Was Imperial Japan overrated due to lack of serious resistance until they faced the soviets/US? Or were they really more powerful than Britain for example? Even the first Russo japanese war has an asterisk due to russian logistical issues in the far east.
>>18450851yes, they are overrated. Aside from the 101% fighting spirit of its land army (the navy was outright cowardly much of the time), Imperial Japan was about as significant on the world stage as fascist Italy. Compared to the heavy-hitters like the UK, USSR and US, they were a clear underdog in almost every respect other than sheer martial attitude.
>logistical issuesThat's what it boiled down to. They were the only great power in Asia and that kind of mattered in terms of power projection and such.You could fairly say that becoming one is impressive in its own right - most Asian states just got conquered - but they didn't face anyone's first-rate forces except for a very dysfunctional China's until the Pacific War. But then again, why would they? They were always gonna care more about their own region than a state halfway around the world would.
>>18451198they faced late-stage Imperial Russia's first rate forces-which isn't saying much lol
Their army equipment was basically all shit but they were well trained and very brave. I’m convinced that they could have been stopped or at least slowed down in 1941 if the allies had better leadership in that part of the world. It’s almost comical reading about how the prewar pacific was being used as a dumping ground for the officers who were too retarded to get a job in Europe pic rel
>>18450851Well nobody seriously claims they had a top level industrial land army. Clearly they couldn't have held shit against either side if transported to the eastern front for example. They had a competitive Navy, had a well trained, skilled, and for the time fairly large air force(America is not the standard, its an extreme outlier). And their army, as a "light" army suitable to some tasks and not others, had definite strengths. They were very adept at crossing difficult terrain and creating unexpected oppurtunities, in part because of that light quality.Their stubbornness in defence was rarely decisive, because once they were in a situation where another army would break, it generally just meant they would fight on for longer but were just delaying the inevitable. For this quality to be decisive, there would have to be strong prospects of decisive reinforcments, which in the battles they lost there usually wasn't. Nobody was coming to save the garrison of Iwo Jima.
>>18451644Their greatest strength on land was in the area of very aggressive offensives, in contexts where their lack of heavy armour or motorization and limited artillery weren't a dealbreaker. They were very good at coming at you very persistently in ways you didn't expect, and keeping the pressure on, here benefiting from that ability to get over terrain you didn't think they could and get around or behind you. They were good at giving it their all and finding opportunities you didn't anticipate in aggressive, sudden offensives. The problem is this kind of thing is always a gamble. So you end up with stunning successes when it works like in Malaysia, and "suicidal" huge failures when it just isn't going to happen. While they lost Khalkin Gol it wasn't a walkover, they gave the Soviets a fight about it. They took Malaysia from a similar number of British forces. They took Singapore despite being outnumbered more than 2 to 1, and it should be remembered the British were supposed to have a world class army. They took the Philippines despite being outnumbered by the Americans. Its not like they only demonstrated this offensive skill against like China with its own "light" army. These all count. Its just that it was essentially talented, skilled gambling. If it works it looks very impressive, if it doesn't, or the correlation of forces has simply tipped too far against them for it to have a real chance, suddenly its "what were they thinking"
As always there's nuance.The Japanese always had the issue that if they were going to build anything they were also going to have to use it for a really long time because there was no way they could ever afford world class navy, airforce and army at the same time. The army has gotten short end of the stick in a certain sense but they made up for it with some very specific qualities. For instance they were heavily focused on nightfighting training, they did believe low level initiative is the key and they also thought tanks for instance should be used in a pretty modern way but never really had the resources and opportunities to do it(outside of the Malaya campaign).A lot of the Japanese military traditions have ironically trickled down to the PLA.
>>18450851>Even the first Russo japanese war has an asterisk due to russian logistical issues in the far east.Yeah, and the Japs have the asterisk of being an Asiatic country that has industrialized decades after the Europeans, without any natural resources. There's no reason to diminish their achievement, they showed their IQ and aryan spirit, by learning very fast how to grow the economy and how to do large scale warfare, which at that time was completely a white man thing.
Every IJA encounter summarized>Japan 10,000>Marines 500 including cooks and janitors>Japan 9,900 KIA, Marines the cook injured, 200 get upset stomach>Japanese strategic victory
>>18451207Not really, most of the russians they faced were siberian units. It took the russians ages to transfer european divisions in significant numbers, by that time it was already more or less over. Funnily enough though, had the war continued beyond 1905, the russians would likely have made a big comeback as the japanese were essentially out of reserves, out of money, and the russians had finally managed to fix their logistics. They had more troops at the end than at the start
>>18450851More powerful than britain but something like taking the malay peninsula happens after the united states ability to project naval and air power from pearl harbor is temporarily halted
