History (and related interesting facts)

Such as?

Your seriously not going to mention the anti war crowd or any of the pseudo communist and extremist organizations that opposed it are you?

Course not.

Suffice to say I'm unswayed here friend.

The political pressure heavily leans one direction here I'm sad to say, but of course you likely knew that and just wanted some critique of it.

Yeah...this really doesn't convince me of any supposed naivete.

I haven't had time to watch all the videos so I might have missed something, but I'm pleasantly surprised we got through the Pearl Harbor anniversary without some idiot claiming that FDR knew all about it and let it happen. Most discussions on the subject I've been involved in online seem to have someone like that (and we had one here back on 9/11).

Some MiG Jet history and pros, and its necessity to be alongside Sukhoi jets.

To be fair, there was quite a lot of evidence going around at the time that Japan was planning an attack on America. It's just that some people think the American government figuring out an attack was coming, doing nothing in order to drag their country into a war, then covering up every bit of evidence that they had done so is more likely than a simple mix of mistakes and institutionalised arrogance meaning no-one putting the pieces together before the attack came.

They might have been suspicious the Japanese were up to something (and even if they weren't it still makes sense to track other powers' fleets), but there's no real evidence anyone relevant or important in America really thought the Japanese were actually going to attack them and they certainly weren't expecting an attack on Pearl Harbour. Hell, the US Navy were aware to some extent of PH's vulnerability to air attack from their exercises. They just didn't believe anyone could attack there, except possibly the British who weren't ever going to, so saw no need to improve defenses...

They had recieved some warnings from overseas sources that such an attack was imminent, but they were either ignored or never reached the right people, and there were several screw ups on the day itself that meant PH was unprepared. Some people (as is typical of idiots) have taken this to mean there was a conspiracy on behalf of the US government and military to allow an attack to happen....

Japan in the 1930s/early 40s was one of the most bat-shit crazy countries ever. It was basically under the control of junior army officers with a penchant for assassinating their superiors - military and civilian - if the latter weren't aggressive enough.

It's more that, although Japan has definitely in the hostile camp, no-one really believed they would actually go as far as to attack America while they were already bogged down in a war with China. Which, under normal circumstances, with the country under the control of reasonably sane people, would be true. It's just, as I point out in the post above this one, Japan was not under the control of anyone with even a passing acquaintance with sanity.

A Japanese Midway win would be interesting and not utterly implausible - the Americans did get somewhat lucky with how it played out after all - though a situation where the Japanese come out of the battle with most of their carrier force intact might be pushing it - and even if they do, the losses amongst the air wings are going to be heavy, putting the Kido Butai out of the war for some time. However, a "win" involves defeating the American carriers, not actually taking the island, as the forces they had with them were nowhere near strong enough to achieve the latter. I mean, the Americans had roughly as many troops defending than the Japanese had in their invasion force, the former are well fortified and supplied and the reefs around the island make it a bitch for landings. Imagine something like Tarawa, but with the sides having a 1:1 force ratio and the attackers not having decent landing equipment and vastly inferior bombardment support (Japanese doctrine didn't allow for BBs to be used to support landings). No matter how well the naval battle goes, any landing is a disaster for the Japanese and will only result in them losing a few thousand more troops which they can ill afford.

As for what happens next, well, the Americans aren't out of carriers, but they're probably going to husband them much more than they did historically, so no Guadalcanal. Maybe, as a result, they focus even more on Europe first, so Torch gets moved up a bit?

It seems an era of weak presidents exists in US history between Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.

I do not know if I'd agree given I was basically working off the premise that Japan didn't stumble into a fight they were utterly unprepared to fight, I basically work that Japan found the American Task Force before they were sighted and were able to engage it to effect.



Given I am working off the premise that those ciphers never broke I think the battle would play out entirely differently, I am expecting sort of a mass orgnized bum rush on the American position via heavy navy bombers in the G3M and other lighter aircraft they had along with them, in essence I am basically going off of what Nagumo wanted to fight that battle, a sudden blitz of fighter and bomber craft to cripple the carriers, and hence why I said about 10% of what their losses would be, they'd lose planes maybe a carrier get'd a lucky bomb strike in return but ultimately I think that battle only devolved into the slugfest it was because America more or less knew what was coming and when.

Them suddenly coming under attack out of port isn't exactly the same scenario. At best they'd get maybe fifteen minutes of warning before they came under assault.



I honestly think they can do better here.  Especially if in this scenario they can actually employ their submarines to effect now that it isn't going to be a matter of when their fleet is spotted, I mean you have to admit this entire outcome we base our conjecture off of basically stems from the outcome of a battle where the Americans knew what was coming, and had a general idea of what was coming against them.


I think that they could establish a few submarine staging areas to harass allied shipping but overall I don't picture them doing much beyond that.

 

Except logistically the Soviet Union is sort of still fucked from the initial blitz back in 41, they have been rebuilding and recouping from the initial German surge across Poland and into Russia but erm, they aren't anywhere near where they will be in 44 or 45 yet. I personally think this is only viable in 42 and only because Germany fucked Russia hard in the initial invasion.

Yes they have a more populous nation, can field more troops, have more guns and what have you but recall that most of their armor, mech infantry and heavy artillery are scrap lining the Polish border, or stuck around Moscow.



Ehhh, sort of but I am working just off what I remember from a premise I proposed a decade ago.

It might have been more critical I honestly can't recall.


No but them regaining the momentum before Russia rebuilds does.


*snorts* right.

Let's just ignore the desperate last minute reinforcing they did just a year prior to stave off the fall of their capital eh?


Germany itself nearly did that alone just a year prior to this.

While their industry is currently pumping out the future nightmare of the German heartlands, it will not be complete for another year and a half.

They at present have the Germans in a stalemate for a reason, they outnumber them, heavily, but lack the capacity to actually drive them out, hence why I mentioned the German victory in the prior post, it was something of a reminder of the state of the war, Germany is still holding its ground despite the Russian surge.



They have the capacity to produce an army that will dwarf what Germany can combat, its true but they do not possess it at present, I think people underestimate just how much Russia lost during the invasion. They had to pull in levies from Siberia. Also Japan is just going to draw them into a second front, something they will have to shift forces in between, divide their armies and resources and strain their already perilous logistical chain. They can't even field the mechanized portion of their mechanized infantry but they can certainly afford the numbers, its just going to add another meat grinder to that theater, that's the entire point.

Something to allow Germany to swing its elite units back into the fight and reform for its push.



Presuming no invasion of North Africa occurs via America, and the British forces are utterly defeated there, Italy itself holds, it seems the Axis itself has gained the time it desperately needed to shore up its own infrastructure and capacity to wage war. If I recall correctly this tied into the political narrative of events I predicted would occur, Spain officially joining the Axis which royally fucked the British and basically led to them having to abandon the war in Africa utterly(One word Gibraltar), Romania officially joining the Axis and its vast oil reserves and munitions production allowing the Germans and Italians to basically push into the mid east where the establishment of the pro German puppet kingdoms occur. Its sort of a line of dominoes revolving around Africa. Its a combination of time and resources, which gives the Axis what it needs, the materials and supplies to ride out the offensive by the Allies and repel them, the European ones mind you, America is if I remember correctly circling the wagons around Australia to stave off Japanese bombings by this point.



Presuming Market Garden goes down the way it does in our own timeline I think these two parties may be growing increasingly weary of war, Another factor most overlook but it should not be is public sentiment, by 44 in our own timeline a lot of people were utterly tired of war, especially in Europe and the UK is case and point of this, remember Churchill got voted out in July of 45. The war would not end for another two months. The writing was all but on the wall that it was over by then mind, but all the same both America and Britain were utterly sick of it.

I think if the case was made that Fortress Europe was indeed fortress Europe and without the heavy lifting power of the Soviets, they'd either have to concentrate and push their own forces forward onwards towards Berlin and Tokyo respectively, they'd bear far too high a body count for their citizenry to bear. Especially given that Germany just has to point guns one way now, it can divert everything to a western defense, just as Japan a southern. The only real concern with Japan is China but all the same, that threat is rather minute, and only a handful of American raids actually launched from China to begin with, though that might actually become somewhat more common in this timeline if they had to wait til 43 just to have carriers again.




If they were willing to play the part of the Soviet Union? Yes.

I don't think they would though.

But yeah by latest-1949 the Reich and Empire of Japan would be dead if they did.



Its not the actual loss of vessels, its the way loss of vessels will look to the public mind you, the whole retribution of Pearl Harbor thing is going to go stale real quick if you only had one decent victory over Japan since you got into the war and meanwhile they have been kicking your ass back across to California, just from a morale perspective.



I disagree.

By 44 they were tired of war but could see an end. '44 with Germany controlling Europe is a very very different thing. There's not going to be much in the way of calls for peace yet.

Churchill got voted out because people didn't want the Tories looking after Britain at peace. Had there been no end in sight, he'd have stayed in.

Japan is either surrendered or rendered irrelevant by mid '46 at the latest - with Germany still a threat, a full scale invasion is actually unlikely, but between naval and aerial domination, the allies can pretty much revert Japan to a medieval state. No shipping - including fishing boats - get in or out, anything more advanced than a cart moving around gets bombed etc. It would be brutal on the population, but there were a lot of people on the Allied side willing to do so - and with the longer war, the chances of Japan doing something remarkably stupid that would just piss off the Americans even more increases (hint: 731).

Fortress Europe is a tough nut to crack, but its one the allies can and will do. After all Germany has done, they can't afford to let it remain - remember, the Germans have demonstrated time and time again that little things like treaties mean nothing to them. Any overtures for peace that involve Germany holding onto and significant territorial gains are going to be rejected out of hand if for no reason other then the simple fact that the Germans cannot be trusted.

Again, they simply can't afford not to do it.

California? What? The Americans have just lost one more battle. They're hardly running away. They still hold PH, they've got far to strong a force in the Pacific for Japan to threaten that. But they do need some immediate success, they need to demonstrate that they can win. And they have no capacity to do so in the Pacific due to the shortage of carriers. So a North African focus is the logical outcome. At the very least, Torch goes ahead on the historical schedule. Diverting forces away from it makes no sense even if it isn't pushed up the list. There's nothing else they can do with those troops and a victory would be most welcome
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It takes way too long to respond to individual quotes tbh and I frankly don't have the patience to continue doing it.

To save time I am just going to make a list and reply to that.

1. North Africa, a fair point the two failures to breakthrough and the fall of Tripoli would indicate that the campaign would fail with or without the assistance of the Americans however that is not so due to the reinforcing done during the Tripolitania collapse, namely Tunisia and this is where I think the war would turn in the campaign without America and Canadian forces to bog them down across Algeria. But we will get to that later on in more detail, but suffice to say I think a resurgence is likely here without direct military aid from the Americans, because yes the Brits did well here but most of what they did was case an army across one desert into another, it was defeated, not destroyed. Add in the fact that Monaco, a major German staging ground in the region is still shipping in fresh troops and armor. They can rebuild.

But yeah I didn't forget the British successes on ground or sea, I just didn't factor them in heavily due to them not compromising the logistical chain all that much. Wrecked the Italian navy though.

2.On Moscow and other assorted USSR bullcrap.

Fair enough on the point that taking the capital will not automatically lead to the defeat of the USSR, it will not it will however deny them that as a key staging ground basically force the collapse of the eastern front of the Russian advance, it would cause issues, I will not deny that, but again I think this extension is worth because it basically forces everything westward to try to take back its prior holding, which leads to a nice defensive war, in which I think that the Japanese exploitation of the situation would come in handy. Ultimately my point about Moscow was solely in relation to how fucked the USSR was in 41 and how reliant on foreign aid they were to even push back against the Germans, namely in their armor and aircraft, due to most of their armor being charred husks again on the Polish border. Those 600 American and British tanks were quite useful that winter, but that's not something you hear much about.

I also think that another critical factor here is how reliant they are on the gifts of weapons to fight via the Allies at this time frame and denying them the shipping lanes in the east to receive it can only be a good thing. It would also likely deny the British the usage of their far east fleets, but we can get into that if you want later.

3. Churchill The man being an unpopular drunkard might have helped in that regard of him not retaining power but fair enough, I am not here to argue for a fat dead politician.

4. On North African focus I don't believe it would result in that truth be told. Call me a skeptic but I think they'd bide their time and result to raiding and maybe upping their production of vessels to replace what they lost but Hewitt is sort of fucked with what he can field to safeguard the landing operation, the Atlantic Fleet is still suffering basically weekly bombings and strikings via the Italian, German air forces and submarines in transit just delivering supplies, its not as bad as it would was in 41 but its still busting up both their navy and merchant fleets. Then again I could be underestimating it, I am just looking at numbers and logistics after all, we are talking of matters of resolve and bravery. They could charge those beaches, but I don't know how Tunisia would play out truth be told. I think it would play out more or less like it did in our own timeline but I could be overlooking factors, I haven't made a study of this since I initially talked about it, Africa never was the fore point of my attention.

5. On Spain, Romania and the Middle East

Its mostly reliant on them retaining control of Tunsia and retaking Tripoli and Libya tbh. Basically Iran remains a German ally, mass revolts and insurrection turn Syria and Iraq into bloodbaths for the French and British forces, forcing them to commit to putting down armed insurgency all the while the Germans are doing their damnedest to retake lost holdings, its sort of a cat and mouse game where the mouse is arming local rebels to basically act as shock troops to draw attention and bullets away. Romania is far easier, they were basically bros with Germany already come the rise of Antonescu, they were doing what I said they were doing for Germany before, why stop if the war suddenly has a massive reversal of fortune? Spain would have to be goaded into it, and as you should know Felix was planned to go down anyway due to the need for Gibraltar, I personally think that if Europe started to go the way of the Germans Franco would commit.

But ultimately I do not see continued German success if they don't have it, it allows a lot of trade and troops to move through into the region and gives Germany a lot of bases and support in that part of the world, it would come in handy in repelling what would come later assuming the Americans did launch Torch, but as I said before, I'd point out that a series of uprisings in Syria, Iraq and Iran would force British attention to focus on them, in which I do think they would eventually be worn down, but overall its just a side show, smoke and mirrors, just like that entire front to begin with. Rommel had a half decent idea with that, it ate up a lot of British resources pushing that far into three separate countries while at the same time fighting the Germans, I think keeping that up is a key to victory.

6. Australia This comes from my prior point on New Guinea in which I think they'd use that to establish a long range strike base to bomb the Japanese home islands while the fleet was rebuilding which of course leads to a retasking of a sizable portion of the Japanese Navy, which I think leads to this alternative history's Leyte Gulf, just at Australia. I imagine this happening late 44 or early 45 and basically sees the shattering of what was left of the Japanese Navy and their collapse and fallback to the home islands and a restructuring for defensive war. I imagine they have more or less maintained an offensive to this point because that was all their fuel reserves allowed, more or less 25 months for full fleet operation, so either way, even if they win at this battle, their done unless if German ups its oil shipments, which actually might be a serious thing in this timeline if the Pacific and Indian go the way I picture them to go.

o-o I think I have more or less a premise for a novel in just this conversation I had with a buddy a decade ago.

7. Personal musings and closing statements You have a very high opinion of the communists, I do admit that I think it overdone but its hard to argue with the horde they unleashed in 44 I suppose, I just have to remind myself that it wasn't built yet. Ultimately I think my musings back in the day were historically inspired, even somewhat plausible and based on accurate information but its mere conjecture, I think a lot of things would have to swing the Axis's way for it to survive the war, but I do think that the USSR could be ground down as I suggested, it could batter itself apart fighting two separate wars without foreign intervention. And that to my eye is the only way Germany wins that war, it has to defeat Russia, its the only thing that frees up all the needed resources, manpower and grants them access to the industry and infrastructure they need to rebuild and rearm in time. Not to mention it keeps Japan in the game longer.

Ultimately the only method I see for Axis victory is something to this effect, Japan persists and is a blood magnet as the allies push east, Germany gets a nuke, Germany wins Russia, Germany bloodies the Allies so much they relent and meet for bargaining. All four would likely result in something to this effect but ultimately I do not see a conventional victory, hence why this premise makes use of a lot of unconventional warfare, namely the whole insurgency deal in the mid east.

Personally I think that Japan winning Mid Way wouldn't turn the war around in and of itself but it could be a catalyst for that reversal of fortune.

PS: Are you enjoying this conversation?

If the next thing you're about to say is that Islam never did such a thing and thus is a superior religion, drop the act.

This is history, not politics/religion thread. Information only.