Could *Japan* have won?

[say1988]

Even iof the losses were reversed (US loses 4 carriers and sinks none), the US would have a superior carrier fleet by the end of '43, with more fleet and light carriers and nearly double the aircraft complement. Without a swift, negotiated peace Japan had no chance against the US. And this was definitely not possible after Pearl Harbour.

As for Battleships, they are far less important than carriers. Time after time, aircraft were shown to be a huge threat to all ships.

Just check the link from Ariaga to see how Midway didn't win the War for the US.

And even if the japanese can negate the US fleet they are still going to lose in the CBI theatre. Victory in China was virtually impossible and without dramatic changes, the Japanese were losing the war against the British Empire too (and even if it gets prolonged, we have all the Allied resources from Europe coming over in '45 and Soviets that can still invade from the North.

Japan had no chance of winning the war, their only choice was not to play.

I think it depends on how we define the win conditions. Japan won a great deal with the acquisition of the Netherlands Indies and the oil that bought to it. Pearl Harbour was just a means to an end of achieving that. The Japanese would have been happy to acquire the former without need for the latter. If that's an acceptable win condition then sure it could have won the War in the Pacific without the need to fire a shot.

Except they are already on the verge of war with the US before Pearl Harbour and bogged down in China.

 

[Cutlass]

If Japan won at midway they probably (I would say 50-50) won the war. That fact that they lost half there Battleships in a single month, and still put up such a big fight against the Americans is impressive. i don't have the time to read this thread tonight so I will respond to current arguments later

The dozens of aircraft carriers and 10s of 1000s of aircraft the US built after that point argue otherwise.

 

[xchen08]

After I heard that Japan already committed 80% of their efforts to the China campaign, I was pretty much convinced that Japan couldn't win unless they were allied with the KMT, but then blew that chance in '31 with the Manchuria invasion.

80% of the Army, less of the IJAAF, and much less of both as the Pacific War dragged on. It's not as if millions of infantry would do Japan any good anywhere other than China. Anywhere else, and they'd starve to death...which is historically, just what they did.

And a Japan allied with the KMT brings into question why it is going to war at all. No invasion of China means no embargo means no resource shortage means no reason to invade SEA means no reason to go to war with the U.S. which a lot of the political and navy leadership realized to be a terrible, terrible idea long before 1941.