Would Fall of Singapore have looked like ASBs once?

[NorthernFiend]

Since I've just signed up to this forum and I need to make a name for myself
I thought I'd kick something off which has bugged me for a while and has relevance throughout

I'll call it the Singapore Problem.

It could just as easily be called the France 1940 problem but as we British like to jingoisticaly reminisce about the sacrifices by our grandparents
we choose to forget shameful embarrassments like the Fall of Singapore.. and so we should be forced to confront them whenever possible as a reminder that WW2 wasn't always Spitfires over Biggin Hill

Anyway

We all rationally accept that certain alt history scenarios - and no I'm not even going to mention them - are pure ASB whatever we you look at them,
whatever point of departure they are.

But if we were reading this in 1935 the idea of the Japanese taking the fortress of Singapore, containing 85,000 troops, with only 36,000 troops of their own would have been totally ASB. Perhaps this is how ASB manifest themselves in the real world - rank bad luck and incompetence.

What do we take as cast iron historical impossibilities that might have happened if luck and morale had played a part?

So here is a challenge

other than the Singapore which are the actual real historical events in OTL which look most like the work of ASBs without the benefit of historical hindsight?

and

in an ATL environment what cast iron certainties to happen without the intervention of ASBs might have actually happened if the
morale/circumstances/incompetence had gone the way of Singapore?

for example

WI the type of men defending and commanding in Singapore had been defending and running Britain in 1940?

WI a Herbert Hoover (or Bush jnr) type was running the US instead on an FDR in 1941?

WI D-Day had been planned like Market Garden?

WI The Battle of The Bulge was fought like the battle of Kasserine Pass?

I should say I am absolutely not trying diminish the sacrifice of the people that found themselves in these disasters - I'm not sure I would have behaved any differently

 

[titulus regius]

The fall of Singapore would undoubtedly have been regarded as 'ASB' by both the military and the politicians if foretold in a novel/paper/etc published in the 1930s. For me, it's a good example of not crying 'ASB' as readily as many others on here.

 

[Polandc4]

It still looks pretty ASB today

 

[Faeelin]

What part of it looks ASB?

 

[Polandc4]

Almost everything went right in a military operation that was wildly optimistic to begin with.

 

[Faeelin]

Almost everything went right in a military operation that was wildly optimistic to begin with.

If it was wildly optimistic, why did everything go right?

This is an interesting example of what we see around here. France is fated to fall. But Britain? Lose to Nipponese? I say, a fluke.

 

[Polandc4]

No its not that this was a japanese operation, its that any operation should not work this well. plans never work exactly as they should. And when they do even more so if they are optimistic it looks like direct intervention by a higher power, thats why it looks like ASB.

 

[sharlin]

If it was wildly optimistic, why did everything go right?

This is an interesting example of what we see around here. France is fated to fall. But Britain? Lose to Nipponese? I say, a fluke.

It went okay because of dull military thinking, the same that went 'Hey those Ardennes can't be passed by tanks!" "Really?" "Umm...yeah!" "Okay we'll go with that!"

No one in their right mind thought that the Japanese would be able to attack from the north, through a French colony. The Western nations did underestimate the IJA/IJN/IJAF and the jungle was deemed impassable for a modern army, nor did they think that the bike would be useful or that rice paddies didn't inhibit the movement of tanks.

 

[deathscompanion1]

If it was wildly optimistic, why did everything go right?

This is an interesting example of what we see around here. France is fated to fall. But Britain? Lose to Nipponese? I say, a fluke.

Too be fair I think that if the British actually got over the sheer shock at the yellow monkeys that couldn't fly an airplane straight due to being carried on their mothers back somehow doing what they literally believed to be impossible in pre war studies they would have probably won.

Instead they fell apart under the pressure. A general with more presence and will could probably at least have made a better job of it, tying down the Japanese for a longer time.

 

[Colin]

But if we were reading this in 1935 the idea of the Japanese taking the fortress of Singapore, containing 85,000 troops, with only 36,000 troops of their own would have been totally ASB. Perhaps this is how ASB manifest themselves in the real world - rank bad luck and incompetence.

With Singapore an undoubted factor was the racist contempt with which the British held the Japanese, also their poor care of their Indian troops contributed to their failure to fight
So here is a challenge

other than the Singapore which are the actual real historical events in OTL which look most like the work of ASBs without the benefit of historical hindsight?

and

in an ATL environment what cast iron certainties to happen without the intervention of ASBs might have actually happened if the
morale/circumstances/incompetence had gone the way of Singapore?

for example

WI the type of men defending and commanding in Singapore had been defending and running Britain in 1940?

The whole point here is that they were out there because it wasn't considered that important, however still plenty of incompetence in the UK.

WI a Herbert Hoover (or Bush jnr) type was running the US instead on an FDR in 1941?

Don't know enough US history to comment

WI D-Day had been planned like Market Garden?

It would never have been allowed to happen. Market Garden happened because of a belief that the Germans were already beaten, but the perceptions of the Germans before D Day were much more cautious and Eisenhower, Churchill etc were anxious that the landings would really fail, you could say that D Day worked because of overcaution while MG failed because of overconfidence. The key difference is that the failure of MG was not catastrophic to the allied war effort, it held them up but didn't stop them, the failure of D day would have been a whole different order of disaster. Ironically it would have been easier to cope with if the failure could be identified as being poor planning, (in a sense that's how Dieppe was explained), rather than because the Germans were too strong, where the Allies go after that I don't know.

WI The Battle of The Bulge was fought like the battle of Kasserine Pass?

In a sense not too different anyway as both were limited counter offensives. Would it have made any difference if the Germans had got to Antwerp, not in the long run

I should say I am absolutely not trying diminish the sacrifice of the people that found themselves in these disasters - I'm not sure I would have behaved any differently

Anyway in terms of other things that looked ASB until they happened.

1870 and France falling into war with Prussian Germany

1939-40 the Finns holding off the Russians for three months

Given the stalemate of WWI the sudden collapse of France in the summer of 1940 must have felt pretty ASB at the time. People had a perception, Churchill included that the French army was the strongest in Europe.

 

[Simon]

Instead they fell apart under the pressure. A general with more presence and will could probably at least have made a better job of it, tying down the Japanese for a longer time.

Hell, something as simple as finishing off the half-completed Kota Tinggi defence line - apparently planned to run from Pontian Besar on the west coast to Kulai, from there to Kota Tinggi, and then I can't remember if it carried on east to the coast or if they were just planning on using the Johor river as the final part - would have given them enough breathing room. IIRC the funds had been granted but when the guy in charge was retired the project just kind of slipped through the cracks during the handover. As far as I'm aware the Japanese were so low on supplies that if Singapore hadn't surrendered they were planning on retreating, that at least allows them to stabilise the situation. Of course once Sumatra falls it's a moot point but at least the loss of Singapore wouldn't of been such a complete fiasco.

 

[ScrewySqrl]

The success of the Dive Bombers at Midway has to feel ASB.

right up until that moment, the Japanese had handled and destroyed everything the US Navy had thrown at them. Midway's defenses had been mauled, although the runway was still intact. B-17s flying at 20,000 ft couldn't hit a twisting carrier, Attacks from Midway had been beaten off with no ship losses, and teh torpedo strike had been trashed with 3 full squadrons reduced to a total of 4 planes. It was looking realy, really good there.

And then the Dive Bombers rolled 20s.

 

[mattep74]

The success of the Dive Bombers at Midway has to feel ASB.

right up until that moment, the Japanese had handled and destroyed everything the US Navy had thrown at them. Midway's defenses had been mauled, although the runway was still intact. B-17s flying at 20,000 ft couldn't hit a twisting carrier, Attacks from Midway had been beaten off with no ship losses, and teh torpedo strike had been trashed with 3 full squadrons reduced to a total of 4 planes. It was looking realy, really good there.

And then the Dive Bombers rolled 20s.

And considering that half the divebombers found the target by following a destroyer that had been attacking a US sub is even more ASB.

 

[katchen]

There are two events that look absolutely ASB on Januarly 1, 1916. The Balfour Declaration to create a Jewish Homeland in Palestine and Lenin destabilizing the Tsarist regime and actually siezing power. (The British would never go for a Jewish state and nohing will come of it if they do!) Lenin and a few radicals, unseat and kill one of the Crowned Heads of Europe? ASB!!!
The idea that a Jewish state would actually be confirmed by the international treaty that set up the British Mandate for Palestine (1920) instead of dismissed as "propaganda" woul (Treaty of San Remo) would have been dismissed as ASB a year earlier. And the success of Israel at retaining it's independence despite invasion by the armies of Egypt, Syria, Iraq , a few brigades of Lebanon and the Arab Legion of Transjordan as well as indigenous Palestinian reisistance by the end of 1949 would have been dismissed as ASB by most observers from the vantage point of May 2, 1948. It would have taken a sre3wd observer indeed to sdiscern the real weaknesses behind the paper srength of Arab armies and an even shrewder observer to discern the strength and sheer tenacity of the Israelis at that time. The only Arab observer to figure it out and not get "victory diseas" was Colonel Glubb, who commanded the Arab Legion of Transjordan. Glubb was smart enough to settle for limited objectives: East Jerusalem and the West Bank for Jordanand reach in effect a separate casefire with Israel long before anyone else did.
Yes, a lot of Alien space bats flew around the formation of the Jewish Stte.

 

[Cook]

But if we were reading this in 1935 the idea of the Japanese taking the fortress of Singapore, containing 85,000 troops, with only 36,000 troops of their own would have been totally ASB.

It wasn’t considered the least bit ASB by people who went to Singapore and Malaya and actually looked at the defenses of the colony in the late 1930s; when Mary Welsh Hemmingway (Ernest Hemmingway’s wife and herself a renowned war correspondent) was condescendingly told by a British Officer in the Raffles Hotel that Singapore was impregnable, she famously replied loudly “Balls!”

Far too much of the defense of Singapore relied on such things as the Malayan jungle being impenetrable, which anyone who’d been in it could readily attest that it wasn’t (and that included several British Army officers in the late 1930s who had their reports suppressed because they didn’t conform with the preferred result), besides which, the very reason Malaya was so important was because much of it wasn’t jungle; it was rubber plantations – very open and easily trafficable. Air power in the Far East was considered unnecessary because ‘the Japanese made poor pilots because their mothers carried them around on their backs as babies’ as one British military report insisted, ignoring reports from the American volunteers flying for Chiang Kai Shek that in fact the Japanese made very good pilots indeed.

Almost everything went right in a military operation that was wildly optimistic to begin with.

Just the opposite in fact; the Japanese in early 1942 were ever conservative in all of their offensives, employing far more men and resources than necessary.

‘The victorious Japanese were outnumbered by the defenders’ is also only valid if you include all British Empire service personnel in the count, most of whom were logistics and other assorted rear echelon personnel, in terms of combat troops the British were actually slightly outnumbered. Qualitatively of course there was no comparison; the Japanese forces were veterans of several years of fighting in China while Singapore and Malaya was defended by troops who for the most part had never heard a shot fired in anger.

 

[ScrewySqrl]

Another ASB moment.

If you told somone in 1910 that Poland would be is own country in Eurpe in 1920, they'd have laughed The only way Poland could emerge as a country is if Germany and Russia went to war with each other, and they both LOSE!

 

[Faeelin]

Another ASB moment.

If you told somone in 1910 that Poland would be is own country in Eurpe in 1920, they'd have laughed The only way Poland could emerge as a country is if Germany and Russia went to war with each other, and they both LOSE!

This would have been news to the Polish nationalists all around Europe who had launched several risings in the past...

 

[Flocculencio]

OK- I think we need to make a distinction between two issues.

The first is the actual tactical situation leading to the Fall of Singapore. This is where Yamashitas troops were at the end of their logistics chain and Percival could possibly have struck back and pushed the Japanese back across the Straits of Johore. As was noted elsewhere, however, this is unlikely because it would have involved green troops going up against the battle hardened elite of the Japanese Empire.

However, even if Percival did manage to gain a breathing space, it would have made no difference- Singapore will still fall. Yamashita just needs to consolidate and regroup- Percival is struck with a large military and civilian population isolated with no water. It'll just take a couple of weeks more at best.

As for the wider strategic situation, the entire reasoning behind the defense planning (or lack thereof) of British Malaya was flawed. A number of staff officers (including Percival himself) had seen the flaws in the defence plan but neither the resources nor the funding was made available to rectify this.

 

[The Red]

we should be forced to confront them whenever possible as a reminder that WW2 wasn't always Spitfires over Biggin Hill

Welcome to the forum, thankfully here very little of that attitude stands up to serious scrutiny, the Battle of Britain itself is often brought down to the reality of its rather questionable relevance, amongst other things.

But if we were reading this in 1935 the idea of the Japanese taking the fortress of Singapore, containing 85,000 troops, with only 36,000 troops of their own would have been totally ASB.

Actually by 1936 the British Army had a fairly bleak view of their ability to fight Germany, Italy, and Japan at the same time. If you'd explained that not only was this the case but that France had also switched sides, I'm sure they wouldn't find the idea of losing Singapore all that ASB.

 

[NorthernFiend]

Screwysql said -

The success of the Dive Bombers at Midway has to feel ASB.

This is exactly what I mean - is a man in a high castle on an alt history forum somewhere else arguing vainly that a few planes could sink three elite Japanese carriers if they caught them at the right time?

The actual tactical reality of Singapore we are all (well not most Brits) aware of now, it's the difference between that and the perceived reality beforehand. We have to make assumptions on historical likelihoods that give no room for wildly unlikely events that do happen.