Do you think Japan could have won WWII if....?

Question

They didn't use suicidal Technics, and used better tactics instead of waiting for the Americans to land on the Islands then kill as many as they could? I thought it was pretty foolish of them to lie and wait then just ambush the enemy. (Excluding Iwo Jima), the only offense they really used against the Americans were Banzai charges which 80% of the chance failed, and got more Japanese killed than U.S. Marines.

Answer 1

Not sure....ask the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki



The Germans killed 5 allies for every German that died....did no suicide attacks.... had better equipment and resources than Japan...... and they STILL lost



Russia was moving on Japan.....and all of Europe would also...... the Japanese had no nuclear program.... they lived in mostly wooden structure that were vulnerable to fire bombing ( more Japanese died in the fire bombing of Tokyo than both Nagasaki and Hiroshima.... most of their Navy was on the bottom of the sea...... they had no long range air force......



They had as much chance winning WW II as I have becoming Queen of England with out a sex change operation

Answer 2

Obviously you haven't read too much on the subject. The Americans vastly outnumbered the Japanese, however, they were able to defend so well that had we not dropped the atomic bomb they could have killed millions of more marines before any progress would have been made. Also, where were they going to make an offensive? If they sent their troops across the Pacific we would have torpedoed and bombarded them till they all sank. The United States had the most advanced Navy of the day.



Your question should really be "Do you think Japan could have won WWII if the United States had not invented the bomb?"



Edit: My apologies to the arrogant start. It was uncalled for. I do however believe we destroyed Japanese morale with the dropping of the bomb and that until you have a scenario without that they would have had no chance no matter how well they planned their tactics and strategy.

Answer 3

Doubtful.



The fact is that Pear Harbor was a grave miscalculation because the Japanese underestimated both American resolve and manufacturing capacity. They wrongly believed that the U.S. did not have the will for a sustained Pacific war and they didn't think the U.S. could re-build its navy quick enough to slow the Imperial Navy let alone stop it and turn it back.



Why do you think the strategy of every opponent since WW2 has been geared toward attacking America's will to fight, rather than its material capacity to do so?



Why do you think many are concerned with America's ability to defend itself in today's environment where the focus is on the bodycount and not the justice of the cause? Why do you think it is such a big deal that the government keeps chasing our manufacturing capacity overseas to the very same parts of the world that we may someday have to fight?

Answer 4

Nope. Sun Tsu said (apparently) "Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat". Our strategy (which I believe was island hop and deny the enemy supply) would have eventually won regardless of their actions on the ground. Besides, John Basilone wouldnt be a bad *** without the banzai charge, and that would be a shame.



An example of strategy eventually beating tactics (im not a military historian mind you) would be the American revolution. How many battles did we win? Not too many, but the strategy of "dont lose" eventually won out.

Answer 5

I don't think they could of. Also, they had no choice to "lie and wait" because half the time they controlled island's that were key to the war, which the American's had to take over. There was no point in sending their troops out when we were attacking the island that they were defending. Either way the American forces were just all around better.

Answer 6

No.



Japan was surrounded on all sides by enemies.



Operation Matterhorn was the firebombing of all Japanese cities. More people died in the overnight firebombing of Tokyo than died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. And still Japan did not surrender.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Matterhorn



Operation Downfall was the planned invasion of Japan by a million allied troops. And Josef Stalin pledged to invade with a million Mongolian troops. It was estimated that about 5 million people would have died if Japan was invaded.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall



Even without the A-bombs, Japan was doomed to defeat.

Answer 7

No. They knew going into the fight that they couldn't beat us. What they hoped would happen is that they could fight us to a stand still and they could hold on to some of the territory gains from the initial attacks.



They gravely misunderstood our laid back attitude and saw it as a weakness. They didn't want an all or nothing war.

Answer 8

Japan lost the war on 12/7/1941. Everything that happened after just prolonged the agony.

Answer 9

Yes they could have.



If Japan had succeeded in knocking out the US aircraft carriers at Pearl Harbor, the events that transpired over the next few months would have been different. Japan would not have lost the Battle of Midway and then probably succeeds in isolating Australia. Japan could have then built up defenses and the US would have had to attack from either Hawaii or the West Coast.



The fact that the US aircraft carriers were not sunk at Pearl Harbor allowed them to then be present at Midway in May of 1942, a battle which knocked out four Japanese carriers and helped to even out the carrier forces in the Pacific.

Answer 10

They would have won if Pearl Harbor hadn't happened.



Apparently, you don't know much about the Pacific Theater, apart from movies, because you would know about Peleliu, Guadalcanal, and Okinawa. And that's just a couple bad ones.

Answer 11

Nope, nothing can stop the Marine Corps. Thats not a joke.