Technical Study: Japanese Defense of Normandy

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Carl Schwamberger

As a abstract technical study consider how a Japanese army, actually a 'Area Army' as Japanese terminology translates, would have defended the Calvados & Cotientin region from a Allied invasion.

One major difference is Japan had far less motorization and armor. A distant reserve that might be expected to respond in a day or two is obviously not possible. That might cause the reserve to be deployed much closer to the coast & in several smaller groups.

A second point is the Japanese seldom placed the primary defense zone up front overlooking the beach. The prefered practice was to cover the beaches with a outpost zone and place the main defense on the best defensible terrain 500 to 5000 meters inland. I have a feeling the Japanese would see the advantages of the Bocage in this respect.

There is one other significant difference between the Japanese & Germans, but I'll leave it to others for the moment.
 

MarshalBraginsky

Banned
One other thing: would this Japanese Area Army have in its arsenal a single squadron or two of kamikaze pilots? I'm not sure if the Germans would use the V1s targeting Normandy.
 
NORGCO

NORGCO

Carl Schwamberger said:
As a abstract technical study consider how a Japanese army, actually a 'Area Army' as Japanese terminology translates, would have defended the Calvados & Cotientin region from a Allied invasion.

One major difference is Japan had far less motorization and armor. A distant reserve that might be expected to respond in a day or two is obviously not possible. That might cause the reserve to be deployed much closer to the coast & in several smaller groups.

A second point is the Japanese seldom placed the primary defense zone up front overlooking the beach. The prefered practice was to cover the beaches with a outpost zone and place the main defense on the best defensible terrain 500 to 5000 meters inland. I have a feeling the Japanese would see the advantages of the Bocage in this respect.

There is one other significant difference between the Japanese & Germans, but I'll leave it to others for the moment.
Click to expand...

Didn't the nature of Japanese invasion defence change as the war went on as a result of experience?

My understanding of this development is:

Betio was defended right from the waters edge, with the clear intention of stopping a landing or at least stopping the survivors of an attempt from getting inland. Once the attackers had breached the crust the inland defences were far less of a problem.

Iwo Jima defenders deliberately let the landing happen and a beach buildup commence before bringing observed artillery fire down on the beach. Pictures of the landings available on the internet clearly show there is no place that is not visible to observers on Mount Suribachi. Hence the importance of taking it.

Okinawa's beaches were almost undefended, the defended area was the southern part of the island. Arguably this could have been sealed off and used as a practice artillery and bombing range rather than face the cost of taking it.

Hopefully this quick summary is not too embarrassingly inaccurate.

I do agree that a Japanese defence plan from the latter part of the war would likely have been centred on the Bocage or possibly some other feature out of naval gunfire range (for destroyers and cruisers at least, with shorter range guns). France was after all big enough to at least look at basing the principle defences out of battleship support range, most Pacific islands were not, and that would appear to be a developing priority in Japanese anti-invasion defence strategy.
 

CalBear

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The Japanese stopped with beach front /stop them at the water's edge defenses after the WAllies took the Atlantic Wall like it wasn't there.

Prior to then the Japanese had only two chances to defend (Tulagi/Guadalcanal were mainly ungarrisioned and New Georgia too large for the garrison to fortify the entire Island). The first was Tarawa, the second, which took place almost simultaneously with D-Day, was Saipan. In both cases the Japanese fought for the water's edge with everything they had. A third landing, the misguided decision to take Peleliu, was also opposed from the moment the landing forces reached the previously laid out kill box.

The Landing on Leyte were relatively unopposed, mainly because the Japanese didn't believe that the U.S. would be stupid enough to land there (having faced MacArthur in the past, it difficult to understand how the IJA would find anything too stupid for him).

After that you have two landings, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Iwo was nothing but a series of defensive positions. The main innovations here were General Kuribayashi's decision to hold fire until the beaches filled with targets and to forbid Banzai Charges until the Island was clearly lost. The only place the Japanese showed anything approaching tactical sense was Okinawa. However, even here the difference was primarily in the mission given to Mitsuru Ushijima, namely to extract the maximum number of American casualties rather than win the battle.

When you look at the proposed defensive strategy for Kyushu, where the Japanese had determined, with almost frightening precision, where the landing would occur the defenses once again, despite the success of Ushijima's force, started at the water's edge, although they went into some considerable depth (deep enough that the planners expected the entire 5th Marine Division to be rendered Hors de Combat before reaching the assigned stop line.

The Japanese also had the almost unstoppable desire to overwhelm defenders by displays of sheer elan. Both Kuribayshi and Ushijima were pointedly accused of being cowards by their peers and questioned by the immediate subordinates regarding the decision to stay within their defensive positions.

Had it been IJA defenders at Normandy the WAllies would have been in Caen by sunset on D+4 in Cherbrourg by D+10 and Saint Lo by D+ 20. In the process the defenders would have lost double, maybe triple what was actually lost by the Heer. Around half of that would be thanks to the fact the IJA was a light infantry force with almost no armor (and what it did have was closer to Pzkw 1 than the III) virtually no tactical mobility and very weak artillery compared to any formation in the ETO. The rest of the increase would be for having huge number of almost insanely brave infantry throw their lives away charging armor, heavy machine guns and naval gunfire with bayonets.

WAllies would have been at the Rhine by the 1st of August, in Berlin by Armistice Day 1944.
 
NORGCO

NORGCO

CalBear said:
The Japanese stopped with beach front /stop them at the water's edge defenses after the WAllies took the Atlantic Wall like it wasn't there.

Prior to then the Japanese had only two chances to defend (Tulagi/Guadalcanal were mainly ungarrisioned and New Georgia too large for the garrison to fortify the entire Island). The first was Tarawa, the second, which took place almost simultaneously with D-Day, was Saipan. In both cases the Japanese fought for the water's edge with everything they had. A third landing, the misguided decision to take Peleliu, was also opposed from the moment the landing forces reached the previously laid out kill box.

The Landing on Leyte were relatively unopposed, mainly because the Japanese didn't believe that the U.S. would be stupid enough to land there (having faced MacArthur in the past, it difficult to understand how the IJA would find anything too stupid for him).

After that you have two landings, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Iwo was nothing but a series of defensive positions. The main innovations here were General Kuribayashi's decision to hold fire until the beaches filled with targets and to forbid Banzai Charges until the Island was clearly lost. The only place the Japanese showed anything approaching tactical sense was Okinawa. However, even here the difference was primarily in the mission given to Mitsuru Ushijima, namely to extract the maximum number of American casualties rather than win the battle.

When you look at the proposed defensive strategy for Kyushu, where the Japanese had determined, with almost frightening precision, where the landing would occur the defenses once again, despite the success of Ushijima's force, started at the water's edge, although they went into some considerable depth (deep enough that the planners expected the entire 5th Marine Division to be rendered Hors de Combat before reaching the assigned stop line.

The Japanese also had the almost unstoppable desire to overwhelm defenders by displays of sheer elan. Both Kuribayshi and Ushijima were pointedly accused of being cowards by their peers and questioned by the immediate subordinates regarding the decision to stay within their defensive positions.

Had it been IJA defenders at Normandy the WAllies would have been in Caen by sunset on D+4 in Cherbrourg by D+10 and Saint Lo by D+ 20. In the process the defenders would have lost double, maybe triple what was actually lost by the Heer. Around half of that would be thanks to the fact the IJA was a light infantry force with almost no armor (and what it did have was closer to Pzkw 1 than the III) virtually no tactical mobility and very weak artillery compared to any formation in the ETO. The rest of the increase would be for having huge number of almost insanely brave infantry throw their lives away charging armor, heavy machine guns and naval gunfire with bayonets.

WAllies would have been at the Rhine by the 1st of August, in Berlin by Armistice Day 1944.
Click to expand...

Which makes the Germans adopting Japanese tactics and weaponry sound like a GREAT IDEA!

Now where is my time machine and neuralizer?
 

DoomBunny

Assuming the same Allied forces, they might have a bit of a shock encountering the Japanese and their tactics. Banzai charges, night time infiltrations and the other sneaky things might be a little disconcerting at first. Overall though, the Japanese are probably going to fair badly compared the the Germans.
 

Seraph

CalBear said:
The Landing on Leyte were relatively unopposed, mainly because the Japanese didn't believe that the U.S. would be stupid enough to land there (having faced MacArthur in the past, it difficult to understand how the IJA would find anything too stupid for him).
Click to expand...
How is it stupid?
And Wiki says MacArthur has nothing to do with invading the Leyte.
 

Kou Gakei

Banned
CalBear said:
The Japanese stopped with beach front /stop them at the water's edge defenses after the WAllies took the Atlantic Wall like it wasn't there.
Click to expand...

Not really, Normandy had no influence on Japanese tactical development, at least from records on how Japan developed the anti-landing tactics from the war.
 

CalBear

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Seraph said:
How is it stupid?
And Wiki says MacArthur has nothing to do with invading the Leyte.
Click to expand...

The only reason the U.S. even invaded the PI was MacArthur. Strategically the Islands were of no major utility. The thrust that was putting the U.S. into position to invade the Home Islands was the Central Pacific campaign.

NOTHING happened in MacArthur's AO without his direct permission. NOTHING. Leyte was his choice, even if he didn't personally walk up to a map and point out the beaches. Halsey (again stupidly) may have pushed for Leyte rather than Mindanao (despite the fact that the U.S. knew for a fact that the island had excellent locations for air fields)

It was stupid because it was a side show. Leyte was spectacularly unsuited for the main reason MacArthur's staff wanted the island, to provide air bases. The sites chosen were absolute nightmares, with the air fields taking weeks, not the days predicted (since he had been Field Marshall of the Philippines, one might reasonably conclude that the man knew the terrain). Luzon was the key to the Islands, from a military perspective it was the only island that mattered. Leyte was too far from Luzon to provide fighter cover for the main invasion, even from the extreme northern tip it is a 700 mile round trip from Leyte to Lingayen Gulf.

The Japanese had even provided an outline on how to invade the Islands when they kicked the U.S out (interestingly it took the Japanese and the Americans virtually the same amount of time to conduct their primary effort (the Japanese, from December 8 1941 to May 6 1942, the U.S. from October 20 1944 to April 13, 1945), although the U.S. was still fighting organized IJA resistance until the main Japanese capitulation in mid August. Step one was to destroy the enemy's ability to interfere from the air; Step two was to take smaller island(s) to support the invasion (which the U.S. had to do, despite Leyte, by capturing Mindoro); Step 3 was to make your primary landing in the Lingayen Gulf. The U.S. followed this rather sensible plan (except for the hare brained decision to invade Leyte), with the addition of a landing close to the Bataan Peninsula (which replaced the IJA Lamon Bay operations).

The landing on Leyte did, however, provide MacArthur the opportunity to make his dramatic entrance and proclaim "I have returned". So there is that, which is nice.
 

CalBear

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Kou Gakei said:
Not really, Normandy had no influence on Japanese tactical development, at least from records on how Japan developed the anti-landing tactics from the war.
Click to expand...


Interesting. Can you provide a reference?

I have read in several sources that General Kuribayashi made a series of specific alterations to his defensive layout due to the utter failure of the German defensive strategy.
 

Kou Gakei

Banned
CalBear said:
Interesting. Can you provide a reference?
Click to expand...

Give me a day or two, don't have direct access to my books right now.


CalBear said:
I have read in several sources that General Kuribayashi made a series of specific alterations to his defensive layout due to the utter failure of the German defensive strategy.
Click to expand...

Kuribayash would be a difficult example to use, since his defensive plan was based on his already knowing American industrial capacity from his time as deputy military attaché in the US. Plus, his focus was to spill enough blood to make the US reconsider the invasion of the Home Islands, which leads to stopping the landings themselves to be a bad idea from that strategic viewpoint.
 

MarshalBraginsky

Banned
Plus the Germans did not have the luxury of having an officer from the Reichswehr stationed in the US as a deputy attache like Kuribayashi did. However, they did have the luxury of training alongside Soviet officers.
 

Locke01

Seraph said:
How is it stupid?
And Wiki says MacArthur has nothing to do with invading the Leyte.
Click to expand...

MacArthur had everything to do with invading the Leyete. The entire fiasco was his idea, his plan, carried out at his insistence and performed for maximum dramatic impact on the media. And unless Wiki has been edited since this morning, the entry on MacArthur summarizes the entire Philippine campaign including the operation on Leyete.
 

Deleted member 6086

CalBear said:
The Japanese also had the almost unstoppable desire to overwhelm defenders by displays of sheer elan. Both Kuribayshi and Ushijima were pointedly accused of being cowards by their peers and questioned by the immediate subordinates regarding the decision to stay within their defensive positions.
Click to expand...

I've heard it said that this was due to the Japan's minimal involvement in WWI, which destroyed the notion that elan can overcome massed firepower, as the French discovered to their peril. Is this true, or were Japanese tactics more influenced by the (presumably wrongly interpreted) tradition of bushido?
 

Kou Gakei

Banned
Fireaxe888 said:
I've heard it said that this was due to the Japan's minimal involvement in WWI, which destroyed the notion that elan can overcome massed firepower, as the French discovered to their peril. Is this true, or were Japanese tactics more influenced by the (presumably wrongly interpreted) tradition of bushido?
Click to expand...

It has more to do with the Russo-Japanese War where such elan was considered to have won the war (never mind all the applauding from non-Russian countries for showing such elan). That fed into the concept of spirit over material, where combined with lack of industrial capacity it resulted in the suicidal mentality we would see in WW2.
 

Seraph

CalBear said:
The only reason the U.S. even invaded the PI was MacArthur. Strategically the Islands were of no major utility. The thrust that was putting the U.S. into position to invade the Home Islands was the Central Pacific campaign.

NOTHING happened in MacArthur's AO without his direct permission. NOTHING. Leyte was his choice, even if he didn't personally walk up to a map and point out the beaches. Halsey (again stupidly) may have pushed for Leyte rather than Mindanao (despite the fact that the U.S. knew for a fact that the island had excellent locations for air fields)

It was stupid because it was a side show. Leyte was spectacularly unsuited for the main reason MacArthur's staff wanted the island, to provide air bases. The sites chosen were absolute nightmares, with the air fields taking weeks, not the days predicted (since he had been Field Marshall of the Philippines, one might reasonably conclude that the man knew the terrain). Luzon was the key to the Islands, from a military perspective it was the only island that mattered. Leyte was too far from Luzon to provide fighter cover for the main invasion, even from the extreme northern tip it is a 700 mile round trip from Leyte to Lingayen Gulf.

The Japanese had even provided an outline on how to invade the Islands when they kicked the U.S out (interestingly it took the Japanese and the Americans virtually the same amount of time to conduct their primary effort (the Japanese, from December 8 1941 to May 6 1942, the U.S. from October 20 1944 to April 13, 1945), although the U.S. was still fighting organized IJA resistance until the main Japanese capitulation in mid August. Step one was to destroy the enemy's ability to interfere from the air; Step two was to take smaller island(s) to support the invasion (which the U.S. had to do, despite Leyte, by capturing Mindoro); Step 3 was to make your primary landing in the Lingayen Gulf. The U.S. followed this rather sensible plan (except for the hare brained decision to invade Leyte), with the addition of a landing close to the Bataan Peninsula (which replaced the IJA Lamon Bay operations).

The landing on Leyte did, however, provide MacArthur the opportunity to make his dramatic entrance and proclaim "I have returned". So there is that, which is nice.
Click to expand...
Wasn't it to close off the sea routes to SE Asia? And I don't see Nimitz's choice fwding the invasion of the Home Islands as he called for the invasion of Taiwan.

Locke01 said:
MacArthur had everything to do with invading the Leyete. The entire fiasco was his idea, his plan, carried out at his insistence and performed for maximum dramatic impact on the media. And unless Wiki has been edited since this morning, the entry on MacArthur summarizes the entire Philippine campaign including the operation on Leyete.
Click to expand...
From Wikipedia.
"Upon Admiral Halsey's recommendation, the Combined Chiefs of Staff, meeting in Canada approved a decision to not only move up the date for the first landing in the Philippines, but also to move it north from the southernmost island of Mindanao to the central Philippine island of Leyte. The new date set for the landing on Leyte, October 20, 1944, was two months before the previous target date to land on Mindanao"
 

TFSmith121

Banned
It is worth mentioning that destroying the Japanese

It is worth mentioning that destroying the Japanese hold on the Phillippines opened the sea routes from the (occupied) NEI, Malaysia, Thiland, Indochina, and coastal China to the Home Islands to both air and naval interdiction; this was not possible prior to the Phillippines Campaign.

Basically, it brought the 5th Air Force into the fight against Japanese maritime communications through the South and East China seas, as well as opening the east coast of the Asian mainland to the USN's fast carriers; these are not small things.

Now, as assault on Taiwan/Formosa could have had the same effect, but the huge difference are the PI were friendly territory, where the guerrilla forces were quite capable in assisting in their own liberation AND could provide the security and rear-area troops that would have had to be US Army on Formosa; this is also not a small thing.

Were there pros and cons? Undoubtedly, but liberating the PI brought substantial manpower into the Allied equation that would not have been present in Taiwan; it is worth remembering that the last US Army division activated as part of the WW II mobilization was the 12th Infantry Division, made up of the "New Philippine Scouts" of the 43rd, 44th, 45th, and 57th infantry regiments raised in 1945.

Putting aside the Philippines and Formosa means the South China Sea remains (essentially) open to the Japanese, and requires trying to close the the East China Sea via Okinawa and the Ryukyus; there are some problems there, as well.

The political benefits of liberating "American" territory - with a substantial population of US citizens - should be considered as well.

There are pros and cons, but there were real strategic issues at play as well; reducing the decision to a personal issue minimizes a lot of very relevant considerations.

Best,
 
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