Chapter 3: Empire of Japan (1955-1991)

15 February 1955

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With the end of the 2nd Sino-Japanese war, soldiers returned to their homes, the dead were honored, and the nations demobilized. The war left deep scars in China, as Manchuria and important coastal cities, like Shanghai, were taken by the Japanese.

Korea the main battleground of the war, was left devastated, many families were broken or dead, and the nation was traumatized by the flames of war.

And Japan was left as the only remaining power in Asia capable of stopping communism from spreading further, the losses it suffered, and the predicaments almost made the empire crumble. But instead of wearing, it strengthened the nation and its people

Japan and Korea promised that never again would their failures repeat again, the two nations, regions, and people, who were once at odds, were now together under the common cause of stopping communism at all costs

Japan's economy and industry, unscathed by the war, began a second boom, as with the collapse of the Republic of China, opened huge gaps and ripples in the Asian and even global economies, as its former industries were taken and absorbed by the People's Republic of China, a now-closed nation that only trades with the USSR and its puppets, Japan in a prime position to take over the Chinese share of the Asian economy did so like an opportunistic predator

Inside Japan, after investigations by a reformed, reorganized, and unified Intelligence Agency (and secret police), it was found out that the Japanese Communist Party and the Japanese socialist party had contact with the USSR, this led to a brief period called the Japanese Red Scare, in which members of the now illegal party, and supporters, had their lives destroyed by the investigations, with many of them being deported out of the nation

For a time, the situation in Asia was slowly getting back on the western advantage, as both the USA recovered from its crippling demobilization post WW2, revealed by their late arrival towards the very end of the 2nd Sino-Japanese war, and secret American nuclear silos being set up on Japan, aimed towards both the eastern regions of the USSR and China and much like in Turkey, the USSR was aware of such locations

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October 1962

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That month of that year, became known as the tensest period of the cold war, as the US and USSR made a diplomatic standoff when Soviet Nuclear missiles were found in Cuba, through a series of negotiations and near slip-ups by both sides, both the USA and USSR agreed on removing the missiles from the contested areas, the Soviets removed their missiles from Cuba and China while the USA pulled back its missiles from Turkey, Italy, and Japan

Japan seeing itself lose, its main deterrent against Communist China and the Soviets, had its government began to panic at the possibility of becoming the first target of communist nukes in the far east without any means of striking back, that fear, although unlikely of happening, was enough for the government and military to quickly restart its nuclear program, that they had abandoned due to the costs and the presence of American nukes in the isles

Still, the government feared that if either the Americans or Soviets found out about the existence of native nuclear weapon silos in Japan, they would be forced to dismantle their nuclear arsenal, seeing how close a nuclear war got with the Cuban Missile Crisis. This led to an unconventional plan, codenamed Project Shinigami, the project called for a study of the still-secret I-400 submarines built during WW2, for the possibility of making modernized aviation submarines capable of launching an SLBM with the capabilities and range of an ICBM*or the launching of fighter bombers armed with nuclear bombs or spy planes from "close positions" to enemy shores

This would become the most well-kept secret in Japan, and later become known as the biggest military failure of the nation

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30 September 1963

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This day, marked the start of the Indochinese Emergency, as the first shots were fired between the Indochinese National Army (INA) and the People's Liberation Army of Indochina (PLAI). The communist guerrilla supplied, advised, and trained by the USSR and China, was able to gain control of a vast area of North Vietnam in a short amount of time, leading the Indochinese government to request assistance from Japan and the USA to defeat the guerrilla forces

The Japanese response was almost immediate, within days elements of the IJAF and IJN were already beginning operations over the guerrilla controlled areas, this war was the trial of fire of the new Japanese strike fighter

This new aircraft was developed after the 2nd Sino Japanese war, as during the Japanese retreat due to Operation Lóng fēngbào, the IJAF that desperately tried to halt the Chinese offensive, especially the Chinese armored units, quickly began suffering from the rapid depletion of available bombs, that led to many of the on-field engineers to install the 40mm field AA guns on the hardpoints under their dive-bombers wings as an improvised AT gun, that to their surprise worked better than expected, and would become one of the requirements for Japan's next strike aircraft

The practically 5 years of development of the aircraft saw it go from piston to turboprop, have supersonic designs proposed and abandoned, and survive multiple field tests before it was approved for production and adoption, and the Indochinese emergency would become its trial by fire, the aircraft would prove its worth in the conflict by providing accurate close air support, reliability and ease of maintenance. Under a new and unified designation system for military aircraft, the still-unnamed Type 63 B1M2** strike aircraft, would quickly become adored by the IJA and INA, while feared by the PLAI, with both sides nicknaming it as Thunderbird (Raijincho) due to the sound that its two 40mm autocannon pods made when firing at ground targets

During the conflict, the IJA having elements that conducted guerrilla warfare during the 2nd Sino-Japanese war and having assisted the commonwealth forces during the Malayan insurgency would use their knowledge to fight against the communist insurgents in Indochina, together with the support and assistance of the staunchly anti-communist government of Indochina, various war crimes were conducted ranging from tortures to massacres by the IJA. The Japanese strategy was brutal and effective, after almost a decade of conflict in the jungles, the communist insurgency was defeated by the coalition forces

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1970s

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As the years passed and the cold war progressed, many things happened, like a series of submarine incidents between Japan and the Soviet Union, that would cause an increase in the Japanese anti-submarine warfare capabilities, while the Japanese missile technology that the nation had been pursuing at the same level as the development of their oxygen torpedoes of WW2, was on par if not better than the Soviet or American missiles, especially in the Anti-ship missile development

Within the military, especially the navy, noticing a worryingly growing gap between their offensive and defensive capabilities, would lead to the short-lived joint program with the USN on the Aegis system, the failure of the joint program still proved worth it as the Japanese military was able to acquire data and knowledge for their own native missile defense system

But as newer and better defense systems were made by different nations, new doctrines would be needed to overcome those defenses, which would see the return of the concentrated massed air attack for carriers, this new and also old doctrine was expected to overwhelm the defenses of an enemy fleet with a saturation attack in a two-wave attack by their fighters

In light of these needs, the IJN would request proposals for a new fighter-interceptor capable of intercepting soviet anti-ship missiles and conducting air superiority missions, the most prominent companies like Mitsuboshi***, Aichi, Kawazaki***, and Nakajima, would propose their own designs, but it would be the design proposed by the Kyushu Hikoki K.K in cooperation with the American Grummen*** company, the design closely based on the American F-14 that would receive the name of Type 76 A14W/G3 "Leopard(Hyo)"

Its development was considerably faster than usual due to Grummen tests already being made with the F-14 and only having modifications to fit Japanese systems, due to that this aircraft would receive the nicknames of "F-14's Asian cousin", "Japanified F-14", and "F-14 Copycat". But differently from the F-14, this aircraft would still be kept in service over the years

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1980

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This year, marked the reveal and commissioning of the Soviet Kirov-class guided-missile battlecruisers, this would cause the IJN to once again delay the decommissioning of the Yamato and Mikasa class battleships, and lead to their eventual extensive modernizations. The IJN still kept its two last classes of battleships in service due to the trauma of the casualties suffered at the naval battle near Port Arthur during the Chinese Great Offensive, as Hiryuu's survival at that battle was attributed not only to the sheer luck of the vessel but also the presence of the Yamato-class battleships Musashi and Kii as part of her escort group, as the Yamato class contained an almost excessive amount of AA armaments that helped in the protection of the carrier

Due to that fact, the battleships continued in service as carrier escorts, and if necessary, sacrifice themselves to defend the carriers, but the rapid development of Anti-ship missiles both by Japan itself and the Soviet Union, made much of the IJN once again consider the retirement of their last battleships. But now that the Soviets had revealed their new class of capital ship, those considerations were pulverized and instead would lead to the IJN to develop a ship design to counter the Kirov-Class, and also due in part to Reagan's 600-ship program, would become the trigger of the Third Eight-Eight Fleet program, which demanded the development and construction of a new generation of "super" aircraft carriers and a "sister" guided missile battlecruisers, alongside new corvettes, destroyers and cruiser classes, and an overall increase of naval assets ready for combat

The first battlecruisers, would be composed of two ships of the Suruga class battlecruisers, with then 4 ships of a different class made with improvements learned from the Suruga-class, that would replace the Yamatos, and then a third battlecruiser design made with improvements of the previous class, to replace the Mikasas. The IJN expected the third Eight-Eight Fleet program to finish within 40 to 50 years

During this decade, it would also become infamous from the Soviet-afghan war, as both American and Japanese support would be sent to the Mujahideen fighting against the Soviet troops there, although Japanese support was present in Afghanistan it was still limited, as most of the budget was still focused on the direct defense of the home isles and Taiwan, and welfare programs

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1990s

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The rest of the cold war would see a growing decline of the Soviet Union together with the rest of the communist bloc, the Soviet war in Afghanistan would end with the Soviet withdrawal from the region becoming the first piece of a domino effect, Gorbachev's policies of democratization and liberalism in the Soviet Union would directly lead to the selling of North Sakhalin to Japan in hopes that the money from the selling of the region would help with the Perestroika, but that proved futile as, just a year after in 1991, the Soviet Union would collapse into various breakaway states in Eastern Europe and Central Asia

Communist China would manage to hold itself together becoming the last remaining state to, supposedly, carry the ideals of communism, and continue to remain one of the main targets of Japan's concern

But the collapse of the USSR would also lead to a formation of a rift between Japan and the USA, without the presence of a common enemy the two powers would occasionally interfere with each other as their interests went against the other, eventually, the two powers would agree on staying out of each other main spheres of influence, the USA wouldn't interfere in East Asia, and neither would Japan interfere in the Americas nor in Europe

The end of the 20th century would be relatively uneventful, but the first year of the 21st century would soon show to be infamous to the entire world

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*According to the comparison of nuclear weapons on Wikipedia, in the 60s, ICBMs had way more range and payload than SLBMs of the same period, so that's my main reason for why Japan in this alt hist went with that decision

**For now, the new aircraft designation I'll be using will be this: Type (first two numbers of the year[ie. 63 for 1963]) (Optional: Specific Role letter) - (Aircraft type letter [ie. B for attack/strike aircraft)(Version number [ie. 1 for first design)(Company Letter [ie. M for Mitsuboshi**)(Design number [how many "modifications" the plane had/has) (Optional: "Name")

I'll put the "complete" designation list in a glossary chapter when I finish this first volume of the story together with some basic specifications, and why I'm doing this, is mostly because I think Japan would eventually update the naming convention like how the US did, but also because trying to find a good converter to Imperial Years is a pain in the arse, so making a new naming system was easier

***For precautionary reasons, companies that still exist have a change of one of the letters on their names, companies that either don't exist anymore or were absorbed and had their names changed will be kept with their IRL names