The figure for the first 30 days only applies if the fighting had been concluded within 30 days. That was highly unlikely. Look at casualty projections for 90 to 120 days.
This implied that a 90-day Olympic campaign would cost 456,000 casualties, including 109,000 dead or missing. If Coronet took another 90 days, the combined cost would be 1,200,000 casualties, with 267,000 fatalities.[37]
Firstly, those casualties were figures from April and from the Joint chiefs. Studies done by the Pacific generals (MacArthur, Nimitz, etc.) Estimated figures in the tens of thousands initially and in the hundreds of thousands for a long range cost (up to 125,000 in
120 days in MacArthur's initial study, and I believe something like 100,000 in the revised after 120 days). Likewise, those continued revisions came with more information on how many Japanese soldiers were there.
It took almost 3 months to subdue Okinawa from just over 100,000 men. The Japanese had amassed 900,000 men in Kyushu.
Do you think the Japanese would have fought any less ferociously to defend the sacred home islands than they did at Iwo Jima or Okinawa? If anything they would have fought harder.
Many Japanese civilians who were not mobilized on Okinawa lept off cliffs to their deaths rather than face US troops who they were told were bloodthirsty killers who would kill the men, rape the women, and eat their babies. The civilian militia's were being trained with bamboo spears and in one recorded case a teenage Japanese girl told of how she was instructed how best to kill Americans with awl, even if she could only kill one she was told that was good enough.
And the US casualties were 12,513 dead, 38,916 wounded. Okinawa was at a point when the Japanese had a last stand and I would say were still in ok enough condition to fight. By the time you get to attacking Japan, everything was in shambles. Okinawa is like the Battle of the Bulge. A last stand against imminent doom before a slow crash to the ground where all that could be offered by the Germans was eventually just half hearted resistance forces. Likewise, looking at Okinawa as a sign of even more vicious conflict would be like looking at the Battle of the Bulge as a sign of a more vicious conflict once you get to invading Germany. I understand the whole Samurai honor seppuku ideology as the reason to think the Japanese would have done what the Germans were only perhaps feared to do, but I don't believe the civilians could have or would have done it on any large scale, the defeat mentality was setting in by late '45, and I think the mass mentality would have led most to surrender even to what they viewed as a vicious enemy rather than most jumping off cliffs and cutting their throats (I also have doubts about the Japanese publics perception of the US and US troops as raping, murdering barbarians. I mean, we had been very, very close allies and friends and it really is an oddity that we came to blows. And I would posit the Japanese, not being robots, remembered that.).
The Japanese considered Emperor Hirohito to be a living decendant of the Gods. Above all else was duty to the Emperor. I do believe there would have been a large number of Japanese civilians who would have fought with hand weapons agains the Allies even if it was out of a misguided sense of duty.
It would perhaps have been a large number, but I would not say any majority or anything beyond a few thousand. The Japanese were very demoralized and very war weary. I mean, I have also known a few Japanese veterans from the Pacific war, and from what they say from what they saw and thought, from what they said the civilians weren't really going to put up any massive resistance against incoming Americans.
Your estimate of a poorly trained and poorly equipped Army is only half correct.
Starting in late 1943 the IJA had started stripping equipment and trained troops from the Kwantung Army and moving it to reinforce the Pacific. As the Allies got closer and closer many units and much of the equipment were moved to the home islands in anticipation of the coming invasion.
The IJA had 60 divisions. They had equipment for 40 divisions and ammo for 30 divisions.
The casualty projections were based on the ferocity of the fighting at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the estimates of Japanese troop strengths, the estimates of equipment, and the estimates that this time civilain militias would be involved.
As stated above the US grossly underestimated the number of Japanese troops in the area.
The Japanese ammunition and equipment (which was very, very poorly produced by this point, by the way) as you said was only available to a limited number of divisions. Likewise, I have doubts on the longevity of that supply. And of those 900,000, many of them lack equipment or had very poor equipment which neuters much of that supposed troop strength. So you have a fraction of those Japanese troops actually fighting in any form that could be considered armed combat which has an effect on US casualties and the high possibility of them falling back and regrouping, falling back and regrouping as American forces take ground (and of course, not all of those 900,000 would die).
You seem to imply that Japan was no longer capable of organized resistance and had nothing left to fight with.
That is most definitely not the case. As stated before the Japanese military had amassed 900,000 men into 60 divisions, had 10,000 aircraft, and equipment for 40 divisions and ammo for 30 divisions.
The IJN was all but destroyed but was not completely out of the fight yet.
I imply that the Japanese strength based on numbers is superficial. Guns run on bullets, men fight with guns, and airplanes need men and gasoline. All of those were lacking (in many cases with great severity), poorly produced, or not there at all. And that would only get worse as they were put to use.
I suggest you read a book called "Japan's Longest Day" http://www.amazon.com/Japans-Longest-Pacific-Research-Society/dp/4770028873
Its a historically true account of the attempt by a group of fanatical Military officers to overthrow the civilian part of the government, place the Emperor in protective custody, and issue a order in the name of the Emperor for all military and all civilians to fight to the death in defense of the homelands and the emperor rather than face dishonor. The group came scarily close to almost succeeding.
I point out that they came only close in succeeding in the coup. The order to all civilians to fight to the death and that order actually being followed with tenacity was never seen. Likewise, that was the military. Not the people, not the dynasty, not even the soldiers. And the military was the closest thing to the Nazi commanders that you could compare. They didn't want to give up and told the civilians to fight to the death against the invaders for their leader and homeland. I would view orders like that having as much effect as this.
I do not believe for a second the Japanese civilians would have rebelled against the Military and by extension the Emperor, not in a million years. It goes against their value of "Giri" and their sense of honor.
That's straight from Hirohito's and the high command's mouth to your and my ears. And frankly, who knows Japan better than the Japanese. Likewise, it wouldn't be the first time the Japanese rebelled. And even if they were still devoted to the emperor, they could, like Shogun's and even the military, overthrow the real leaders (in this case, the military regime) and keep the emperor intact in some form or another.
You seem to think Operation Coronet would have ended within 30 days and the casualties would have been within the original 30 day estimates.
No, I think that the estimations for the first 30 days were a good sign of the actual figures of an invasion and a sign of how many casualties there really would have been, which would have ranged within the thousands not millions.
I think Operation Olympic would have gone on for over 180 days due to fanatical and fierce resistance. I think the fighting in Operation Olympic would have been so fierce that the Allies would have had to delay Operation Coronet probably til spring of 1946.
I doubt fanatical resistance from all but the soldiers, and even believe the soldiers would lose their tenacity and ferosiosuness as time went on. Likewise, the Japanese civilians -in large numbers- evacuated areas of Japanese control as well late in the war (Sakhalin, Kuriles, Chosen, Kwantung and Manchukuo), which leads me to suspect the same would have happened in areas of US invasion (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evacuation_of_Karafuto_and_Kuriles). I also think you have to take into account what the Japanese perhaps did not know or know well enough as well, which was the Soviet factor. As you have the Russian bear sweeping from the north, I suspect heavy resources would have been devoted there -perhaps even from Kyushu and so forth-, and as both sides, American/British and Soviet, presented a threat, I suspect more resources being devoted to the North to defend against the Russians (perhaps even stopping that infamous North Japan alternate history buffs love) and the peace faction of Japanese politics gaining strength and surrendering to the Western allies thus saving their island. From everything I know, the Japanese leaders really did hate Communism with a vengeance.
And while I appreciate you keeping this topic afloat and while this is OK and even desirable in moderation, by the point that you get to this long of a debate, it kinda draws away from the goal of "Hey, what about putting some of these in game" and discussing that. So I'm not going to discuss this further.
