midway

Even if the Japanese had won MidWay, they would have only been able to strafe and bomb it. Casualties would have been high, but they don't maintain the strength to hold the island itself. Withtin 2-3 months the 1st Marine Division would have been directed to Midway instead of Guadalcanal with a full carrier force. Unless they can come up with 20,000 Men to hold the island, Japan wouldn't and couldn't hold the island. So really its a matter matter of how long can you control midway?

 

Ok, please forgive any silly remarks here, Pacific war is not my forte. IMO, Vanguard and Vermillion are correct, Japanese were half hearted at best with their thinking at Pearl Harbour and did not want a prolonged war with the US. At worst they were incompetent in the art of carrier warfare, relying more on their heavy cruisers (eg Leyte Gulf).

Note how in the attack they targetted only the ships and surrounding aircraft and bases, NOT the nearby oil field, which apparently had more fuel alone than the whole of Japan's reserves. - Any competent commanders would have also denyed them these to delay any counter-attack for months.

Also note how Yamamoto only decided on the one strike. Why? There were many targets of opportunity and none of their scouts could find the American carrier force. If they were serious, why also were there not any landing craft to take Hawaii?

Japan in my opinion, struck Pearl Harbor as a warning to the US about its sanctions, more to scare it than to provoke all-out war, because, as it has already been pointed out, they would be woefully overtaken in the arms race once the US went into full war mode. Also, how the hell were they going to invade the US anyhow?

 

I wholly agree with Bratwurstdimsum on this point, that the Japanese were inept at Carrier warfare. They are heralded as the ones who realized the effectiveness of the Carrier and how it was overtaking the Battleship as ruler of the seas. This is mostly becuase of the Pearl Harbor attack (which is heavily influenced by the previous raid on Taranto by the British Royal Navy), however the Japanese even after this continued to rely on heavy ships that would engage the enemy Navy in a grand battle like Jutland (They do this at Leyte Gulf, and at some points had they had the fuel, probably would've done so more often).

What is forgotten is the carriers were NOT the main body of the Japanese Navy at Midway, the main body was the force carrying Admiral Yamamoto on the grand battleship the Yamato, demonstrating that even after Pearl Harbor and even Midway, the Japanese never really wanted to leave behind the grand majesty of battleships.

By the time they are finally convinced the carrier is the way to go, it is far too late, they never really have an original carrier design, most of them are converted from cruisers, or in the case of the Shinano, battleships. Some classes even retained the graceful curves of the ships they were supposed to be.

But even as the highest orders are realizing this, it seems the lower ranks, the commanders of the ships themselves, still see the carrier as a recon ship for the fleet, and to support marine operations with aircraft. The largest carrier the Japanese ever had, the Shinano, one that could've made an impact somewhere, was, slightly after completion (11 days), sent into a sea the Japanese knew full well was crawling with American subs, and it was subsequently sunk.

 

So, presume the Japanese win at Midway . . . I probably wouldn’t be here to write this since my father was a Yorktown based pilot, but that would only spare you guys.

At a macro level, you might want to look at:

http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm

In the long term the Japanese would have lost anyway and probably in about the same timeframe.

In the micro level ...

There’s been a lot said about the Japanese holding Midway would make Hawaii (I presume this means Oahu) untenable. Nothing could be further from the truth. If the Japanese invest Midway then THEY become the targets. Logistically there was no way the Japanese could support a garrison on the island. With what were they to launch the attacks that would drive the American from the Hawaiian chain? Their aircraft allocation for the island was miserly and what were they to use for fuel? The American supplies? All in 55-gallon drums, the main fuel tank having been accidentally blown up before the battle even started. Would a Captain Simard or Colonel Shannon not destroy the remaining stocks if he knew the island as about to fall? I wouldn’t count on it on either one of those gents not arranging for a jolly blaze. So now you have this garrison and a small number of aircraft landed on a very small island, with only the supplies they brought with them, that is closer to their enemy than to their own sources of support. Now you have this garrison and a small number of aircraft landed on a very small island in an operation that stretched their troop-moving ability to its limit. So here they sit on an island already surrounded by US submarines, some 25 being available for the task (at least one on those damn torpedoes ought to work), and within easy range of heavy bombers from Oahu AND the Americans still have at least two carriers undamaged that are closer to their operating base than are the Japanese carriers (which are probably off on refit or some other operation anyway, not to mention the possibility that their air groups could be somewhat shot up as had happened to Zuikaku the month before). Further, Midway is a very, very small place. It would be of no use as a jumping off point for any invasion force, there would be no point to it’s use a fleet base. The fact that it was in range of heavy bombers from Oahu aside, this was not a deep-water, protected anchorage like Ulithi; this is a couple of e-flat, overgrown sandbars with no real capability to handle shipping in any quantity.

And with what could the Japanese force the Americans out of the main islands? Another carrier attack a la 7 December? Sorry, they’re waiting for them this time. An invasion? Sorry, this is what the Coast Artillery guys had dreamed of since the branch was established. Do you have any idea of the available artillery, up to 16-inch guns, with interlocking fields of fire covering approaches to all the possible landing sites on Oahu? Boys, I’ve seen those forts and climbed on those emplacements and, having some small experience with artillery, I can tell you I wouldn’t want to park a troopship and off load within their reach. If you can get ashore, can you land enough men to take on, probably by the time you could launch an invasion, at least two divisions of Army troops and a division of Marines?

The grim reality of assault calculation is that one demands a minimum of a 2:1, and preferably 3:1, preponderance in manpower to carry off that kind of operation (look at the later actual island invasions carried out by the Americans). Let’s see … low balling the number of troops in three American divisions (we won’t even consider all the other army and navy personnel on Oahu), so figure about 40,000 men and since they’d be on the defensive then they would be able to maximized their troop usage, up to about 75% (again without considering their ready source of replacements) … that means the Japanese would need a minimum of 80,000 men ashore (shooters, not clerks) and would do best with about 150,000. And that’s not counting their necessary follow on forces. I’m afraid there just weren’t enough bottoms in the Empire to carry the necessary number of troops.

And if they could have moved all the necessary troops and you think the Japanese would be able to soften up Hawaiian defenses with naval gunfire, think again. First of all, off shore fire support was not really part of the IJN doctrine. Note their spectacular successes in bombarding Guadalcanal … made life real unpleasant at times, and in sea action cost the USN and RAN not a few ships, but was never enough to force the issue AND cost them quite a bit, including a couple of battlecruisers. In case you were wondering, that’s one of the reasons Yamamoto ended the Midway operation. There was a push from some on his staff to forge on and use the main battle fleet to bombard the island into submission (Mikuma & Mogami’s adventure was to be a prelude). This concept he turned down as, among other things, he knew that they had no clear cut doctrine for fire support on such a massive scale (something the Americans practiced somewhat before the war and then later in the war with great relish … wiping clean not a few uninhabited islands in the process). And then of course there’d be the problem of getting close enough to bring their big guns into play. I’ll bet even the USAAF could eventually hit a capital ship if they threw enough B-17’s at it. There would be no way the Japanese could sneak up on Oahu again, especially if they held Midway. They’d be watched 24-7 and there’d be, and in reality there were, 360-degree searches flown every day, rain or shine (something that went on well into 1944). There would be plenty of warning and, for the Japanese, a long, long haul under constant air-sea-and-undersea attack to even get close to being in position to attack, much less invade, Oahu. I also suspect that they would see the aggressiveness of these attacks ratchet up as they got ever closer.

No, sorry, the Japanese had not the capability to exploit any capture of Midway into some grand conquering of the Hawaiian Islands. Their logistics, even when winning, were abysmal and their operations suffered accordingly. They had neither the men, the ships, the airplanes nor the support facilities for those three factors to drive the Americans out the Hawaiian Islands.

And attack the West Coast in force? Multiply the problem by an order of magnitude.

 

If Japan had won Midway, greater emphasis would have been directed at defeating a more threatening Japanese adversary. Since only about 15% of US power was directed to the Pacific theatre an increase in this percentage would probably increase the likelyhood of a Japanese defeat quicker; or at least in the same amount of time.

MacArthurs' waste of resources in the South Pacific would have been terminated and the Focus would be on defeating the real Central Pacific threat with Nimitz.

Japan did not have the production or combat power avaliable in mid 1942 to successfully invade Hawaii.

Midway would have died on the vine when US submarines choked off Japanese re-supply attempts. Japanese troops would have been cut-off and chewed up just as the Japanese troops in the Aleutians were. Those troops landed at the same time as Midway.

 

If Japan had won Midway, greater emphasis would have been directed at defeating a more threatening Japanese adversary. Since only about 15% of US power was directed to the Pacific theatre an increase in this percentage would probably increase the likelyhood of a quicker Japanese defeat; or the same timeframe.

MacArthurs' waste of resources in the South Pacific would have been terminated and the Focus would be on defeating the real Central Pacific threat with Nimitz.

Japan did not have the production or combat power avaliable in mid 1942 to successfully invade Hawaii.

Midway would have died on the vine when US submarines choked off Japanese re-supply attempts. Japanese troops would have been cut-off and chewed up just as the Japanese troops in the Aleutians were. Those troops landed at the same time as Midway.

 

If Japan had won Midway, greater emphasis would have been directed at defeating a more threatening Japanese adversary. Since only about 15% of US power was directed to the Pacific theatre an increase in this percentage would probably increase the likelyhood of a quicker Japanese defeat; or the same timeframe.

MacArthurs' waste of resources in the South Pacific would have been terminated and the Focus would be on defeating the real Central Pacific threat with Nimitz.

Japan did not have the production or combat power avaliable in mid 1942 to successfully invade Hawaii.

Midway would have died on the vine when US submarines choked off Japanese re-supply attempts. Japanese troops would have been cut-off and chewed up just as the Japanese troops in the Aleutians were. Those troops landed at the same time as Midway.

 

Quite to the contrary. Had the Japanese won Midway the US Navy and Admiral King would have had no arguement to use to attempt a limited offensive in the Pacific until Germany was defeated or at least it looked like Germany was finished. The likely outcome from a loss would have been to allow MacAuthur sufficent troops to maintain a static defensive or, a very limited offensive in New Guinea at most. The US Navy, likewise, would have been limited to continue its carrier sniping with raids where possible.
So long as the Germany first strategy was on the table the Pacific could wait. The Midway win was sufficently decisive enought that a limited offensive (Operation Shoestring / Guadalcanal) was permitted in the Pacific on the condition that the Navy use assets already there so as to not effect the war in Europe (particularly in LSTs).