WW2 - Japanese victory?

[ComradeDavo]

Some intresting points there people

I shall adress a couple....

Simply put, Japan just did not have the industrial might to take on the US. IT may have had access to South East Asian resources, but the military machine to produce thousands of tanks AND hundreds of ships month after relentless month was simply lacking. Because of this, the Japanese navy could not recover very easily from a Midway type defeat, whereas the US managed to rebuild the Pacific fleet soon enough to turn the tide.

If Japan had won at Midway do you think they would have had a chance then?

in the conquest i can win with japan, so it is possiable,

Thats what i've been doing for the past 4 and a half hours

Even if Japan had sent every ship in the US Pacific Fleet to the bottom in 1941-42, the USN would have still been both much larger and qualitatively better then the IJN by 1943 as a result of new construction. If you cut one of the prongs off the US advance through the Pacific in 1943-44 (preferably the unessesary southern advance through New Guniea), then the US would have possesed bases in the Marianas by mid 1945, and the stage would be set for the inevitable atomic raid.

Ah, but what if Japan had, after destroying the US fleet in 41 and 42, proceeded to attempt to invade miday and pearl harbour (maybe in 43?). That would have significantly set back US plans for any US advance through the pacific!

What I am curious to know is whether or not Japan would have been able to (if it had achieved great Naval victories and sunk all the US carriers) launch such an invasion, how the US would have reacted, and whether they would have succeded.

 

[allhailIndia]

A Japanese "win" at Midway would have only set the US victory back a few years. Ultimately, the US could outproduce Japan in everything. Moreover, the Japanese were stretched, and an invasion of Midway and Hawaii would have stretched Japan beyond the limited resources it could muster.

No doubt the battle of Midway was a turning point in the war, but it wasn't one which made the ultimate difference between victory and defeat. In that sense, victory may for the Japanese may have meant a complete and total destruction of the US Navy in the Pacific, but this goal could not be achieved without destroying the industrial complex which built this fleet in the first place. This, I believe was beyond the capabilities of the Japanese.

 

[ComradeDavo]

A Japanese "win" at Midway would have only set the US victory back a few years. Ultimately, the US could outproduce Japan in everything. Moreover, the Japanese were stretched, and an invasion of Midway and Hawaii would have stretched Japan beyond the limited resources it could muster.

No doubt the battle of Midway was a turning point in the war, but it wasn't one which made the ultimate difference between victory and defeat. In that sense, victory may for the Japanese may have meant a complete and total destruction of the US Navy in the Pacific, but this goal could not be achieved without destroying the industrial complex which built this fleet in the first place. This, I believe was beyond the capabilities of the Japanese.

Some good points there, I am in agreement with you.

I do think that, even if they were overstretched, Japan should have tried to invade Midway and then maybe Hawai. As it transpired they could not do this because of loosing the Battle of Midway, but I think that for them to have changed the course of the war they would have needed to invaded these islands. This would have caused the USA to have thrown more resources at the pacific, and maybe given the Germans a bit more breathing space to build up defences against the Allies in Europe and North Africa.
What would have happened after that though, I do not know. Eventually I think teh US would have been in posisition to take these islands back.....but I do not know enough on the subject to speculate anymore.

 

[ComradeDavo]

Actually, on second though, after destroying the US fleet I think that Japan should have focused on penatrating into India, attacking Australia and fighting the Chinese.

In effect, neautralising the US for maybe a year, giving them breathing space to try and deal severe blows to China and the Commenwealth.

Anyone else have theories on what Japan should have done?

I have focused rather alot of the Japan vs US aspect so far, but I would like to hear speculation on how Japan should have fought the war against it's other oppenants also.

 

[rilnator]

The Japanese could never have over run Australia. Maybe they could have captured Darwin or Cairns but the thought of them fighting all the way down to Sydney or Melbourne is very far fetched. And then theres Perth and Adelaide. The Japanese had trouble enough getting their supplies to Papuan New Gineau let alone another couple of hundred miles to Northern Australia. The American submarine fleet was just too strong.

 

[Nobody]

What if Japan never bombed peral habour, just invade russia. Without america in the war against germany, germany would of had a much better chance to beat russia, even better with japan attacking on the east. After the finished off russia, germany could have steped up the airforce and had a second battle of britain just to tie down britain. The germans could pump oil to japan, so japan would be have enough to ignor the us trade embargo. Then they could hit the dutch east indies and Commonwealth, but leave america alone. If america got angry then there would be a much more powerfull germany to back up japan. (after the fall of russia, north africa would of been easy, even a invasion into the middle east as well. After losing all of africa and middle east, britain would sign a peace treaty on the condition Aussie and NZ left alone (english speaking white people, are much more to germany and englands favor than pacific)

 

[ComradeDavo]

The Japanese could never have over run Australia. Maybe they could have captured Darwin or Cairns but the thought of them fighting all the way down to Sydney or Melbourne is very far fetched. And then theres Perth and Adelaide. The Japanese had trouble enough getting their supplies to Papuan New Gineau let alone another couple of hundred miles to Northern Australia. The American submarine fleet was just too strong.

The Japanese did bomb the Australian mainland during the war and the Australians were serioulsy worried about invasion. If Japan had kept up the pressure and continued the bombing than this could have prevented the Australians from serioulsy fighting back in Papa New Guinea, and maybe could have helped the Japanese to keep the Australains restricted to the mainland. The Japanese would have needed a serious bomber force to do this though and I don't know where they have got it from. They would have need to divert from another area....but where?

What if Japan never bombed peral habour, just invade russia.

Intresting possiability. The Russians did have forces statione din the far east to protect against such an assualt, and maybe the Russian 'trade land for time' trick would have payed off and helped them counter act such an attack.

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One thing that the Japanese could have done anyway was decided to ignore the US and hope that US isolationism would have worked in their favour by allowing them to attack the British and Dutch East Indies without needing to fight the US as well. The US would have applied even heavier sanctions but maybe they would have stayed out of the conflict, giving the Japanese enough time to defeat conquer enough resources and get an upper hand over the Commenwealth and Dutch, whilst continuing to battle the Chinese. The Japanese could have been able to penetrate into India, subduing the British in that area, and bombing them to the extent that commonwealth troops would have had to have stayed on the Australian mainland.

 

[pawpaw]

What if Japan never bombed pearl habour, just invade russia.

they fought 2 " undeclared " wars with russia in the late 1930's--they got whooped, they weren't going back for more.

 

[Ace]

The Japanese could have captured Oahu if they had followed up the attack on Pearl Harbor with infrantry immediately after the air strike. But they would have been unable to hold it. The US sub fleet would have isolated it and instead of landing at Guadacanal, we would have taken back Oahu and any other of the Hawaian islands. The Japanese did not have the ships to support that kind of thrust, and certainly could not follow it up with a landing on the US West Coast.

The Japanese has no hope of "dictating" peace to the US in the White House. They just did not have the resourses to do it. Not enough ships, manpower, or industrial strength to support such an effort. The objective of the High Command was to "waste" the US Fleet at Pearl (Yamamoto was very disappointed that the Carriers were not in Pearl at the time of the attack), and scoop up the necessary resourses in the far east and then try to get a neogiated peace with the US. Unfortuately for the Japanese, the sneak attack on Pearl was the one thing that would p*ss off the entire American population to the extent that the only possible outcome for the Pacific War was Japan's ultimate surrender!!

Even if the Japanese had captured Hawaii, the US would have still island-hopped back to Japan. San Diego would have been the jump-off point instead of Pearl, but the end result would have been the same.

The "decisive battle" the Japanese were dreaming about, was no longer a valid idea. It only worked when dealing with a country with poor industrial resources, the other country does not have the will to fight on, and one's ground forces can take advantage of the victory. The Japanese were dreaming of another victory like 1904 against the Russians when they should have been looking at the British victory in 1805 at Trafalgar. That battle ended Bonaparte's overseas dreams, but it took the British another 9 years to finish him off.

 

[Ace]

The Japanese could never have over run Australia. Maybe they could have captured Darwin or Cairns but the thought of them fighting all the way down to Sydney or Melbourne is very far fetched. And then theres Perth and Adelaide. The Japanese had trouble enough getting their supplies to Papuan New Gineau let alone another couple of hundred miles to Northern Australia. The American submarine fleet was just too strong.

Actually, they could have if they had won the battle of the Coral Sea. Than the troops sent to the Phillipines could have gone to Australia. Or, to follow another option, If they had not attacked the US, but attacked the other areas they actually did in December 1941, except for the Phillipines, it would be an interesting scenerio. The Russians were too busy with the Germans to want to fight them, and without the Pearl Harbor attack and an invasion of the Phillipines, would the US have actually declared war on Japan or just relied on "sanctions" to stop them? That would have given them all the islands and territory they wanted except the US lands.

This is the one real option open to the Japanese that might have changed the outcome of the Pacific War. It could/would have had far-reaching implications for the European War too. If the Japanese did not attack the US, Hitler would not have declared war on the US and Britain would have stood alone against Hitler on the Western Front...i.e. the beachs of Southern England!!

Historians have shown the FDR wanted to "get into" the war against the Nazis, but without Hitler declaring war on the US and the Japanese attacking Pear Harbor, the concensus is that FDR would not have been able to convince the US to declare war on Germany and certainly not Japan. Isolationism was still rampant in the US right up until 0755 on Dec 7, 1941!!

Which, BTW, is tomorrow!

 

[pawpaw]

if the japanese had overrun midway and hawaii the u.s. would of changed its " europe first " policy--meaning even more resourses flowing to the asian threater.

 

[Ace]

if the japanese had overrun midway and hawaii the u.s. would of changed its " europe first " policy--meaning even more resourses flowing to the asian threater.

Probably not. The same resourses that eventually defeated Japan would have been used to retake Midway and Hawaii first. Remember, the Pacific was primarily a naval war and Europe was an air/land war. The US West Coast, in real life, was expecting a Japanese invasion the day after the Pear Harbor attack.

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

Think neviden's got it right. Without the Pearl Harbor attack, the US public would not have supported the war whole heartedly. An attack on Vladisvostok and Siberia would not have generated the outrage in the US that Pearl Harbor did. US entry into the war would have been delayed or avoided. Very questionable if Stalin could have withstood a 2 front war. Been toying with this idea for a scenario. Although Japan did not know it at the time, Siberia was probably richer in resource than the SE Pacific.

 

[rilnator]

Actually, they could have if they had won the battle of the Coral Sea. Than the troops sent to the Phillipines could have gone to Australia.

I'm not doubting they could land and acheive limited results but the immense size of Australia would be hard to over come. And I fail to believe they could keep troops in Australia well supplied.

 

[Nobody]

they fought 2 " undeclared " wars with russia in the late 1930's--they got whooped, they weren't going back for more.

At the time germany was smashing there way though european russia.

 

[allhailIndia]

The reason why the Russians whipped the Japanese in Manchuria was that they had been whipped by them 30 years back and fought them with respect and skill.

OTOH, the US and most Europeans, too used to seeing the Japanese as Asian midgets trying to imitate them, grossly underestimated the Japanese fighting skill and weaponry and paid a heavy price for it in Pearl Harbour, Malaya and Singapore.
I think the European colonial forces in the Far East were faw weaker than the Russian forces in Siberia and this may have prompted the Japanese to concentrate on South East Asia rather than Siberia.

Moreover, the Japanese also needed rubber and an easy access to oil very badly following the western embargo. While the former was completely unavailable in Siberia, oil too had not yet been discovered in significant quantities in SIberia to make it worth the Japanese efforts.

Needless to say, in order to continue with their conquest of South East ASia, they needed to neutralize the US PAcific Fleet, long enough to complete their conquest and try and hold off the Pacific Fleet when it is rebuilt.

 

[Headline]

Japanese army was not up to the standard of European nations. They could only produce light tank which has pretty thin armor. That is why Russians were able to whip their arses. Of course, elite Japanese army could defeat weak colonial reserve troops with the help of nationalism (Colonies wanted independence). Plus, most fightings are jungle fighting which does not favor the usage of tank.

Japanese army is only good when comparing to developing nations. The navy, however, is one of the best.

 

[Case]

Agreed. As soon as the Japanese Army stoped fighting poorly trained and equiped colonial armies lead by second rate Generals it stopped winning battles. By 1943, the best Japanese Army formations were being routinely whipped by average American, Indian, British and Australian formations.

Re Japan attacking Russia in 1941; it was never going to happen, for the simple reason that Russia couldn't supply Japan with what she desperatly needed. As a result of the hole the bone-headed Japanese leadership had dug themselves in by provoking the Western countries into imposing an oil emargo, Japan needed to sieze oil fields in a hurry to survive as an industrial nation. At the time, the Siberian oil fields were largely undiscovered, and those that were known were a very long way from Japan and would require a very long land campaign which the Japanese army simply wasn't capable of, even if it had had the combat power (which it didn't).

In contrast, the East Indies had lots of known and easily exploitable oilfields which were known to be guarded by a relatively small force of third-rate troops, and which could be quickly and easily siezed by relatively small expeditionary forces supported by Japan's excelent Navy. The decision was easy (though, of course, the correct decision would to have not provoked the crisis in the first place by invading China).

 

[allhailIndia]

Japanese army was not up to the standard of European nations. They could only produce light tank which has pretty thin armor. That is why Russians were able to whip their arses. Of course, elite Japanese army could defeat weak colonial reserve troops with the help of nationalism (Colonies wanted independence). Plus, most fightings are jungle fighting which does not favor the usage of tank.

Japanese army is only good when comparing to developing nations. The navy, however, is one of the best.

Not necessarily. Light tanks were good in jungles when the enemy did not have good anti-tank weaponry in the first place. It was only later in the war that the Japanese produced a good medium tank (Chi-ha or something like that), but it did not make a huge impact. The Japanese were actually the first to try and build a heavy tank, but it was a miserable failure to say the least. It never went into production.

The colonies did not support the Japanese much esp since the Japanese brutalized them worse than the Europeans. There were of course, exceptions like Subhash Chandra Bose who wanted Japanese help in overthrowing the British, but generally, the Japanese did not endear themselves to the native populace, especially in China.

The tank was effective in the early stages of the war since most of the colonial armies in the east were not mechanized. The Indian troops, who had never seen a tank before in battle, panicked at the sight of the metal monstrosity heading towards them and routed often. However, with the induction of tanks into the Indian army, and air superiority being wrested away from the Japanese, the tanks did not come into the picture at all.

 

[Warman17]

But the Germans were nowhere near building a bomb! A lot of the top physicits seem to have thought it near impossible anyway.

There are the British tapes of the captured German scientists reaction to the two US bombs. At first they were frankly disbelieving. Once they had accepted that the US had built the thing, they sat down and desperately tried to figure out how the dickens they had gone about it.
There is nothing indicating that either the Germans of the Japanese had any plans on building any kind of nuclear device in WWII. Got a source for your statement above? (Aug. 17 and the rest.)

Besides, the Japanese would never have been able to bomb the US mainland anyway. They tried some desperate stuff, sending balloons to start forest fires etc. but nothing that really worked.
If they would have tried anything it would probably have been landing someone from a submarine.

Not a nuclear bomb, a dirty bomb. The Germans had developed the ability to create abomb, fuilled with raqdioactive material that when exploded would shoot the material into the air and give everything with a few miles a heavy dose of radiation. All the Japanese needed was some uranium, which was on the German submarine that surrenderd itself.

My source was a show on the history channel I think it was an episode of Dead Man's Secrets.