They need to agree to cede influence in our south american conquest, but sounds cokeworthy.

Actually, more of a petty rivalry. But they were generally poor strategists and performers still.

Here's a good one. (Not clickbait like most)

There is a good argument to be had that the US' full mobilization during the war was due to the left at home realizing communism was in danger.

So its likely in your example that we still end up fighting Germany as soon as they turn on Russia.

Germany is Socialist, so the Left would like either, as both are leftist neo-marxism.

"The Reluctant Admiral" I assume.
Good read.

Pretty much this.

However I would encourage everyone to learn more about the causes and development of the Pacific war.

So maybe the OP nudges people in that direction. I hope. Battleships, folks, not carriers.

There surface fleet was actually quite effective. They were caught with there pants down at Midway, but that involved a huge amount of luck on our part.
We were in position to take advantage of that luck because of great intel and the miracle at Pearl Harbor to turn around a carrier in 24 hours.

Still, we could have lost Midway very easily.  The timing of our strikes was not planned, it was a clusterfuck of a strike that had no business succeeding honestly.

Even if they had won at Midway though, they were done. Once we fixed our torpedoes, our subs sank almost the entire Japanese merchant fleet in short order. No merchant fleet = no logistics. No fuel for their ships, no spare parts, no food, no medicine, ect.

The Japanese Navy was constrained by a chronic fuel shortage even before Pearl Harbor. With their logistics almost nonexistent, they could not take advantage of good fortune because they simply couldn’t be there to take advantage of the situation.

You add to the fact that by mid 1943, our ship building had put even the chance of a decisive battle out of reach for them. By ‘44 they would have had to win something like 6 descisive victories in a row to just be able to fight on equal terms.

Japan had no chance because of logistics and industrial capacity.

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right.
and the Catholics and the Anglicans have always been best buddies

There surface fleet didn't do so well when later tested. They had some limited success and we suffered some chaotic night time embaressments early on... but those ended up being rare cases and soon couldn't keep up in quality or quantity, plus an embaressing end. Turns out it was easy to throw the Japanese navy into disarray in broad daylight with some destroyers.

The American left.

Pay attention.

The American left quite clearly favored the Soviets, the idea that they were ambivalent because both Germany and the USSR were “socialist” is silly.

In the 1930's, it wasn't unlikely we'd be fighting Britain. We drew plans up for that alongside the plans to deal with Japan. Since the foresight on Japan was impressive, I bet there were smart people with very good reasons to believe that also.

IIRC, the US public thought what the Nazi's were doing was quite impressive and inspiring, before 1939 at least.

Also, Mussolini was a socialist, so that fits, even if the USSR and NatlSocGer didn't along.

This.  The sub launched aircraft probably would be a good idea launched against an area with no enemy aircraft, but expensive targets in reality.

They are still fighting WW2 by hijacking our industries, and there are plenty of people right here on Arfcom who are happy to help them win.

The only time in my life El Paso looked like a good idea

And a P38 shot the shit out of the planner of Pearl Harbor, perfect ending.

Their strategy style probably had a lot to do with that.  Intricate plans were laid out in advance, with feints included to draw the enemy's forces away from the actual target.  All fine and dandy, if the enemy actually follows along with what they were expected to do.

Reality is a bit different, as 'shit happens' and 'no plan survives first contact with the enemy' get tossed into the mix.

They should have used the Kangaroo as their symbol rather than the "Rising Sun"

The Japanese did not want to conquer the USA.  They knew that would be impossible.  They wanted to rule over east Asia with a free hand, to include extracting the natural resources that Japan lacked and needed--coal, oil, iron, foodstuffs, etc.  To do that they had to make it so the USA, the UK, Russia, et al would not interfere.  That was what the war in the East was about. .

Wasn’t our strike efforts all jacked up because they were launched at distance impossible for first aloft elements to loiter for the last launched?  Kind of forced to dribble the effort into battle?  Hence losing all the torpedo planes.

Breaking their code, and having radar on our ships, was a big part of that 'luck'.

Yep

Since the diplomats and president they had recently dealt with were shifty shits devoid of honor, and honor being paramount in Japanese culture. they figured we as a culture (or at least our politicians) also lacked the remaining attributes of what makes men men, and would just fold out of cowardice after we had been bloodied well enough.

What they didn't understand was democratic process, and, that our politicians at that time still answered to men of better character to maintain their position and status in government

We responded beyond their means to anticipate or comprehend in any risk calculations they may have made beforehand

Definitely part of it.

It wasn't that they performed poorly, its just that they were so behind the curve that they had no chance and constantly operated at a significant disadvantage after Midway, or even the Solomon campaign, in tech, in quantity, in quality, and in tactics. On the few rare occasions that forces were evenly matched, I'd say they performed well.

Problem was once they bled off all their experienced CV pilots and a large portion of their fleet carriers there was nothing for all those other ships to do. Their fleets shrunk while ours grew ever larger and as evidenced by events in 1944, it was pointless from a naval aspect to even attempt to leave port. Even their "unsinkable carriers" were neutralized by airpower, lack of supply, or simply by being bypassed and ignored.

Now, they came close to really pulling off an upset in the Philippines and it's only by pure luck that we didn't see our transports taken out had their fleet gone all YOLO (which, to be fair the Japanese had no problems with). Wouldn't have changed the outcome of the war, but still a rather embarrassing defeat

Indeed - War Plan Orange called for the U.S. Pacific fleet to fight its way to the Philippines to relieve the garrison there or re-take them if they had fallen.

War Plan Orange was common knowledge, and the Japanese plan was basically to counter War Plan Orange, and when War Plane Orange was defeated, negotiate a settlement.

Unfortunately for them, their opening strike at Pearl Harbor rendered War Plan Orange impossible, so the U.S. did something very different - hit and run raids while they built up strength.  Those raids played against a weakness the Japanese had - they were over-extended and under-manned.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Plan_Orange

Significant parts of War Plan Orange did take place, but the Mahanian "decisive engagement" never took place - rather a series of decisive battles replaced it.  Midway, Coral Sea, the over-all Philippine naval battles, etc.

Advancements in air power and submarine technology led to a greater reliance on cutting lines of communication with submarine action, and aerial interdiction and minefield emplacement.

Paul S. Dull's Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy explains it.  The Japanese strategy was based on 1905 Russo-Japanese War.  The enemy sails to Japan, is weakened along the way (Japanese submarines hunt down capitol ships and dwindles their number) and then deliver stunning defeat once they reach Japan.  Worked in 1905.

It was hope that by destroying the carriers at Pearl Harbor, Japan would have the advantage in airpower.   So when the Pacific fleet's battleships sails to Japan, they would be further decimated by the Japanese aircraft or subs and then the remnants would be destroyed by the superior (now in number) Japanese battleships.  An honorable peace could then be negotiated in Japan's favor.

The trouble is Japan doesn't destroy the American carriers at Pearl Harbor.  The Japanese didn't consider anti-submarine warfare honorable and didn't want any effort spent on convoying or protecting merchant ships.  They didn't anticipate Nimitz unleashing our subs with unrestricted warfare.  They weren't aware of our War Plan Orange where we would build a support fleet for the battle fleet.  That would take two years.  The Pacific Fleet would then bypass many Japanese defenses and creep up the islands toward Japan, establishing bases along the way and starving the isolated Japanese garrisons slowly.

Or when the light carriers and carrier escorts are included, over 100 carriers by 1945.

Certainly the Japanese captured Attu and Kiska, but they were diversionary attacks as part of the operation at Midway to destroy the American carriers.

We knew from War Plan Orange that Japan could not invade the West Coast.  They could shell it, but to sustain a navy and an army landing force required a huge merchant marine force to ferry supplies across the Pacific to the West Coast.  Japan didn't have a merchant marine capable of doing that.

as I've said before, I had 2 Uncles and my Dad's Uncle all serve on destroyers during WWll.

They absolutely hated the Japanese to the day they died.

They believed we would negotiate if they could do enough damage fast enough.

Yorktown's strike was very well coordinated and executed. At Coral Sea as well. TF16 was a complete joke. In reality, that's Halsey's fault.

It's not just the fleets.  By heroic efforts, Japan continued to splash aircraft carriers - but some of them never sortied on an active mission - ending their days as floating anti-aircraft batteries.

Japan planned for a short war, and thus had no pipeline in place to "build" trained naval aviators, and no program to pull veterans off of the front lines to pass their hard-won lessons to the next generation of pilots.  Same problem with aircraft mechanics and other non-pilot support personnel.

“In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success”-Yamato.

He was right

IIRC, that sounds more like mixing a LOT of what did actually happen with what was planned as happening.

Many things the US did back then weren't planned, and even plans made after Pearl Harbor were changed as needed.

Again IIRC, Plan Orange was really simple, and easy enough to guess. Also, very fitting for the times, with a large decisive battle with battleships, cruisers, etc; and rescuing the Philippines garrison. Something like that. I never focused much on it, same with Olympic, as they never happened.

Biggest problem with the Japanese, they were just foolish imitators. Imitating the European empires of the world got them some success, but they were extremely prone to underestimating the US due to what most historians love to wrongly call 'racism.' By todays measure, the Japanese were the biggest racists around. The reason the US was surprised was most of our intel was from when they really were terribly equipped, which momentum kept alive through a period of a lack of intel. There was some though, so who knows how 'surprised' those at the top really were... other than that though, we had the Japanese down...

Either way... Japan had no chance. They were relying on the US rolling over, as they didn't understand Americans at all.

The only problem with that line of thinking, no serious leader should consider any of their early war mop-ups as 'victories.' Taking some small outposts an ocean away from their country. The loss of the Philippines was nearly a certainty, so it's unfortunate that they were kept there in the first place. Especially true of all the small islands, like Wake.

Too bad those guys didn't know ahead of time what being a POW of the Japanese would mean...

Came to post this.

Agree. His statement was one of hubris but also truth.

The torpedo bombers, Douglas Devastator's, totally sucked.  They were wiped out by the AA and zeros.   Waste of pilots and fuel.  The torpedo's weren't wasted, since they were likely duds, at that time in the war.

You need to crack open a history book sometime.  Terrible thing is I read the above answers/actual facts with my 9th grade daughter as she learned this stuff that’s over your head

I'm convinced to the day I die the absence of carriers at Pearl turned the Pacific war.  Imagine all the fleet carries sunk beyond recovery.  There's no Doolittle raid.  Until we build more Japan has total air superiority.  That means vastly superior reconnaissance.  They know where we are but we can't find them.  Naval gunnery was of very minimal effectiveness, which I know some people here deny, ignoring the story of Taffy 3.  The proximity fuse wasn't in mass production until the end of 1942.  AA fire at sea is very ineffective without that, we're not splashing meaningful numbers of Japanese planes.  Imagine the US sailing a surface fleet with no carriers to the Coral Sea and losing most if not all of them without ever even seeing the enemy.  Midway never happens and Japan retains all its fleet carries and the majority of its aircraft and aircrew.  Japan sinks nearly the entire US Pacific fleet then asks for peace terms.  All they want is a lifting of sanctions and for the US to stay out of the Asian Pacific waters.  There'll be no more attacks on US forces, no invasion of the US, no loss of sovereign territory, Japanese forces won't cross a specified latitude line for any reason..  Those are very attractive terms for an isolationist US, that wants to focus on Europe anyway.  I suppose we knuckle down and say we're taking you on no matter what, but it'll take a long time to rebuild the fleet to a point we overwhelm Japan.  There's a decent chance we focus on battleships instead of carriers since we've never seen them in action on our side and big gun navy was still considered king.  Remember that we lost nearly every experienced seaman and officer at Coral Sea in this scenario.

+1 to kingfisher
it's amazing how absolutely wrong some people are in their beliefs about history of the 1st half of 20th century

I saw an analysis by some economists related to the outcome of the Pacific Theater that ignored the "fortunes of war" and focused on a comparison of the economic engines of the USA and Japan at the outset of hostilities.

Their conclusion was that the Japanese were fucked before they started attacking Pearl Harbor.  Since the HI attack had zero impact on our economic power, it was only a matter of time before our economic engine went to full throttle, at which point there was NO hope Japan could keep up.

If pearl harbor did not work out their back up plan was to get US with tapedecks

We essentially followed War Plan Orange. Slow buildup of support fleet and slow movement across the Pacific to Japan.  What we didn't plan for but worked out wonderfully for us was Nimitiz's practice of unrestricted submarine warfare against Japan.  Most of the Japanese merchant marine was destroyed by our subs.

In fighting its battles in the Pacific, the Japanese jealously husbanded its big ships, hoping for a repeat of 1905.  We on the other hand would not sail all the way to Japan and kept chipping away at the edges of the Empire.  Thus the Japanese battle fleet was squandered piecemeal.  Hara ("Japanese Destroyer Commander") complained about this strategy as many smaller Japanese ships were lost first and then larger units later.
Nope.  They developed a very competent navy and naval aviation force.  Their problem was basically one of strategy and their own delusional view of America and Americans.  First they were fighting 1905 and naive to believe we would sail the Pacific Fleet to Japan like the Russians did in 1905 or what Oliver Perry did aboard the USS Mississippi.  Second, they thought of all Americans as stupid and decadent (something many Americans are today) and incapable of beating them.  They were wrong.
No argument.  They still are.

I think FDR knew when he imposed embargoes against (oil, steel; both were necessary for the Japanese war machine) along with a demand that Japan withdraw from China (think loss of face) that there would be war.  Moving the Pacific Fleet from its base in San Diego to Pearl Harbor six months earlier exposed the fleet to an attack.  The fleet admiral resigned in protest and Kimmel became fleet admiral after that.

Remember, the move of the US battle fleet to Hawaii was after the Royal Navy demonstrated that aircraft launched torpedoes can destroy anchored battleships.  The RN did this in Toronto to Regia Marina (Italian Royal Navy) with fabric covered biplanes (Swordfish).  The fleet was very exposed and the move ordered by FDR there was considered provocative by the Japanese.

So it wasn't a question of whether there would be war but when.

Long term, yep.  Yamamato knew it, but the IJN was second to the Army in making policy for Japan.  The IJN didn't want to go to war but the army hotheads would have their way (including assassinating IJN admirals to get it).

If you read Saburo Sakai, he covers the high level of training the pre-war IJN aviator received.  The Japanese never kept up the training to replace pilots and air crews.  Hence the later Japanese carriers were never as good as the ones lost at Midway.  Ship crews for newer carriers were never trained up to the standard needed for modern warfare.  Loss of the carriers Taiho and Shinano are illustrative of this.

America on the other hand had a massive aviation program that trained thousands of pilots.  Experienced combat pilots were rotated back to become trainers so as to pass on the newest information to the novices.  By late 1944 we began slowing down the training as we were getting a glut and many civilian instructors wanted commissions (this is why the WASPs were never commissioned unlike the WAVES or the women marines).

Besides aviators, in anticipation of WW II, we began designing and building new ships in the late '30s.  This includes carriers (Essex class), battleships (North Carolina class), cruisers (Baltimore class heavy cruisers and Cleveland class light cruisers), destroyers (Fletcher class).  What came late for us was the escorts ships (destroyer escorts, light carriers (which were Baltimore class cruisers built as carriers) and escort carriers), transport ships, LSTs, and a multitude of other ships needed to support a battlefleet.

We were f*cking awesome back then and the industrial might of America along with better technology (radar, asdic, proximity fuses, better aircraft and engines) allowed the USN to grind down and destroy the once third largest navy in the pre-war era.

No doubt you are correct.

Although the IJN wanted to take out the carriers at Pearl Harbor, their primary focus was the battleships, with the carriers being #2.

What is ironic is that their attack on Hawaii was made possible by the aircraft carrier, thus showing that it was to become the pre-eminent battle vessel in WW2, in spite of the fact that Japan focused on the battleships first and foremost.

Yes, the TBD sucked and the torpedoes were even worse, but torpedo bombers that attack without fighter support aren't going to have much success. The point is, of the 3 carriers only Yorktown's fighters engaged the enemy during the attack. The air staff of TF16 was seriously lacking. It was like they never practiced launching a coordinated strike. Enterprise got lucky and Hornet's performance was borderline incompetent.

Royal Navy proved it first at Taranto when it sunk many of the Italian battleships there.

Japan like the US also had its own internal struggles with big gun oriented admirals v. aircraft/aircraft carrier oriented admirals.

There was absolutely no need to build the Yamato or her sister. The resources would have been better used building 25,000 tons aircraft carriers with large air wings (as well as a good anti-submarine force).

Even Yamamoto thought attacking the US was a bad idea.

Say what you will, they picked the wrong people to fuck with.

Leftist everywhere deny that the nazi's were socialists.  They still do.