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Changing Destiny (Kancolle)

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Thorthemighty said:
Actually:

Several Japanese junior officers including Fuchida and Genda urged Nagumo to carry out a third strike in order to destroy as much of Pearl Harbor's fuel and torpedo[nb 19] storage, maintenance, and dry dock facilities as possible.[100] So if the subs got hit as well during that strike, alright. However if that third strike had been carried out: Military historians have suggested the destruction of these shore facilities would have hampered the U.S. Pacific Fleet far more seriously than the loss of its battleships.[103] If they had been wiped out, "serious [American] operations in the Pacific would have been postponed for more than a year";[104]

Which would mean the battle that turns the Pacific Theater around happens when the Japanese try to invade the Hawaiian Islands, quite possibly if that Third Strike was done. Most certainly Australia would have been invaded because the Japanese would have completed that airfield on Guadalcanal resulting in the supply lines being cut. It's quite possible that the 2nd World War will be hell of a lot longer if that third strike happens.
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I think this is sort of working off of the discredited narrative that was pushed by Fuchida following thenwar. Japanese records show no such proposals being made.
https://www.usnwc.edu/getattachment...cting-on-Fuchida,-or--A-Tale-of-Three-Whopper
And let's not get into the hilarity of the Japanese invading Hawaii or Australia when the bulk of their troops were mired in China and none of their plans ever made room for such eventualities. The idea that Australia or Hawaii would be invaded was an imagined fear by a populace panicked over the way the war was progressing. A third strike would have changed basically nothing. The Japanese planners didn't even plan to fight a war long enough to make those fuel bunkers count. Which does not say good things about the efficacy of Japanese grand strategy, but ah well. Plus, the potential losses in aircrew that might be sustained had the IJN carrier force launched a third wave, against a much more prepared foe with American carriers inbound and nightfall soon to happen could hurt Kido Butai where it hurts: the stockpile of experienced aircrew.

Also, Rommel was a capable divisional commander that was promoted above his skills to the commander of the Afrika Korps based on his personal relationship woth Hitler. Had he been put in charge of Wacht am Rhein, well I'm of the opinion that he would have ballsed up an already poorly thought out operation and overextended the German army even more than what actually ended up happening, which is saying a lot.
 
Genolution said:
Also, Rommel was a capable divisional commander that was promoted above his skills to the commander of the Afrika Korps based on his personal relationship woth Hitler. Had he been put in charge of Wacht am Rhein, well I'm of the opinion that he would have ballsed up an already poorly thought out operation and overextended the German army even more than what actually ended up happening, which is saying a lot.
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Yes, I do browse SWS.
I'm not apologizing.
 
Thorthemighty said:
when the Japanese try to invade the Hawaiian Islands, quite possibly if that Third Strike was done. Most certainly Australia would have been invaded
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Not to be rude, but Japan invading Hawaii is about as likely as Operation Sea Mammal succeeding. Reaching Hawaii with the air strike was hard enough logistics-wise, to the point where they had to manually load fuel drums on the various ships to be able to reach attack range off Pearl. To make a landing, they would have to:
1. (impossible) Find three or more divisions that can be spared from the bajillion other more vital operations being performed to secure the Indies, as anything less will be unable to actually take the island. To do so, one must convince the IJA to release divisions for this, despite the fact that they rejected operations against Australia proper OTL for being unfeasible and were barely convinced to attack Rabaul in the Solomons, never mind Hawaii which is 2300 miles from the nearest available base, and despite the fact that the entire plan for the initial assault on the various colonies in Southeast Asia and Burma utilized a grand total of nine divisions and a regiment from what I've gleaned from studying Japanese Orders of Battle, and that's if you count the division assigned to Hong Kong.
2. (highly unlikely) Somehow get the troops to Hawaii, in spite of Japan's tight oil budget and chronic lack of shipping, as well as possible U.S. interdiction by submarines or surface fleets.
3. (impossible) Land in the face of determined/fanatical opposition, defying Japan's complete lack of a proper amphibious doctrine for doing so (see Wake Island for an example of Japan's appalling deficiencies in opposed naval landings).
4. (highly unlikely to impossible) Resupply the landing force despite constant attacks, naval interdiction, lack of range, and lack of shipping.
5. (impossible) Despite everything mentioned before, plus a variety of deficiencies in Japanese ground combat doctrine and equipment which I won't go into, as well as other disadvantages resulting from the terrain and the fact that they are facing trained and relatively well-equipped troops with heavy weaponry and capable or at least mediocre leadership as opposed to the green, untrained, demoralized, third-rate soldiers in Malaya saddled with incompetent commanders like Percival, the Japanese are then to force their way inland and seize Oahu with the forces they have on hand.

As you can see, this basically requires the Japanese to have access to wizards or the Americans to be inflicted with a stupid virus like that of the Drakaverse. Invading Hawaii isn't really that plausible regardless of how much the Kido Butai bombs Pearl Harbor; sorry.

Also, OTL a proposed invasion of Australia was rejected for various reasons, including lack of shipping to supply the troops adequately and terrible terrain. I don't see how a third wave would change that.

TL;DR invasions of Hawaii and Australia are impossible and highly highly unlikely, respectively.
 
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One of the funny parts of Shattered Sword is in the appendix where the author theorizes about the Japanese actually invading Midway... only for the Japanese soldiers to be utterly slaughtered on the reefs that surround Midway.

I mean, how were the Japanese going to take on American Tanks, artillery, and deeply buried bunkers with machine guns? The major theme, from what I picked up, running the officers was Glorious Nippon and that they needed to bait the Americans into attacking.
 
Genolution said:
I think this is sort of working off of the discredited narrative that was pushed by Fuchida following thenwar. Japanese records show no such proposals being made.
https://www.usnwc.edu/getattachment...cting-on-Fuchida,-or--A-Tale-of-Three-Whopper
And let's not get into the hilarity of the Japanese invading Hawaii or Australia when the bulk of their troops were mired in China and none of their plans ever made room for such eventualities. The idea that Australia or Hawaii would be invaded was an imagined fear by a populace panicked over the way the war was progressing. A third strike would have changed basically nothing. The Japanese planners didn't even plan to fight a war long enough to make those fuel bunkers count. Which does not say good things about the efficacy of Japanese grand strategy, but ah well. Plus, the potential losses in aircrew that might be sustained had the IJN carrier force launched a third wave, against a much more prepared foe with American carriers inbound and nightfall soon to happen could hurt Kido Butai where it hurts: the stockpile of experienced aircrew.

Also, Rommel was a capable divisional commander that was promoted above his skills to the commander of the Afrika Korps based on his personal relationship woth Hitler. Had he been put in charge of Wacht am Rhein, well I'm of the opinion that he would have ballsed up an already poorly thought out operation and overextended the German army even more than what actually ended up happening, which is saying a lot.
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Well to be fair, the brits weren't much better off until Churchill stopped armchair generaling the theatre.
 
Genolution said:
And let's not get into the hilarity of the Japanese invading Hawaii or Australia when the bulk of their troops were mired in China and none of their plans ever made room for such eventualities. The idea that Australia or Hawaii would be invaded was an imagined fear by a populace panicked over the way the war was progressing.
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Or better yet, LA. The movie 1942 wasn't kidding.
 
More on-topic:

While I'm busy reviving my most popular fic over on FFN, I'm reading a link on Sara from SB. Interesting stuff, being as it was written by her crew right after the war ended. And I'm always looking for new information/characterization fodder. So as I find interesting stuff, I'll periodically be tossing it up because...well, interesting. First three bits of relevance:

We call our ship "Sara." Sure, it's a girl's name, but don't let that fool you. She packs a terrific wallop! her age makes little difference, but-- just for the record-- she isn't young anymore. Actually she isn't quite eighteen, but that is rather old for a ship, so some people call her "The Old Lady." We don't mind, you understand, because it's a pet name and used with proper respect and admiration.

Some say she was lucky to be one of the three pre-war aircraft carriers to survive World War II. We know it was more than that. She was lucky, but behind that luck was teamwork and determination. Men shed blood in her defense and many gave their lives. Not willingly, of course, but like any other young, red-blooded American-- fighting!
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..........

When commissioned, Sara's officially announced displacement was 33,000 tons, but much has been added since 1927. We who manned her guns in battle, launched her angry planes on countless strikes, swabbed her decks, cooked the chow, and performed numerous other vital tasks will remember her as the largest warship in the Pacific-- Queen of 'em all!

No carrier could match her fighting weight of over 50,000 tons, and not even the newest battleships could compare in length, for Sara's rare teakwood flight deck measures over 909 feet. We're proud of those figures. We are proud of her trim, graceful lines, too-- like a greyhound. But we are proudest of her record of achievement in battle, and the dull, unspectacular tasks she has performed in the line of duty.
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.............

The Enterprise took the brunt of the attack and Sara, only 10,000 yards away, was unscathed. From that day on, Sara was called "lucky" by the Enterprise and the two crews carried on an unremitting, if good-natured, feud from that day forward.
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The original is because in that year-long hiatus someone stole the title. Not because I'm rewriting it :V
 
Anywho though (double post aside)

I am going to get the next chapter of this done after I get that updated. And the only reason I'm updating the other fic first is because over 100 reviews for the last chapter(s). Kinda need to keep the fanbase happy, though lord knows why it's as popular as it is considering how I wrote a couple years back.

I'm updating this next for my KC fics though, because more Schreiber fun. Gotta get back to our Germans.
 
Admiral Günther Lütjens, Flottenchef (Fleet Chief) of the Kriegsmarine, chosen to lead the operation, wished to delay the operation at least until either Scharnhorst or Tirpitz became available, but the OKM decided to proceed with the operation, codenamed Operation Rheinübung, with a force consisting of only Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen. At a final meeting with Raeder in Paris on 26 April, Lütjens was encouraged by his commander-in-chief to proceed and he eventually decided that an operation should begin as soon as possible to prevent the enemy gaining any respite.
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They (i.e., Lutjens) tried to do that historically. He had no choice but to go with just Bisko and Pringles. Schreiber is in even worse of a situation, because now he has to show as soon as possible that the KM is still worth having after Gneis sinking.*




*In other words, Raeder is pushing him to leave as soon as possible. Remember, he already put in delays to the planned sortie to add extra AA to Bisko.
 
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