So let's say the Japanese went the whole enchilada and occupied the Hawaiian Islands. Then what? It was just another island-chain outpost that was vulnerable because of Japan's inability to resupply, plus it could easily be by-passed using Australia as a starting point to push up through Guadalcanal. The fundamental problem was that Japan's leadership entirely misjudged American resolve in the face of attack. Had the entire Pacific Fleet been sunk, I'm certain America would have rolled up its sleeves and rebuilt it. It would have taken time but it would have happened and no amount of breathing space would have enabled Japan to catch up industrially. Like I said, the war would have been longer but the ultimate result would have been the same - defeat for Japan.
Hi BF
Many times Ive played a simulation called "War In The Pacific" (WITP). A monster game, easily the most detailed simulation on the subject designed by Richard Berg and Jim Dunnigan. These guys are legends. Dunnigan for example is no longer a simulations designer, he is considered far too valuable for that. The US pentagon snapped him up some time ago as a strategic analyst. Hes one of those guys working in the backrooms advising the US brass on how to fight and win their wars. Bergy is still a game designer AFAIK, and IMO considered the best in the business. Its not so much a "game" in the sense of a computer sim as a serious historical study. To give you some idea of the scale of this thing it has nine (yes nine) A1 sized map sections, over 10000 counters, and a rule book over 150 pages long and CRT tables booklet over 40 pages long. In additiona to the main theatre maps, there are over 100 tactical maps that depict most of the main island groups (like Guadacanal Iwo, Okinawwa) at the most tactical scales possible. Normally on the TO maps you deply at divisional or regimental level (occasionally at battalion level). On the tactical maps, depending on the scale of the map, you break your parent units into company strength or even smaller.
In China, the chinese forces are depicted at army size units (since they have over 300 divisional sized units, and thats just the KMT).
Warships are depicted as individual ships down to destroyer sized, below that you have multiple hulls per counter. Aircraft are deployed as "points" with varying chanracteristics for each type. Each point represents 10 aircraft.
Play is on the turn based but with simulataneous movement/combat, on the basis of a 1 week passage of time per turn, but there are impulses for air and naval activity that roughly equate to 2 days of time per impulse.....and air battles can slow down to even a single moment of time. Its one of the most innovative methods of time and distance scaling that I have ever seen. It works, and works well. When you dont need all that much detail, such as occurred in China, you dont get bogged down in cludge and fiddle....but when the fate of the war depends on 5 minutes of combat, and the deployment of a few hundred soldiers, the systems allows for that.
If you constantly engage your air and sea assets for every 2 day period they burn out really quickly....you need time to rest these units, refit, and absorb replacements in the case of the air formations ( a big problem for the Japanese, who simply do not have enough land based formations to cover all the territory.
The game takes into account Japanese Pilot quality, their crappy replacement system, superior night fighting skills, superior land tactics/training/morale at the beginning of the war. Gradually these skills advantages disappear as Allied experience and success mounts, and the Japanese take losses they simply cannot afford to absorb.
Rules are in play for production and shipping. Shipping is depicted in lots of approximately 100000 deadweight ton lots. There are optional rules for captured Allied shipping in the Indies, which helped the japs somewhat. Rules are also in place to reflect such issues as US torpedo failures, Long Lance, and the cockeyed use of Japanese subs. There are also rules for the US intell advantages that affected the conduct of ops so dramatically.
In a word, this simulation is without any doubt super detailed and super accurate. The general line up is usually to have either 5 or 8 players, and with a dedicated time committment will usually take about 250 hours to play. So it aint no fantasy or beer and pretzels lightweight, i can assure you. We have tested this sim using average results from the CRTS, following as closely as possible the operational movements of each side. Played as history, the game delivers pretty much historical results. We have never been more than a week or two out in terms of japanese surrender.
So what happens when you give players a free reign to explore their own strateegies. To be fair, we usually dont restrict Japanese submarines operations completely. They get some use out of their subs to sink Allied shipping as Yoshida Akira has shown. We also assume Japanese industry starts the awar at their post Midway production levels....slightly more than their outputs at December 1941.
There is no doubt in my mind, with the experience of WITP behind me, to say that an invasion of hawaii is nearly impossible to pull off. However an invasion of Midway in December 1941 is not. This has major implications on tracking of the US Fleet. (we now have a house rule that prevents this preemptive strike until January 1942....to give the US time to reinforce its position there). The overarching shortage that dictates and dominates Japanese planning and operations is a shortage of shipping. They simply dont have enough of it to do everything. However, if they can corner and inflict a one sided naval defeat(s) on the USN in 1942, of sufficient magnitude (meaning they sink all or most of the US carriers for small or no loss to themselves....an almost impossible task, but possible, if the US make mistakes) the pendulaum swings and its the allies who cant effectively stop the Japanese. A few months of defeats in 1942 will dictate in large measure what happens in later parts of the war. And one sided victories in the pacific will have flow on effects in other TOs, like North Africa, and Russia.
The game is not so naive as to assume that the Japanese can achieve unconditional surrender, but it does have a neat system to postulate US war weariness and priotities (principally Europe first). If the US was faced with a rampaging European Axis, and no real prospect or result in the pacific, faced with a choice of either making a peace in the pacific, or losing the war outright, the assumption is the US will opt for a truce with Japan. Ive argued that this could only ever be considered a temporary truce....once the Europe first strategists had recovered position in Europe, the US would return to clear up the Pacific situation. But IMO this is also outside the parameters of a 1939-46 conflict timeframe. It might not be until 1947-8 that the US could return to the theatre with amuch reduced reputation. It would be a different war a different world really.