Whatcha want to bet I couldn't get through a few chapters of that before finding mistakes so bad that the entire plot falls apart?

BTW, I think the more plausible scenario for the Japanese to "win" in the PTO would have been to avoid conflict with the US, and concentrate on India. UK-Indian relations were at a very low point, and it could have been very possible for the focus to be West, not East, and tipped India into the "Co-Prosperity Sphere." Of course the Japanese would have had to have NOT been Japanese. They were often welcomed as liberators in the NEI, for example, but they burned that good will almost instantly by treating the locals as sub-humans (as they did virtually everywhere).

Such a scenario requires a change in Japanese culture... which probably means a focus on treating other asians better starting with the Meiji Restoration.

Exactly. "What if's" are still something for those in charge to worry about until they are disproved. You keep arguing "what it turned out to be" as if that were a known in early 1942 instead of a goal to achieve. That's hindsight.

Oh, I think it'd probably be a few paragraphs...but it's better than a kick up the arse.

Sounds like clinton:haha:

You can study the data all day long and we still wouldn't know how plausible it really was unless they'd actually tried it. You could be right; that could be why they didn't try it. But conversely, there have been far wilder successes in military history.

Not in the PTO. Think about the air support problem. They were hard pressed as they were.

BTW:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Japanese-Merchan...#ht_500wt_1154

Mark Parillo's excellent book on the jap merchant marine for $10!

It's out of print, and usually runs 6-7 times that. Someone buy it. (no dust jacket, but who cares)

Yes, in the PTO. Yes, anywhere. The human race is damned good at finding ways around obstacles, shortages...difficulties of all types. It's one thing to look at the data of what they had and what they can produce and say 'well, on paper, I don't see it happening'. And if you were doing that, I wouldn't be griping about it...

...but it's a totally different thing to simply say 'there's no possible way that could've happened'. Because you don't know that some guy better at the job than you or I couldn't have come up with a way to make it happen.

They would, have to have cancelled Malaya to have extra oilers for the Kido Butai at PH. Even then, they'd measure their air support in days. Then there would be rearming into the bargain.

The DD escorts would have become a major drag had they started chasing sups around (DD endurance at flank is measured in hours for a full tank of oil).

Some things are, indeed, impossible. Others are incredibly implausible or unlikely. There are some fundamental limitations on what the IJN could have done at Hawaii. That's not even counting the pathological inter-service rivalry with the IJA. Another angle is well discussed in Shattered Sword. Doctrine matters. Any attempt to think of alternate scenarios needs to fall within IJN doctrinal norms.

Note that the Japanese eventually considered an invasion of hawaii. They were not prepared to even try until late 1942, and only after taking Midway (it was not considered for the start of the war at all—this is simple fact). Of course by late 1942, the US forces in Hawaii (ground troops) were grossly in excess of what they tossed around as the invasion force. We know how japanese invasions did against an enemy that actually fought them—Wake. And many Wake defenders were not even marines, but construction contractors. Had Lexington not been waved off, the attack that took the island would certainly have failed (we'd have evacuated the island, then, so they still get Wake).

Anyway, us talking about invading hawaii as a possibility only makes sense within the context of when we KNOW the IJN considered doing it. Any attempt before that is fantasy. The US brass certainly thought it was possible, and immediately beefed up defenses, but a coincident invasion with PH is not plausible, because the japanese did not plan, or do this. At some point I have to take their actual actions as a given, and the first few months of the war were "programmed" well in advanced of the start of hostilities.

The whole point is what would've happened had they thought of doing it earlier. You can't dismiss something as being impossible just because it didn't actually happen.

And there's no such thing as an impossibility in war. Something might be very unlikely, but there's never a guarantee that it will fail.

They themselves considered it so implausible they didn't consider it. They knew their capabilities better than you or I.

The PH force had 8 tankers. The IJN had 9 total. The Kido Butai refueled roughly NNE of Midway on the 2d, over 2000 miles from Japan. Assuming the oilers sped home at 19 knots, they'd only take a ~7.5 days to make the round trip back to the middle of the Pacific. Add in some loading time, plus the fact that they'd have to zig-zag, and you start to see the problems. Dunno how going flank would use up their cargo, either, they'd not usually steam that fast, frankly.

Since that refueling point is in fact a few days NW of Hawaii (dec 2), that means that we should really consider the trip to be longer by a few days in each direction—they'd ant to refuel closer to the fleet. In that case we might add 3-4 days each way, so in effect we double the time to 2 weeks. This is using ALL their oilers but one, BTW, and we're folding in all the loading times, etc. This is a very optimistic number. So they'd need to operate 2 weeks at a stretch, thousands of miles from Japan. Note that the very same CVs were also required elsewhere for the japanese initial expansion—to the place the war was really about, the NEI (and oil).

Sorry, but they simply could not keep that many ships on station—which is why they didn't even consider it before the war. Also, the Dec 2 refuel was just oil for the ships. Some of them would need gas for the planes for later refueling, making it important to have more trips for the tankers.

Again, in all my comments up the thread, I said "after PH." Considering "what-ifs" that includes a totally different start of the war entirely, or a grossly different strategic plan is way beyond the scope of this thread. Might as well say "what if they pulled out of china, apologized, and joined the allies."

So for me, the "given" is at the very least the war plan they started with. Basically the first ~4-5 months when they were following the plan, before they came to the terra incognita of their plan. So you wanna suggest Hawaiian invasion, fine, but it's gotta come after the beginning of the war. They had an ambitious war plan, it's not like it didn't occur to them, it DID, but was dismissed—'cause they knew better.

Then there is still the fact that Hawaii would have been "a bridge too far" for the IJN to maintain...

I just thought of them with the flying donkey topic.:up:

It isn't so much that it is a revisionist attitude to the Pacific and far eastern theatres, its just what they were at the time. Britains 14th were called the forgotten army, they came well down the line when it came to getting men and equipment. Likewise earlier Churchills far eastern "fortress" was starved of anything worthwhile for its defence.

What must be remembered is that the allies adopted a Germany first approach, they knew that Europe was the more important as it posed more of a threat while Japan simply because of the scale of the oceans and the vast tracts of inhospitable terrain meant that their potential expansion and devolpment would be more limited and harder to maintain.

So in short since the politicians and military at the time decided that the European theatre was more important it cannot be revisionism to say the european theatre was more important....In fact elevating the far eastern theatre over the European would be revisionism.

I think the real point of the OP was more that at the sharp-end, the guys in the PTO had it every bit as hard, or sometimes harder than in the ETO. In addition, they were not fighting for a sideshow, or "nothing" but a significant theater of operations, with importance.

I think that is certainly true on both counts.

That is was secondary is simple fact, and that the ETO was judged to be less certain is also a fact. That those tasked with the PTO as primary responsibility—the USN under King—thought the PTO was not really in doubt as an issue in the longer term is also uncontroversial, and "simple fact." They thought so, and hence agreed with "Europe first."

It's important to remember that the UK was already on the ropes, and the invasion of the CCCP had the germans literally in the suburbs of Moscow at the time of PH (though on the 6th a major counter-offensive was taking place there).

Had Germany secured Soviet oil, she would have been far more of a threat than she was without it (make no mistake, WW2 was almost entirely about oil for Germany and Japan when it comes down to it (slightly more secondary for Germany, but they required Soviet oil since their efforts to get Turkey to join (path to middle east) kept failing).

Want to know my idea for the most plausible axis win scenario—assuming a total "do over?"

Germans secure Turkey as an ally. Invade Poland along with their co-belligerent pals the Soviets (people forget the CCCP was 100% in the wrong in ww2). UK/France declare war, BoF happens as it did. UK isolated, germany keeps US out of war, and goes for the middle east as primary object with the aid of Turkey. Japan attacks only the UK in the PTO, and unlike themselves is nice to those they "liberate." Their focus is India. Link with Axis in middle east.

PS—someone needs to go to ebay and buy that book!

I don't know how far that would go. I think describing the Soviets as belligerent and '100%' wrong isn't totally accurate - Stalin was opportunist and, within the limits of his paranoia, pragmatic. For all the supposed 'friendship' with the Germans, there was a lot of dancing around in the middle of '39 where he probably would have preferred to have taken a stand on the other side, taking the German threat very seriously (and probably more so than the West, at least in '39) - just that he unrealistically expected the French and British to look the other way as far as the Baltic and Poland went. Here of course Hitler was the more natural choice to look the other way, but I think that 'friendship' was absolutely doomed to turn into open conflict on the catastrophic scale it ultimately ended up taking - the only question was when and who would start it. What would happen then is not a foregone conclusion, but the fact that this would absorb at least the German's focus for some time is a given. I don't think there was any way of avoiding a war on the Eastern Front, and whose favour a delay of a few months in its start would be is really anyone's guess...

As for Japan, I think it would've taken a real feat of pragmatism for them to give their Pacific strategy achievable goals. Their leaders were not really known for that. And for that matter, neither was Hitler. I think both the ETO and PTO have one thing in common - the axis side overplayed their hand.

Invading Poland was wrong. Doing so was enough to garner a declaration of war vs Germany by the UK and France... why then not the CCCP?

Survival. Hitler and Stalin were already in bed with each other in the eyes of the West, declaring war on the USSR as well as Nazi Germany would just tuck the quilt over them and give them a teddy bear.
Such differing ideologies would not stay friendly forever, and I'd wager that the west knew that sooner or later there would be a falling out between them.

Tater, your victory plans make sense but where do you factor the Soviet Union into it...I'm not so sure that Stalin would be willing to let the Nazis expand infinitely, although the longer he waited before striking the Germans the more powerful the Germans would have become.
I'd also wager eventual US involvement, bear in mind that by 1941 US destroyers are actively hunting uboats outside of US territorial waters. The lend-lease act of March '41 gave Roosevelt the ability to throw as much material at Britain as he could get away with and only the uboats could stop them. Bear in mind that although the uboat war was still tough for the UK, it was swinging slightly against Germany up until the US entered the war officially and the second Happy Times came about before the US got around to listening to British advice on how to run a convoy system. So, perhaps if US involvement came later in the war because Japan was focusing on the UK and Germany was in the Middle East instead of in the Soviet Union, it perhaps could have swung the Uboat war a bit more in the allies favour as the shipping lane opportunities dried up. It would, of course, also prolong the war, so you have a greater chance of equipment like the Type XXI and Me-262 making it into greater production...but I do ponder how much of an effect they would have had.
The long and the short of it though, it all boils down to the Soviet Union. Once they are fully mobilised, Germany needs to be as ready as it can be to fight off the hordes and then push back to Moscow. However, the Soviets have the advantage of being able to set the timetable of the war if they attacked first.

Long post...and completely off the original topic so I shall draw it to a close here...but I do enjoy alternate history and exploring different outcomes. :yep:

I'd actually dug deep into that question - wrote a paper about it based on diplomatic documents from that period. The short answer is that the Soviets were actually the ones who requested a exactly that kind of arrangement (i.e. protection pact with Britain/France/Poland) to be made back during March '39. Part of this arrangement required Soviet troops to be stationed on Polish territory as defensive deterrent. While that seems like a cynical grab in some regard (it partially probably was), I read a series of letters sent by the British military attaches in Moscow, who assessed the Soviet military capabilities and stated in no uncertain terms that strategically and tactically, it would make no sense for the Soviets to arrange for any kind of mutual defense unless Poland agreed to basing Soviet forces on their own territory. Seeing how the only way from Germany to the USSR was via Poland, what did Soviets have to gain in peacetime by signing up against Germany? And trying to re-base and establish defensive positions in Poland while Germany was invading would've been potentially disastrous. Stalin did not want to risk massive military losses, or a war with Germany to defend a country that refused to allow Soviets to reinforce their defense in the first place.

It's easy to see why Poland didn't exactly fancy Soviet troops on its territory, but (and this is right from British assessments in '39, not my own) there really was no way around it. The French and the British had signed a binding protection pact with Poland, so there was legal basis for them to act when Germany moved. The Soviets had no legal basis to do so. It would've been basically unconstitutional, not to mention (from their view) strategically unwise, for them to take action against Germany at that point

So, since the Soviets' first objective at the time was not to compromise their own strategic position and risk war that would risk Soviet territory being under attack, they behaved totally as they should have in that scenario. It would take Poland's agreement to Soviet conditions for mutual defense, and this agreement never happened. You don't defend someone who refuses your conditions and also openly does not like you (rightly or wrongly) - simple as that.

NB - none of this excuses Soviet actions after the German invasion of Poland of course. That was rightly criminal.

Interesting, my area of interest is the PTO, so this is cool.

So to be clear, did the Poles, or did they not invite Soviet troops into Poland? IMO, there is a word for uninvited troops in one's country, it's called "invasion."

Understanding WHY they did so doesn't excuse it since it involved attacking another country.

From wiki:
Seems pretty indefensible to me.