Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Some Fun Alternate Pacific War Scenarios...

Some more alternate timelines courtesy of my message-board, all centering around the Pacific Theater of World War II.  Both of these are in the post-1900 forum, so people who are not members of the site can view them.

Here's the first one, simply titled "Guam."

http://www.alternatehistory.net/Discussion/showthread.php?t=182727

The point of divergence from our history is that FDR, upon seeing the fall of France, has Guam more heavily fortified.  In our history, Guam fell without a fight, but here, Guam becomes a bone in the throat of the Japanese Empire as it expands throughout the Pacific in the early days of the war.  It's really interesting to read about.

One thing one gets from studying the Pacific War is how lucky the Japanese were.  If things had gone differently in the slightest, they would have had a much more difficult time of it.  If what happened in 1941-1942 in our history was written as fiction, the writer could easily be blasted as a foolish Japanese nationalist making his country do better than they could realistically--after all, they were facing a power that had a much greater population and industrial base (the United States) and several lesser-but-still-strong powers (the British, for example).  Although I won't go into detail for fear of spoilers, the continued survival of Guam throws a major wrench into Japanese plans.

Here's another one entitled "Thirty Extra Feet."

http://www.alternatehistory.net/Discussion/showthread.php?t=179943

In this one, the Pacific War begins in 1938 with the Panay Incident in which an American warship in China is attacked by the Japanese, combined with the Rape of Nanking.  Neither side is prepared for the conflict at all and in the United States, the popular support for the war that formed after Pearl Harbor isn't there.  The war in Europe hasn't even begun yet.  I don't have particularly strong opinions about it, but it is interesting anyway.

And now the third, "December 28th, 1941: The Day of Infamy."

http://www.alternatehistory.net/Discussion/showthread.php?t=182778

Basically Pearl Habor is delayed until just after Christmas and the U.S. forces are even more unprepared.  Plus some of the carriers are in port and get destroyed along with the battleships.  One of the few realistic scenarios where the Japanese could actually have done better than in our history during the intitial phase of the war when they were rolling up everyone else's colonial empires in the Pacific.

I hope you all enjoy it.

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for the review of WI Guam
    Kent

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  2. I was very encouraged to find this site. I wanted to thank you for this special read. I definitely savored every little bit of it and I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you post.

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  3. Thanks. I hope you won't be disappointed.

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