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X-Day
Topic Started: Apr 28 2012, 01:16 PM (308 Views)
Basil Fawlty
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Post Tenebras Lux
Had X-Day been followed through, either due to the failure of the atomic bomb or political hesitance to use it, what would have been the results? Has anyone ever done a simulation like the British War Office's wargames for Sealion?

As I recall, the numbers were tipping steadily in favor of Japan in the months before Hiroshima... had that continued, it is questionable whether the Kyushu operation could have been carried out.
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Simon Darkshade
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Nefarious Swashbuckler
An inevitable American victory, but one with very large casualties. I don't think it has ever been officially wargamed.

The long term political and popular cultural consequences would be widereaching. I'll have to think on it.
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JBK
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I did my final project at high school on the Japanese Empire and the end of the Second World War. My main take on the situation is that even though very heavy casualties were expected, they might not have been so had the operation gone ahead.

The main reason I have for that assumption is that even though the Japanese had terrain and defensive positions on their side that would have been made up by the experience and fire power of US naval and air support. Remember that by this stage of the war the Japanese no longer could count on any of these arms. The kamikaze who maybe formed the exception to this rule would still have had an exceptionally hard time breaking through the fighter and anti-aircraft screens put up by the US Navy. On top of that the Americans were experimenting with flying radar systems which would have spotted the income attack craft even earlier giving the US fighters more time to intercept them.

The Japanese were also short of food, much of which had been burned in air strikes and the infrastructure of Japan was in shambles, making quick reinforcement of threatened areas impossible. However the US would not have been hampered by that because they ruled both the waves and the air.

Finally the fighting quality of the Japanese troops could be put in doubt. Many were inexperienced, hardly trained militia. Their weapons were inadequate and no longer up to date. A -Soviet- Manchuria style victory does as such not strike me as unlikely. However very many civilians would probably have perished.
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Petar
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The General
I believe that casualties would be very high, especially on the Japanese side which would probably fight till the very end.

The Japanese Armed Forces were by 1945 severely depleted and could no longer win a war in the Pacific - but what they lacked in equipment and expirience (as many veterans of the previous campaigns got killed), they made up with complete disregard for their lives and their boundless loyalty towards the Emperor.

My Physics teacher, who has a great knowledge of military history, mentioned a number of at least 5 million killed Japanese in case of an invasion by the Allies.
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