loss at Coral Sea would be bad, but not disasterous.

You misunderstand. I was simply pointing out that a Japanese victory at Coral Sea would introduce such powerful butterflies into the TL that the subsequent events at Midway and Guadalcanal would not take place, because history would already have been altered.
 
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According to Churchill's account of the Atlantic Conference, Roosevelt agreed that the USA would hold the Pacific while British forces there supported the war in Europe. After the defeat of Germany, the combined Anglo-American forces would destroy Japan.

Even if the USA did little more than circle the wagons around Hawaii and snipe at Japanese shipping, Japan would have been stressed to keep control of what they had.

After V-E Day it would have taken a year or two for available shipping to move sufficient soldiers and materials to Pacific staging points, and the Japanese may have fought to the last dugout (assuming conventional weapons only), but Japan would have collapsed in the end.

In computer security, there's a saying. "It's hard to defend against a highly distributed enemy." Imperial Japan consisted of Korea, part of China, and a bunch of islands, all surrounded by sea or with major, indefensible ocean frontage. The fleets of the Grand Alliance could surround the Japanese and attack from any direction.

Though politics can always throw a monkey wrench into things, I don't see any way Imperial Japan could survive, even if it took a few more years for the Allies to smash them.
 
As I see it, a lot depends on Australia -- if Japan invades, they get yet another quagmire sucking up resources; OTOH, I still can't get the idea out of my head that a separate peace may have been possible, thus freeing up further resources...
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
As I see it, a lot depends on Australia -- if Japan invades, they get yet another quagmire sucking up resources; OTOH, I still can't get the idea out of my head that a separate peace may have been possible, thus freeing up further resources...

The Japanese were not nearly dumb enough to try to invade Australia. If they have a more successful 1942, it means that they will inflict more damage on the U.S. Navy (and maybe the Royal Navy out in the Indian Ocean) and improve their hold on the Pacific Islands and New Guinea. Port Moresby would almost certainly come under their control. It would be a question of getting into a better position to withdraw the inevitable Allied counter offensive.
 
No degree of success could provide Japan with the logisitical capacity to move several hundred thousand more troops to the Pacific...
 
Alien and Sedition Bat said:
The U.S. would speed up the construction of new carriers (even more of them)
Albidoom said:
Well, if things go that well for the Japanese the US might perceive them as the greater threat (Germany is busy with the UK and the USSR anyways) and switch to a 'Japan first' strategy
Neither are necessary or likely IMO.
Alien and Sedition Bat said:
One good outcome might be a speeding up of the submarine war against the Japanese merchant marine as well as the Japanese navy, with torpedo defects being corrected earlier. I've always felt this problem was ignored too long because the navy had not yet fully grasped the potential of the submarine as a war winner.
And this is why I don't think so. If Nimitz is forced by circumstance to rely more heavily on his subs, it's bad for Japan no matter how well she does elsewhere. In fact, the more islands Japan takes, the worse it gets. Islands are traps. IJN is incompetent to defend convoys. Japan doesn't have enough shipping as it is. All it takes is for Nimitz to have all the subs pullled back to Pearl & put tankers on #1 priority. That alone can shorten the war by about a year. If it also leads to an earlier fix of the M14/Mk6 problems, shorter still. More than that, this should lead to improved overall effectiveness. It will also mean lower Sub Force losses. At a minimum, Tang won't be sunk.:cool: Good chance Seawolf won't be sunk by friendly fire, either.:cool::cool: And a couple of boats lost in SWPA thanx to that a**hole Jimmy Fife won't be, either.:cool::cool:
Albidoom said:
with the end result of Japan being defeated even earlier and Nazi Germany holding on long enough to be the first target for nuclear weapons
I don't find that likely. If Japan is defeated sooner, the chances for Germany hanging on longer go down, not up.
 
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