Could the Japanese have ever won against USA in the Pacific Theater or was it doomed to fail from the start?
Also, how good of a General Was MacArthur?
>>938543
>Could the Japanese have ever won against USA in the Pacific Theater
No.
>or was it doomed to fail from the start?
Yes.
In any scenario with at least a semblance of realism the above are literally the only possible and complete answers. The US had somewhere about fifteen times the industrial capacity of Japan. The US built over 140 carriers during the war. The Empire of Japan built seventeen. The US built ten battleships during the war. Japan built two. The US built some 350 destroyers. Japan built 60. The US built some 330,000 aircraft. Japan built 70,000.
Not without a spectacular victory by Germany in Europe completely changing the situation.
They military knew they could make short term gains such as that at Pearl Harbor, they believed this could tide them over until their allies were victorious. The alternative was to accept that their years of war in China were for nothing (in reality the US may have left Japan alone to counter the soviet union and communism in China had they never attacked the US).
MacArthur was competent but not exceptional, a naval war on this scale using new technology had never been fought before, experiments had to be made and inevitably some experiments failed.
>>938543
>Could the Japanese have ever won against USA in the Pacific Theater or was it doomed to fail from the start?
Depends on how you define "winning". There's no way they could have won in a the direct, material sense, of pushing back the U.S. and launching some kind of invasion that stoms to Washington the way that the U.S. could have done to Tokyo.
They could have, however, been too much trouble and too expensive and bloody to take down that they could have negotiated a peace with honor, which is victory enough in some circles. Or at least they could have, if they hadn't turned the war against them into a secular crusade with the whole sneak attack thing. Pearl Harbor was what removed the last chance whatsoever they had.
>Also, how good of a General Was MacArthur?
Not as bad as a lot of the anons on /his/ would have you believe, but hardly a brilliant visionary either.
>>938601
>Not as bad as a lot of the anons on /his/ would have you believe, but hardly a brilliant visionary either.
>Largest US surrender
>Longest US retreat.
>>938543
Maybe. The Japanese knew they couldn't win in any prolonged war, which is exactly what happened. What they actually planned was to inflict such horrible causalities and horrors on the Americans that they would quit and let Japan keep her new colonies.
It didn't work and in an ironic twist the US ended up doing that to Japan.
>>938572
>Not without a spectacular victory by Germany in Europe completely changing the situation.
Even with Germany some how miraculously crushing the Soviet Union, unless they somehow also successfully invaded and conquered Britain and built a fleet that could somehow prevent an American invasion of Europe, Japan still loses. Of course if all that happened, obviously we're now in a world of unicorns and pixie dust so who knows?.
Germany was just too far away to actually help Japan against the US, the best Germany could have done is drain more resources from the US in the European theater, but that would likely just have prolonged things slightly. Anything but the most unrealistic of events in Europe would've done jack shit to help Japan.
>>938543
No. They even had their own generals telling them that up until 1945 and the fucking warhawks didn't even care.
Macarthur? Personally, he's only good for murdering WW1 Vets who only wanted their backpay. Reality? His command skills were average and he didn't completely fuck up the defense of the Philipines when Imperial Japan came a'knockin.
>>938630
>Stuck on a landmass where most of his force are local troops with terrible training, armament, and of dubious loyalty.
>Lines of communication are non-existant as soon as the Japanese close their hands.
>Expecting him to win.
>>938543
Sure it was possible, but it's important to understand the type of war Japan was hoping to have. They never planned on conquering or invading America proper, their goal was to cripple the US Pacific Fleet long enough that they would have time to take what they wanted of America's in the east and then form a defensive line in the Pacific that would be capable of repulsing American advantages. America's industrial capabilities aren't going to amount to much if you have no staging areas and Japanese subs interdicting you at the coast.
>>938931
>Dubious loyalty.
>Philippines
Stop making shit up. Cunts just got their wish of independence by 1946 with an additional 10 years of USA helping build Philippine Infrastructure. Of course these had strings such as US bases in the Philippine years for 99 years but they were so happy, it shot up the Philippine's pro-Americanness that lasts to this fucking day.
In addition they- alongside many Southeast Asians- were racist as fuck to anyone of East Asian descent. Blame Chinese/Japanese pirates and ancestral memories of them. 1940's Flips doubly so as they were rabid Catholics.
All of McArthur's fuckups in the Philippines were his fault.
>1935.
>MacArthur, currently retired, sent to Philippines to help train Flip Army and command US Pacific Forces.
>At around the same time, War Department formulates War Plan Orange.
>Basically the Plan calls for withdrawing garrisons from all over the Islands to around one huge hardpoint around the Capital, Manila/Central Luzon
>1941
>Nips attack on December 7, wipes out a good number of US Aircraft.
>War with Nips on.
>MacArthur: WE SHALL STOP THEM ON THE BEACHES, MOVE OUR FORCES TO THE SHORELINES OF THE PHILIPPINES.
>War Department: Mac, we had a plan...
>MacArthur: THIS IS BETTER. WE WILL STOP THEM, THEY WONT EVEN HAVE TO LAND
>Philippines
>One of the longest coastlines in the world since FUCKING ISLAND CHAIN.
>This_is_why_war_plan_orange_calls_for_concentrated_defenses.jpg
>US/Flip Forces gets spread out. Logistics problems, logistics problems everywhere
>Japs BTFO isolated forces and lands.
>Every US/Flip force in retreat
>Mac: Ok, wow, that screwed up, lets go back to the Original Plan.
>Fighting withdrawal to Bataan and Battle of Bataan begins.
>I-ISHALL RETURN.
>Macarthur leaves
>Months later Bataan surrenders
Largest US surrender in History
He created those communication and logistics problems himself.
Lets not even talk of Korea, OK? He fucking ignored intel up to the last minute of the Chinese assault.
>>938543
>Could the Japanese have ever won against USA in the Pacific Theater or was it doomed to fail from the start?
Definitely wasn't doomed from the start, but the failures at Midway, Wake and Guadal definitely sealed their fate. Had the Japs actually held Guadalcanal, it's a reasonable assumption that the U.S. would have been forced to retreat from Australia and the South Pacific back to the Hawaiian Islands which would've been a significant logistical blow to the overstretched US PTO. Guadal was really the lynchpin of the Pacific and Japan fucked it up really badly by failing to hold the island.
>>938556
This. If there has ever has been an open and shut case in the entire history of historical speculation this is it.
>>938965
>Colonized people
>100% Loyalty
>>939012
>Colonized people that were continuously slaughtered by U.S. troops for decades in a civil war that ended less than 2 decades before the U.S. entered WW2
>100% Loyalty
FTFY m8
>>938965
And the Second Phillipine Republic recruited how many soldiers again? Clearly, they hated the Japanese and all that they stood for.
>Defending War Plan Orange 3.
>Ok, so we have this plan that will at best hold the Japanese out for 6 months.
>But we're estimating it will take 2 years for the Navy to fight it's way through the Japanese fleet.
>Let's also assume that the Japanese will be too stupid to concentrate their heavy artillery and naval bombardment assets when we put all of our troops in one small location, I'm sure the nips will never think of that.
WPO 3 would never work, and was designed at a time when American assumption about Japanese naval strength was based around the notion that carriers were novelty items. MacArthur did not create those assumptions. His revised plans leaned heavily on the ability of airpower to keep the Japanese out; they turned out to be wrong, but he wasn't alone in those notions, you had guys like Chennault running up the trees shouting how a mere 500 bombers could kick all 4 million Japanese troops out of China.
He also tried to use the Philippine Army's 11 divisions, and assumed that they would be effective, nearly as so as U.S. troops. WPO3 didn't even mention their existence, and assumed all fighting would be done by Americans. Let's not forget too, that the Joint Chiefs signed off on Rainbow; or that the invasion of Wake Island showed that invading off of beaches is hard, even against armed construction crews.
>>939012
You're not seeing this from a Philippine Perspective.
The Philippine's revolt from Spain in 1896 emerged from a demand for equal rights, representation in the Spanish government, and inclusion as a formal province of Spain that started since the 1810. Not initially on Nationalism. Spain said no to all three and treated Flips like crap. Then they revolted.
Sure there was the betrayal by US forces on Flips but under the US they had:
>Equal rights (fucking treated better than US Negroes.)
>Industrialization & modernization.
>Public Education.
It had no autonomy (initially), but fuck that was everything the Flips fought for vs. the Spics. Not to mention the leaders of the revolution weren't punished, they ran the country for the Americans and were considered patriots of their own race (Flip) and of Liberty because they fought tyrannical Spain (I.e. Pseudo-Americans). Official fucking line that.
And then came a series of wheeling & dealing and compromises of increased autonomy between 1920-1935 which led to the bloodless promise of independence & development project in 1946. The reasons why Americunts could let go of the Philippines easily were
>International/Domestic Criticism of Colonialism practiced by the supposedly FREEDOM: The Country
>Great Depression: Philippines was considered too expensive to keep, and its farmers were making US farmers broke.
>USA realized they could have all the commercial benefits off the Philippines without governing it themselves if they were allied to it with bilateral agreements.
Basically the USA predicted (correctly) that globalism & client states > Colonies. Seeing that Europe was being fucked by them.
And guess what? Flips were happy with such a deal and liked the US even more.
The Philippines was basically one of the greatest foreign policy maneuvers ever and its pretty much underrated. Everyone thinks of SEA, people think Vietnam, and HURR US POLICY GOES TO DIE IN ASIA.
>>939024
>"Second"
>"Philippine"
>"Republic"
And how many of those fought with the Japs during the American Recapture of the Philippines?
>>939024
>Defending MacArthur.
>>938965
Is it possible to be this much of a mad Flipfag? How does it feel to be worse than Japan in literally every single way?
>>938980
>Definitely wasn't doomed from the start
You're right. They were doomed even before they started in 1931 when the Kwantung Army invaded Manchuria.
>>938962
Japanese were only good against 2rd rate colonial troops (Singapore, Manila) and they got their ass kicked by bunch of peasants in China multiple times. As soon as they started to meet well trained forces - Guadalcanal, New Guinea, things started to fall apart.
So, Hypothetically, if the Attack on Pearl Harbour was successful in completely wiping out the US's naval presence there, how much longer would the war in the Pacific be?
>>939150
>Guadalcanal, New Guinea, things started to fall apart
Not true. Every inch that Allied forces took from the Japanese was hard fought. Look at Cape Gloucester of Peleliu. Hell, the first two days of Guadal almost led to complete extermination of the 1 MRD forces on the island by Japanese counter-attack.
>>938980
Ohhoho no. They were pretty fucking doomed. There is literally nothing they could have done after Pearl Harbor to prevent what happened in 1945 save surrendering immediately and unconditionally.
>>938962
>submarines
>interdicting military traffic
>stemming out of a coastline 3,000 miles long.
This will never, ever work.
>>939164
Japanese troops either had two options: be well-supplied and do well, or get shit for supplies and be destroyed, i.e. they were like any other country's troops.
American troops would've had the same performance if they had endured the same shitty conditions Japanese troops did, the average American soldier had far less training than Japanese reservists.
>>939174
>3 years - ending in Japanese favor by '43.
How exactly would the Japanese counter and defeat an industrial giant that was capable of producing 10x the CVs they could?
>>939164
yeah, but it's mostly due to the fact that japs never surrendered and fought to the last man
they were inferior in tactics, equipment and manpower to the allies and were never going to win the war of attrition that they started
>>939163
A year, tops. Look at those production numbers anon posted above. Even with no significant naval presence in Hawaii, new units would have been rushed over from the mainland and Japan could never have taken HI, even if they wanted to (which they obviously didn't, just trying to force political concessions out of the US.) Once HI was restocked, the war proceeds as before. There might have been a change in that this would leave the US without spare units to commit to defending Oz, letting the Japs get a better position in PNG, but as for the main island-hopping campaign, I can't see it being significantly affected. Japan might be able to entrench a little better on some of the islands, but you can only commit so many ships and soldiers to such tiny islands, and with 6 months of US manufacturing, the ratios would have been the same again.
>>937536
desu Japan was just supposed to tie up the US long enough and do a good enough job to keep them out of Europe, at which point Germany would have hung them out to dry and consolidate their new clay.
They failed miserably, and didn't even divert enough attention away from the European theater.
And what this guy said >>939184
>>939191
Oops, quoted wrong thread
>>939163
Probably not at all; those battleships were old, obsolete, and never historically used for anything but shore bombardment or second echelon patrol. They were only barely useful, and no great loss if they were smashed to bits.
>>939184
Yeah that's what I figured, WWII was essentially a no win situation for the Axis, but that extra year might result in some interesting changes, More specifically in how far the Soviet Union projected itself.
>>939167
In reality you don't have to patrol all 3000 miles of coast, you just have to patrol near the ports that are suitable for launching capital ships.
>>939179
>American troops would've had the same performance if they had endured the same shitty conditions Japanese troops did
They did. Marines went days and sometimes weeks without resupply. Peleliu is pretty fucking famous for the fact that Marines didn't have water for 4 fucking days because they couldn't get resupplied due to 200s in the coral hills. On Guadal the marines didn't get resupplied for 3 days and were down to a magazine per soldier, or less, because of continual naval battles off the coast.
>>939181
>defeat
>not make the war not worth it
Simply put, if Pearl Harbor went as intended, the Japanese would've been left alone in the Pacific for an extra year minimum which was more than enough time to hamper Australia out of the war and completely destroy any chance of U.S. reprisal in the South Pacific due to the logistical improbability/impossibility of getting anywhere past the Hawaiian islands. You also wouldn't have a Midway which makes the IJN incapable of operation in the South Pacific and thus the offensives wouldn't be hampered. Not even a weeb, but it's pretty improbable to believe the war would end anywhere near on schedule and potentially without white peace instead of unconditional surrender had Pearl gone off without a hitch.
>>939184
See above. The production would be irrelevant given the fact it would be 6 months to a year before U.S. counter-attack is possible.
>>938543
>Expensive, draining stalemate in China.
>Suddenly fight ALL the western Colonial powers
Snowball, hell, phrases about chances of the former in the latter.
>>938671
It wasn't as crazy of an idea from their prespective as it might seem, too. In all of their post-Restoration wars (their participation in WWI conquering German Pacific posessions, the Ruso-Japanese war, even the conquest of Formosa) they had managed to inflict some damage and force the other side to the negotiating table. They just miscalculated the effect of their sneak attack in this instance. Plus Hitler then declaring war on the US drew the US into the larger WW2, and made the war with Japan part of a larger all-or-nothing struggle, whereas before the US and Japan might have fought it out pretty quickly and decided on who kept what shitty islands.
>>939205
So, you want to patrol near at the very least San Diego,LA, San Francisco, Tacoma, and Seattle, all of which hosted capital ships historically. If America berths in either Canada or Mexico (both allies during the war), you can add Vancouver, Victoria,Guayamas, Mazatlan, Manzanillo, and Acapulco to the list.
All of this is to be done with submarines, in an area where the U.S. can send almost unlimited land based air capability and you MAYBE can get a carrier or two to oppose them? How many days do you think you'll last? You won't slow the Americans down by any appreciable amount, and it doesn't matter anyway, since America was pissed as hell and wasn't going to settle for anything less than Japanese obliteration as a political unit, no matter how much it cost.
The entire idea is insane.
It could not win given it's doctrine was Kantai kessen. Maybe if it employed a different doctrine it could have fought it to a stalemate or favorable terms.
>>939207
>Simply put, if Pearl Harbor went as intended, the Japanese would've been left alone in the Pacific for an extra year minimum which was more than enough time to hamper Australia out of the war and completely destroy any chance of U.S. reprisal in the South Pacific due to the logistical improbability/impossibility of getting anywhere past the Hawaiian islands
CBs were capable of constructing supply ports and airstrips on tiny atolls in a timeframe of days to weeks. There is no amount of damage that a few CVP can do to Pearl Harbor that would put it out of action for a year.
And even if you did, by some magic, America isn't going to stop building ships, since CVs take close to 2 years to build. They'd just spam out the Essex class vessels, and be ready to roll in 1943. I don't know how you ever expect to knock Australia out of the war, and even if you did, what of it? It's not like Australia is providing capital ships or millions of troops.
You're not a weeb, you're just an idiot.
>>939207
First off how exactly is Australia knocked out of the game, and second, Australia wasn't even that big of a player in WWII.
>>938965
Even if they did manage to fight of the Japanese, how the fuck would they get supplies? The IJN had control of the sea. Task Force Z got fucking sunk by land-based aircraft.
Tell me how would you get supplies for a whole fucking country without resorting to things like sub supplies or flying even more transports out of fucking Kunming. And even then, I don't think it would be enough.
>>939245
>CBs were capable of constructing supply ports and airstrips on tiny atolls in a timeframe of days to weeks
And how the fuck are the CBs going to get there without naval supply/logistics? Magic?
>There is no amount of damage that a few CVP can do to Pearl Harbor that would put it out of action for a year
Not to Pearl, the fucking fleet. If the CV fleet was still stationed in Pearl as it was a week prior which is what the Japs intended, you are down your carrier fleet, your cruisers, destroyers and BBs.
>And even if you did, by some magic, America isn't going to stop building ships, since CVs take close to 2 years to build. They'd just spam out the Essex class vessels, and be ready to roll in 1943
And by 1943, there's no Australia. Guadalcanal has a functional airbase which severely limits naval sorties in the South Pacific. Rabaul is dug in and has continuous sorties flown. The war is coming to a close in China. Samoa has fallen. It's two fucking years where Japan has complete control of the Pacific.
> I don't know how you ever expect to knock Australia out of the war, and even if you did, what of it? It's not like Australia is providing capital ships or millions of troops
It's providing significant basing rights and logistics for American troops and ships. Have you actually studied the war in the Pacific or do you just spout American exceptionalism?
>You're not a weeb, you're just an idiot.
Nice ad hom.
>>939263
>First off how exactly is Australia knocked out of the game
The entire intent of Guadalcanal was to set up an airbase which made resupply of Australia/use of Australian basing impossible for Americans.
>Australia wasn't even that big of a player in WWII
Australia was of significant importance in the Pacific Theater due to logistics and basing rights. It's the whole reason for Operation Cartwheel and the Solomons Campaign. If it weren't for Australia as a stepping stone, the island hopping campaign would have stalled out fairly quickly.
>>939278
>The war is coming to a close in China
Chian was a fucking shitshow, I don't see how having Naval Hegemony would speed up the Chinese fronts.
>>939293
>not fighting a two front war
>Ichigo succeeds since half of your manpower and logistics aren't tied up
>>939205
>>939226
I'll also add that Japanese doctrine re: submarines was so retarded that it was a fucking miracle that the Japanese sub corps could sink ships.
They were still commerce raiding with surface ships when the Allies were taking out their transports with subs.
Shit, even the Germans and Italians caught on quick to the commerce raiding potential of submarines, and mind you, they're ITALIANS.
>>939278
>And how the fuck are the CBs going to get there without naval supply/logistics? Magic?
How the fuck is Japan going to stop them from getting there? The U.S. has, at the start of the war, close to 4 million tons of shipping capacity. They'll go on to churn out millions more. They'll send them from the mainland, and you don't have enough submarines or other assets to stop them, especially since your closest base is about 3,600 km away.
>Not to Pearl, the fucking fleet. If the CV fleet was still stationed in Pearl as it was a week prior which is what the Japs intended, you are down your carrier fleet, your cruisers, destroyers and BBs.
Congrats, you've sunk 2 CV (out of 7) and 8 more cruisers (out of 40something). You've now hurt the U.S. a little, but hardly enough to cripple them. Again, once the Essex class vessels come online, none of this matters.
>And by 1943, there's no Australia.
Insanity. Australia had some 6 divisions in the southeast. And real, well armed, well equipped divisions, not colonial troops like the Japanese faced off in earlier campaigns. Now they'll have to have a supply line stretching all the way back to Japan, and beat these troops in the field. Never going to happen.
>Guadalcanal has a functional airbase which severely limits naval sorties in the South Pacific. Rabaul is dug in and has continuous sorties flown.
Again, so?
>The war is coming to a close in China.
Japan hadn't made any advances in China that they could keep since 1939. Why is the war "coming to a close"?
>Samoa has fallen.
So?
>It's providing significant basing rights and logistics for American troops and ships.
For a campaign in the Solomons that isn't materializing due to your fantasy and was arguably strategically worthless in the first place. And you still haven't even begun to formulate how it would fall.
>>939278
>Nice ad hom.
Nope. An ad hom would be if I'm saying that your argument is wrong because you're an idiot. You're an idiot because your argument has no underpinning in actual reality, and ignores salient factors, like how the U.S. was outbuilding Japan 8:1, the numerous angles of attack that the U.S. could pursue, the qualitative edge the Americans enjoyed, or the fact that you're relying on a long chain of assumptions, none of which are likely, to even get to the initial point.
>>939299
The Japanese advance had been stalled since the Battle of Wuhan which was Three whole years before Pearl Harbour, with China essentially being a stalemate position with the Nationalists and the Communists running amok in the rural areas, not to mention I doubt the Allies would let China fall. Could Japan Advance deeper into China in this scenario? Sure. Would the Sino-Japanese War come to a close? Probably not.
>>939326
They had 3 CV, 2 more in the Atlantic that can be transferred over at any time, and over 20 cruisers. Not to mention all the land based air that Japan doesn't have any hope of contesting, due to lolnobases.
They can easily reinforce their own areas, and as long as they keep under their air umbrella, they'll be reasonably safe.
Also, they did have a backup fleet being churned out when the war started. 5 Essex class carriers in various states of construction. 7 new Battleships, all of whom were actually fast enough to keep up with the carriers and thus useful.
Meanwhile, if you want to stop resupply efforts to Pearl Harbor, you're operating at the very end of your tether range wise if you're basing out of the Marshalls, and you won't have time to go patrolling around looking for freighters.
Something like 85-90% of all convoys made it through in the Battle of the Atlantic, and that was a gainst a foe who was committed to convoy destruction, had a hell of a lot more submarines than Japan was putting to the fray, and had bases that were about a third of the distance from the furthest strike zones.
>>938980
>>939174
>>939207
>>939278
>>939326
See this
http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm
The Japanese were royally fucked from the outset. Even when things got bad for the American supply lines they were always getting better. As for the Japanese they were always getting worse. Any harassment faced by the U.S. Navy in the form of Naval battles would tie up resources briefly sure but at the end of the day once a Jap ship is sunk and the battle is won its a Jap ship that no one is going to have to worry about ever again. An American ship sunk will just be replaced and the war would continue until that virtually irreplaceable Jap element is sunk. As this happens America's supply efficiency improves as the American elements are less and less tied up. Face it. Even if we only account for the Attrition factor the nips loose.
see this
>>938543
>Could the Japanese have ever won against USA in the Pacific Theater or was it doomed to fail from the start?
They could never win as in make Americans surrender unconditionally. They could've win themselves revoked embargo and sanctions though, they didn't expect Americans to think long-term though.
