Panoply of Panay Possibilities

I probably know more about the Mark 14 and the problems with the Mark 6 influence mechanism in the Mark V exploder than many realize.  In simplified form the angle of incidence of flux lines in the earth's magnetic field sort of "tilt" as the "torpedo" sees a ship disrupt it and create a "bubble", so when the signal drop which occurs, meets the pickup coil, what happens is that as one heads further north toward the magnetic north pole, the signal drop gets STRONGER setting off a positive function in the detonation circuit prematurely. In other words, the "hole" the steel ship causes in the magnetic field is physically MUCH larger as one goes toward the magnetic pole. 

The cure for this is to map those flux lines,



and then to create a rheostat and insert into the exploder circuit, to gain rate the signal according to the map by latitude/longitude tables to compensate for the effect as Ralph Christie suggested to Bu-Ord in 1934 after the USS Indianapolis function of device tests. Guess who was Bu-Ord Actual?



This gentlemen was the man who nixed it Egeli even catches that "vacant" not connected with the real world at all stare Stark wore.  

It would "cost too much money." Stark said. Same excuse he used for not testing the new torpedoes in war-shots to proof them.   
        
Why he was not court martialed as this came to light in early 1942, when Roosevelt fired him for incompetence, has always amazed me.

Captain miltetus12 - 

Your 'prosecutorial' tone and passion for it sounds kind of familiar to me.  You weren't known as McPherson on another discussion board, were you?

The signing of the Nazi-Soviet pact, simultaneous with the Soviet victory on the Manchukuo frontier, leads to the fall of the Army supported cabinet Japan, and instantly deflates the clamor in Japan for an all-around alliance with Germany that would have deepened the Anti-Comintern Pact into a true anti-Soviet alliance and made it into an anti-British and anti-French instrument as well.

The new Japanese Cabinet takes a more diplomat approach towards the western powers while achieving an armistice with the Soviets, and keeping the Kwangtung Army firebrands who are looking for early revenge on the Soviets, in check.

The Japanese still press on with their merciless bombing and occupation and blockade of China however, especially its capital city of Chongqing. Asernoted earlier their autumn offensive in Changsha, to seize the South China Hunan "rice bowl" region fails although Japanese forces loot and live off the land. Their invasion from Hainan island into western Guangdong province's peninsula and Guangxi province also has mixed and indecisive results over the winter, opposed by tough local generals in tough terrain with good local administration and popular support.

However, in part as a result of lesser total arms supplies and diplomatic setbacks, including British appeasement of Japan on Chinese matters, unlike OTL, Chiang Kai-shek does not rally his forces for an intended nationwide offensive in winter 1939-1940. Nor do the Communists launch their somewhat parallel 1940 "Hundred Regiments" campaign. These are symptoms of lower morale, but not war enders, since neither of those offensives were successful in OTL either. However, their absence puts the Japanese under less pressure and allows the collaborationist regime of Wang Jingwei and the Japanese occupation to get somewhat better ensconced in occupied areas through 1940.

......

Meanwhile, back in Europe, Poland is crushed by the Nazis in a six-week "blitzkrieg" campaign, with the western allies, pretty much an entirely French force, only responding with a desultory offensive into the Saar that doesn't get very far and is abandoned as German troops from the victorious Polish campaign begin to reinforce the western defenses of Germany. As for Poland, per the secret protocol of the Molotov-Ribbentropp pact, the Soviet Union advances to occupy eastern Poland starting September 17th.

Thereafter, Europe settles into a "phony war" except at sea, where the Allies implement a tight blockade of Germany, and the Germans score some lethal submarine sinkings in the North Sea and eastern Atlantic. Both sides show restraint in the air war, only "bombing" each other's cities and troop front lines with propaganda leaflets,, not actual bombs.

The Soviet Union soon compels the Baltic States to make defense treaties with the USSR and lease military bases to her, also in line with the M-R Pact secret protocol. The compliant Germans begin the evacuation of German minorities from those three countries.

By late October the Soviet Union has started making similar demands of Finland, as well as demands for territorial cessions and exchanges, ostensibly to improve there defenses of Leningrad. But the Finns refuse. By the end of the month Stalin has run out of patience and the USSR has declared war on Finland, and the world sympathizes the Finns who miraculously hold out week after week. The Finnish War becomes the more exciting show to watch in Europe than the rather static war between German and the Franco-British alliance, and even in Eurasia writ large, since the Sino-Japanese war has, at least compared to its early years, settled into a smaller scale, rather grim routine.

....

Back in Asia, the Chinese are frustrated, and discouraged that they see no near or medium term opportunity to drive the Japanese invaders out, that the west has abandoned them, and that they can depend on only one external ally, the two-faced Soviet Union. The only hope for a foreseeable expulsion of the Japanese would be a major Soviet invasion. The Chinese Communists would have no problem with that, but it would be a double-edged sword for Chiang Kai-shek. In any case, this ends up not being a problem. Soviet aid begins a steady drop from the moment there is a common Nazi-Soviet border in Europe and the Soviet's attention is increasingly focused on European security. Even with all the frustration, Chiang has no reason to quit yet, and indeed it would be political suicide, although some of his colleagues and Cabinet members begin to make suggestions about peace negotiations in private with Japan.

In Japan, the Emperor is dissatisfied with the prognostications of the hawks, who suggested China would never turn into a full war, and then that it would be over and capitulation would be around the corner. He was disappointed in the results on Nomonhan. He was disappointed in Army and limited diplomatic circles who put their faith in Germany. But nobody in Japan could advocate for just backing down from the Holy War in China, not even him. One relative bright spot is that the western powers, America, France, and Britain, while certainly not friendly, have not been too much trouble, and do not appear interested in war. A second relative bright spot, though more fleeting, is while the other powers are untrustworthy, most them are keeping themselves busy - the British and French in a stand-off with the Germans, the Soviets now embroiling themselves in Scandinavia at the other side of their empire.

Pressure to bring about conclusive and satisfactory results abroad, ends up causing intensified interservice rivalry at home. The Army claims first call on resources as the service doing the heavy lifting in China and facing off with the Soviets, asking what good all the Navy's expensive ships are doing to finish the war, and how many tanks and artillery tubes and aircraft could be built with the steel instead. The Navy retorts citing the contributions of its ships to the blockade, its Special Naval Landing Force (SNLF) to coastal campaigns, and its aircraft to the China War. It also chides the Army for being unable to finish the China incident, while attributing the American and French retreats from China and Britain's appeasing posture to the IJN's strength. The Army retorts back that only it can equip the country to deal with challenges of today (China) and tomorrow (Russia), and the Navy was built against the fading challenges of yesterday, like America and Britain. The Navy cites America's continued Naval build-up but the Army tells the Navy guys they can't have it both ways, if they already scared off the Americans, the IJN is becoming less relevant, they may be building ships to help their capitalists, but they are still on track to release the Philippines, so they don't seem to have the will to use them. The Navy cites America's limited sanctions on strategic goods as a sign of hostility, but the Army calls that an example of American cowardice and lack of will and asks what the Navy is going to do about it anyway.

Interservice rivalry, plus geopolitical opportunity, stoke a great desire in the IJN to steal a march on the IJA and prove its relevancy. Naval planning had remained overwhelmingly focused on war with the United States from 1906 through the 1930s, but after the cancellation of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, there had been a minor second line of planning focused against the Royal Navy and Singapore. After the withdrawal of the US from China during 1938, the anti-US planning focus remaining, but anti-British planning against British positions in the China Seas, so in Chinese waters, Hong Kong, Malaya, Borneo, the Gilberts, the Bismarcks, the Solomons, gained relatively more prominence. These studies continued, albeit with less urgency, after the "small bargain" with Britain in early 1939.

However, many of the operational concepts of this earlier planning for southerly advance ended up recycled in plans directed against the IJN's new obsession starting in November 1939, the Dutch East Indies.

The IJN's rationale for moving on the DEI is to attain secure sovereign control over oil and additional food resources in an increasingly warlike world where these resources are in greater demand and scarcer. US "economic warfare" its moral embargo on aviation gasoline is taken as proof that Washington could cut off other raw material supplies, so Japanese physical control is essential. A bilateral move against the colony of the Netherlands, a stubbornly neutral country, is seen as geopolitically low risk at this time in particular. The Dutch are a small, weak country to begin with. Because they sit next to warring powers in Europe, they can spare little more force to send to the Indies. Other powers, having retreated from China and disengaging from the Philippines, have not demonstrated past behaviors indicating they would militarily/navally intervene. And they are nearly all pre-occupied. Britain (and France) are formally at war with Germany. The USSR is at war in Finland, and getting heavily criticized in the western democracies and Italy. The Americans, while having a small Asiatic fleet based in the Philippines, and access to ports and airfields, and a growing Filipino force and growing Pacific fleet, have so far shrunk from actual military conflicts and avoided multilateral alliances. They also face intense and public lobbying from the Filipino Commonwealth government to avoid tensions with Japan.

So geopolitically, a move on the DEI in the winter of 1939-1940 could be a viable fait accompli for Japan. In operational terms, it would be bold and innovative, involving the use of carriers and support of initial landings beyond the range of land-based Japanese air power. But it is doable, especially with starting bases in the Mandates (the Palaus and Carolines) to support ops against eastern DEI, and bases in Hainan to support ops against Dutch Borneo-Kalimantan. Once the Japanese SNLF seizes the initial islands, ports, and airfields, these become stepping stones for rapid sequential advance to quickly overrun the remain isles of the Dutch East Indies. Against this one opponent, the IJN's SNLF provides a more than adequate infantry force.

Japan's D-Day for the assault on the DEI is January 10th, 1940. The Japanese conquest progresses rapidly through January and February. Britain is greatly disturbed by this development and considers declaring war and ordering its limited Far Eastern forces into action against the the Japanese, alongside the Dutch. A few British and French, with Europe on their mind even more than Southeast Asia, advocate an intervention in DEI to establish co-belligerency with Netherlands they hope to extend to Europe, and then use that to pressure Belgium into cooperation. But the Dutch are wary of any such Europe-focused suggestions or implications.

The Americans are also bothered and initiate an oil embargo on Japan - a case of closing the barn door after the horse ran out. Ultimately the British and Americans discuss intervention, but do not agree to take action. The British do not want to make a definite anti-Japanese move without the Americans also committing, but the American President, FDR, does not feel he can ask Congress or the public to moved beyond economic measures and go to war over the Dutch colony.

The fall of the DEI to Japan is a great coup for the Japanese Navy.

It is also a great cause of consternation to Australia and New Zealand. They are shocked and appalled at Britain's inaction in the face of Japan's audacious advance into their own neighborhood.

As a result of this increased sense of fear and isolation, Prime Minister Robert Menzies of Australia rules out sending Australian armed forces for services outside of Australia and its immediate neighborhood of New Guinea and nearby archipelagos. No Aussies will be released for service in Palestine, or Africa or Europe.

...Meanwhile in the United States, defense spending had been boosted throughout 1939, and arms were being sold to the British and French since the summer on a "cash and carry" basis. US aircraft and armored vehicle and shipbuilding is getting somewhat ahead of OTL's schedule by Jan 1940. From the beginning of the war in September 1939, President Roosevelt has also declared a "Pan-American Security Belt" including the Western Hemisphere countries and Hawaii. While advocates of entering wars in Europe are few, Roosevelt's hemispheric defense policy is generally well-regarded.

...Back in Europe, the Soviets finally force territorial concessions on the Finns. Then, in April, the phony war abruptly ends as the Nazis invade Denmark and Norway. They follow this up with invasion of the Low Countries and France in May.

The Norway debacle sees Neville Chamberlain ushered out of office and replaced with Winston Churchill.

With superior doctrine, tactics, and use of radio, the Nazis defeat the Allies and compel French capitulation by the end of June 1940.

American aircraft ordered by the French that unfortunate did not arrive in time to stiffen French resistance nevertheless help add to RAF reserves during the Battle of Britain.

The Fall of France shocks the United States into the Two Ocean Navy Act, enlargement of the Army, additional major defense spending, and eventual movement toward conscription. It also convinces FDR to publicly announce his intent to run for election to unprecedented third term.

....to be continued...

Ha-ha - No one expected it ! I surprised myself ! In timeline the Dutch, French, and British (and Americans, and Soviets, and Germans, and Japanese Army) are all surprised too!

It sure is painful to watch! And they sure think and talk about "doing something".



Well that's just it, between this, the submarine war, patrolling the skies, watching the Siegfried and Maginot Lines, London and Paris are a bit...overwhelmed.



Well between Jan 10 1940 and May 10, 1940, Netherlands is at war with Japan but not Germany, and Britain and France are at war with Germany not Japan. And Netherlands is effectively routed out of contact with the Japanese enemy, lucky survivors interned in British Borneo and Australian New Guinea and perhaps other Imperial ports.

From May 10 Netherlands is at war with Germany and Japan, now allied with Britain and France against the former, Germany, but not the latter, Japan, but that can change at almost any time. Yikes!



These are all million dollar questions. I would be careful about how exactly to characterize the US position though. The US had taken moves far deeper into isolationism in prior years, and that has left a legacy that persists into 1940, but one can't say it's ATL 1940 policy is uniformly more isolationist than OTL. The progress towards Filipino independence is further along, and this actually means Filipino forces are larger and better armed than OTL 1940. But it also means the Filipinos have more of a say about what the US can and cannot do with its bases remaining in the islands until scheduled independence in July 1941. - and for now the Filipino pressure is, don't make waves towards Japan. The US has not been aiding China during its war. However, the US naval rearmament and buildup of base infrastructure in the eastern Pacific has proceeded a bit faster than OTL, and revision of US neutrality legislation, to permit arms sales on a cash & carry basis, proceeded a few months earlier than OTL) shortly before the start of the war in Europe rather than after like OTL, and the intent was to have a helpful effect towards France and Britain.

The USA is taking all the same steps as OTL to declare a hemispheric security zone and patrol it, meaning it is primed to begin creeping it across the Atlantic to locations like Iceland if and when it deems it necessary. So these moves are all match-matchy with OTL's timeline.

Here is an Additional scenario -

VII. Precocious Panay Problem
An incident, very similar in kind to the Panay incident, happens many years earlier, with possibly different effects, and a longer time horizon for effects to sink in.

The best opportunity for something like this would be during Japan's abortive invasion of Shanghai in January-March 1932, also called "the January incident". en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_28_incident

That was the only time before September 1937 that there was Sino-Japanese fighting in the busy shipping lanes of the international port of Shanghai.

The 1932, the US was plunging into Depression fast. Banks were failure. Stock markets crashed years before, the 1930 midterms were a wipeout for Republicans. Some were still saying at the beginning of the year that "prosperity was just around the corner" but fewer were believing it, and that was despite the fact that the economy and banking system had *a lot* more distance to fall from January 1932 to January 1933.

This ever-worsening economic crisis makes me think that US responses towards an attack on a US ship in China would lean towards the dovish end, retreat and retrench rather than fight. It simply costs less. People then didn't know that military Keynesianism was a thing, and it tends to be authoritarian and out-and-out reactionary regimes, no honest conservatives in small 'l' liberal democracies, who have the cynicism to think of war as an escape from domestic political difficulty, and the leverage to pull that trick off. Quaker Herbert Hoover wasn't likely to do it. Also, Japan is even more likely than in the OTL Panay incident to pay compensation, and to apologize, with more sincere feeling even among military/naval personnel in 1932 than in the more radicalized later 1930s.

Between Hoover and the transition into the Roosevelt Administration, the US may quietly, but rather briskly, remove the US Marine and Asiatic fleet presence from China. When the Sino-Japanese war expands later on in the 1930s, that will leave Britain and others none too confident in US resolve. Even more, the residue of the warlike clash in the Yangtze may influence the impending Tydings-McDuffie terms for the independence of the Philippines, setting up a faster timetable for those islands independence, and putting in doubt a long-term US fleet presence. Ultimate withdrawal of a US permanent military presence from the Far East may be considered, from a 1933-1934 point of view, to be a logical extension of the demilitarizing 'Good Neighbor' policy also being applied to Latin America at this time. 



[As noted, in this scenario, the incident against a US patrol boat occurs in February 1932 in the waters of Shanghai, and is captured on film, this includes the close in attack on the boat, its sinking, and crew member gunners (who do not survive the attack) downing a Japanese aircraft. Over the ensuing month or so, the Japanese and Americans negotiate a Japanese apology and reparations/compensation to the USA, and the Japanese eventually end the Shanghai incident as they historically did, even while persisting in the takeover of Manchuria. This incident and publicity about it does cause a bit of a sensation in the United States. The Hearst Press and Progressive Senators denounce some media outlets and media interests for promoting “war hysteria” in a lame attempt to prop up stock prices and heavy industrial orders. Many ask what the hell we were doing in China with our country falling apart at home. President Hoover orders a withdrawal from China, and Congress people order a broader review of our forward deployed Navy, Marine, and Army posture in the Pacific, in particular. This review continues through and beyond the 1933 election as the collapse of the banking system and swift rise of nationwide unemployment monopolizes lawmakers attention more and more.
Here is where the timeline can branch a few ways.

In the happy, shiny branch, Japanese mortification over the war scare with America and shame over the ‘accidental’ incident endangering peace among ‘civilized people’, not just war on Chinese bandits, causes the Japanese public and government to criticize and condemn the actions of military extremists and the Kwangtung Army in Manchuria, causing the Tokyo government to wrestle back control of policy and negotiate an end to the Manchurian incident restoring the pre-September 1931 status quo in China and Manchuria, essentially a withdrawal to proper railroad garrisons and a restoration of the province to Zhang Xueliang’s authority, and no establishment of separatist Manchukuo. 1930s Japan, despite a bunch of riots, assassinations, and attempted coups, ends up basically behaving itself internationally for the rest of the 1930s. The riots, assassinations, and attempted coups damage the public reputation of the military over time. Chiang Kai-shek’s policy focus in China is anti-communist rather than anti-Japanese in any case. The new Roosevelt administration’s focus is domestic and not foreign, so naval buildup is not on the American agenda either. The hearings on US overseas military deployments, prompted by the clash in Shanghai in ’32, conclude in ’33, and recommend significant retrenchment of US military activities and deployments around the world, in the Caribbean, Pacific, and especially western Pacific, for reasons of economy and preservation of peace and recommend reliance on non-military instruments to maintain world order and peace. The Roosevelt Administration finds these conclusions simpatico with its ‘Good Neighbor’ policy of disengaging from the Banana Wars and military interventions in the Caribbean, although the US still maintains its control over the Panama Canal Zone, Guantanamo Bay, and Puerto Rico. The effects of the study conclusions are felt in the Pacific where Hawaii, Midway, and Wake Island, and Alaska are named the western bastions of US defense. The withdrawal of the China patrols and Marines are retroactively justified, and a goal of post-independence military self-reliance for the Philippines is recommended. The impact is felt as the Tydings-McDuffie Act, formalizing the process for Filipino independence is designed and passed in 1933-34. As finally written, sentiment to pull back from potential exposed flashpoints in the Pacific leads to a hastened timeline for Filipino independence, 5 years, July 4th 1939, instead of 10 years. In turn the combination of speedier American decolonization, and Japanese disengagement from day-to-day skirmishing in Manchuria, and the lack of success and positive hype about military valor in Manchuria, helps keep Japan from relapsing into an expansionist mindset later in the 1930s. Japan occupies itself with industrial development and ever tighter assimilation and integration of its core empire of Korea, the Guangdong peninsula, Taiwan, and the mandates.

Basically, the net effect of the US-Japanese incident and war scare of 1932, was to frighten, embarrass, or shame both countries, and cause them both to back off from forward policies, and the beneficiaries end up being Chinese Nationalists and Filipino Nationalists.

The increased sway of Chiang Kai-shek’s central government over China as he marginalizes warlords and Communists ends up growing the Chinese economy and increasing Japanese export opportunities, especially as European countries begin to focus on rearmament from 1937-38 on.

The lack of an aggressively expanding Japan on the Asian mainland affects the security calculations of other great powers. It allows Britain and France, whose concessions in China and colonies south of China are less menaced by Japan, to focus defense planning more against Germany and Italy. The pressure relief is greatest for the Soviet Union, which from 1933 on only needs to deal with relatively weak forces of Zhang Xueliang, local warlord generals, and detachments from Chiang Kai-shek all swearing allegiance to the Chinese national government on the Amur river, rather than Japan’s more formidable Kwangtung Army. This allows the Soviet Union a greater focus on the German threat after the rise of the Nazis in Germany.

Unenthusiastic for war, even with little fear of war in the Far East, Britain will be trying on appeasement with the Germans at first on issues like rearmament, the Navy, the Rhineland, and Spain.

The USSR, without the need to bulk up its Far Eastern defenses as much as OTL, or to provide support to China’s United Front in a Sino-Japanese War (that isn’t happening ITTL, can throw more support behind the Spanish Republic, to keep up with German and Italian support for the Spanish Nationalists. This will prolong the Spanish Civil War beyond February 1939. It can also concentrate more of its military build-up in its western military districts and offer more robust assistance to Czechoslovakia during the Sudeten crisis if Czechoslovakia is willing to fight.

Ultimately, Czechoslovakia backs down and surrenders the Sudetenland when the west abandons it at Munich, which excludes the Soviet Union. However, the Soviets, angry at their exclusion from conference, redouble their commitment to the Spanish Republic and prevent the splitting of the Republican pockets of Madrid and Barcelona, further tying down German and particularly Italian resources.

The western reaction to the German occupation of Bohemia is more severe however, the French, and the British promptly declare war on Germany, as does the Soviet Union, and the three impose a blockade and embargo. The French immediately begin a program to provide direct aid to the Spanish Republic from across the border and to deploy colonial troops in support of Spanish Republicans and against Nationalist Spanish Morocco in order to prevent Axis encirclement of France.

France is not ready immediately for an attack on Germany, nor is Germany ready for an immediate attack on France in March 1939, and no BEF is ready for deployment on the continent, so a “phony war” ensues.

Poland holds to a tenuous neutrality, not wanting to become a battlefield or to invite Soviet or German troops onto its lands.

Faced with isolation, blockade, and the western powers and Soviets mobilizing and now reaching the point of rearming faster than him (and humiliating him by overwhelming his Spanish allies and German Condor Legion over the spring and summer), Hitler is determined to assault the Low Countries and France by August 1939. Mussolini meanwhile has been ousted by the Italian King, who was angered by the loss of the Italian volunteer corps in Spain.

The German attack takes the Netherlands and most of Belgium before it bogs down for the winter.
Continued high-cost, low-reward, German attacks that Hitler orders through the winter of 1939-1940 cause the Wehrmacht to launch a coup killing and overthrowing Hitler in early 1940, which leads to Germany suing for peace, withdrawing from the Low Countries, Czechoslovakia, and Austria.
……

Second variant

So much for the happier, shinier, more boring scenario. The likelier event is that the Japanese persist in their Manchukuo shenanigans, become addicted to them, intimidate opponents of militarism with assassination and get on a gradual track leading step by step to all-out war with China.

However, all the conflict-averse steps I mentioned on the US side remain the same.

However, like OTL, the path to all-out Sino-Japanese war is interrupted by the truces of the years 1933-1937, where Japan exercises authority over only Manchukuo, eastern Inner Mongolia (Mengjiang) and compels China to respect a demilitarized zone in Hebei province between Beijing and Tianjin and the Great Wall.

The French meanwhile have found the US abrupt withdrawal from Shanghai disturbing. The British do not like it either. The broader American intent to retreat regionally, signaled by the Tydings-McDuffie Act in 1934 is even more unwelcome, especially to the French, who sitting in Hanoi across the South China Sea from Manila, see impending Filipino independence as weakening the white man’s position in Asia, and as a stimulus for Vietnamese independence agitation, alongside Russian Communism, Japanese militarism, and Chinese nationalism.

The British are a little bit less panicked.

Events in Europe are really agitating the French however, notably German rearmament and the reestablishment of a German air force. But what takes the cake is the lack of British reliability as an ally. The June 1935 Anglo-German Naval Agreement seems to kick the legs out from under the anti-German Stresa Front when it is barely two months old.

This combination of allied (American) weakening and desertion in the lower priority area of the Far East, and allied (British) unreliability and double-dealing with France’s greatest potential threat in its zone of vital interest in Europe, and the late and brutal onset of the Depression in France prompts a ruthless prioritization and rebalancing of French global assets and liabilities.

This leads to Franco-Japanese secret negotiations in autumn 1935 for the sale of French Indochina to Japan. The shocking deal involves an enormous lump sum of gold and hard currency, with additional portions of the balance to be paid off in raw materials and labor services. The transfer transition, and installment payments, are set to be carried out between October 1935 and October 1937.

France aims to use the proceeds primarily to support rearmament against Germany, and Italy. The evaporation of need for naval protection against Japan indeed allows France to soon begin relocating more naval ships from Indochina to Djibouti, Tunisia, and Algeria to watch over Italy in the Red Sea and Mediterranean.

The graduated acquisition of all Indochina, and the expense of it, encourages the Japanese civil government and Army and Navy high commands to keep their field forces around the Manchukuo-China buffer zone and in Chinese waters on a tight leash to prevent escalation to outright war over this time.

Japanese Army and Navy budgetary outlays are less than OTL over 1935-1937. But by 1937 there are several new Army garrison and Fleet base command positions available in Indochina, plus opportunities for civil bureaucrats and zaibatsu.

Absorption of Indochina, and lesser frontline combat strength, encourages the relatively cautious status quo policy of not pressing on further into China. The most hotheaded commanders in the IJA are sent to the border with a softer target, Siam. In 1938, a Japanese campaign occupies Bangkok and the entirety of the Siamese Kingdom, extending Japanese power to the Indian Ocean via the Kra Isthmus.
Spared immediate Japanese pressure in 1935-1937, continued Chinese Nationalist offensives drive Chinese Communist forces further northwest into Gansu and Xinjiang provinces.

In Europe, diplomatic events in the 1930s unfold similarly to OTL. France has more funds to invest earlier in defense however.
The Allies appease as long as OTL.

In July 1939, the Philippines become independent.

In 1939, war breaks out over Poland.

In early 1940, with the US out of the Philippines, the Soviets bogged down in Finland, and the western European powers wrapped up in the phony war, the Japanese Navy takes the opportunity to attack the East Indies colony of the neutral country of the Netherlands, in a short, private war.

In spring 1940, Hitler launches a bold attack on Scandinavia. A month later, on the Low Countries and France. Here the French hold the Germans off at the Meuse because of earlier mobilization, better training, and earlier purchasing and integration of aircraft and radios into the force. The strong French persistence holding the line in western Belgium and northern France deters Italy from joining the war.

Germany is ultimately rolled back and beaten by spring 1943, with a Soviet force liberating Poland, Czechoslovakia, eastern Germany, and Hungary, an Anglo-French force liberating western Germany, and an Italian force liberating Austria and Bavaria south of the Danube.

The democracies consider Italy a minor rogue actor and thief with a minor ill-gotten imperium of Ethiopia, Albania, Austria, and southern Bavaria.

The Soviets are a much more formidable dictatorial menace whose power now extends to Prague, Budapest, and Berlin.

The Japanese were quite the successful bandits having gathered loot by legitimate purchase in Indochina, and by small, easy wars in the case of Manchuria, Siam, and the East Indies. They are currently in a state of high tension with a rising China.



…..

Third variant of VII

So much for the happier, shinier, more boring scenario. The likelier event is that the Japanese persist in their Manchukuo shenanigans, become addicted to them, intimidate opponents of militarism with assassination and get on a gradual track leading step by step to all-out war with China.

However, all the conflict-averse steps I mentioned on the US side remain the same.

The Japanese full-scale war with China begins about the same time as OTL, the summer of 1937. There is no 1937 Panay incident because there are no US gunships to be hit. The British and French for the moment feel obliged to maintain their concessionary rights in China, including their limited numbers of ships and troops. They lament they lack US support, absent since 1932, but it is not felt as a sudden desertion in the midst of the present war in 1937. The overall shrinkage of the US Asiatic Fleet is considered an unfavorable factor also. But the British and even French feel they have inescapable colonial stakes in East Asia, and the Japanese aim their aggression initially squarely at the Chiang Kai-shek regime, so they keep their presence, and provide aid to the Chiang regime.

In 1938, the Sino-Japanese war spreads to Wuhan and Guangzhou. In 1939, to help complete the blockade of China, Japan seizes Hainan island. The summer of 1939 sees the Japanese have dual crises with Britain and the USSR. With Britain in the spring and summer they have the Tianjin blockade, to pressure Britain on numerous China policy disagreements. This is resolved by compromise in early August. With the USSR they have the Nomonhan incident, which balloons into a border war that the USSR wins decisively, leading to Japanese restraint on the border, and Japanese near-term estrangement from Germany. July 1939 also sees the granting of Filipino independence, and the Filipino President and Congress’s declaration of the Philippines as a ‘perpetually neutral’ state, declining any overtures for a continued US naval base.
In September 1939, WWII breaks out.

Germany defeats France in May-June 1940. This revives German popularity in Japan, inspires Japan to sign the Tripartite Pact, and encourages Japan to occupy northern Indochina to block supplies to China. The US launches scrap iron sanctions in response.

In July 1941 Japan occupies southern Indochina, and the US puts Japan under total embargo and financial freeze with the UK and Netherlands following suit. Japan goes to war against the British Empire and DEI in December 1941, but does not attack the US. Japanese Army and Navy planners do not regard US involvement in war between Japan and Britain and Netherlands inevitable, and so choose to bypass US Pacific possessions like Hawaii, Midway island, Wake Island and Guam. Guam is held under observation from surrounding Japanese mandated archipelagos. The Philippines are observed closely from the Japanese held Taiwan, Palaus, and Spratlys, and its political leaders are told that any deviation from neutrality or naval collusion with the American, British or Dutch will compel a Japanese occupation. The lack of American bases and routine access in the Republic of the Philippines causes the Japanese to consider the threat from a neutral US manageable, not requiring the risk of a preventive strike.]

The US serves as the Arsenal of Democracy (and Communism too) with the ever expanding Lend-Lease program to the UK, USSR, and China. It is in an undeclared naval war with the Germans in the Atlantic and extended its hemispheric defense zone to Iceland.
By no later than April 1942, after multiple naval clashes in the Atlantic, and the US escorting Lend-Lease convoys all the way to Londonderry and Liverpool, Hitler unleashes his U-Boats for unlimited warfare across the entire Atlantic and declares war on the United States.

The United States mobilizes and places forces on alert and begins joint global planning with the British.

The United States issues a demand for Japanese evacuation of British Imperial territorial, and Japan responds by declaring war and storming Guam, and attacking Wake Island.

However, Japan does not attempt a fleet strike on Pearl Harbor because it appears too alert and well guarded.
Although the war has gone global, with Germany having been the first Axis power to go to war with the USA, US strategy, is noticeably more “Europe-first”.

The Japanese also launch an attack on the Philippines after issuing an ultimatum insisting on an alliance and acceptance of Japanese forces use of Filipino facilities. The Filipinos reject the ultimatum, insisting on their neutrality, for the record, and engage in token resistance for about a week before capitulating to Japanese terms, in a manner somewhat similar to Siam/Thailand in December 1941.

The US has a stronger focus on the Battle of the Atlantic, and without the MacArthur factor and ‘I Shall Return’ vow in the Philippines, there is no substantial Southwest Pacific campaign. There is aeronaval skirmishing and raiding around the Japanese perimeter, while the Americans are building up their fleet train to be ready to launch a Central Pacific drive by the beginning of 1944.

The greater concentration of naval, air, and shipping resources in the Atlantic hastens the pace of the war against U-Boats, and ensures enough Allied shipping is enough for the Allied North Africa landings of January 1943 to seize all the Vichy French held ports of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, trapping the Africa Korps, and preventing any German response or reinforcement in Africa.

This ITTL Operation Torch is mainly administrative, followed by combat, which the British 8th Army bears the brunt of, to finish off a trapped Afrika Korps and Italian Army in Libya, which only a few American units get to ephemerally participate in as a blocking force.

This operation is followed up by Allied landings in April 1943 in Sicily and Crete, where they face more stubborn German resistance. This breaks Italian morale, and leads to an invasion of Italy in late June and the invasion/occupation of Sardinia and Corsica by August 1943.

By the fall of 1943, even as the Italian campaign continues, the prime Anglo-American focus shifts to preparation for the cross-channel invasion of northern France.

In Asia, the focus for 1944 is on an American supported British and Chinese effort to open to Burma road, and in the Pacific, on the launching of a Central Pacific drive through the Marshalls and Marianas.

Meanwhile the Soviets are grinding the Nazis and their allies back off their territory.

The Western Allies launch an invasion of the French Riviera at the beginning of April to seize essential southern French ports, while the Italian offensive liberates Rome.

On May 1st, the Western Allies storm Normandy.

The Western Allies and Soviet forces meet along the Oder River and the Bohemia-Slovakia junction and Lake Balaton in Hungary west of Budapest in early December 1944.

Meanwhile in the Pacific, the Japanese fleet has been heavily damaged and the US has taken Saipan in the Marianas, and is now launching bombing raids on Japan from there.

The liberation of Burma quickens in the winter of 1944-45. The USSR declares war on Japan on April 1, 1945, launching a massive offensive on Manchuria, northern China, and Korea.

Further campaigning in 1945 sees the USA take Okinawa and begin invasion preparation. In territorial terms, the British have more sweeping success in Thailand, Malaya, Sumatra and Borneo, and the Soviets also do so in liberating all of Sakhalin, the Kuriles, all Korea, and China down to the cities of Shanghai and Wuhan, and the Chinese liberate their own southeastern provinces.

Japan is battered and discouraged and offering peace by the summer but *not* on terms the Allies cannot take seriously. The use of the atomic bomb in early August gives the Japanese the excuse to accept surrender on Allied terms.