On Japanese tanks.
The Japanese designed tanks to suit their operational requirements, and not those of the western powers. They also had the problem that Japan was short of much of the natural resources that were needed to produce the materials for tank production, and these had to be shared with the Navy. Even if they had been able to produce a 50 plus ton tank like the German Tiger, where could they have used it. Given the primitive infrastructure of the majority of the areas that they were going to be fighting in, they would have been lucky to get such a monster more than 10 miles away from the dock. Against a 3rd rate power China, the Japanese tanks were more than adequate, a real conflict winner. Against a 1st rate power the Soviet Union in tank county, Manchuria 1945, they weren’t even speed bumps, to what was a superb example of a Blitzkrieg operation. And it should always be remembered that a tank that was basically obsolete by European standards, the British Matilda II, was in Australian hands still better than anything it faced in the Far East. The 25 mm of armour on most Japanese tanks was totally inadequate against even the smallest tank/anti tank guns of the British, Americans or Soviet Union, and no better than wet cardboard, against the larger guns available by 1943.
RR.