WW2 nightmare ,could Japan have postponed US economic war and...

Cook

Banned
Well, they weren't outnumbered in Malaya, but the defenders were certainly outgunned, having no tanks, little armor, terrible tactics, and few planes.

The Japanese invasion forces were outnumbered in both Malaya and the Philippines by the defenders; they did not suffer a land defeat until Milne Bay in Papua New Guinea.
 
I just said that the IJA lacked numerical superiority; what they did NOT have was superiority in quality, armanents, or air/naval support.

The IJA was capable of winning against ragtag Chinese militias and the worst of what the British Army had to offer at the time. The minute the IJA had to confront real armies they went into origami-mode. Of all the major powers, the IJA had the worst overall land force, or maybe second worst to the Italians. And fact is, Japan was rattling off victories because the Allies committed 20% of their resources to the Pacific - they upped it to like 30% and suddenly the war looks a whole lot different.
 
I thought that in OTL a key part of the victory in Moscow was the ability to transfer essentially fresh troops from the Far East.
 
IIRC wasn't Stalin more worried/prepared for Japanese invasion than German? If the Japanese suffer a typical lapse in judgment and invade, I can easily imagine the Red Army steamrolling their way into Manchuria in a short time and linking up with the Chinese Communists and Eighth Route Army to push the Kwantung Army all the way back to Honshu. :D
Tell the truth. IJA was even less able to cope with tanks than Polish cavalry.:eek::eek: (Their idea of a solution to tanks was a bayonet charge.:eek::confused:) Had Kwantung Army invaded Siberia, Zhukov would have handed them their asses in a matter of days. August Storm was pretty easy, since Japan was on the verge of collapse; it wouldn't have been enormously harder in '41, & IJA knew it, which is why they were pushing so hard for the "southern option".
 
I thought that in OTL a key part of the victory in Moscow was the ability to transfer essentially fresh troops from the Far East.

Yes but it's a myth that those were all gathered for defence against the Japanese. If that was the case they would have vastly outnumbered the Japanese divisions facing them. Stalin could have pulled those divisions back and continued to keep an effective defensive force against the poorly armed Japanese.
 
Well, the problem is the second they go south the whole Southern Strategy has to go into effect, including neutralizing the USN as a threat (and one that HAD to be honored).

You can't go after the DEI without taking Malaya and Singapore out of the equation, you can't go after the Brits without having bases in French Indochina, you can't go into French Indochina without the U.S. shutting off the oil taps. So the chances of the embargo being avoided in this scenario is quite low.

This was certainly true after 11/5/1940 - I wonder, however, if FDR could have gotten an embargo or declaration of war against Japan prior to the election of 1940 without an overt Japanese attack on the US?

I'm actually exploring a 1939 PoD that puts the Japanese at war with Britain and France (and later the Netherlands) in 1939. Of course it isn't going to end well for the Japanese...

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=202741
 
This was certainly true after 11/5/1940 - I wonder, however, if FDR could have gotten an embargo or declaration of war against Japan prior to the election of 1940 without an overt Japanese attack on the US?

I'm actually exploring a 1939 PoD that puts the Japanese at war with Britain and France (and later the Netherlands) in 1939. Of course it isn't going to end well for the Japanese...

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=202741

I doubt if he could have got a war, but embargo seems highly likely - they did it in OTL for even weaker reasons
 
they quickly acquired an invincibility myth
That's exactly what it was: a myth. They achieved most of their best-known victories with speed & surprise against unprepared & stunned enemies, who had inadequate or incomplete training to boot. When they faced skilled opponents, like Marines at Guadalcanal, they were slaughtered.

IJA wasn't helped by having without question the worst general officers in the world.:eek::eek: Their company grade officers weren't much better.:eek: Nitwits, dimwits, cowards, & hypocrites, the good ones were a rarity.:mad:

They led the finest fighting infantry in the world: disciplined & tough like you've never seen. If IJA officers had been a tiny fraction as competent, the war could've gone into 1950. (Yes, I know, the Bomb...:rolleyes:) I don't know of a 20th Century example of troops so poorly led & so poorly served.:mad::mad: They deserved better.
 
That's exactly what it was: a myth. They achieved most of their best-known victories with speed & surprise against unprepared & stunned enemies, who had inadequate or incomplete training to boot. When they faced skilled opponents, like Marines at Guadalcanal, they were slaughtered.

But again, American ground forces out numbered the Japanese two to one at Guadalcanal. In addition much of the Japanese forces on the ground were construction troops rather than combat troops. Given the force ratio, the outcome is not surprising.
 
But again, American ground forces out numbered the Japanese two to one at Guadalcanal. In addition much of the Japanese forces on the ground were construction troops rather than combat troops. Given the force ratio, the outcome is not surprising.

during the initial landing that is true. Then they brought in a regiment, which got wiped out (because the Japanese massively underestimated US strength to begin with, and used poor tactics as well, and active US patrolling spoiled their surprise attack), then they brought in a reinforced brigade (wiped out at Bloody Ridge), then a full strength Division (defeated as well)... then they tried to bring another division (wiped out by US airpower in transit). So although outnumbered on the first two battles, the Japanese did have parity as far as ground troops are concerned in October, and superiority in numbers at the point of contact (being able to mass their forces while the Americans were on the defensive and thus could only use 3 battalions during the height of the battle).

Japanese were effective light infantry on the attack, but after 1942 never won another major fight against Australian or US ground forces. The Leyte campaign in 1944 is an excellent example of what happened when both sides were in equal numbers by the way, as both the US and Japanese had rough parity in numbers and battalions on the ground.
 
That's exactly what it was: a myth. They achieved most of their best-known victories with speed & surprise against unprepared & stunned enemies, who had inadequate or incomplete training to boot. When they faced skilled opponents, like Marines at Guadalcanal, they were slaughtered.

IJA wasn't helped by having without question the worst general officers in the world.:eek::eek: Their company grade officers weren't much better.:eek: Nitwits, dimwits, cowards, & hypocrites, the good ones were a rarity.:mad:

They led the finest fighting infantry in the world: disciplined & tough like you've never seen. If IJA officers had been a tiny fraction as competent, the war could've gone into 1950. (Yes, I know, the Bomb...:rolleyes:) I don't know of a 20th Century example of troops so poorly led & so poorly served.:mad::mad: They deserved better.

that seems a little harsh, although looking at the Burma Campaign in 1944 and some of the fighting in New Guinea you can be pardoned for that accusation. They did pretty well though on the defense, extremely well at places like Pelelieu, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, as well as Luzon and Biak where they fought masterful delaying actions (granted they time they bought did Japan no good at all).

Strategically.. their general staff was a victim of its own insular thinking

I recommend "Soldiers of the Sun", which is a very deep look at the Japanese Army, and pretty critical of it.
 
That's exactly what it was: a myth. They achieved most of their best-known victories with speed & surprise against unprepared & stunned enemies, who had inadequate or incomplete training to boot.
And sometimes, not even having more and better troops than the enemy was enough, as the Kokoda Track/Trail campaign proved, because despite outnumbering the enemy almost 2-to-1 (6,000 forward troops of 13,500 total as compared to 3,500 forward troops of 30,000), they were forced to retreat, with almost 50% casualties (6,500 dead as compared to the Australians 625 dead and 1,055 injured, illnesses not included).

The only way I can see that the Japanese could have done things better would be to actually drive the US off Midway, and even then it probably wouldn't have delayed the inevitable US onslaught more than a year.
 
The US oil embargo (with the UK & Dutch going along) came about because of Japanese unwillingness to stop the war in China - which could have happened with them keeping Manchukuo & probably some serious concessions from the Chinese vis a vis economic interests. The IJA was unwilling to consider anything other than "victory" (whatever that meant) so increasing US economic pressures are guaranteed.

Even if the Dutch had been willing to sell oil to the Japanese, as was pointed out they were short of hard cash. Furthermore bi=oth Singapore (UK) and the Philippines (US) based naval/air forces can cut the supply line from DEI to Japan any time which is why those two areas were on the list to be captured/neutralized early on. LAstly, it was not just oil but rubber, tin (Malaya), steel (US) etc that the Japanese needed to keep their war machine & economy going, and oh yes...they can't force anyone to buy their exports (to earn more hard cash to buy oil etc).

Since the war in China HAD to continue, resources were needed to do so & if they could not be purchased they must be taken - such was the insane logic of the IJA.
 
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