World War II

Ageed!

IMHO the Japanese military leadership knew that their country couldn't win a protracted war with the United States, but their government hoped that the U.S.A. would accept Japanese domination of the western Pacific rather than pursue the extended conflict needed to defeat the Japanese Empire once it had obtained extensive territory.

The Japanese government felt that it was a critical failure not to have officially declared war on the U.S.A. before the attack on Pearl Harbor; their diplomats in Washington had trouble decoding the message containing their instructions to issue Japan's declaration of war, so it was delivered to the U.S. State Department after the Pearl Harbor attack rather than (as planned) immediately before it occurred.

AFAIC it wouldn't have made much (if any) difference in the American people's determination to defeat Japan, whether the bombing of Pearl Harbor was technically a 'sneak attack' or not, but the Japanese leadership apparently felt that it would have.

Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto, Japan's most respected military leader, conceded right after the attack on Pearl Harbor that the Japanese military forces could do well against the U.S.A. in the initial stages of the Pacific conflict (which they did) but that they would lose in a protracted war (which they also did)... --C.K.

Random thoughts on the Pacific war.

The real ball buster 'What If' scenario concerns the Japanese only attacking British & Dutch possessions in what they called the 'Southern Operation', leaving American possessions alone. Could FDR gotten a war resolution through Congress under those circumstances? Dicey! Imperial HQ seriously considered such a plan for several months in both 1940 & 1941. Eventually Combined Fleet (Yamamoto) insisted to the Naval Chief of Staff (Nagano) to veto any such action due to Combined Fleet concerns about the untouched American Fleet in Hawaiian waters.

I do not think so highly of Yamamoto, Isoruku. He had a dedicated following to be sure but it was a small one. His un-popularity within the Imperial Navy not to mention the active hostility of the expansionists in the Army lead to his assignment to be CinC of Combined Fleet just to get him out of Tokyo so he would not be assassinated. For my money Yonai, Mitsumasa (Yamamoto's patron & mentor) was much more respected in political circles. And my personal opinion is that Ozawa, Jisaburo was the more gifted naval officer. Good for us that they waited so long to give him a fleet command. Yamamoto is someone I think I would have liked personally. However; his screw ups at Pearl Harbor, Midway, and especially the Guadalcanal campaign throw a dim light on his abilities He is simply well known in the West while other Japanese Sr. Officers are not.

Goodgulf

He could not have invaded England. Your forgetting the U.K navy. The one that handed the German fleet it's ass in an earlier battle. And yes Germany did drop troops from the air in another battle but the cost was so horrible that Hilter swore never to use it again(they took roughly 90% losses even though they conquered their target).

People are split on if Stalin would have attacked Hitler...but all accounts of him that I have read by people that knew him said that he believed Hilter and he was shocked when they broke the NAP the two nations had.

Be that as it may people forget that Russia did most of the dying in the war. They lost more then all of the allies plus Germany combined. Russia would have beaten Germany without our help but I think they would have kept going all the way through France. I do believe it would have taken nukes to stop them. We(being the allies) were in no shape to fight such a massive army once they stopped to resupply. We would have had to rearm Germany(which Patten wanted to do) to have any chance at stopping them and even then it would have been doubtful. Stalin never attacked because of the Abomb, but also because we would have swept them from the air.

Goodgulf

Germany would have never made it across the ocean. Your crediting them and Italy with navy's that the nations simply didn't have. We had a larger navy(even in peace time) AND our carriers were all on that side of the world at the time that England might have fallen. We would have begun a rapid build up as we showed that we were capable of doing. Because we would have understood that our best chance was to keep them the hell out of North America. We might have annexed both Canada and Mexico if it came to that, neither nation could have stopped us. Hell we could have taken South America as well if need be.

It would have taken both Germany and Japan hitting us at the same time on both coasts to have any chance and even then it would be doubtful with how fast we were capable of building up stuff. We were pissed off at Japan attacking us...think about what would happened if we thought that our homeland was in serious danger.

Goodgulf

Hearts of Iron 2 is a much better war game I believe. As you can play as any nation. In one of their expasions they even allow a post WW2 showdown with Russia. And I know its a good game because you can win with Germany by guiding them correctly throughout the game. You can even build them into a naval power however its not easy to do so. It starts in 1936 on the road to war and events happen(or don't happen) depending on how you play the nation you pick. The major nations(Germany, Russia, USA, England,Japan) are all capable of conquering the world(given enough time....the expanded version of the game plays to 1964) if played correctly(not doing silly things like attacking the USA in 1941 with Japan) and things go according to plan. America starts with an updated navy and a nicely built one even in the peace time years of 1936...which was correct. Hence the reason I say that a German invasion of North America wasn't possible. If they had flipped Mexico into joining the Axis the USA would have annexed Mexico quite easily.

Which is why they needed total air superiority. Enough planes would have wrecked the fleet. Remember that the reason there was no off shore bombardment during Dieppe was that the Fleet didn't want to risk losing another battleship. Without air cover the Royal Navy take horrible loses in trying to stop the invasion. No, the invasion was possible, but then the real difficulty would have been keeping the German troops in supply as they fought in England - just as there were logistic nightmares following D-Day. Armies go through huge amounts of supplies and without the most basic supplies (food, ammo, fuel) there is no way they can advance.
Be that as it may people forget that Russia did most of the dying in the war. They lost more then all of the allies plus Germany combined. Russia would have beaten Germany without our help but I think they would have kept going all the way through France.

Agreed. If memory serves, the causality split was 90% eastern front, 10% western front - and that's not counting murdered civilians. Without D-Day the Russians would have at least had all of Germany and might have ended up with Finland - and since there wouldn't have been the pretense of "elected governments" I could see all the Warsaw pact nations being rolled into the USSR.


That was the fear. If the US didn't get involve in stopping them then (after the fall of England) they might have. Remember that Kennedy, Lindbergh, etc were politically supporting Germany (or at least trying to keep the US out of the war) and if the USA had done nothing then the ragged survivors of the British Navy couldn't have prevented the Axis from crossing - especially if the British shipyards had been captured intact.


There was a US/Canadian plan to go to a North American Defense (with the US annexing Canada in fact if not officially) if Britain fell. The problem with making that work was politics - forget the Canadians that might not want that, there's that bit that says certain parts of Canada can join the US and immediately be treated as states. Imagine the politics of adding new states in wartime - would incorporating Canada mean 10 new states? 4? Some number in between? How would that change the Senate? How would Americans react to those foreigners taking such a major role in their government?


WiF has two expansions to deal with it - Patton in Flames (rearm the Germans so you can make it a Democratic VS Commie game) and America in Flames (where the Axis has won in the Pacific and Europe and now it's down to fighting for North America). We've never played those expansion but we have incorporated elements from them into the main WiF game.

World in Flames is a table top, face to face, game as opposed to a computer game - and the basic WiF with DoD III set up seems a lot like "The Road to War" Hearts of Iron bit. You can only play one of the 8 major powers (US, USSR, Commonwealth, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and China) and unless you have 8 players the democracy players generally play more than one power (Commonwealth/China, USA/France is how we deal it - to keep the command conflict between Commonwealth and France) and if you only have 5 players one of the fascists doubles up (Japan/Italy - to keep the Italy/German command conflict). Unlike Hearts of Iron everything is player controlled. The game goes until one side (Democratic, Communist, or Fascist) achieves a certain number of victory conditions (the number changes depending on the side - with the Communists needing the least the and the Democracies needing the most). If we couldn't get the FtF game going I'm sure I'd be playing the computer game.

Goodgulf