What if USA not broke any Japanese codes during World War 2
- Thread starter Jason222
- Start date
Japan gets beaten into paste.
Featherweights don't get into bare knuckles fights with Super Heavyweights and survive.
American losses are somewhat higher. Midway becomes the major attrition fight of the Pacific War.
This is actually REALLY unlikely since the British had also broken JN-25, using an entirely different method than the one used by the U.S. and considering the fact that the U.S. had been breaking Japanese codes since the 1920s.
Featherweights don't get into bare knuckles fights with Super Heavyweights and survive.
American losses are somewhat higher. Midway becomes the major attrition fight of the Pacific War.
This is actually REALLY unlikely since the British had also broken JN-25, using an entirely different method than the one used by the U.S. and considering the fact that the U.S. had been breaking Japanese codes since the 1920s.
I will agree with what has been said on military codes. I don't think that it requires a very early POD because Japan had close intelligence links with both Poland and Finland in the Thirties and those countries understood enough to give the IJA and IJN quite good courses on codes and code breaking. The IJA's codes were not too bad, probably because they had received Polish training. However, it was the IJN that devised the Japanese diplomatic code machines.
The effects of giving the Japanese diplomats good codes could be much more significant than improving the IJN's codes. OTL the secret that Japanese diplomatic codes had been broken was not given to Joseph Grew, the American Ambassador in Tokyo. Thus much of what he reported was disregarded on the assumption that Washington had better information. In addition differences between the sometimes poorly translated decrypts and what Japanese ambassadors said increased American fears of Japanese deception. ITTL, we could imagine that Grew had a more significant role in shaping American policy pre-war, which might actually avoid the Pacific War.
The effects of giving the Japanese diplomats good codes could be much more significant than improving the IJN's codes. OTL the secret that Japanese diplomatic codes had been broken was not given to Joseph Grew, the American Ambassador in Tokyo. Thus much of what he reported was disregarded on the assumption that Washington had better information. In addition differences between the sometimes poorly translated decrypts and what Japanese ambassadors said increased American fears of Japanese deception. ITTL, we could imagine that Grew had a more significant role in shaping American policy pre-war, which might actually avoid the Pacific War.
RamscoopRaider
Donor
The Japanese nuclear program was not going to deliver a bomb anywhere close to the time WWII would have ended, it is a non-factor
IIRC the Japanese atomic bomb project didn't really get going until 1942, and by that time it was too late to catch up the Americans. Even if the Japanese had been able to build and test a protype, and the sources are iffy on that, they would have had the same delivery problem that the Germans had. They simply didn't have an aircraft with the payload capacity or the range to put an atomic bomb on an American target.
Rubicon
Banned
The Japanese were not as far off with a delivery system as you might think
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakajima_G10N
Sure, it would need a lot of work, development and resources. But the plan for it was there and it was in development.
Snake Featherston
Banned
Even without the codes the disparity between the USA and Japan in any war between the two is simply unbreakable no matter what Japan does or does not do. Even if it had unbroken codes and a means to use its torpedoes to full effect when the USA's were mostly defective and useless that's still not going to handle the crude reality that the pre-war buildup already gave the USA overwhelming force in the long term before the war buildup started.
Well, since they never even constructed a mock-up, much less a testbed for the engine, never ran the engine, and gave up on the project long before they could do so, it is fair to say they had no delivery system in place.
I would also point out the significant issues the U.S.had with the engines for the B-29, the R-3350, which were simply a scaled up version of what was a hugely reliable engine series from P&W (it took P&W the better part of three years to get it onto its feet) and that was without anybody blowing the pougies out of the design and manufacturing facility.
Lastly, it is rather important to note that the Japanese never had the making of a weapon and would nave struggled to obtain the necessaty fissionable material by 1950 (as noted in a thread on a Nazi Bomb in the last month or so, the Japanese would have needed around 112.6 million TONS of uranium ore to build a weapon without access to a nuclear reactor).
Since the Japanese never had a reactor and never came close to obtaining one (except in the wild speculations of some History Channel trog), never had sufficient electrical output to run the required separation equipment, and had no actual weapon design, the lack of deliver system wasn't the greatest obstacle to their program.
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Why Japan couldn't have won ww2, regardless if the codes are broken
http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm
http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm
BlondieBC
Banned
A POD is easy.
Pick the date your want a POD. Japan (or Germany if late enough) gets a spy into the US intelligence situation. Japan gets indisputable evidence that their codes are broken, so they change them and otherwise improve radio procedures. These changes also counter the British code breaking method. Many a brilliant espionage setup has been destroyed by a double agent or just another spy that brings back enough information for the bad guys to figure out what happens. It only takes one spy, one stolen sheet of paper, or one giveaway communication to change history. Some idea from POD would include:
1) Some source claimed that the US Navy believed the phone lines to Pearl Harbor might be compromised. Maybe its true, maybe not. But if somewhere between the Department of the Navy and the Pearl there is a spy or wire tap. The Japanese Navy is getting the messages going to Pearl. There may or may not be enough in OTL for the Japanese to figure it out, but say add some very specific warning such as the time the Japanese would deliver the message to the Secretary of State, and the game is up.
2) We had code breakers in the Philippines and Hawaii. Someone use a female agent to turn one of the few hundred people working in the program. Or maybe one of the Philippines intel guys is capture and breaks under torture.
3) We do something too obvious. For example, imagine the Japanese had a good source of intel on just the troops on Midway. As the battle date approaches, Yamamoto receives information of all the units being moved to Midway, and guess correctly that the codes are broken. He then makes changes to the sensitive information, but uses the old codes to setup a trap for the USA. When the USA sends ships into the trap, he knows it is his command codes.
4) Someone on a ship who knows is capture. How many people in the US Navy knew that the codes were broken or had a strong suspicion? Were any of these individuals ever in a war zone on land or ship? Even the most brave admirals can break under torture. I am not familiar enough with this item to give possible examples, but it would seem likely that someone such as the admiral at the Coral Sea knew he was working on broken Japanese codes. Or if never told, at least suspected that is where his hot tips came from. I have read accounts that submarines were give information that was "always correct" by a special code group that told them it was "always" correct. Only the captain knew what these letters translated to, and he was not told the sources. But some claimed after the war they had a pretty good guess it was broken codes. A capture submarine captain is real easy to imagine, and combined that with say a captured log book, a little torture, and the Japanese might easily figure out that the only way the sub could have been sent to point X to sink capital ship Y was broken codes, specifically their daily position report.
The Russians got the A-bomb secret with multiple agents, so USA could make intel mistakes.
Now like most of these, when did the Japanese fix their codes, the exact date changes the outcome, but it is easy to say a few battles go worse for the USA, maybe even much worse. If we say January 1, 1942, then the coral sea does not happen. SW Pacific fights the Japanese in/from Australia.
It is hard to say, but I think the Midway battle goes the way the Japanese plan. The achieve surprise, and likely take Midway. Then the US fleet reacts, and their is a 4 on 6 carrier battle, that either side could win. There is really a lot of luck in carrier battles of this time frame, and in OTL, something as simple as a different search pattern by the Japanese would greatly change the battle.
Snake Featherston
Banned
Japan doesn't have a prayer of getting the Bomb in time to affect the war one way or the other, the degree to which the US strategic bombing campaign really did decide the Pacific Front in contrast to that of Germany alone makes it unfeasible. And no amount of not-code-breaking will affect the Pacific War. It might resemble in the very earliest phase the Axis-Soviet War with the USA backhanded by stronger initial Japanese forces but the sheer weight of US resources and growing experience will bring Japan to heel. Depending on the when nuclear weapons might or might not be actually used in the process.
Rubicon
Banned
True, but it took about four years for a plane to go from the drawing board and into production during this time frame. The G10N was canceled after two years in 1944 because the war situation demanded that resources were allocated elsewhere. Since this is an alternative history board there is reason to speculate what could have happened to this design (and the G5N and G8N) if the war had developed differently in the pacific war. There could have been a need for then and it could have been allocated the resources to make it into production in 1946 when it would have been finished by using the four-year rule.
Not this again. I told you that you were wildly off mark in regards to German electricity production, and you are wildly off marks in regards to the Japanese electricity production.
In 1937 the Japanese electricity production was 26,714,000,000 KwH, that's roughly the same as Canada, and about 6,000,000,000 short of the electricity production of the USSR that same year. USSR that managed after the most destructive war in history that swept and destroyed large parts of the lands, including vital dams for hydro-electrical production, to achieve a nuclear detonation four years after the USA.
So your statement that Japan lacked the electrical production (same as I said to you in an earlier thread about Germany) for a nuclear program is now, and was then just flat out wrong.
The USSR, which was already superior to Japan in electrical production in 1937 and which was also able to take until 1948 to test the first atomic bomb, which included four years of peace and reconstruction.
Rubicon
Banned
And do you know the Soviet electricity production of 1948?
Do you believe that the Soviet union would have 26,000,000,000 KwH to spare in 1948 when it's production in 1937 was 32,000,000,000 KwH?
Ah the wonderful G10N. Anybody in the 1940's can throw together schematic concepts for a mega super intercontinental bomber and get it described 70 years later on the History Channel or Wikipedia! There is no way (and I repeat NO WAY) an aircraft like the G10N could have been produced in operational quantities by Japan by 1945 even if they had focused their entire aircraft industry on it. Hell, even while trying hard , they couldn't even get a sucessor to the A6M our of the chute. And if they did somehow cobble together the infrastructure and build a prototype, just how long do you imagine it would survive US strategic bombing?
Don't agree with any of you...
The main reason for US victory in Midway was the breaking of the Jap codes...
If they weren't broken, other then Midway getting occupied, the US Carriers could have been destroyed and not vise versa as really happened.
No US carriers, that means that the US navy gets an even worse blow, something that might trigger more desperation among American public...
The main reason for US victory in Midway was the breaking of the Jap codes...
If they weren't broken, other then Midway getting occupied, the US Carriers could have been destroyed and not vise versa as really happened.
No US carriers, that means that the US navy gets an even worse blow, something that might trigger more desperation among American public...