Dec 1942... Pacific Japan still winning and attacking Hawaii

[Bgile]

I'm guessing it's a very poor simulation and your opponent was incompetent.

Pacific Storm is highly regarded simulator and my opponents are set at the highest difficulty available. Though i do admit i planned things in the way where the US carriers would be sunk as quickly as possible while i try to build as many as possible during the that period.

Oh, so you completely changed the historical plans for research, building ships, etc in order to give the Japanese an advantage due to your knowledge of what actually happened. I'm guessing you get to have perfect control over combat, production, etc like you are a god hovering over the world and can talk to each unit instantly in order to change it's orders. You know ahead of time what is possible and you make the best choices. Actually sounds like fun, but the ability to have god like control over everything would make it pretty unrealistic.

[BlackBirdZGTR]

Oh, so you completely changed the historical plans for research, building ships, etc in order to give the Japanese an advantage due to your knowledge of what actually happened. I'm guessing you get to have perfect control over combat, production, etc like you are a god hovering over the world and can talk to each unit instantly in order to change it's orders. You know ahead of time what is possible and you make the best choices. Actually sounds like fun, but the ability to have god like control over everything would make it pretty unrealistic.

Um, you have control over the vessels, aircraft and production of only one nation in open campaign while the opposing nation is controlled by a computer at a set difficulty of your choosing or another player in multiplayer campaign or custom battle. Also in this game the best way to describe what you are would be an absolute dictator/admiral/multiple captains of a country and not "god" as you'd describe since i cannot control my opponents fleet, cant see their fleet unless their in combat range of me and well i didnt choose to play as them.

[RF]

H

Lets say the war for the Japanese actually went pretty well? As well Japan made made some changes from what they did historically? Here's the outlined scenario...

*By December 1942 on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese have not lost a single carrier in combat...

* A few months before Pearl harbor the battleships Ise and Hyuga were taken out of service and sent to be converted to full fleet carriers... As well Japan orders an extra 3 Shokaku carriers, Ise and Hyuga's conversion is complete and recommisioned in late 1942 along with the 3 new shokaku's.

*Both Yorktown and Lexington were sunk at Coral Sea, while the Japanese lost only 6 dive bombers in this battle...

*Hornet and Wasp were sunk on May 7th in the Phillipiness admiral Nimitz was killed in this battle.

*USS enterprise along with Saratoga were sunk on June 1942 at Midway, Japanese suffer mild casualties with only 3 torpedo bombers and 17 dive bombers. Japanese carriers are completely untouched.... Midway seized

* July 1942 Johnston atoll siezed, USS North Carolina and USS Washington sunk while engaging Yamato with support from Torpedo bombers... Yamato sent to shipyard for minor damages.

* September 1942 Fiji, Tonga isles, New Caledonia and Samoa islands siezed by Japan.

* Late September 1942, British aircraft carriers Illustrious and Formidable arrive in the Pacific along with a task force of 18 destroyers and 2 KGV battleships, 1 week later the entire task force save for a 8 destroyers would be at the bottom of the ocean after a battle against the Japanese landbased airforces, carrier forces and surface ships.

* Early November, another British carrier task force arrives off the pacific consisting of Victorious and Indomitable both are quickly sunk off of Sumatra by the Japanese ironically most contributed by the Japanese battleship Musashi as the British failed to notice her as she quietly creeped into range and open fired...

December 1942, Japanese move in on Hawaii by raiding Pearl harbor as well as bombing the island from both midway and Jonhston atoll, Japanese are now attempting to blockade the island starving it them later invading it.

Alright so this isnt historically accurate and does not follow the tactics actually followed by these nations... But lets say the Japanese didnt put their heavy fitting battleships and heavy cruisers behind the lines and in reality extensively used them in the scenario i proposed above? Along with the major success that was proposed above?

Would the US sit down with the Japanese on peace treaty? How would moral be among the American public? As well what would opinion of the US navy be along with that of the US government? OR would the US prepare for a counterattack? And how?

I have reproduced the original lead post here so we can get back to the proposition raised. There are a number of fundamental points that need to be raised regarding its content BEFORE thefive questions posed can be answered.

My initial response is to agree with lwd's first post here, immediately following the lead post. HOWEVER:

1) How are the Japanese able to win the Coral Sea and Midway battles plus achieve a further major victory in the Philippines on 7th May 1942?

2) Where are the Japanese shipping, air and troop logistics for occupying Fiji, Tonga and New Caledonia? Why not invade Darwin and Queensland, Australia instead, even assuming the logistics for doing so are available?

3) Where does the massive involvement of the RN come from? What about British commiments in the Med and Atlantic/Arctic guarding against Tirpitz?

4) If

[RF]

It appears that more than half of the above post has been obliterated by a time out - most annoying as it took nearly two hours to edit. I will have to return to this later...

[lwd]

If, as I'm assuming, the game was playing the allies. Then this situation represents a failure of the AI to behave like the leaders or indead any competent military leader of the time. Almost any sim even very good ones can get into these sorts of situations. However it makes it very hard to then put the situation back into the real world and make any sort of reasonable projection on what would happen.

[Bgile]

If, as I'm assuming, the game was playing the allies. Then this situation represents a failure of the AI to behave like the leaders or indead any competent military leader of the time. Almost any sim even very good ones can get into these sorts of situations. However it makes it very hard to then put the situation back into the real world and make any sort of reasonable projection on what would happen.

The AI is never as good as a human, but IMO the chief problem is the intelligence and communications aspect. As soon as the first scout plane (or DD in the dead of night) makes contact with the enemy, the commander in chief and the entire fleet know about it because they are all the same person. You fleet moves in perfect coordination, air strikes are formed perfectly. If you need to perform a tactical maneuver, it is performed flawlessly in perfect coordination, even at night. Ships all fire at the exact target chosen by the dictator in "Japan", etc, etc. There is nothing inherently wrong with this ... it's a lot of fun and you learn about the things you are dealing with. But as an example of what was actually possible it falls far short. If it was more realistic it would be too boring for most people because they wouldn't know what was going on most of the time.

As the OP mentioned, you aren't really God because you can't control the weather, but you are omnipotent.

[BlackBirdZGTR]

1) How are the Japanese able to win the Coral Sea and Midway battles plus achieve a further major victory in the Philippines on 7th May 1942?

They werent on the same day, Coral Sea was on the 15th and Midway took place in June,.

2) Where are the Japanese shipping, air and troop logistics for occupying Fiji, Tonga and New Caledonia? Why not invade Darwin and Queensland, Australia instead, even assuming the logistics for doing so are available?

IJA army generals are not in agreement on invading mainland Australia and are reserving the troops that would be necessary to invade Australia to invade Hawaii instead.

[JtD]

I thought it was the Japaneses plan to establish an Asian Prosperity zone, meaning a region controlled by the Japanese reaching from Manchuria down to Australia. The involvement of the USA and European powers in the area was the sole reason Japan went to war with them. They never had the intention to invade the US, not even Hawaii. They just wanted a safety zone that put them the Japanese mainland safely out of reach of US forces. In that context, Dolittles attack against Tokio prompted the attack against Midway - the established safety zone had proven insufficient.

A nation with inferior equipment and strength can win a war as long as it, miraculously, wins every battle.

In the proposed scenario, I'd assume that
a) the US strategy of "Europe First" might have been altered,
b) the Japanese would not have pursued the conflict with the US, focussed on their original plan instead while being (over)confident to successfully counter the US threat whenever it comes back,
c) the US would not have accepted a peace treaty
d) the US would have built up considerable forces for a counter attack. In this context I'd like to point out that, while not nearly as famous as carriers, the US U-Boats had a very, very significant impact on the Pacific war and could still have managed to bring the Japanese expansion to a grinding stop. No point in having a dozen carriers and battleships, if you only have a few tons of oil left. The Japanese did not make plans to salvage Mutsu, but they made plans to salvage a couple of thousand fuel oil tons from the wreck - just to illustrate my point.

[RF]

I am now reproducing the full post intended yesterday, referring to the lead post on this thread. Tthe text runs as follows:

I have reproduced the original lead post here because there are a number of fundamental points that need to be considered regarding its content BEFORE these five questions can be answered.
Initially my response is to agree with lwd's response immediately following the lead post, HOWEVER:

1) How are the Japanese able to win the Coral Sea and Midway battles plus achieve a further major victory in the Philippines on 7th May 1942? Yes, they were on different dates, my question is on logistics not chronology.

2) Where are the Japanese shipping, air and troop logistics for occupying Fiji, Tonga and New Caledonia? Why not invade Darwin and Queensland, Australia instead, even assuming the resources were available? This would be easier logistically than these disparate territories, and to say that the IJA generals couldn't agree on this underlines my point.

3) Where does the massive involvement of the RN come from? What about British commitments in the Med and Atlantic/Arctic, to deal with U-boats, Tirpitz, Scharnhorst etc.?

4) If Japan can invade Hawaii in December 1942 they would surely have done so in December 1941?


What BlackBirdZGTR has done is to assume that Japan has military logistics way beyond its actual capabilities, even if we were to assume no war in China and no substantial forces in Manchuria to guard against Soviet attack.

I think it is more realistic to scale this down into a Jap victory at Midway. This has been discussed at length in other threads. The conclusion was that the war would end at the same result, same time.

Or alternatively, if BlackBirdGZTR is trying to establish a ''tipping point'' for a Japanese military victory over the USA, I would suggest the following as being realistic and credible:


A) Germany invades and occupies Britain in the summer of 1940. Following the signing of the Tripartite Pact in September 1940 Hitler invites the Japanese to occupy Malaya, Dutch East Indies and French Indo-China as part of Germany's peace settlement with Britain, France and the Netherlands.

B) Following A) the Japanese sign agreements with the governments of Australia and New Zealand (now completely independent countries following the demise of the British Empire), in which the latter mortgage their independence to an armed neutrality in the event of war between Japan and the USA. The trade links these countries formerly had with Britain are now directed to Japan.

C) Germany and Japan sign secret agreements with Mexico, on the basis of the 1917 Zimmermann Letter.

D) Joint military planning and collaboration between Germany and Japan in attacking the US. This includes cancellation of Barbarossa and joint development of an atomic bomb (which includes input from scientists and resources from occupied Britain).

E) Japan attacks Pearl Harbor at a time when at least two US carriers are at anchor there. Third and fourth waves of attack are used, as this time the follow up is full scale invasion of Hawaii. The Philippines, Guam and Wake (but not Midway) are also invaded. At the same time the KM surface fleet, U-boats, supported by Italian battleships and cruisers and supply ships concentrate off the US east coast, to interdict US shipping and to gain access to Mexico.

F) Mexico invades Texas and Clifornia. Two German panzer divisions and Luftwaffe support is provided. Following successful invasion of Hawaii, the Jap carriers now proceed to unleash their planes in raids on San Diego, Portland and Seattle. Mexican seizure of Long Beach enables the Japanese to join forces with their German and Mexican allies, in what now looks like full scale invasion of the US Pacific coastline.

G) The USA is now given an ultimatum by Ribbentropp. Negociate a peace settlement or face nuclear weapons. As a demonstration a German A10 rocket carrying a uranium bomb is launched from Goonhilly Down, Cornwall, England. The projectile detonates and vapourises Bridgeport, Connecticutt, and sends a seismic tidal wave into New York harbour.

H) Roosevelt, acting on advice from Oppenheimer, agrees to sue for peace on the basis of a guaranteed armed independence of mainland USA. Negotiations involve detail of Mexican territorial claims and confirmation of the loss of Hawaii. As a reward to Stalin for not interfering with Axis operations, Alaska is awarded to the Soviet Union.


This nightmare scenario could have happened if the Axis leaders were strategically savvy, had brains and were prepared to work together and trust each other.
But even then Roosevelt would be playing for time - until the US developed its own bomb. And of course Stalin would be awaiting his.

[RF]

A nation with inferior equipment and strength can win a war as long as it, miraculously, wins every battle.

Miraculous is the right word. How can you win every battle?

[RF]

In the proposed scenario, I'd assume that
a) the US strategy of "Europe First" might have been altered,
b) the Japanese would not have pursued the conflict with the US, focussed on their original plan instead while being (over)confident to successfully counter the US threat whenever it comes back,
c) the US would not have accepted a peace treaty
d) the US would have built up considerable forces for a counter attack. In this context I'd like to point out that, while not nearly as famous as carriers, the US U-Boats had a very, very significant impact on the Pacific war and could still have managed to bring the Japanese expansion to a grinding stop. No point in having a dozen carriers and battleships, if you only have a few tons of oil left. The Japanese did not make plans to salvage Mutsu, but they made plans to salvage a couple of thousand fuel oil tons from the wreck - just to illustrate my point.

The conclusion? Japan still loses.

No, Japan mortgaged its future in signing an alliance with Hitler. But the Tripartite Pact was signed for opposite reasons: by Hitler to keep the US out of his war; by the Japanese to bring in Germany as their ally if they went to war with the US. Ironically the Japanese were right - if they were to defeat the US they needed substantial help from a Germany not bogged down in Russia. Without the Germans the Japanese cannot win by conventional means.

[JtD]

...This nightmare scenario could have happened if the Axis leaders were strategically savvy, had brains and were prepared to work together and trust each other...

Germany was interested in their Lebensraum im Osten, Eastern Europe. They were not interested in a war against the UK, let alone the US. So there would not be a strategic plan to attack or let alone invade the US.

Japan was interested in their Asian Prosperty Zone. They were not interested in a war against the US extending beyond a fight for the US territories/protectorates in Asia. So they wouldn't develop a strategic plan against the US mainland.

The German - Japanese cooparation was, at least from the German perpective, mostly aimed against the Socialist Soviet Union, to force it into a two front war. Again at least from a German perpective, it was hoped that other nations, like the UK, would join the Germans in their war against the Communists.

So your proposed nightmare scenario could not have happened because the US were no target. It simply does not fit into the picture of the world at that time.

WRT miraculously winning every battle, you may look at the early phase of the Japanese expansion, where they frequently attacked with inferior numbers and inferior material and still came out on top. For whichever reason. So up to Coral Sea they came pretty close to that.

For the Japanese it would have been a bigger victory to develop a decent convoy system than to sink the three US carriers at Midway.

[Bgile]

First, I suspect the game doesn't model logistics.

Secondly, this thread has gone so far into the realm of fantasy I'm afraid I can't contribute much more.

[lwd]

...
A nation with inferior equipment and strength can win a war as long as it, miraculously, wins every battle.
....

Well one can argue that what was to become the US had inferior equipment and strength and managed to loose quite a few battles but still won the revolutionary war. Indeed one of my favorite generals (Greene) managed to loose most if not all the battles under his direct command and was responsible for the US winning one of the most decisive campaigns of the war. The will of the nations involved is paramount (other examples can be found). The Japanese didn't think or at least hoped that the US didn't have the will to continue the war after serious initial losses. Obviously they were wrong.

[BlackBirdZGTR]

...
A nation with inferior equipment and strength can win a war as long as it, miraculously, wins every battle.
....

Well one can argue that what was to become the US had inferior equipment and strength and managed to loose quite a few battles but still won the revolutionary war. Indeed one of my favorite generals (Greene) managed to loose most if not all the battles under his direct command and was responsible for the US winning one of the most decisive campaigns of the war. The will of the nations involved is paramount (other examples can be found). The Japanese didn't think or at least hoped that the US didn't have the will to continue the war after serious initial losses. Obviously they were wrong.

So basically their strategy was to hit the US hard and hope they'll just throw in the towel? They would not even attempt to get themselfs in a position where they could attempt to fight off a counter attack? (taking Midway, Guam, Hawaii, isolating Australia) I have read of the logistic problems of Japan even being able to invade Hawaii but could they not of eliminated whatever ship remains at Pearl Harbor along with Isolating Hawaii by naval blockade as well as carpet bombing Hawaii with Neils and Betty's from Johnstons atoll and Midway? I would assume after an extensive period of being isolated, shelled and bombed Hawaii should be easily capable for the Japanese to take?