[pugsville]

Even if the Japs managed to take pearl & the islands , destroying most of the US fleet and denying them any real pacific base I dont think things would have changed all that much. The US would have come though the Inidan ocean rather than across the pacific adding a bit there logistics trial. The Japanese army struggled with the area it had may have got a bit more, parts of australia and inida maybe, but thats about as far as they could have pushed it. The Russians would have just kicked their arse so thats rights out. And the US production of ships and planes means the result is pretty inevitable. The biggest effect would be on US aid to russua, I think 40% went through the pacfic to valdivastock, (us ships, russian flags, the japs really were afraid of messing with the russian army and were very low on axis solidarity), with other routes being less good, you figure maybe 20% overall reduction in US-USSR aid.

Japs take pearl, teh war gainst japan goes a year longer at most.

[Siberian Fox]

All this stuff about taking Pearl Harbour forgets why Pearl Harbour was attacked at all.

Japan needed oil, which the USA would not let it have, therefore Japan needed to invade Borneo to get the oil fields. Standing in their path was the Philippines - that is the USA.

By destroying the bulk of the US Pacific Fleet Japan was able to invade the Philippines and inflict upon the USA it's greatest single military defeat on land ever, because the US navy was in no position to support or resupply the islands. Japan needed it's troop ships and available troops for it's attack on the Philippines and the South Pacific. Trying to invade the Hawaiian islands would have taken resources away from what Japan really wanted - oil. Without it Japan could not fight.

Presumably once the fuel situation had been stabilised the Japanese Admiralty thought the navy capable of destroying what was left of the American fleet, or at least having a fair chance.

[Spotacus]

The Americans had lots of troops on Hawaii my guess is that if the war went to plan for the Japanese they would simply besiege it until the Americans were forced to make peace.

The Japanese thought they were superior to the Americans. They fell for their own propaganda. their are many occasions in history where a numerically inferior opponent outfights its enemies, Tsushima for example. The war of the pacific wasn't one of them, in fact the Americans quickly showed that they had a qualitative advantage as well as numerical, contrary to the Japanese expectation.

[Thunderhawk]

Qualitatively, the Japanese army was only really superior to the colonial forces they usually faced. It was their air power and navy that allowed them to move around as they needed/wanted to.

[LAz]

A third wave of attacks is what was missing. It was suggested, but man, what a blunder to not do that.