Congratulations Dathi, take statements out of context of the post and it actually
appears like you have some constructive points to add... /sarcasm.
My point on Japanese Armour of the early war period, is that what the Japanese had, was pretty much 'up to the job' of what they asked of it. Let's consider this Dathi; the Japanese develop a home grown copy of the German Tiger Tank in 1941. Right now how are they going to;
A) Build this heavy tank, when the IJN and JAAF has the priority for strategic resources of steel, rubber and metal alloys.
B) Run this incredibly large oil hog of a war machine when the Japanese reserves are already allocated to the navy and airforce.
C) Ship these heavy tanks overseas when Japanese logistics vessels typically were designed for supply loads as opposed to single heavy objects.
D) Get these heavy tanks out from Hanghung, Pusan etc. into northern China via an equally 'light weight' rail network.
E) Once these tanks are somewhere near the front around Qingdao, Xi'an Jingang etc. get from the stations to the actual front, given that the terrain is mostly rough and rural, roads are little more than dirt paths and mechanic shops and resupply bases are few and far between.
F) So we get one of these tanks to the front, we think right this tanks massive, gun, hugely thick armour will 'change the course of history'. Wherever they deploy the tank the Chinese run away. Thus the tank hardly ever gets into a combat situation where it can use that big gun, or rely on its strong armour.
G) The commanders in the field quickly point out to the new 'Japo-tiger crews' when they complain about Chinese cowardice, that the Chinese also run away from the light tanks developed back in the 1930s that don't have half of the troubles listed above.
Thus how is a *cough* adequate *cough* tank going to help the Japanese in China?
The Chinese and Manchurian theatre was completely different in terms of tactical and strategic needs compared to Europe or North Africa, therefore their was no precedent to adopt the changes in tank design that the Europeans did. If the Japanese had developed heavier tanks in the early war period they would have stressed their military industrial complex beyond what it could have been reasonably been able to produce for no tactical advantage.
If we look at the use of Armoured units on the pacific islands, again from a tactical view on the defensive armoured units are fairly useless when your opponents have superior fire-power from air power and ship bombardment, your generally not assaulting hardened positions on the defensive and your 'war of mobility' can be dictated via ships acting as your mechanised/motorised deployment assets.
While there was room for some better tanks designs in various campaigns in the pacific their wasn't the logistical backup to have been able to lend effectiveness to a larger or heavier Japanese armoured force. Hence suggesting that the Japanese 'just failed to advance their armoured forces' completely ignores the Japanese strategic position...a position that the IJA fully understood and realised, and hence why they realised wasting limited assets simply for the sake of doing so wasn't productive....and indeed if they had pursued developing a better/larger armoured force it would have likely been far more counter-productive to the overall war effort.
If you have some miracle knowledge of the pacific/Chinese theatre that shows how had the Japanese only developed better armoured forces they would have won the war I suggest you share it with us.
----------------------------------
I presume Dathi that you consider yourself "Not Stupid"; You have 5 boats, your colleague over their has another 5 boats. You really have to get your equipment and goods transported to location X. You ask your colleague for his 5 boats to help you. He says no, they are being used for his more important campaign. What do you do? You can't exactly order him to give over his assets. You can try going up the chain of command, but in doing so you might find that your 5 boats get requisitioned to help your colleague over their instead leaving your campaign dead in the water.
On the grounds your are better off with what you have, rather than nothing at all, you opt to use what resources you do have.
Sure if you look at it as a whole it sounds stupid not to cooperate and hence do poorly as opposed to if their had been cooperation, but that's the beauty of hindsight and retrospect speaking; it didn't work out in the end...ergo it was stupid behaviour.
If we look at the context of 1890 - 1935 the fact that the services had been separate had not prevented Imperial Japan from annexing Korea, occupying and creating a puppet state out of Manchuria and repeatedly beating the Chinese and Russians in set battles. Thus in the context of the times, to the Japanese having inter-service rivalry had not prevented them victories in the past. Sure its arrogance, but you'll also note that I recognised such shortcomings didn't I?;
...fanaticism, dogma and problems with military discipline...
And in the context of the post was talking about the practicalities of individual
officers commands, not of the armed forces as a whole.
...their commanders and chiefs of staff were excellent at getting as much mileage out of their inadequate forces as possible...
That's what I mean by "Not Stupid", individually commanders and officers tended to act along the lines they believed the best...even when freelancing and against orders from higher up. While hardly useful for the armed forces as a whole this style of operation (which ultimately undermined their doomed campaigns even further), you cannot deride all the Imperial Japanese officers for being poor commanders in the field.
-----------------------------------------
Except they CHOSE to go to war against that disparity of force.
Really is that what you believe? Let me ask you a question, how much control did the diet have over the IJA in Manchuria....the IJA that defacto owned and controlled all economic activity, people and trade in Manchuria? Did the homeland Japanese people support the Mukden Incident or the Marco Polo bridge incident?
Did not the government in Tokyo send General Tatekawa to advise 'prudence and patience' from the Kwantung Army? Was not, the Mukden incident started by conspirators and plotters under Col. Itagaki? What about the 2-2-6 incident, a coup in Tokyos capital, during which a number of government ministers were murdered?
Was not the omens in Europe pointing towards a major war between the major powers, Stalin having being in the middle of rebuilding the Soviet armed forces and killing off many officers in the purges while the US preached neutrality? Thus everything looking in favour towards a once ever opportunity to a totally free hand in China for military actions? Were not these ideas of General Tojo rejected by the civilian government, but taken up and acted on in the Marco Polo bridge incident?
Did not the IJN feel incredibly threatened by the IJAs warmongering in Asia that would be bound to lead to war with the soviets, and hence all they could seriously do would be to start their own war actions in the 'southern advance' policy. Note: This plan was proposed well before Japan had any strategic oil problems.
Did not in 1938 the War minister General Sugiyama resign and force the Japanese cabinate to reform in a manner 'more fitted to deal with the national emergency' and replace nearly the entire civilian government will military generals? Did not the IJN admerials then engineer an incident to take Hanan island from the Chinese?
Did not in 1939 a reshuffle of positions in the Japanese 'junta' government lead to Matsuoka becoming Foreign ministers, who pushed to occupy French Indochina which culminated in the embargos from the United States, Holland and other nations.
Only
then did the Navy and airforce have a problem because without American Oil they [the IJN] couldn't stick to a unilaterally chosen 'advance south policy'. Since the Americans could not be delt with diplomatically (and the embargo being a slur on Japans honour as well), that left the Japanese Armed forces to agree to defacto hostilities with the Americans and the Allies to use force to occupy the DEI and other strategic locations in the pacific.
The rest we can say is history.
So who chose eh Dathi? You make it sound like the Japanese followed their Emperor, or that their government represented the Japanese people. The historical record clearly points to multiple parties being to blame for the hostilities in Asia. Including the Americans for almost 'bringing war upon themselves'. I'm no apologist for the Imperial Japanese regime. But nobody can seriously claim the Japanese chose war with the Americans, in any more the Japanese people chose their government of the time or Britian 'chose' to wage war with Nazi Germany. We have to remeber that it was effectively an out of control military junta that ruled Japan of the era.