Pure Pacific War

[Gen.Mannerheim]

How do you think a major Pacific war in the late 30’s-40’s look without a major counterpart in Europe?

I don’t want to go overboard and create a totally alternate history, for there are a lot of factors that are being left up in the air here (i.e. European affairs). How would the Colonial powers respond to Japanese aggression?

How would the British Navy, now free of the Atlantic and Mediterranean, respond to the Japanese naval threat? Would they stay hold up in Hong Kong and Singapore with the main goal defending the Indian Ocean, or would they be more proactive and coordinate with some combination of Australians, American, other Europeans and take the IJN head on? How would the Australians respond to a more “defense of British India” stance that London might take?

Would France actually be able to defend Indochina from the Japanese or will something similar to the French response to the First Indochina War occur? Same with the Dutch?

What would American policy be, proactive or defensive, work with the Europeans/Australia or alone?

Or perhaps something I haven’t thought of at all?

 

[Dachs]

It's really really hard to imagine a situation where there was not some sort of major European war in the late 1930s or early 1940s.

 

[Kraznaya]

The Showa government might have lacked any actual direction, but even it wasn't this stupid.

 

[LightSpectra]

Why exactly are the British "free of the Atlantic and Mediterranean"? I mean, it's not the only strange and unwarranted assumption in this alt-history, but a very peculiarly bothersome one.

 

[History_Buff]

It's really really hard to imagine a situation where there was not some sort of major European war in the late 1930s or early 1940s.

I think I've heard you say before that even by the late 1920s, a second world war as we know it was by no means inevitable, and that there were ways for the UK, France and Germany at least to all get along.

Though I think the caveat there was that the Eastern Europeans were near sure to try and fight it out over various unsatisfactory borders.

 

[Gen.Mannerheim]

Why exactly are the British "free of the Atlantic and Mediterranean"? I mean, it's not the only strange and unwarranted assumption in this alt-history, but a very peculiarly bothersome one.

I meant in the terms of being able to shift significant naval forces East, not that they would abandon the place.

I'm not trying to write a totally comprehensive alt-hist, this isn't the place for that. I'm more curious in what might a more aggressive western response to Japanese expansion look like. If you find that something I suggest is strange then say which one you think is.

 

[Dachs]

I think I've heard you say before that even by the late 1920s, a second world war as we know it was by no means inevitable, and that there were ways for the UK, France and Germany at least to all get along.

Though I think the caveat there was that the Eastern Europeans were near sure to try and fight it out over various unsatisfactory borders.

Yes, a Second World War as we know it. That's a fairly important distinction.

Even the Weimar governments that Stresemann served as foreign minister were interested in border revisions in the East. That was half the point of Locarno, after all. Soviet expansionist policy was also a concern going forward. Lots of different groups were doing their best to make a pig's breakfast of things, and nobody was being very effective at restraining that behavior through the old tried-and-true methods like restraining alliances or a meaningful international legal framework.

 

[Antilogic]

What are we assuming about Japan's war with China for the purposes of this exercise?

 

[Dachs]

It would have to happen, because there's no other way I can see the Japanese coming into serious conflict with the Americans or the Commonwealth.

 

[Antilogic]

Reason why I ask is that the OP sets up a situation where less encumbered USA and allies are in a war with Japan on a second front, which is still bleeding troops and material in China. I don't think we could expect Japan to last much longer than it historically did under these conditions. Is there a plausible proximate CB that doesn't involve Japan invading China and getting angry at trade embargoes?

The Dutch could not effectively defend their vast colonial possessions in Southeast Asia irrelevant of what happened in their homeland--they simply lacked the necessary ships and material to do so. The UK's European transfers to the Far East would probably take a couple months, which would leave the IJN roughly the same opposition they historically had in the opening phase of the war.

Accounting for the boneheadedness of the IJN admirals in this analysis is tough, though. Would they try to pull off a Midway?

 

[Phrossack]

What exactly are the circumstances here? Who's in charge of Italy and Germany? What are they planning and doing? I mean, if Hitler and Mussolini are in power, why aren't they planning war (I'm not sure exactly how keen on a European war they were in the mid- to late-40's)?

If for whatever reason no war in Europe is ongoing or likely, then nothing will restrain the full might of the US, UK, France, and the Netherlands from smacking down the Japanese if they try anything. Against that possible coalition, or at least the undivided attention of the US and UK, I don't think even the Japanese armed forces would be crazy enough to pick a fight.

 

[Antilogic]

The Dutch Navy had a handful of destroyers and a few light cruisers, no modern capital ships (especially no carriers), and had been underfunded for years. They were a pushover no matter what the political situation looked like.

A stronger French presence in Vietnam is an interesting situation to consider, but their navy wouldn't be capable of much. It was mostly designed for old-school battleship engagements and fighting the Italians in the Mediterranean (in which case, they would have air support from the shores). As far as carriers go, they had the 40ish-plane carrier Béarn, a slow seaplane carrier, and were constructing the more modern Joffre when invaded by Germany. Their carriers were designed to function as support craft for the battleship fleet and had a large number of reconnaissance planes with some interceptors to take down enemy scouts and torpedo planes. Even if you give them all 3, they would not likely send more than 1 to the Pacific, and it wouldn't have nearly the punching power the American and Japanese carriers had.

I recall reading that Hitler was originally planning his major European wars for later in the 1940s and went to war before he was ready, but I don't know the source.

EDIT: I just checked my copy of On Seas Contested and the French Saigon squadron consisted of a grand total of 2 (!) ships, both cruisers.

 

[dutchfire]

I don't know that much about this, but I believe the Netherlands and the Dutch Indies were pretty much separately operating entities with shared interests. That is, if the situation at home changes, that doesn't have to mean much for the situation in the Indies. I doubt the Dutch would ship of huge amounts of forces from Europe to fight in the Indies, and even if they did, these would arrive pretty late. And there was hardly any material to be shipped to the Indies, the home force was horribly under equipped anyway.

 

[Phrossack]

Regardless of the Dutch and the French, there was still the matter of the US and UK.

 

[Gen.Mannerheim]

Given the small, crappy, nature of the Dutch Navy, it would make sense that they would tack any fleet that they sent onto a French or British fleet. Given the fact that the British and Dutch shared Borneo, the major and gateway island to the Dutch East Indies, I would expect that they would be more likely to work together.

I believe that in the same vein of their other colonial wars, the French government in Paris would have hamstrung any real response. Metropolitan troops would probably not be used, relying on Foreign Legion and French Colonial Forces to put up as much of a fight as they could. And their navy mostly relying on their other allies for the real fighting.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

The Great Pacific War by Hector Bywater. Read it. Pretty much about this. Very awesome, considering it was written in 1925 and basically predicts the entirety of the Japanese American War, 1941-45, short of the atom bomb itself.

 

[Antilogic]

Given the small, crappy, nature of the Dutch Navy, it would make sense that they would tack any fleet that they sent onto a French or British fleet. Given the fact that the British and Dutch shared Borneo, the major and gateway island to the Dutch East Indies, I would expect that they would be more likely to work together.

I believe that in the same vein of their other colonial wars, the French government in Paris would have hamstrung any real response. Metropolitan troops would probably not be used, relying on Foreign Legion and French Colonial Forces to put up as much of a fight as they could. And their navy mostly relying on their other allies for the real fighting.

I'd imagine there would be some form of ABDACOM in this scenario, expanded to include French detachments. Whether or not it would last longer or be a little more successful with more resources coming in from Europe is debatable (historically, this combined command became irrelevant because it lost most of its theater territory and predominantly American forces took over the task of fighting Japan).

I'd wonder what would happen if French Indochina wasn't such a pushover--it would prevent the Japanese from opening up a southern front against the Chinese, at minimum.

 

[Cutlass]

The Japanese navy was essentially entirely sunk in little more than 3 years, and you want to significantly increase the odds against them and you wonder what the outcome would be?

 

[Antilogic]

To be fair, I'm kind of operating under the assumption their admiralty is more competent strategically than it was historically, just to keep this interesting. If they had avoided a Midway-type event, they could have held onto the momentum for much longer, at least until the regular introduction of the Hellcat in mid- to late- 1943.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

There is also the variable that they figure out to use submarines to attack naval shipping, and not merely against other military vessels. Japanese subs were extraordinarily ineffective during the war, despite being large in number, and they suffered appallingly high boat loss rates as a result.