Sir John Valentine Carden Survives. Part 2.

And what are they not producing to get all of that?
We know they will have to sacrifice something. That's not the question. They have to do something because a Navy won't do shit about a British land army threatening Japanese gains in SEA. They could afford to wait until it was too late OTL because the front was frozen in Burma for a while, they can't here.

Besides, producing tanks in the low hundreds is still fairly limited in comparison to shipbuilding in ressource consumption. Once they really started in 44/45 they did produce at non-insignificant rates and that was when shortages were far greater than in 42/43.
 
We know they will have to sacrifice something. That's not the question. They have to do something because a Navy won't do shit about a British land army threatening Japanese gains in SEA. They could afford to wait until it was too late OTL because the front was frozen in Burma for a while, they can't here.

Besides, producing tanks in the low hundreds is still fairly limited in comparison to shipbuilding in ressource consumption. Once they really started in 44/45 they did produce at non-insignificant rates and that was when shortages were far greater than in 42/43.
But how long will that take? Normally its 18 months to get a new tank into production and the Japanese were not very good at either recognising they were in trouble or mass production ( total tank production in 1941 was 595 and that was the highest total in the entire war )
 
This is all, of course, rooted in an assumption that the Japanese Response to better Allied Tanks is 'we need our own Tanks improved'.

They might well conclude that trying to build Tanks to match the Allied Armoured Forces is a fool's game, suspend Tank production except for Chinese/Anti-Partisan duties, and concentrate on, say, mass production of AT Guns and maybe anti Panzerfaust/schrek like projects they might have.
 
Hmmm... without Malaya, are they going to be able to actually capture any of those oil fields?
Maybe Borneo ( subs would make actually getting the oil back to Japan, interesting in the Chinese way ) but Sumatra and Java would be pretty much impossible.
 
Quick question. How are the Japanese going to ship these new heavy armour brigades around? If they don't achieve a victory in Malaya it will all be over there before they've even began production.

What theatre of war are these new tanks going to be facing allied armour?

The Russians might have a slightly harder time of it in Manchuria?
 
Quick question. How are the Japanese going to ship these new heavy armour brigades around? If they don't achieve a victory in Malaya it will all be over there before they've even began production.

What theatre of war are these new tanks going to be facing allied armour?

The Russians might have a slightly harder time of it in Manchuria?
The Philippines? Thailand?
 
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On using field guns as AT weapons, they have the same problem the British had in the desert OTL, in that they're not available for their actual job of artillery.
 
On using field guns as AT weapons, they have the same problem the British had in the desert OTL, in that they're not available for their actual job of artillery.
What is their job if not to act as AT Guns when called upon to be AT guns? I think you believe that field guns and somehow magically meant to be not act as AT guns when called upon to be AT guns. Field guns have two jobs, both acting as support to the infantry surrounding them - general support weapons and AT guns. It was what they were created to do...
 
What is their job if not to act as AT Guns when called upon to be AT guns? I think you believe that field guns and somehow magically meant to be not act as AT guns when called upon to be AT guns. Field guns have two jobs, both acting as support to the infantry surrounding them - general support weapons and AT guns. It was what they were created to do...
What? The Japanese guns were primarily HE lobbers, designed for use in poor terrain with a very secondary ability to be poor AT guns using HEAT ( light tanks yes , Mathilda's frontally, questionable )
 
What is their job if not to act as AT Guns when called upon to be AT guns? I think you believe that field guns and somehow magically meant to be not act as AT guns when called upon to be AT guns. Field guns have two jobs, both acting as support to the infantry surrounding them - general support weapons and AT guns. It was what they were created to do...
Trouble is that when deployed as AT guns on 'penny packets' it's very difficult for them to also perform the field gun role. Which relies on concentration of firepower.
 
Of course, it's not simply a case of being able to produce the guns, you also need to be able to get them where you need them. Japanese logistics aren't great, and will get steadily worse as time goes on, as the allies will torpedo any Japanese ship they spot, and the Japanese ASW is god-awful.
 
Trouble is that when deployed as AT guns on 'penny packets' it's very difficult for them to also perform the field gun role. Which relies on concentration of firepower.
Actually, it all depends on where they are deployed. In the close confines of Jungle warfare they are going to be stationed close together, unlike desert warfare where the terrain requires them to be stationed a long distance apart. Your protests are suited to desert warfare compared to jungle warfare.
 
What? The Japanese guns were primarily HE lobbers, designed for use in poor terrain with a very secondary ability to be poor AT guns using HEAT ( light tanks yes , Mathilda's frontally, questionable )
Field guns relied on AP rounds rather than HEAT rounds. Indeed, HEAT was never overly reliable until late in the war. AP was...
 
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