raharris1973
Well-known member
What if Japan's Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was 'overwritten' on Oct 25, 1942, by the 1842 version of itself?
This scenario might sound familiar, and give you "deja vu all over again" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deja_Vu_All_Over_Again#:~:text=%22Déjà%20vu%20all%20over%20again,déjà%20vu%20all%20over%20again.%22
But I admit you too might feel that way because the premise is really similar to a recent thread I did, WI American-occupied Japan & Okinawa ISOT from Feb. 1, 1946 to Feb. 1, 1943?.
What can I say? I like the general idea, but wanted to start over because I think the original got a bit off the intended track. My original was too complex, creating too much of a checkerboard across Asia and the Pacific of post Japanese surrender territories, and mid-war territories. That caused discussion to focus too much on Pacific clean-up and the 'will they? won't they?' questions about surrender of downtime Japanese, and insufficient focus on the impact of the clear, definitive end of the Pacific War, and its requirements, on how the Allied powers would then conduct the war in the ETO with their (nearly) full might.
Therefore, to review what happens differently in this scenario: The equivalent territory (land and sea and atmospheric- from Inner Mongolia & Manchuria to Tarawa, and from the Andaman Islands and Attu and Kiska in the Aleutians) from October 25th, 1842, is ISOT'ed *forward* a century to over-write the same footprint on the globe on October 25th. Instead of overwriting Japan's GEACPS of October 25th, 1942, with an occupied postwar GEACPS, it is overwritten by a more primitive, past snapshot of the GEACPS land and sea area, ISOT'ed from the past, specifically from October 25th, 1842.
There is no enemy from this area now threatening the *1942* allies. There are no modern military forces under the command of the 1942 allies they can redeploy from there. The much less developed, and more primitive economies, of 1842 Asia-Pacific, have some useful commodities to sell, but ports, inland to port, and scale of production is so comparatively limited that the region as a whole is much less important economically than most other, more developed, regions of the globe. Vast proprotionate increases in resource exploitation can be had with some key investments, fairly quickly. But for the most part, in the grips of war over the immediate fate of Europe, as a prize and bone of contention, the lands of Asia and the Pacific are of a medium and long-term issue. In comparison to my other treatment of the scenario, after the 1942 powers can map out the pervasiveness of the disjunctive time reality in the region, the region can mostly be ignored.
The US can outfit an expedition to compel a submission of the Tokugawa Shogunate, but this takes minimal effort and footprint and leaves the US free to mainly concentrate on the ETO.
The Pacific war is definitively over, and the Asia-Pacific region, except for the unoccupied Chinese interior, Soviet lands, India, Australia, and Hawaii is pre-modern world just barely touched by a modernizing west. It is not dependent on outside food imports and 'accepts' periodic famines as a fact of life. With the lack of 1945 metro production capabilities, especially for nukes and the most sophisticated tech, the 1942 world is not into a self-sustained atomic and jet age just yet. Since it is 1842, there are no Allied forces to extract from there. [Coppered Royal Navy Hulls, East India Merchantmen, Dutch and French Eastindiamen, and Yankee Clippers with a few cannon and marines flitting about oriental waters have *no* military value in the 20th century]
Throughout the entire ISOT'ed former 1842 Asia-Pacific area replacing the GEACPS, I am estimating:
Southeast Asia and Pacific are only in part western colonies by this 1842 timeframe- parts of DEI, Singapore, southern Burma only (northern Burma was still independent), none of Indochina was yet colonized (just Catholic missions and missionaries), parts of Malaya, most of the Philippines, none of New Guinea. Northern territories are Shogunal Japan or unexplored or aboriginal. Occupied China/Manchuria regions are ruled by the Qing Emperor. No Communist presence. For the regions of 1942 occupied China that are replaced by 1842 China, from the downtime perspective, it is just after 1st Opium War, only the treaty ports from Nanjing treaty (Shanghai, Guangzhou, Ningbo, Xiamen (Amoy), and Fuzhou) have been opened to the west and Hongkong island ceded to Britain. In this further back scenario, the Manchurian and Korean territories are less interesting to the Soviets in the short and medium term than the 1940s ones were - there are no modern rails or ports or mines or industrial equipment there to use, control, or loot. Manchuria is even to a degree less interesting, urgent, or vital to Chiang and Mao from their POV from their bases at Chongqing or Yanan because it is raw wilderness, and is more or less interchangeable with any other part of rural China. They will both still care about it though, because it is part of China and has long term potential.
From the perspective of downtime Washington and the USA, it is a little over ten months after US participation in WWII has begun, it is about a week before the 1942 midterms, and the surrender of Japan is political good news for FDR, even if it is only supernaturally falling into his lap. It is also two and a half weeks before the Operation Torch landings and in the same rough timeframe of the El Alamein and Stalingrad battles.
So, how do the December 1942-January 1943 Allied powers now go about defeating the European Axis powers? How quickly can they accomplish this task?
This scenario might sound familiar, and give you "deja vu all over again" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deja_Vu_All_Over_Again#:~:text=%22Déjà%20vu%20all%20over%20again,déjà%20vu%20all%20over%20again.%22
But I admit you too might feel that way because the premise is really similar to a recent thread I did, WI American-occupied Japan & Okinawa ISOT from Feb. 1, 1946 to Feb. 1, 1943?.
What can I say? I like the general idea, but wanted to start over because I think the original got a bit off the intended track. My original was too complex, creating too much of a checkerboard across Asia and the Pacific of post Japanese surrender territories, and mid-war territories. That caused discussion to focus too much on Pacific clean-up and the 'will they? won't they?' questions about surrender of downtime Japanese, and insufficient focus on the impact of the clear, definitive end of the Pacific War, and its requirements, on how the Allied powers would then conduct the war in the ETO with their (nearly) full might.
Therefore, to review what happens differently in this scenario: The equivalent territory (land and sea and atmospheric- from Inner Mongolia & Manchuria to Tarawa, and from the Andaman Islands and Attu and Kiska in the Aleutians) from October 25th, 1842, is ISOT'ed *forward* a century to over-write the same footprint on the globe on October 25th. Instead of overwriting Japan's GEACPS of October 25th, 1942, with an occupied postwar GEACPS, it is overwritten by a more primitive, past snapshot of the GEACPS land and sea area, ISOT'ed from the past, specifically from October 25th, 1842.
There is no enemy from this area now threatening the *1942* allies. There are no modern military forces under the command of the 1942 allies they can redeploy from there. The much less developed, and more primitive economies, of 1842 Asia-Pacific, have some useful commodities to sell, but ports, inland to port, and scale of production is so comparatively limited that the region as a whole is much less important economically than most other, more developed, regions of the globe. Vast proprotionate increases in resource exploitation can be had with some key investments, fairly quickly. But for the most part, in the grips of war over the immediate fate of Europe, as a prize and bone of contention, the lands of Asia and the Pacific are of a medium and long-term issue. In comparison to my other treatment of the scenario, after the 1942 powers can map out the pervasiveness of the disjunctive time reality in the region, the region can mostly be ignored.
The US can outfit an expedition to compel a submission of the Tokugawa Shogunate, but this takes minimal effort and footprint and leaves the US free to mainly concentrate on the ETO.
The Pacific war is definitively over, and the Asia-Pacific region, except for the unoccupied Chinese interior, Soviet lands, India, Australia, and Hawaii is pre-modern world just barely touched by a modernizing west. It is not dependent on outside food imports and 'accepts' periodic famines as a fact of life. With the lack of 1945 metro production capabilities, especially for nukes and the most sophisticated tech, the 1942 world is not into a self-sustained atomic and jet age just yet. Since it is 1842, there are no Allied forces to extract from there. [Coppered Royal Navy Hulls, East India Merchantmen, Dutch and French Eastindiamen, and Yankee Clippers with a few cannon and marines flitting about oriental waters have *no* military value in the 20th century]
Throughout the entire ISOT'ed former 1842 Asia-Pacific area replacing the GEACPS, I am estimating:
Southeast Asia and Pacific are only in part western colonies by this 1842 timeframe- parts of DEI, Singapore, southern Burma only (northern Burma was still independent), none of Indochina was yet colonized (just Catholic missions and missionaries), parts of Malaya, most of the Philippines, none of New Guinea. Northern territories are Shogunal Japan or unexplored or aboriginal. Occupied China/Manchuria regions are ruled by the Qing Emperor. No Communist presence. For the regions of 1942 occupied China that are replaced by 1842 China, from the downtime perspective, it is just after 1st Opium War, only the treaty ports from Nanjing treaty (Shanghai, Guangzhou, Ningbo, Xiamen (Amoy), and Fuzhou) have been opened to the west and Hongkong island ceded to Britain. In this further back scenario, the Manchurian and Korean territories are less interesting to the Soviets in the short and medium term than the 1940s ones were - there are no modern rails or ports or mines or industrial equipment there to use, control, or loot. Manchuria is even to a degree less interesting, urgent, or vital to Chiang and Mao from their POV from their bases at Chongqing or Yanan because it is raw wilderness, and is more or less interchangeable with any other part of rural China. They will both still care about it though, because it is part of China and has long term potential.
From the perspective of downtime Washington and the USA, it is a little over ten months after US participation in WWII has begun, it is about a week before the 1942 midterms, and the surrender of Japan is political good news for FDR, even if it is only supernaturally falling into his lap. It is also two and a half weeks before the Operation Torch landings and in the same rough timeframe of the El Alamein and Stalingrad battles.
So, how do the December 1942-January 1943 Allied powers now go about defeating the European Axis powers? How quickly can they accomplish this task?
