WI: Japan's August 1941 war games turned out to be true?

rob2001

In August of 1941 the IJN conducted war games on the attack of Pearl Harbor. The results from two different games, was that the Japanese would lose a third of their aircraft and two to three carriers. Yamamato ruled the results invalid, because search planes would find the American carriers first. What if the attack on Pearl Harbor happened just the way the Japanese wargamed out?
 

Carl Schwamberger

In the short run this would be balanced by the victories elsewhere, and as at Midway the navy would try to conceal the disaster. Claims for the entire USN sunk would be made in a effort to make the losses seem worthwhile. Japans offensive would continue into March, but there would be no Operation C as we know it, and the USN raids of January through April would be even more discomfitting.

Where the difference really becomes apparent is from May, and depends on how heavy the USN losses were 7 & 8 December in the Oahu victory. If heavy then the IJN still has superiority & we see another six months of naval battles until the Japanese can no longer attack. Much like our TL. If the USN losses are light then Japans Navy declines a bit faster than OTL.
 

Dathi THorfinnsson

Zheng He said:
Check this out:

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=354941
Click to expand...

I've got to say that the Japanese War Games seem to have a more plausible result than Perky50's TL you cite.

Hmmm.... One of the problems with e.g. Midway was, when it was wargamed, it came to a nasty Japanese loss, and the umpires threw out that result. If the Pearl war game results were more accurate, would that have affected future operations like Midway? Of course, if the Japanese HAD lost 2-3 carriers, then Midway would be very different, anyway.

Another question: Did said war games include all of OTL's carriers (if the games were in August, 2? carriers weren't available yet), and did they include the shallow torpedoes inspired by Taranto yet?

If not, the Japanese could have reasonably expected better results than the gamed result.


Another thought is that if Japan lost 2 carriers, destroyed Pearl and wiped out 2-3 US carriers, that would be a net win for Japan, and would be 'worth' it.
('Worth' in quotes, because nothing Japan could do was likely to significantly improve her performance in the war in the long run.)
 
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