Trailboss49
Banned
Its a universal cliche that so many Americans feared invading Japan and most academics and military analysts agree dropping nukes was the best thing because not only did Japanese soldier have an MO of refusing to surrender and fighting to the death but also because they were arming the entire civilian populace with weapons including giving housewives of military men guns and arming civilian family's children with spears and knives. Basically estimates are always expecting millions to be killed because not only will the well-disciplined Japanese army fight to the last man but even innocent children will do stuff like throw grenades out of nowhere at American convoys and sisters of soldiers will do knife stabbing ambushes. Basically many people were expecting invading Japan to be similar to the war we've been having in Iraq (full of stuff like suicide bombings and civilians pulling pistols and shooting American soldiers from behind, etc for the last decade except 10X worse.
However recently I read that although we tend to think of Japan as a small country who defeated much larger nations because of their culture immense self discipline, in reality Japan is not only roughly the size of Germany but also her population was a bit higher-so high that one of the main reasons they wanted to invade China was to provide livable lands to its citizens and for farming purposes.
Because of how complex stuff gets such as the evolution of the ancient Ashigaru system from Tokugawa system that was still practised by descendents of Samurai and naval infantry that still remained despite the destruction of the Japanese navy, (and I forgot, the 1 million troops in China) I will just leave it to the assumption we are merely fighting the remnants of the Japanese army that Operation Downfall often assumes and in the manner many wargamers and netizens discuss about the sorry state of Japan in 1945.
How would thinks end up? Documentaries, internet discussions, general history books, and pop media would have you believe the real fear of downfall was the entire populace of Japan getting spears, knives, and other last ditch weapon and doing Al Qaeda style terrorist attacks. As if the main Japanese army was so broken this point that it wouldn't matter.
So as I said only military men involved and no Japanese civilian attempts to do Al Qaeda style attacks and last minute volunteer similar to the Last Stand of the Confederacy in WW2 by untrained young men. And Japanese soldiers get sane and surrender in hopeless situations like Germans did (such as 3 soldiers in a house waving white flags when they see a squad of Americans approaching). And because I mentioned Japan is much larger and has a higher population than many people tend to assume (70 million, 10 million more than Germany's at the time, with Japan being almost as large as Germany's total land mass), I will allow properly trained draftees that was going through bootcamp a month before the scheduled invasion to be used and other properly military use of Japan's 10 million (such as training more local militia **properly** before being sent as conventional infantry reinforcements during the first month of the IJA remains holding off the initial waves of American assault). Not the spear armed children and other idiotic Al Qaeda style nonsense guerrilla warfare defense often assumed in Operation Downfall scenarios.
How heavy would casualty counts be? Would it be must lower than many wargamers and amateur historians assume because civilians won't be doing Al Qaeda style suicide attacks and because Japanese soldiers surrender in much larger numbers and earlier)? Or would Japan's similarity to Germany's geography(esp total area) and population numbers make a much much much bigger difference than the common assumption of civilian casualties bringing millions of deaths and prolonging the war that many internet discussions often conclude?
However recently I read that although we tend to think of Japan as a small country who defeated much larger nations because of their culture immense self discipline, in reality Japan is not only roughly the size of Germany but also her population was a bit higher-so high that one of the main reasons they wanted to invade China was to provide livable lands to its citizens and for farming purposes.
Because of how complex stuff gets such as the evolution of the ancient Ashigaru system from Tokugawa system that was still practised by descendents of Samurai and naval infantry that still remained despite the destruction of the Japanese navy, (and I forgot, the 1 million troops in China) I will just leave it to the assumption we are merely fighting the remnants of the Japanese army that Operation Downfall often assumes and in the manner many wargamers and netizens discuss about the sorry state of Japan in 1945.
How would thinks end up? Documentaries, internet discussions, general history books, and pop media would have you believe the real fear of downfall was the entire populace of Japan getting spears, knives, and other last ditch weapon and doing Al Qaeda style terrorist attacks. As if the main Japanese army was so broken this point that it wouldn't matter.
So as I said only military men involved and no Japanese civilian attempts to do Al Qaeda style attacks and last minute volunteer similar to the Last Stand of the Confederacy in WW2 by untrained young men. And Japanese soldiers get sane and surrender in hopeless situations like Germans did (such as 3 soldiers in a house waving white flags when they see a squad of Americans approaching). And because I mentioned Japan is much larger and has a higher population than many people tend to assume (70 million, 10 million more than Germany's at the time, with Japan being almost as large as Germany's total land mass), I will allow properly trained draftees that was going through bootcamp a month before the scheduled invasion to be used and other properly military use of Japan's 10 million (such as training more local militia **properly** before being sent as conventional infantry reinforcements during the first month of the IJA remains holding off the initial waves of American assault). Not the spear armed children and other idiotic Al Qaeda style nonsense guerrilla warfare defense often assumed in Operation Downfall scenarios.
How heavy would casualty counts be? Would it be must lower than many wargamers and amateur historians assume because civilians won't be doing Al Qaeda style suicide attacks and because Japanese soldiers surrender in much larger numbers and earlier)? Or would Japan's similarity to Germany's geography(esp total area) and population numbers make a much much much bigger difference than the common assumption of civilian casualties bringing millions of deaths and prolonging the war that many internet discussions often conclude?
