Why couldnt Japan defeat China? Is strategic depth simply an impossible factor to overcome in modern warfare? In a total war, nations like Russia, China and USA simply cannot be defeated?
>>18603657No matter how weak or fractured China ever got, there was always one factor working in China's favor relative to Japan: China is really fucking big with massive and not easily traversed interior.
>>18603675That's my point. The vastness of the country and the lack of any 'Schwerpunkt' simply makes it an impossible war if the defender never gives up.Just another point ot add to the list as to why the Axis never had a chance to win. Strategic depth is simply an overwhelming factor to overcome.
Japan had like 10 divisions capable of maneuver. They spent 50% of their GDP on their navy and as a result their army was very weak.
>>18603657They didnt have enough men to defeat china and they also didnt have the logistics to supply any more troops in china meaning they had a stalemate.It doesnt show on the map but infrastucure in the interior was basically non-existant japanese simply could not transport and supply their divisions heavy equipment easily meaning their technological advantage was negated in battles.So you basically ended up with under-supplied and under-equipped japanese forces attacking entrenched chinese positions outnumbered 4:1 and thats why the front was stagnant.The only reason the ichi-go offensive made the gains it did was because the kmt army had been slowly disentegrating and eating itself behind the scenes in the 4 year lull after the failed 1941 japanese offensives.
>>18603657>Why couldnt Japan defeat China?As previously mentioned the size and population disparity between China and Japan was an enormous gulf to overcome. Moreover Japan was punching well above its weight class insofar as its industrial and raw material output could hope to propel it. China, is a very large country, without the full cooperation of the population at large and their support it becomes an endlessly escalating quagmire. Something far too many conquering armies tend to overlook. The Japanese tendency to view conquered peoples as inferior did much to dissuade the Chinese, who themselves have a variety of regional cultures, traditions and even dialects or full blown languages, that cooperation and subjugation to Japanese authority would be a prosperous endeavor for anyone other than the Japanese. So wherever they went the Japanese would be bowed to and tolerated but never trusted or garner true loyalty and support from the people they conquered. This meant that not only would troops be needed to push the front line but also to hold "rear" areas as places deemed secure yesterday could be easily infiltrated or sabotaged the next. To a force such as the IJA that was not fully mechanized and had limited industrial output this only served to compound the strain every success put on the entire logistics train from farm, to factory, to ship, to front line.
>>18603709The population/resource argument is extremely overblown, China has regularly been conquered by empires/factions/nomad horse archer tribes far fewer in number. There is truth to the fact that they alienated a lot of Manchurians and Chinese with their insanely brutal behavior towards them and could have run a much more effective colonial administration had they treated them similar to the way the British treated the Indians.After Securing Manchuria in '31, Japs had a massive reserve of coal and steel secured, but they wanted to chase trends and shift to an oil powered navy like all the cool white boys, big mistake. they could have been an epic Eurasian landcrawler armored heavy metal rail empire, but tried to fight every world power at once like a bunch of suicidal retards. Japan's biggest mistake was trying to build an oil powered army when they were meant for coal fired armored locomotives and ships. People say "oh, but coal fired engines are slower than oil" but this only matters if youre trying to project power thousands of miles from shore across the atlantic. if they are on coast guard/ shore patrol then coal would be more than fine for the navy and excellent for a rail based army rolling through China (and perhaps even the USSR). Then, whatever oil they had on hand could be used as aviation fuel instead of being wasted on giant fucking ships. Oh well, nips chose wrong and paid the price...
>>18603803See this. Imagine an alternate scenario where this Zaibatsu gains enough influence to push for such a military/technological development path. I'd have to do more research but I'd wager some of them did. Usually in war everyone wants to chase what current leaders are doing, and rightly so, but sometimes you can pick a completely different path and surprise your enemies with a completely different style of fighting. They'd still need to work on Radar and missile tech with the krauts asap lol, otherwise the allies may still fuck them up
>>18603803>The population/resource argument is extremely overblownYou say this despite Yyour own post downplaying it continuously with thoughts of what could have been. The problem is that it wasn't and what is did in fact transpire. The Japanese did alienate the chinese populations, they didn't expand secure railways, they did choose to expand and modernize their navy. All of these things happened. To their credit the successful blockading of China was possible due in no small part because of the IJN. That said it might not have been entirely necessary had Japanese Imperial rule been well received and the Japanese had been more adept at playing warlords off one another.
>>18603821yes but none of those were predetermined. a given leader with certain predispositions and priorities could have just as possibly ensured that those things did not happen and that the opposite did, these are not laws of physics but human decisions on the individual and collective level.
>>18603657>>18603685>strategic depthAi will save the day
>>18603833Nothing is predetermined, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. The population/resource argument is extremely overblown because the exact set of circumstances and choices you'd need to overcome them weren't taken?
>>18603811Also, if they chose this plan, they would have gone with hokushin ron/ strike north, meaning they would not antagonize the US at all. America did not have the stomach to fight for some british and dutch colonial possessions without a direct attack on their troops or territory. Japan's military policy in our timeline is genuinely deranged. "oh, we lost to the soviets in khalkin gol, lets go challenge the industrial juggernaut of the world thats 3x as powerful!". unbelievable. But had they stuck with hokushin ron and the coal powered armored rail zaibatsu strat (with heavy artillery and air power with the freed up oil assets) they would have stood a chance of surviving the ideological great filter of the 20th century (though theyd probably liberalize like the UK and Spain at some point)
Showa emperor simply did not have the Mandate of Heaven.
>>18603657Without Soviet/American Intervention, would China even be able to expel the Japanese? The KMT was practically a spent force after Ichigo. In a way the war had devolved into attrition, but one Japan seemed to hold the upper hand.
>>18603709The Mongols conquered China because a large part of the population turned to their side. They couldn't defeat the much much smaller Vietnam because they resisted.
>>18604082>>18603702The Japanese did however control a lot of the major food-producing regions of China.
>>18603803>The population/resource argument is extremely overblown, China has regularly been conquered by empires/factions/nomad horse archer tribes far fewer in number. There is truth to the fact that they alienated a lot of Manchurians and Chinese with their insanely brutal behavior towards them and>the Mongols>not absurdly brutal...
>>18604090Plus KMT's man-made flood cause a famine
>>18603657Because Chiang understood that Japan expected a quick victory and having once been a Japanese trained military man who spoke fluent Japanese, opted for fabian strats. Japan was defeated by Malaria and starvation. The NRA was conserving its strength the entire time to deal with the communists. The NRA only ever bothered with maintaining their own supply lines like in Burma where they went out of their way to put one of Sun Yat Sen's clan in charge, Rommel of the East.
>>18603675And as for its population, there are just too many people in China; you simply can't control that many people, it would be a terrible logistical burden.
>>18603821trying to back up his argument with things that didn't happen xd
>>18604257To add to this, Japan lost the moment China decided to resist. Japan could take the plains region with their tanks but the moment they had to siege passes and cross into mountains, the NRA chewed them up and crushed them.
>>18604280How do you mean??
>>18603675This is a perfect display of /his/'s reading comprehension
>>18604280The entire OP's premise is a question leading up to what japan could have done to win against china and you morons can't entertain a single hypothetical regarding what could have happened without resorting to rote regurgitation of what did happen. OP's question is inviting such speculation by its nature
>>18603657They did defeat China, insofar as China the State, as it existed before the war, ceased to exist in the years after the war. What they did not do was completely eradicate the Chinese people from the face of the Earth, which is what would actually have been required for China the culture to cease to exist. If you're asking why they didn't do that, maybe you should take a hard look at the way the Japanese bitch about the atomic bombs every year trying to milk money out of the US and ask why they wouldn't want to put up with that coming from China. Once you go down that road, you have to go all the way, there can be no survivors, or your political enemies, both foreign and domestic, will use it as a wedge issue against you for the rest of your existence.
>>18603657>>18603685>>18603702>>18603709You can literally just make a couple of encirclements, hold the river line and then all the manpower problems are fixed.
>>18604491>Just win broThey tried to get rid of the salienrs but failed until the ichi-go offensive.And it also wouldnt have solved anything. The further in they push the worse supply problems they had reducing the amount of men they could field on the front.All that land also had to be garrisoned and chinese partisans would wreack havoc on their supply lines making everything even worse.
>>18604491"Control the coastal flatlands and you win bro">>Proceeds to get raped for eternity by rading armies coming down the mountains to the west
