If the pearl harbour attack was successful?

The attack was successful.

It's purpose was to trash the US Pacific Fleet so as to prevent it interfering with initial Japanese conquests of European colonies in the Asia Pacific area,and in this it was 100% successful.

It could have been more successful,but as others have pointed out this would only have made the war longer - but not necessarily in the Pacific.Roosevelt might not have been so keen on the Germany First strategy adopted by the Allies if the US carriers had been destroyed,the fuel depots at Pearl destroyed (which would have meant NO major US naval operations in the Pacific theatre until late 1942 at the earliest) and there had therefore been a consequent further expansion of Japanese conquests. However,no Germany First strategy would have seen the 75%-25% split in US resources committed to Europe go the other way,leading to Japanese defeat around the same time or perhaps even earlier, but a delay in the invasion of Italy and D-Day,probably meaning it would have taken longer to defeat the Germans than it actually did.

If the Japanese were successful in destroying the US Pacific Fleet along with the Carriers, I think Japan would've lasted a little bit longer. Aircraft Carriers are massive, they take around 3 years to build on average and I don't think the US Navy could've built enough battleships and Aircraft Carriers at the same time to counter the Japanese aggression. With the US delaying their attack on Japan, the Japanese would've extracted plenty of oil from Indo-China and Indonesia region, launched a successful invasion on Australia which would allow access to more resources, perhaps eradicate Burma from British military influence and ultimately launch a full-scale invasion on China. All while this is going on, the Japanese would also concentrate on building a navy rugged enough to go head to head against the American Fleet who is bound to get revenge on Japan for the attack on Pearl Harbour. IF the Japanese did succeed in Pearl Harbour, they could've significantly expanded their empire, built a strong navy/airforce and fended off the Americans until perhaps the US decided to use the atomic bomb or the Soviets launched a full-scale invasion of Imperial Japan. Ultimately, Japan couldn't have won the war, but they would've lasted longer for sure.

Nope, Japan attacked the US to eliminate the current US Navy from interfering with Japanese expansion. The plan was to fortify those conquests upon which the US would attack and eventually sue for peace allowing Japan to keep most of its conquests.

The one thing that would have really made the attack a success would have been the destruction of the repair facilities at Pearl. That would have pushed any effective US naval base back to the West Coast. If you don't think that's major, look at the carrier Yorktown and the damage she took at Coral Sea. Without the repair facilities at Pearl she probably would have missed Midway where she was desperately needed.

(As for carriers, only two carriers were stationed at Pearl Harbor, the Enterprise and Lexington, of the other five, Saratoga was on the West Coast and Yorktown, Hornet, Wasp and Ranger were all in the Atlantic. As for building times, many Essex class ships were completed during the war were done so in less than two years.)

Awesome question!

I agree with you with the suggestion "If the pearl harbour attack was successful..." because fact is the raid was NOT successful.

Yes it did do lots of damage but it didn't at all meet the objectives the Japanese had planned. The Japanese wanted two things out of the Pearl Harbour raid - to knock out the US Carrier fleet, and to cause enough casualties and damage to make Americans think twice about intervening in Japan's aims for expansion. As it happens the carriers were not knocked out; the fear of those carriers caused the Japanese Admiral to call off the planned follow-up raid on Pearl Harbour, which in turn didn't cause sufficient casualties and damage to cause American's to turn and run (as if anything would)... so going by what the Japanese wanted, the raid was a tactical success - not the strategic one they'd hoped for.

If the Japanese were successful and did eliminate the US carrier fleet, and did cause far greater death and destruction as they wanted... I still don't think they'd have won.

The American public would've been just as ticked off over what they saw was an unprovoked stab in the back, if not more so... and the American's did have time and resources to rearm. Alot of Japanese shipping wasn't sunk by Carriers or warships - but by US submarines... using one example of the USA still having a strike-back capability even without Carriers. Immediately after Pearl Harbour the US Navy transferred most of their Atlantic fleet to the Pacific to meet the Japanese threat [ordinarily a bad plan as that leaves the eastcoast wide open for attack, with the UBoats did during Operation Drumbeat - however the Canadian and British Navy's ended up guarding the USA eastcoast and driving the UBoats away] so because the US with help was able to shift the Atlantic fleet to the Pacific it bought them time until manufacturing came online.

All that would've happened was the Pacific war would've been taken a bit longer. :)

It would have just dragged out the war. The Japs would have just had a little extra time to secure their possessions in the pacific and fortify them in waiting for the inevitable counterattack even if it would be a year later. They hoped to use this time to end the war in china to free up the manpower to be sent to the pacific and other areas they wanted to conquer for resources.

If they had destroyed the facilities, the US Navy would have had no other option than to withdraw to the US mainland. That would give Japan a free hand to consolidate their empire.

But that would be it. Yamamoto said it himself already: if we attack, we can expect to win for 6 months up to a year. But after that, we'd loose.

The war would have lasted longer, but the end would be the same. Maybe it would take more than 2 mushrooms. No big deal, by that time (1946) the USA would have had plenty to deliver.

1.. it was successful .. 2.. they never had a chance.. but it might of lasted longer