A different outcome to WW2

[abramsteve]

Well Im not sure how much of the country the Japanese would have wanted to take. Due to its massive size the number of troops it would require to occupy Australia would make total conquest improbable.

I remember seeing a documentary on the defences that were prepared for such a horrible thing. Some plans called for sacrafising most of QLD and the NT to let the Japanese run into a wall of prepared defensive postions. The documentary showed some of the tank traps and alligator teeth that were laid and still remain along some of the river crossings in northern NSW. Also much of Australias gold reserves were moved to Broken Hill to make capture difficult. Scary but facinating stuff

 

[RubiconNZ]

Invasion

Official line was hold at all cost the Brisbane line, the Japanese I remember reading had plans to use Bicycles to do a lot of the transport, this was son some old documentry, they would of been flogged eventually at what cost is the question.

 

[long live usa]

luckily the battle of the coral sea stoped japanese plans in their tracks they only lost one light carrier and then got cold feet,if i recall right they were preparing an expodisionary force to go in after the fall of port morsby(if i recall right)i think they even bombed darwin,i think the most likely place for them to start landing would have been cape york and with the problems in europe and the American fleet still in some dissorder that australia may have been on its own for awhile

 

[buschy]

imagine if the militia forces had failed at kokoda and the japanese took port moresby. this would have provided the japanese with a decent staging point for an invasion of australia and maybe might have ment our down fall.

 

[Big-E]

imagine if the militia forces had failed at kokoda and the japanese took port moresby. this would have provided the japanese with a decent staging point for an invasion of australia and maybe might have ment our down fall.

I don't think Japan could have taken AU. It's too big and their supply lines would have been stretched too far.

 

[TrangleC]

I don't think Japan could have taken AU. It's too big and their supply lines would have been stretched too far.

Yes, but on the other hand the biggest parts of the australian population concentrates along the coasts a,d although very large, i doubt that the outback would be a good hiding place for a anti occupation guerrila force - not enough forrests or mountains. So perhaps Australia would be a rather easily occupied country.

 

[contedicavour]

Yes, but on the other hand the biggest parts of the australian population concentrates along the coasts a,d although very large, i doubt that the outback would be a good hiding place for a anti occupation guerrila force - not enough forrests or mountains. So perhaps Australia would be a rather easily occupied country.

Well no since if the Australian population is concentrated in the South-Eastern coast there is a good reason : most of the outback cannot support anything but a very limited number of inhabitants.
Thousands of enemy combatants stranded in 40-45° celsius desertic landscape would just have died before reaching Sydney...

cheers

 

[TrangleC]

Well no since if the Australian population is concentrated in the South-Eastern coast there is a good reason : most of the outback cannot support anything but a very limited number of inhabitants.
Thousands of enemy combatants stranded in 40-45° celsius desertic landscape would just have died before reaching Sydney...

cheers

Um... who says they have to reach Sydney on the land-way? Trying that would be the most stupid thing ever done in history. Not just because it is hard and dangerous, but simply because it is totally ridiculous, since you go to Australia by ship anyway. So why should somebody who wants to invade Australia bother to unload a army and have it wandering through the desert?

In a country where everything of value lays directly at the coast, you just need some boats and some navy infantry to land and take it all while just ignoring the picturesque but pretty much worthless inner lands.
Since we seem both to agree that the hot bowels of Australia wouldn't really be a suitable retreat and base for a invading nor a rebel army, it wouldn't be necessary to send occupation forces there.

Just take the cities along the coast and you got Australia. Why bother sending an army into the outback?

Just because the south-eastern coast of Australia isn't facing towards Japan, you think the japanese navy wouldn't have bothered sending ships there and instead unload an army on the north-eastern coast to march towards Sydney through the desert?
I'm sure, after thinking about that a second time, you'll agree that this is pretty ridiculous.
No, i'm pretty sure they would have bothered to spend another 1-3 days onboard their ships to reach Sydney and Melbourne from the sea.

And after all, that is pretty much what the Japanese did on many of the bigger islands they occupied. On some of those islands the indigeous native tribes living in the mountain forests didn't even notice the japanese army occupiing the coasts of their island.

 

[abramsteve]

Not quite that easy mate. Not all of Australia recources are along the coast, much is found inland. Another thing that you have to take into acount is the fact that the coast line of the eastern seaboard of Australia (from Cape York down to Melbourne) is equivalent to that of the entire of western Europe. Even if you were to land at different points along the coast, there is still massive amounts of very habitable terrain that would need to be covered.

 

[rjmaz1]

However if the japs concentrated their navy on the east coast of Australia, then all our navy would make its way their. This would leave the entire north coast unprotected and the Japanesse could spend months securing the north coast and building up supplies. Then when the time was right that'd move south while the Jap Navy lands on the east coast. If they took brisbane they'd find enough water and food that they could then take over the rest of the sydney, canberra and then melbourne with ease. We'd put up a hell of a fight though.

Even if you were to land at different points along the coast, there is still massive amounts of very habitable terrain that would need to be covered.

Imagine walking from sydney to canberra. It would take weeks with no resistance let alone fighting on the way, the japs would have no chance. It'd be a long battle with millions of deaths.

 

[Aussie Digger]

Yes, but on the other hand the biggest parts of the australian population concentrates along the coasts a,d although very large, i doubt that the outback would be a good hiding place for a anti occupation guerrila force - not enough forrests or mountains. So perhaps Australia would be a rather easily occupied country.

The problem is distance my friend. Whether it's overland or via the Sea, any occupation force attempting to invade Australia is going to have a supply line that reaches thousands of kilometers. It's a bit different to Western Europe or even the Middle East.

Japan attempting to invade Australia, through Sydney or Melbourne is somewhat akin to Germany attempting to invade South Africa by going through Johannesburg. A bit of a problem with the distance there wouldn't you think?

The very reason that Australia has based the majority of our military forces in Northern Australia is precisely because the distance to the heavily populated (relatively speaking) parts of Australia is so great that it is realistically impossible for anyone to deploy that far and support themselves. The USA could probably do it but would have to be TRULY serious about it. The sheer logistically effort alone would be enormous. The USA however is probably the only Country capable of doing so.

If Japan had been ABLE to do so in WW2 AND wanted to, why didn't it? The road through the New Guinea jungles was certainly far more difficult than travelling via the sea, and if it wasn't over-stretched Australia wouldn't have been able to stop their advance through New Guinea, yet we did...

 

[TrangleC]

Sorry, but i thought we are talking/speculating about a victorious japanese navy here, that was able to defeat or at least drive back the us-american and the british navies.
I doubt that Japan would have invaded Australia before at least almost having won the pacific war.
So i am talking about a japanese navy that has no equally capable opponent in the pacific anymore. Therefor the distance and sorry for saying so, but also the australian navy wouldn't be a problem for them at all.

All i'm saying is that Australia would have been an rather easy prey for such a japanese force in case the war would have had a different outcome.
Other countries of the region, like Malaysia or Indonesia would have been harder to controll because they got a lot of forests for rebels to hide.

 

[Aussie Digger]

Sorry, but i thought we are talking/speculating about a victorious japanese navy here, that was able to defeat or at least drive back the us-american and the british navies.
I doubt that Japan would have invaded Australia before at least almost having won the pacific war.
So i am talking about a japanese navy that has no equally capable opponent in the pacific anymore. Therefor the distance and sorry for saying so, but also the australian navy wouldn't be a problem for them at all.

All i'm saying is that Australia would have been an rather easy prey for such a japanese force in case the war would have had a different outcome.
Other countries of the region, like Malaysia or Indonesia would have been harder to controll because they got a lot of forests for rebels to hide.

I'm not upset, I think it's an interesting topic. I don't understand why you think Australia would be "easy" to control though? We had an army of nearly a million troops in WW2. Our airforce was nearly 1500 strong and our Navy, whilst considerably less than either Japan or US, would NOT have been a ""pushover".

Again you have not factored in the incredible distances involved in attempting to invade Australia. Can you possibly imagine the logistical effort necessary to even attempt to land the kind of amphibious forces needed to successfully engage a land based army comprising 10 or so divisions and an airforce over a thousand strong??? Let alone the once necessary to achieve this at a distance of 6000k's+ away from home???

It'd make D Day look like a walk in the park...

 

[TrangleC]

I see.
I just think that after all the americans did the same, just the other way around.

 

[Cootamundra]

I see.
I just think that after all the americans did the same, just the other way around.

Yeah but the US had a much larger industrial capacity and spent the first 2 years of the Pacific war building up the capcity to begin the island hopping campaign. Personally I cannot see how the Japanese high command thought they would win a land war in Australia, certainly if they could establish a naval bloackade then there might be a chance but the distances involved alone would seriously hamper this effort.

 

[TrangleC]

This discussion is higly speculative anyway.
To beat the americans, the japanese would have had to match this industrial capacity, so if there would have been a victorious japanese navy, then it most likely would have had pretty much the same abilities as the americans had in reality.
(Which isn't even that unlikely, considering that they could have utilized millions of chinese slave workers if they would have had the time to consolidate their colonial empire.)
So it doesn't make much sense to speculate about what the japanese would have done if they won the war against the americans and at the same time assume that this fictional japanese warmachine would have had the same restrictions as the real one had.

What i'm saying is just that a fictional japanese military force that would have been powerful and endurand (hope that word exists) enough to beat the americans, wouldn't have had much problems to deal with australia afterwards.

And i repeat myself, a land-war just wouldn't have been neccessary, so the wast dimensions of the inner Australia would have been not much use to the australians, once japanese aircraft carrier fleets and navy infantry transporters would have appeared in front of all the bigger cities along the coast.

And about the distance on sea:
Like i said, the americans were able to do it, so a japanese force that could defeat the americans could deal with the distance too.
Not even mentioning the fact that they most likely would have occupied Indonesia first and used it as a base for the further advance against Australia.

 

[Aussie Digger]

Not even mentioning the fact that they most likely would have occupied Indonesia first and used it as a base for the further advance against Australia.

They tried, read up on the battles at Kokoda, the Aussies stopped em...

 

[TrangleC]

lol
You really seem to take this personally.
This is not a discussion about the performance of the australian military in the real war. So cool down, mate.

Keep in mind that wer're talking about a fictional different outcome of the war.
I'm repeating: A fictional japanese army that would have been powerful enough to defeat the americans.

If what you want to say is that the australian military forces were more powerful than the americans and a japanese force that was able to defeat the USA still would have stood no chance against them... well... you're entitled to your opinion, but i wouldn't really share it in that matter.

You mentioned 1500 aircraft in the australian airforce. Even if that would all have been the best fighters available at that time, the number would still make it a rather puny force compared to those of the two main combatant forces in the pacific.
I'm not totally sure anymore because it's a long time ago i did read my last book about it, but i think i remember to have read that the japanese had about 40 000 machines in service during the war. Of course not all of them at one time, but i think the maximum number of aircraft in service at one time must have been about 10 000. And that is the real japanese airforce, not the way more powerful one we are speculating about.

If they would have had a little time for establishing a functional infra structure in the occupied territories, having millions of chinese slave workers build new weapons and ship yards till they would have been able to introduce a new aircraft carrier every few weeks into service, as the americans did in the endphase of the war, (They really did build the stuff faster than the japanese could sink it.) which is a requirement for the fictional scenario of a victorious japanese force we are speculating about here, then they would have a much bigger and more powerful (all their best weapons were introduced in the endphase of the war when they came too late) military than the real one that was driven back from Indonesia in reality.

 

[Cootamundra]

What i'm saying is just that a fictional japanese military force that would have been powerful and endurand (hope that word exists) enough to beat the americans, wouldn't have had much problems to deal with australia afterwards.

If the Japanese had been in a position to beat the Americans (massive IF) then yes the Japanese would've been able to eventually beat Australia. Land warfare up in the tope ned of Aus would NOT be an easy proposition, however with our major allie defeated we couldn't expect to last out.

 

[abramsteve]

TrangleC, by beat the Americans do you mean knock them out of the war, or invade and occupy the mainland US?

Then number of troops required to occupy either the US, or Australia is not only fictional, its almost completley improbable. Thats not to say we couldnt have been invaded and split in two though...

oh and dont rule out our air force, at one stage of the war we had the worlds 4th largest air force, that may have been at the end of it but still. The German air force out numbered the Royal Air force but still wasnt able to defeat it. There might be a number of reasons why, but whos to say those same reasons wouldnt apply to the Japanese.

This thread may be about a fictional outcome to the war, but it has to be based on some logical reasoning, otherwise I might just say 'then Australia developed an A-bomb, went beserk and dropped it on everyone and then ruled the world!'