Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: JeffK
So add this to the political infighting, poor doctrine, logistics and material support and you come out with a ill led, ill supplied, ill equipped force which managed to scare the world into believing in its invincibility!

WitP AE - Test team lead, programmer

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ORIGINAL: wdolson


Japan built a large army, but they would have been better off if they had left China alone. They probably could have taken more territory and reinforced it better if they didn't have to garrison so much territory in China. China gave them little in the way of resources and a lot of headaches. The SRA had just about everything they needed to build a strong economy and for that, they needed a strong navy.

The IJA got bogged down fighting a war in China that could not promise to return anything close to the cost. It was a black hole that became their Burmese monkey trap. They grabbed on and refused to let go.

Bill

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So add this to the political infighting, poor doctrine, logistics and material support and you come out with a ill led, ill supplied, ill equipped force which managed to scare the world into believing in its invincibility!

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ORIGINAL: FatR

At tactical, operational and strategic level, as well as in its organization and traning IJA consistently demonstrated as much or more competence as its opponents. It is just that being on the losing side of the war and fighting against overwhelmingly superior enemy highlighted most of Japanese FUBARs, while hiding all but the most blatant Allied ones. Japanenese logistics were mostly hampered by objective problems. Military production could have been planned better, but most problems there stemmed from IJA/IJN enmity (and overall lack of industrial power, of course).

Now on grand stratefic and political level, several huge miscalculations were made by IJA top brass. The situation of China was well covered above, I can only add, that Japanese had to go forward and try to turn the entire China in their puppet state - just like any potential stable Chinese government had to attempt returning Manchuria. And Japanese invested too much money and effort in Manchukou to even contemplate giving it up.

One very crucial Japanese mistake that is often forgotten, is overestimating Germany's power. They believed that Germany will be able to at least hold off Western Allies and also overrun USSR. On political level this influenced their overal willingness to risk open confrontation with USA and Britain, and on strategical level they kept a large part of their best forces in Kwantung Army, waiting to grab Sovier Far East after the collapse of USSR, that never happened.

Finally, they were too charmed by the outcome of Russo-Japanese war, forgetting how narrow, and to what extent caused by factors beyond Japanese control, their victory actually was. Sure thing, Japanese military failed to enter the same river twice and produce an unbroken 1.5-year string of apparent victories again.

WitP AE - Test team lead, programmer

quote:

ORIGINAL: FatR

At tactical, operational and strategic level, as well as in its organization and traning IJA consistently demonstrated as much or more competence as its opponents. It is just that being on the losing side of the war and fighting against overwhelmingly superior enemy highlighted most of Japanese FUBARs, while hiding all but the most blatant Allied ones. Japanese logistics were mostly hampered by objective problems. Military production could have been planned better, but most problems there stemmed from IJA/IJN enmity (and overall lack of industrial power, of course).

Now on grand stratefic and political level, several huge miscalculations were made by IJA top brass. The situation of China was well covered above, I can only add, that Japanese had to go forward and try to turn the entire China in their puppet state - just like any potential stable Chinese government had to attempt returning Manchuria. And Japanese invested too much money and effort in Manchukou to even contemplate giving it up.

One very crucial Japanese mistake that is often forgotten, is overestimating Germany's power. They believed that Germany will be able to at least hold off Western Allies and also overrun USSR. On political level this influenced their overal willingness to risk open confrontation with USA and Britain, and on strategical level they kept a large part of their best forces in Kwantung Army, waiting to grab Sovier Far East after the collapse of USSR, that never happened.

Finally, they were too charmed by the outcome of Russo-Japanese war, forgetting how narrow, and to what extent caused by factors beyond Japanese control, their victory actually was. Sure thing, Japanese military failed to enter the same river twice and produce an unbroken 1.5-year string of apparent victories again.

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ORIGINAL: Grit
I'm not sure I agree that Japanese training was very good. From the ground soldiers to the pilots they were trained to be killers and be good at what they do. They were also trained to hate and not have any respect for their foes or their ability. One reason it was so easy for the Japanese to mistreat Allied POW's.

One problem with the training was if they lost an officer in battle things quickly became confused. They simply weren't trained to step up and take charge or make tactical decisions. I'm not saying they weren't great fighters or extremely tough soldiers. I'm just saying it takes more than great fighters to win great battles.

WitP AE - Test team lead, programmer

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ORIGINAL: Q-Ball
Germany lost the battle in the factory, not on the ground.

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ORIGINAL: Grit

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ORIGINAL: Q-Ball
Germany lost the battle in the factory, not on the ground.

I think they lost because of the little Corporal with the funny mustache. Stalingrad really, come on, why not stick with the origina plan?

All kidding aside, if Germany had the resources (oil, metal, etc.) and the Generals were allowed to make decisions the world might be a different place today.

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ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

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ORIGINAL: Grit

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ORIGINAL: Q-Ball
Germany lost the battle in the factory, not on the ground.

I think they lost because of the little Corporal with the funny mustache. Stalingrad really, come on, why not stick with the origina plan?

All kidding aside, if Germany had the resources (oil, metal, etc.) and the Generals were allowed to make decisions the world might be a different place today.

Not so sure about that. Hitler was a genius; an evil genius, but a genius. He overrode his generals on several occasions, and turned out to be correct, particularly when assessing the moral courage of western leadership before the war and early in the war. Even the "Hold Fast" order in winter of 1941 was correct, and against the wishes of his generals, because Russia was a terrible place to retreat.

Later, YES, he did get a little bonkers, and Stalingrad was dumb. And Hitler's somewhat goofy decision on weapons priorities are also well-documented. But on balance, I would argue that he had a singular genius for military matters, and had more vision than his generals.

You could argue that Hitler's mistakes were Grand Strategic ones, but not tacitcal military ones (grand strategic like invading the Soviet Union, declaring war on US etc).

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ORIGINAL: Dora09

I think what has been left out of this discussion is while the average Japanese fighting man was very tough, confident and brave in combat, their leaders were (particularly in the navy) were often indecisive and lacked confidence in many key battles. Indecisiveness at Midway was the source of that disaster, and when the Yamato and the rest were poised to easily cause the destruction of the invasion force off Leyte, they ran from a hand full of destroyers. There were many times the Japanese had the advantage but their leaders lacked the courage to see it through or to be decisive.

On the otherhand, the Samurai spirt allowed the Japanese to hold out on little scraps of land against overwhelming odds, while being cut off, and without airpower and under appalling conditions and still cause the allies huge losses. I'm not so sure allied forces would of held up so well under those conditions.

WitP AE - Test team lead, programmer

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ORIGINAL: jetjockey

Please do not confuse Hitler’s audacity with genius. Many of his decisions were made not because of any grand insight on his part, but rather because they went against the wishes of the German General Staff, whom he hated with a passion. That he was often proven correct is more a testament to the drive and vision of the “Young Turks” that he favored, then making their way up through the ranks. These men recognized and capitalized on the changing realities of the battlefield, a trait not shared by the vast majority western leaders.

Also, Hitler’s “Hold Fast” orders did indeed prove to be correct, however, only after steadfastly refusing the army permission to make preparations to “winter over.” Had the army been able to go into “Winter Quarters” so to speak, the losses of men (veterans all) and material would have been greatly reduced. This army would have been able to resume offensive operations as the weather cleared rather than spend time reorganizing. All things being equal, this means that the 6th Army could have been at the “Gates of Stalingrad” two months earlier.

WitP AE - Test team lead, programmer

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Kurita specifically, who was in charge of the Center Force that hit Taffy 3 in the Battle Off Samar was the son of a scholar of the classics. He could read and write ancient Chinese and had grown up steeped in the real Japanese history. He saw the Code of Bushido for the load of horse droppings it was. He knew what the real Samurai Code was. The Code that was perpetuated in the Japanese military was a massive corruption intended to make their military men more determined to give their all for the emperor.

Kurita was a more cautious admiral as a result. He followed orders, but always looked for an excuse to save the lives of his men and to keep his forces intact to fight another day.

At Samar, he had been brutally air attacked the day before and lost one of his best battleships. Before that, US subs had taken out a couple of his cruisers. He had made a nail biting crossing of the San Bernardino Straits at night. He knew the US fast carriers were out there somewhere, but didn't know where. When he encountered Taffy 3, he didn't know what he had encountered, but all the feints by TBFs from the CVEs, the courageous last stand of the escorts eroded his will. When the other planes from the other CVEs started showing up, he thought they were from Halsey's carriers and decided beating a retreat was the best course to save his force to fight another day.

I don't recall if he knew the fate of Nishimura's Southern Force or not. There was a lot of radio traffic generated among Olendorf's force the night before. If his force had been listening to the right frequencies, they would have been able to piece together the details and know the Southern Force had been crushed like an egg with a sledge hammer.

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ORIGINAL: wdolson

Kurita specifically, who was in charge of the Center Force that hit Taffy 3 in the Battle Off Samar was the son of a scholar of the classics. He could read and write ancient Chinese and had grown up steeped in the real Japanese history. He saw the Code of Bushido for the load of horse droppings it was. He knew what the real Samurai Code was. The Code that was perpetuated in the Japanese military was a massive corruption intended to make their military men more determined to give their all for the emperor.

Kurita was a more cautious admiral as a result. He followed orders, but always looked for an excuse to save the lives of his men and to keep his forces intact to fight another day.