HSF versus IJN

[Mostlyharmless]

It's 1918. Germany gave up on the idea of an unlimited submarine campaign and never sent the Zimmerman telegram. Thus the USA remained neutral. The British and French have decided to make peace and amazingly the Germans are feeling both exhausted and reasonable. It is agreed that Germany will withdraw from France and Belgium and Britain will give back the German colonies. Russia survives but loses a Polish buffer state etc.

However, Japan refuses to return its conquests. So it is the HSF versus the IJN. The difficult issue is how the British and Australians leave Papua etc. I assume that they just go home before the HSF gets there.

Any predictions?

ps. I should have mentioned that this was suggested elsewhere http://counter-factual.net/upload/showthread.php?t=3134.

pps. On reflection, I think that Germany could persuade The Netherlands to allow them to base their fleet in the NEI, which solves their main problem and gives them victory. The point is that it would take little pressure as The Netherlands would fear a Japanese attack or a rise in Asian Nationalism following a Japanese victory.

[RF]

Germany needs an operating base in the Pacific. The NEI are too far away for the short ranged HSF. Failing that we have a Tsushima scenario.

[123, easy as ABC]

Germany needs an operating base in the Pacific. The NEI are too far away for the short ranged HSF. Failing that we have a Tsushima scenario.

the op seems to have specified the Netherlands, did they have bases in Java etc?

[Jason01]

Given that the HSF has a forward operating base, the Japanese fleet would have been pounded to pieces.
They only had the Kongo, Ise and Fuso class plus like 6 pre dreadnoughts.
The HSF has 25 dreadnoughts. Additionally, was the Japanese WWI AP shell any good?

[RF]

Germany needs an operating base in the Pacific. The NEI are too far away for the short ranged HSF. Failing that we have a Tsushima scenario.

the op seems to have specified the Netherlands, did they have bases in Java etc?

But Java is still too far away for a short ranged fleet like the HSF. It needs bases closer to Japan than Batavia - its as far away as Singapore, which the Germans could persuade the British to allow them to use.

[RF]

Given that the HSF has a forward operating base, the Japanese fleet would have been pounded to pieces.

But where is ths forward operating base?