Re: What IF: ... Japan had more Oilers for Dec.7'41 ?

On Aug 28, 7:57=A0pm, Richard VanHouten  wrote:

> If they're not going to take the Philippines, why bother waking the
> sleeping dragon in the first place? =A0

The dragon was already well awake. It was the source of the crippling
trade embargo remember ?

>The whole point of taking the
> Philippines, so far as I am aware, is that it was flanking the ****pping
> route from the East Indies.

So, pick a longer but safer more protected ****pping route, say, up
past the newly acquired french Indo-China and then between Formosa and
the Chinese (now in Japanese hands) coast.=A0IIRC it was from there that
a Japanese landbased air flotilla launched the historically
devastating attack on Luzon so we know that those pilots were at the
top of their game. Charge them with keeping any raiders based in the
PI from getting to the new Japanese ****pping route which is hundreds
of miles off of the PI coasts.

With Oahu ruined, most of the PI bypassed and its air forces and
submarines bombed into extinction much as per history, the Japanese
invasions of the NEI could be running ahead of the historical
schedule. So where are air and naval reinfocement for the US forces on
the PI going to come from ? Do you expect the PT boats to sail
themselves there direct from San Francisco ? The Hawaii leg of the
trans-Pacific air bridge for B-17s and PBYs would remain broken for
months until PH's fuel stocks and air sup****t facilities were
rebuilt.

The Japanese would have several months to reduce the strength of any
US raiders operating out of the PI before the NEI's oil facilities
could be captured and repaired so that the oil could begin to flow
towards Japan.

>.Leave it in American hands, and you've left
> a forward base in the hands of the enemy you've just made very, very
> angry.

Its only a forward base if supply/reinforcement/repalcements can get
to it. Otherwise its just a very large self-feeding prison camp
watched and harassed  by LBA from Formosa and Jollo etc..

I now see that all one needs to do here to "awaken the sleeping
dragons" is to post something slightly controversial. Wow, they're
swarming now.