aspqrz02
Posts: 1024
Joined: 7/20/2004 Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Adnan Meshuggi As you said, the us navy could try to follow WPO... if they do so they will be utterly destroyed. Old slow battleships in a harbour vers. old slow battleships 4000m below the waves. The problem is that no-one really could be sure that this would be what would happen. The Japanese, for a start, pursued the idea of a massive, decisive, surface fleet vs. surface fleet action with the USN through the whole war. The fact that it didn't work that way is neither here nor there. The point is that the Japanese thought that was the way it would (or should) work ... and generally planned accordingly where they could. Unless your scenario is based on Alien Space Bats using Orbital Mind Control Lasers to send messages to the IJN High Command from the future and therefore giving them 20:20 hindsight ? quote:
ORIGINAL: Adnan Meshuggi We could still start the war with pearl-attack, just with lesser surprise (none?) and different invasion plans by the japanese side and fully intact dutch production facilities with also more ressources for japan. Resources which you obviously didn't read, the Japanese had no real capacity to transport back to the Home Islands as they did not have the Tankers. The only real change, resource wise, would be that they would have larger stockpiles of POL in the DEI ... stockpiles they still could not move from the DEI through lack of shipping ... This was a war loser in the real world and still remains a war loser in and of itself. Or, putting it another way ... it wasn't access to resources that lost Japan the war, it was their inability to move those resources back to Japan that lost them the war. Your proposed scenario does not significantly, if at all, change that reality. quote:
ORIGINAL: Adnan Meshuggi Sure, the USA could attack japanese tankers... i just think that the differences between "Shoot without war" or even "War without force" by the USA 1942 is just not possible - against japan. Again, you completely, totally and utterly fail to grasp the point. Which is not what the US might, or might not do ... though I would disagree with the level of certainty in your claims as to their likely actions under the circumstances as would, I suspect, many other posters on this forum ... it is what the Japanese planners thought they could do ... what they thought the US had the capability to do (as noted elsewhere above re "Decisive Battle"). Military planners worth spit have to take into account capabilities and possibilities. The Japanese military planners did just that. We can argue that their conclusions were crazy ... and they were ... there were any number of peaceful options that would probably have allowed the Japanese to keep their possessions in China, evidently ... but, within the parameters of their craziness, the plans they made were logical enough. So, unless we're getting back to Orbital Space Bats and their Mind Control Lasers from the future , the way in which the Japanese act in this matter is unlikely to be significantly different from the way that they acted historically ... hence the most likely outcome is a Pacific War that starts some months earlier, with all parties less prepared than they were historically. In fact, given the complete stuff-up that the allies (the Brits and US, mainly) made of the thing, historically, the fact that they have fewer troops and resources committed to the PI and Malaya/Burma probably is a benefit to them as the troops and resources not committed at the point of an earlier Japanese invasion will be available for use against that invasion in places and at times where they may have more of an impact on the course of the war than they did originally ... or not. Who knows? quote:
ORIGINAL: Adnan Meshuggi So this scenario is interesting & possible Well, maybe. A scenario where the war starts months earlier than in real life with a Japanese occupation fleet being opposed by allied forces or a partial occupation of the DEI being opposed by allied forces facing surprise attacks against based in the PI and around Borneo and the DEI and Malaya ... the most likely outcomes ... would change things, sure, but, as noted, it doesn't change the fact that the Japs get little, most likely nothing, in the way of increased resources that they can ship back home to where they can be transformed into useful stuff that might stave off their inevitable defeat for a few months more than in real life. quote:
ORIGINAL: Adnan Meshuggi I think, a war, starting in March, 1942 - like the war started in December 41 could be possible - or to simplify it, same start, but with quicker support by us-production (say, 8 weeks earlier?) So, say, we start in february, 8, 1942 Why 1942? In the circumstances you describe this makes no sense. The Japanese gain little or nothing from the 3-4 months delay. Surely you mean 1940? Phil
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Author, Space Opera (FGU); RBB #1 (FASA); Road to Armageddon; Farm, Forge and Steam; Orbis Mundi; Displaced (PGD) ---------------------------------------------- Email: aspqrz@tpg.com.au
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