Japan wins the Battle of Leyte Gulf, then what?

I'm not sure what you're asking

The IJN was effectively finished after Midway.

>Would Japan's military ego in the postwar era be smoothed a little by one last big victory?
Not really, they still lost

>Or would this just further the reasons to firebomb almost all Japanese cities to rubble as revenge?
But we did anyway

> a naval victory in October of 1944 would probably complicate the direct path of Allied victory at least somewhat
Well yeah, but it wouldn't change anything aside from dragging it out longer.

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If the Japanese had stuck around long enough to destroy Taffy 3 and the landing forces then Task Force 38 would've had the time to turnn around and come down on them like a hammer.

What if Japan wins the Battle of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Then what?

>>33372809
Operation Downfall

>>33372674
Japanese steel will survive against gaijin weapons

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>>33373321
>Japanese steel will survive against gaijin weapons

US Navy comes back the next day with 50 newly built carriers and bombs them to hell

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>>33372599
There wasn't much, if anything, the Japanese could do in 1944 to defeat either the armed forces of the United States, or the morale of it's people.

While a major loss at Leyte would have been shocking to both command and the common soldier/sailor, the fact is that after Pearl Harbor the average American had come to terms with the potential for such a devastating loss. Don't get me wrong, it would have shaken public opinion on the war, but it wouldn't have changed the fact that the United States was pumping out enough warships to make up their potential losses at Leyte long before Japan could exploit the victory.

It would have been a delaying action. Honestly I believe, in the event that the war had gone on any further, the US may have started using their slowly growing nuclear stockpile in a more tactical role against whatever they could get their hands on. The attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were like a powerful uppercut to an unsuspecting opponent; precise and unexpected. That being said, I feel that the US would have been willing to take a more drawn out and considerably more devastating approach if they needed to.

>>33372809
>the Battle of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Gotta give a kek

Really no way to win. Kurita's choices were:
-Keep Center Force engaged with Taffy 3 and:
A. Halsey shows up with his carriers and wrecks Kurita.
B. Oldendorf shows up with his BBs and you have an even larger version of what happened in the Surigao Strait

-Realize you had lost the initiative (And more ships than you should have) and retreat to save what you had.

>>33374284
>Kurita's
He showed Shameful Display for retreating. He should have fought to the Death Like all those other Honorable Commanders

>>33372599
Not only would they have won a great battle but lost their entire surface fleet. If they gone deeper into the US fleet and caused real damage, all they would have done is lose more ships. Specifically cruisers, battleships and destroyers they can ill afford to lose.

So if they did win, all they have is a fleet of carriers without aircraft, a handful of cruisers, no battleships worth a damn and a few dozen destroyers. Oh and the Yamato might have been sunk along with the Musashi.

doesn't matter.

US GNP before pearl harbor, in the middle of crippling depression, was 86 Billion.

Imperial Japan's GNP was 7.8 billion on a war footing.

Japan lost Khalkin Go. Their only real fight against a competent western military, before attacking the USA.

All the British and French forces were colonial reserves and expeditionary forces. Ill equipped and more suited to suppressing riots of locals than fighting a war.

China had been in a state of civil war since the Qing Empire fell at the turn of the century. Even then, Japan could barely take and hold anything outside the coast and Manchukuo.

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>>33374963
>Oh and the Yamato might have been sunk along with the Musashi.
Better to be sunk by a destroyer escort....

Good job IJN for losing a high-end heavy cruiser to a stray hit from a fucking CVE.
Losing capital ships in exchange for empty transports and CVEs is a great trade.

Guess it's better than what happened to Mutsu.

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>>33372666
Midway really didn't matter.

Imperial Japan died as soon as they dropped the first torpedo at Pearl Harbor.

The absolute best they could've hoped for after making that dumb ass choice was to sue for peace while holding on to the territory they had gained.

>>33375760
That was kind of the idea. If Germany would've cleaned up the USSR they probably would've mandated the undivided attention of the US.

Pretend its June 1942, Moscow has fallen and the (undefeated) German war machine is now redirecting its gaze at Britain. If the US loses at Midway under that scenario there is a real decision to make about whether the resources it would require to wrestle Japan would be better served saving Europe.

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>>33372599
>but a naval victory in October of 1944 would probably complicate the direct path of Allied victory at least somewhat.
It was already way too late. Even Midway was too late to affect the complete rolling up of the Japanese by more than 6 months. Pic related. This is the website that is from:
http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm

The bottom line is that if space aliens had come down and vaporized every single USN ship involved at Surigao Strait and the Battle Off Samar, the USN would still have heavily outnumbered the IJN in the Pacific. They were already at a huge disadvantage in experienced and well-trained naval pilots, not to mention aircraft. And that's before we get to talking about radar directed fire control, remote power turrets and AAA throw weights and fusing.

>>33372599
They couldn't have really done enough damage before Halsey or Oldendorf could get there.

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>>33374841
And that is why the IJN suffered a catastrophic meltdown over just a few years.
Going from one of the best navies in the world, to something incapable of defending their homeland in any meaningful way.

Refusal to see the writing on the wall and to know when they were outmatched. Kurita saved a decent portion of the Center Force and how was that repaid? People calling him a coward and then using those spared ships in useless actions.

The few to recognize the reality of the IJN vs USN issue were silenced or died in battle, and by the the time the rest realized it was far too late.
Far too late to build more carriers, far too late to develop new aircraft, far too late to train new pilots using experience survivors, and far too late to muster a surface force that could do anything but "die honorably" (As if such a thing exists)
The IJN lost WW2 well before Pearl Harbor. They lost it when they reached the conclusion that they were infallible and that their idea of naval warfare would never become obsolete.

Lacking the industrial capacity and raw materials to out-build the US
Lacking the fuel to do much more than you did
Running out of trained pilots
rigid, inflexible strategy and tactics

Yep, wouldn't have mattered much what Taffy 3 did. But I still can't believe that some escort carriers and destroyer escorts did as well as they did there.

>>33377032
>Taffy 3
Too O.P to be honest.

>>33374284
>B. Oldendorf shows up with his BBs and you have an even larger version of what happened in the Surigao Strait
The books that could have been written about this..

>>33376339
Pretty much. Patton was right that the point of war isn't to die for your country, but to make the other poor bastard die for his. Romantic notions of noble sacrifice have no place in real war, which is dirty and awful and brutal and has nothing romantic at all about it.

This is not the world as I wish it was, but as it the world that actually is.

>>33376339
Don't make an excuse for your cowardice

>>33377380

Wrong on all counts.

The Soviets won exactly BECAUSE of the countless poor cykas who gave their lives in the relentless Nazi onslaught in Barbarossa.

You Americans always like to ignore the fact that the entire reason why the US and the Soviets emerged as total world powers is not due to strategy or doctrine it has to do with 1 thing:

>SIZE

Geography determines outcome.

The bigger the nation, the more room for people, more resources, more taxes...

To everyone claiming Japan lost the war when they attacked Pearl harbor are correct.

What noone is bothering to point out is that the US, the Brits and the Dutch were enforcing an oil embargo against the Japs and essentially forced their hand.

The Japs didnt attack out of "divine inspiration", it was desperation.

>>33377380
>Patton was right that the point of war isn't to die for your country, but to make the other poor bastard die for his.

Then why did his incompetent ass get so many of his men killed with his poor battle tactics?

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>>33377345
May have been a somewhat fair fight during the day time.
An absolute slug fest where Yamato and Musashi could prove their worth, or lack of it. American BBs would land more hits, but I do not doubt the ability of an 18.1in shell to fuck up whatever it hits.

If it's night time though, forget it. American ships would be landing radar-directed fire onto the Japs long before they could return it. Much like West Virginia hitting Yamashiro 13 miles away with her first salvo at Surigao.
Japanese radar was only good for a few minutes of air attack warning.
At that point, it would probably be best for the Japanese to do as they did and turn tail and run. Wait until day time or until you can get into an advantageous position where the range has decreased drastically.

>>33377613
>Japanese radar was only good for a few minutes of air attack warning
You know, i've never read anything comprehensive about jap radar tech. Some books mention them having basic air-search and surface radar(at least late in the war), but not much is said about how effective it was.
It always seem to end in the usual "US had radar but took some time to use it right and japs had epic night-fighting skills using optics until radar surpassed them".

>>33375760
>Midway really didn't matter.
>The complete elimination of any semblance of air power Japan had left with effectively zero losses didn't matter
>complete air superiority doesn't matter

>hurr we wuz always gonna win

The USN at the start of the war in the Pacific was complete and utter shit. There was a very long period where the war could have gone either way. What we did have were carriers. Japan knew they would lose if the war dragged on because they would be outproduced, and if they couldn't provide air cover for their cruisers and BBs.

Both of those things were cemented at Midway.

>>33377596
>Geography determines outcome.
In a very large degree, yes.

>SIZE
>The bigger the nation, the more room for people, more resources, more taxes...
Not nearly so much. The Soviet Union was absolutely massive, yet underperformed pretty heavily nearly every year of its existence in GDP. Very tiny others, like for instance 1970's Japan, wildly overperformed in terms of growth. It is far more complex than simple size.

Let's examine the factors which made the US such a GDP and technological powerhouse:
>warm, deep water, excellent ports on both the Atlantic and Pacific
>extensive access to Atlantic, Pacific and Bering Sea fisheries
>incredible amounts of arable land
>enormous, easily accessible energy deposits both geographically and chemically, including radiological sources
>excellent corresponding mineral deposits, including iron, aluminum, rare earths, etc., not to mention gold and silver
>great PR, pulling the best minds from around the world in to enhance domestic and export products, military and civilian development
>early and heavy emphasis on transportation infrastructure, especially rail networks

When all these things, many of which are heavily dependent on geography, come together, it's almost impossible not to be an industrial powerhouse in many sectors.

Conversely, the USSR was much, much larger yet underperformed in terms of GDP:
>a high fraction of deep water ports are iced over much of the year
>what arable land there was (much less comparatively) lies not in the heartland of the political structure but to the south, being worked by peoples often far removed from Russian political and military elite
>a great many of the most valuable mineral and energy deposits were locked into hard to access regions, in hard to process forms and featuring very difficult projects to build transport to access them
>casual transcontinental travel to this day remains difficult, especially by car; nowhere near the casual migratory stimulant it was for the US

>>33377606
>What noone is bothering to point out is that the US, the Brits and the Dutch were enforcing an oil embargo against the Japs and essentially forced their hand.
You act as if they were all ganging up on Japan's trade willy-nilly, for shits and giggles. That it had nothing to do with Japan's belligerent and often downright terrifying stance on expansion, posturing and trade interference through most of the 1930s.

The reticence to trade and the turning away from cooperation Japan faced with most western nations in the mid-late 30's? That too is a direct result of Japanese policy. Partially Western displeasure at having to deal with a powerful "indigent" power in the East to be sure, but when you start snatching up and closing off access to very rich trade areas, well, expect some push back.

This whole "Japan was forced, Japan din du nuffin" narrative is reliant on pretending Japan didn't in a great many ways force the trade war which led to the actual conflict.

>>33377743
>Some books mention them having basic air-search and surface radar(at least late in the war), but not much is said about how effective it was.
They had very respectable air and surface search radars, especially on their larger vessels. They even had a theory-sound FC radar. The US systems just far, far outclassed them and the US installed them on everything all the way down to destroyers AND optimized them for both AAA and surface fire. Early in the war, the gap was very close and both sides still relied on optical augmentation to radar data (and the Japanese, like the Germans, excelled in optical FC systems); by mid-1943 the gap was very significant. A comparison:

Yamato Mk2 Mod0:
>10cm wavelength
>2kW output power
>usable for azimuth adjustment, but very limited for bearing, reliant on optical FC systems support
>limited in target utility by size: BBs out to 27,000yds, but almost useless against aircraft or destroyers very close
>lacking in both FC processing (translating signal into actionable firing track data) and in RPC turret control (automatically training guns on targets and keeping them on target in heavy seas and through radical maneuvers)

Iowa Mk13:
>3cm wavelength (providing orders of magnitude better resolution)
>50kW output power
>blindfire capable (no optical support required), both azimuth and bearing, all the way out to the radar horizon against DD sized targets and smaller
>both the best FC processing and RPC systems in the war, by a very large margin - capable of keeping guns trained on air and surface targets in heavy seas and with unlimited ship maneuvering, with all guns down to 40mm AAA Bofors being fully powered and centrally controlled

When you combine this level of tactical efficiency in terms of effect on target with some of the best and most numerous dual purpose guns in the war plus the best shell fusing in the war, you get a nearly unstoppable level of gunfire efficiency by 1944.

>>33378853
>>33377743
When you can shoot very accurately while maneuvering in all weather and at night while your opponent is limited to either shooting or maneuvering and by visual range (including the closer visual horizon compared to radar horizon) as well as weather and daylight conditions, you have a very, very substantial advantage.

The maneuver-fire advantage alone is a nearly crippling long-range fire advantage, as shell flight times at those ranges are so long.

>>33378853
>>33378878
Nice write-up, thanks anon

>>33378897
No problem.

Remember that those are just the tactical advantages (along with aircraft radar platforms, like those on naval patrol aircraft and night fighters, which also showed very large US advantages).

The US also enjoyed certain strategic advantages from relatively early in the war:
>very refined radio/radar direction finding networks, developed in the Atlantic to hunt U-boats, making it impossible for IJN surface and submarine vessels to operate detached and not reveal their general position with every communication
>cryptography and intercept efficiency - the problem for the US in the Pacific was not figuring out what the Japanese were saying, but how to act the information in such a way as to not reveal that you know a huge fraction of what is said in coded transmissions. That's a really, really nice problem to have in a shooting war.

You know, it's funny. As I type all this up I notice very cogent and relevant parallels to the things people struggle with RE: the F-35 and what makes it so effective. Even back in WWII, and all the way back to age of sail days, information was king. Holding tactical and strategic actionable information advantages on your opponent really is a war-winning advantage.

>>33378007
You are a retarded dipshit. How exactly is Japan supposed to invade and occupy the united States

>>33372809
How could that even happen?
>dud bombs
>planes shot down
>godzilla catches and eats the bombs

>>33372599
>Japan wins the Battle of Leyte Gulf, then what?

War lasts maybe three months longer and Japs get nuked with extra one or two nukes.

>>33378947
[information is ammunition intensifies]

>>33379144
Not him, but where did he say anything about Japan invading and occupying the US?

All he said was Japan never had any chance of winning a war against the US, so they pretty much lost the moment they attacked Pearl Harbor.

In fact, Japan was hoping/counting on the idea that Americans wouldn't have the stomach for a fight and would quickly sue for negotiated peace.

Midway (and in a lot of ways, Guadalcanal) simply hastened Japan's inevitable defeat.

>>33372599
>Would Japan's military ego in the postwar era be smoothed a little by one last big victory?
You do realize that according to the Japanese military at the time, every single battle against the US was a resounding and total victory, right?

Midway was a total victory to them.
The Marianas was an outstanding victory to them
Leyte Gulf was such a massive victory, they claimed that the US Navy was literally wiped out.

The only group of people more deluded than WWII Japanese are 2017 Vatniks.

>>33378947
Actually reading Guadalcanal by Richard B. Frank right now, it does go a bit into the signals intelligence wizardry that went on, both from the japs as well as the US.

>>33375208
That is a battleship anon

>>33381101
>all he said was Japan didn't have a chance
> ...there was a period where it could have gone either way
So no, he's retarded.
The 'they'll have no stomach for war' schtick was based on stupid concepts of their own nation bring hard and militaristic, whereas the US was soft.
Even if they sank every battleship at Pearl Harbour they didn't have the ability to stop the US going hulk mode and shutting out an entire new navy.
The yanks never even went full retard in terms of war production, nontationing it large scale draft or anything.
The second some idiot came up the idea and it was approve, the Japs were fucked.

>>33372599
Best strategy would have been for Hitler to stop before he invaded Poland and Japan before the Philippines.

Germany would have been 3 times bigger, Japan would own China and lots of Islands and the allies would have never entered the war.

>>33377608
He was an armchair general anon.

>>33379144
>Hurr Durr all wars end with the total occupation of the enemies nation