How good was the Japanese army and navy compared to its european

They (both the Imperial Army and Navy)were generally too rigid in doctrine to adapt to changing circumstances (Nagano's critical flaw at Midway) and the harsh interservice rivalry and disconnected political goals of both led to a crippling lack of efficiency at times and arguably contributed to their ultimate defeat (IJA wanted to focus on killing China first, IJN wanted to quickly strike European colonial holdings and later the US), leading to the eventual decision of Japan to fight everyone at once as a compromise.

Bottom of the barrel army. Embarrassingly awful. Their navy is around equal or superior to Britain's. I think Britain's is bigger by tonnage but Japan has them beat on carriers and submarines. They're very distantly behind the United States at any rate.

>>3311026
Army - basically shit tier compared to any first rate European power but with couple interesting weapons in its arsenal.
Navy:
Carrier: 2nd best carrier force in the world at start of the war with access to good pilots and decent if overly specialized planes. Hindered by Japan's inflexible doctrine when it came to assigning squadrons to carriers and inability to replace pilot losses in any reasonably amount of time.
Battleships: Japanese only had 4 decent battleships in their arsenal (Nagatos and Yamatos) with rest of them being pretty shit.
Battlecruisers: 4 decent modernized Kongo-class battlecruisers, all of which were about comparable to the rebuild HMS Renown (with Renown having better AA-suite but weaker broadside) but noticeably inferior to German Scharnhorsts, French battlecruiser/small battleship Dunkerques, and American Alaska-class large cruisers.
Heavy cruisers: decent if lightly armored, Japanese most likely would had been better off dropping their desired max speed for CAs from 35 knots to 33 or 32 knots and using the extra tons freed to armoring their CAs properly.
Light cruisers: most of them were old and obsolete ships from 1910s and early 1920s that were of questionable value during WW2.
Destroyers: overall pretty good.
Submarines: good subs, horrible doctrine that made them borderline useless.
Escort vessels: Mostly ignored in favor of muh decisive battle and thus were inferior to their western counterparts.
Overall: 3rd strongest navy in the world at the start of the war

Other stuff:
Naval AA: shit tier when compared to yanks and brits
Service infighting and autism about not using same equipment: world-class

incompetent, badly lead, wasteful

all they had to do was island hop to hawaii after pearl harbor but they instead cut up their forces and make genius master plans

medieval mindset with modern weaponry, results in disaster

>>3311026

IJN/IJA were basically dedicated amateurs, not a profess military.

>>3311026
"First rate soldiers in a third rate army" is the cliche quote from some British memoir I don't recall. Before attrition sapped experienced leadership, their small unit tactics were good, the effectiveness of their knee-mortars renowned. They did become quite good at defensive design as well, but in almost all areas of strategic planning they were subpar and their tiny industrial capacity meant shit equipment.

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>>3311026
Good lord the IJA was horrifically bad.

Their artillery - probably the most important aspect of a land force after logistics - was hilariously obsolete, both in doctrine and equipment. By 1939, the IJA was still largely reliant on WW1-era pieces and still used spotting balloons to guide artillery. As Khalkin Gol showed, the IJA's artillery lagged in nearly every aspect. The Soviet pieces they went up against were longer ranged, more accurate, had a higher throw weight, and were able to throw rounds faster than the IJA. Worst of all, despite being a half day drive from the nearest railhead (compared to the Soviets' 4 day drive), the IJA was unable to sustain barrages to compete with the Soviets because ammunition ran out. Meanwhile, the Soviets were fielding more pieces, firing faster, and consistently increasing the intensity of the barrages without any logistical issues.

Armor and anti-armor was another glaring flaw. IJA tanks were notoriously shitty even in 1939. At Khalkin Gol, the IJA launched an armored assault with two tank regiments, a couple battalions of infantry, and a regiment of artillery against a Soviet bridgehead on the East bank of the river, which was largely infantry forces supported by a few armored cars. Despite having every advantage on paper, they couldn't break this isolated force and lost 42 tanks in the process. The IJA tank guns couldn't compete with the 45mm guns on Soviet armored cars and tanks, and in general, both the armor and armament of Japanese tanks was hilariously inadequate even for the interwar period. Anti-tank weapons were little better - they were relying on early interwar pieces through much of WW2, and the modern pieces they did introduce ended up being inadequate fairly quickly into the war. The Soviet armored assault that same day shows how bad it was for the IJA - Zhukov threw armor at a Japanese bridgehead unsupported by infantry, and the IJA had to resort to suicide tactics.

>cont

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>>3312037
Although infantry small arms tend to be irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, the IJA also had plenty of failings there. They relied heavily on some pretty dumb designs like the hopper-fed Type 11 or the literal-clip-fed Hotchkiss-derived machineguns. As if their logistical clusterfuck wasn't enough of a problem, they decided to switch rifle calibers in the middle of a war, further complicating things. And for all the Arisaka's utility, its had features that betrayed the failings of the IJA as a whole, such as the pants-on-head retarded anti-aircraft sights.

Infantry tactics were surprisingly good considering the other failings of the IJA, but they were needlessly wasteful on the defense, particularly in a losing fight. Experienced men had their lives thrown away with little reason other than the perverted Bushido code that permeated Japan at the time. Retreats were seen as dishonorable, and the penalty for dishonor was suicide. So often times you had soldiers defending positions throw their lives away in suicide attacks when a tactical retreat would have been more prudent. Worse, you had plenty of experienced men and officers commit suicide after they were in the clear - several officers killed themselves after Khalkin Gol, including one experienced pilot who was captured and pressured into killing himself by his peers. And unlike the Soviets, who had the manpower to be so wasteful, the Japanese did not have this luxury.

Experienced manpower was always an issue for the IJA, and it was particularly pressing with the IJAAF. I don't have the book on hand that gives more specific numbers, but by 1939 Japanese flight schools had produced fewer than 10,000 pilots. That meant experienced pilots were a valuable commodity, but the IJA didn't seem to notice. Small numbers of pilots meant that men were merely flying longer and more frequently to compensate, unsurprisingly burning them out faster than normal.

>cont

You know for a nation that prides itself on almost impossibly rapid industrialisation and westernisation in the wake of the Boshin war it seems like they had fallen back to their old ways by the time WWII rolled around.

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>>3312109
The IJAAF was hamstrung by several issues of doctrine and equipment as well. Poor IJA doctrine in the interwar period ended up prioritizing maneuverability over all else, leading to the adoption of the biplane Ki-10 in 1935, when the rest of the world was starting its first generation of modern monoplanes. Even subsequent monoplanes sacrificed too much for raw horizontal agility - the Ki-27 of 1936 was slower than its contemporaries and under-armed, and the IJA didn't get a "modern" monoplane until 1939 in the form of the Ki-43. Even then, the Ki-43's focus on agility left it significantly slower than contemporaries and inadequately armed with just two rifle-caliber machineguns. Armor was also out of the question, as were many safety features. In fact, probably the only thing the IJA did right for their fighters was install radios on every plane, which still wasn't standard for the Soviets by 1941.

Bombers were little better. The IJAAF in 1939 had a "heavy" bomber force that consisted of lighter medium bombers and a light bomber force that consisted of fixed-gear monoplanes that often doubled as spotters. The "heavies" were twin-engined machines somewhat following interwar fast bomber doctrine, but lacking the performance necessary. They were weighed down by defensive guns, but they lacked any armor. And although payload capacities were reasonable, doctrine called for many small bombs over fewer large bombs. This meant that bombing runs rarely had any significant impact on fortified positions. The light bombers were even worse - they lacked the agility and performance of the IJA fighters and were protected with just a single defensive gun, leaving them vulnerable to fighters and ground fire. Like the "heavies" they relied too much on small bombs that limited their effectiveness.

The later generation of IJA aircraft would run into industrial problems - Japanese industry couldn't make engines competitive with the Allies.

>>3312188
I admit, I've done very little research on the subject, but I thought what the Japanese were really optimizing their fighters for was operational range. Granted, that often meshes well with maneuverability; as longer range often means lighter and lighter means more maneuverable.

But given teh scattered nature of their holdings in the Pacific, it does make a degree of sense to try to have planes that can start on one island in a chain and be able to fight over any of the others.

>>3312215
The IJN optimized their fighters for range in the later interwar period, culminating in the Zero, but the IJA focused on pure horizontal maneuverability.

One thing people don't realize is that the IJA and IJN were completely separate forces that absolutely hated eachother, so they ended up with a lot of overlap to avoid cooperating. The IJA had its own troop transports and aircraft carriers, and the IJN had its own separate land-based air forces independent of the IJA.

>>3312109
>pants-on-head retarded anti-aircraft sights
Hold up a second. Every nation had fucking dumb sights at that time period. The sights on the Mosin Nagant go up to like, 1000m or something.

Further, these odd sights are not meant to let an individual rifleman shoot down a plane or snipe a guy 1km away. They're meant to let a whole platoon shoot down a plane or volley fire at an enemy position.

>>3312215
They were. This guy's regurgitating history channel shit. No planes were really armored in WW2, except ground attackers like the IL2 and the Hs129. Most planes people call "armored" were just built to be resilient. The P47 for instance only had one small armor plate, only thick enough to stop rifle caliber MG fire, right behind the pilot.

Japan's biggest problem was their lack of naval damage control. Their damage control doctrine called for crew in a damaged compartment to abandon their post and wait for dedicated damage control teams to handle it. This meant that fires or flooding could go unchallenged for minutes, which often meant they were much worse once the DC team arrived. It also meant that Japanese ships had far fewer DC personnel than their US counterparts, again meaning damage would go uncontrolled longer. At the Battle of Midway, the carrier Akagi burned for ~18 hours from a single bomb hit. They even had to scuttle it.

>>3312242
The hatred between Imperial Japanese military branches was pretty hilarious.
>IJA knows that the codes that IJN used were weak and that allies would learn to crack them pretty quickly
>it takes years until they decide to tell IJN about this and even then they pretty much only did so at the gunpoint and when Americans were basically knocking at the front door
>planes used by Americans and Brits outperform anything that Japanese had and they are in desperate need of aircraft that can compete with them
>instead of both IJN and IJA pooling their resources and trying to design and produce a plane capable of doing so they both have their own little pet projects that never really went anywhere
>did I mention that IJN's planes weren't even carrier capable so they couldn't use that as an excuse to justify their own plane project

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>>3312284
>Every nation had fucking dumb sights at that time period. The sights on the Mosin Nagant go up to like, 1000m or something.
There's a big difference between having 2km sights for volley fire and having anti-aircraft sights. Neither were all that practical, but while one stems back to 19th-century doctrine, the other points to a very real failing within the IJA - a lack of adequate anti-air.

>No planes were really armored in WW2
That's bullshit. Most WW2-era combat aircraft had armor in the form of a plate behind the pilot's seat. Armor was often also installed between the cockpit and engine, and, on bombers, immediately aft of gun positions. Self-sealing fuel tanks were also a critical design element for safety and durability. But IJA and IJN aircraft lacked both of these. And as strange as it may sound to you, a small armor plate behind the pilot goes a long way to survivability.

>>3312352
Volley sights point to a real failing too; a lack of organic indirect fire support.

A single armored plate behind the pilot seat is a far cry from the "flying tank" impression laymen get when they hear someone say a WW2 plane was well-armored.

>>3312188
still, Japan only lost 20000 aircraft (in the air) to the US's 15000

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>>3312378
Yes, but the impression the laymen get isn't really all that relevant when we're discussing the facts. The fact is that the "minor" armoring we see on most combat aircraft definitely did improve survivability, although you have unusual cases like the Il-2 where too much armor just hurt performance without really improving on survivability. Same goes for self-sealing fuel tanks - not bursting into flames or leaking all your fuel away after a single bullet punctures a fuel tank is a pretty nice feature to have, especially when attrition is (or in the case of Japan, should have been) a major concern.

>>3312387
That's what happens when you've got lopside industrial capacities. The more important factor is loss rates per sortie and exchange ratios. The US lost so many aircraft partly because we had so many more in the first place and could afford to throw them at everything. The Japanese didn't have that luxury, but they did suffer significantly more losses as a percentage of their available force.

Also, fun (and unrelated) fact - the Flying Tigers are officially credited with more kills than there ever were IJA aircraft in the theater.

>>3311026
The Navy was one of the three largest navies in the world, only behind the United States and the United Kingdom.

Just based on the ability to field carriers, the IJN could trump every European Navy except the United Kingdom on the open seas; while France, Italy and Germany were each working on a carrier, they were not priorities, since European navies could count on land-based air support. The Japanese, who expected to fight over the vast stretches of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, needed to throw out as many planes as possible.

Compared to the Fleet Air Arm's carriers, the Combined Fleet's carriers were far more vulnerable, but could field vastly more planes for a CAP. The IJN's planes and pilots were in a much better state; until the Hawker Sea Hurricane was fielded in 1941, the FAA's Skua was a generation older than the A5M Zero, and the IJN simply had more experience fielding carriers in the course of the invasion of China.

Limited Pilot Pool also extended to both nations; while the British Empire could nominally draw on far more men, the vast majority of British pilots were Britons in the same way the the vast majority of Japanese pilots were from the Japanese Islands; in that respect neither had that many skilled pilots to draw on.

On the surface, the British definitely had the edge; it had far more battleships and somewhat better ones at that, as well as radar after 1941. While the Japanese Oxygen Torpedos easily outperformed their British Equivalents, their hit rates were not nearly enough to equalize that sheer difference in number or justify their cost.

Once you add the fact that the US would almost certainly support the UK, and the UK would probably have a narrow edge on the long run, though it might suffer some grievous defeats beforehand until it can assemble the experience to match the IJN in carrier operations (which they ultimately would, given the IJN's painful inelasticity). Any other Navy in Europe would lose to the IJN.

>>3311026
Probably better than any of you effeminate millennial diaper shitters that would get triggered over wading in waist deep water. You youngsters these days have such full diapers that I swear you would run and hide if you had to face the Japs again.

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>>3311065
>Service infighting and autism about not using same equipment: world-class

So basically the modern US Military?

>>3312418
>the Combined Fleet's carriers were far more vulnerable, but could field vastly more planes for a CAP.
>vastly more planes
What? They carried about 10-20 more at max capacity than their British counterparts.

>>3312418
>and the IJN simply had more experience fielding carriers in the course of the invasion of China.
Unlike the RN, which only had 2 years of world fucking war under its belt by 1941, right?

>>3314584
>Unlike the RN, which only had 2 years of world fucking war under its belt by 1941, right?
I was assuming this was a comparison at the beginning of the war, in 1939.

>>3314590
>I was assuming this was a comparison at the beginning of the war, in 1939.
Japan had only a couple of carriers before 1939, and one of them was in refit for the most of late 1930s. Japan had barely any operational experience in using carriers whether in 1939 or in 1941 compared to Britain.

>>3314579
10-20 is a lot fucking more in 1941, especially compared to the total capacity and when you realize a standard USN CAP was 4-6 planes.

In 1941 Ark Royal, the largest carried 54 planes; Kaga, Japan's largest, carried 75 on the eve of Pearl Harbor. That's a difference of nearly 40% of Ark Royal's capacity, and at least 3 extra squadrons up in the air. In terms of the actual planes, the difference is more telling: The Ark Royal in 1940-41 had 12 Skuas to 21 of the Kaga's newer-model A6M Zeroes, nearly half the carrier cover.

The difference increases as we go down the line to the carriers Britain had available.

>>3314621
Akagi, Kaga, Hosho, and Ryujo all participated in the Sino-Japanese War; against obsolecent planes, given, but where did the FAA's carriers operate in 1939?

>>3314626
>10-20 is a lot fucking more!!!!
>also it wasn't 10-20, it was actually 40% or nearly double!!!!!!
>even though that's 10-20
><autistic screech>

>>3314636
Not an argument. I explained why it's a lot fucking more in terms of the realistic Combat Air Patrol Squadrons they could expect to launch. If you have a reason to assert that the advantage of (((only))) 10-20 planes is unrealistic, feel free to state it.

>>3314641
>unrealistic
unimportant, I meant.

>>3314626
>but where did the FAA's carriers operate in 1939?
All over the Atlantic and the North Sea.

>>3314641
There is no argument to state? I'm just pointing out how fucking dumb you are for thinking that 10-20 is a lot more than 10-20 if you phrase it as 40%.

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>>3312418
>the A5M Zero

>>3314643
Ah yes, I'm sure those three months of experience will have a telling effect over the two years the IJN pilots were operating over China.

>>3314646
I understand English may not be your first language, but when I say
>10-20 is a lot fucking more in 1941
in response to
>They carried about 10-20 more,
I'm saying that 10-20 more is a lot, not merely "only 10-20 more," not that 10-20 is more than 10-20, as you seem to have assumed.

>>3312418
>while the British Empire could nominally draw on far more men, the vast majority of British pilots were Britons in the same way the the vast majority of Japanese pilots were from the Japanese Islands; in that respect neither had that many skilled pilots to draw on.
I can't believe you typed this thinking you were saying something profound and smart.

>>3314652
>Ah yes, I'm sure those three months of experience will have a telling effect over the two years the IJN pilots were operating over China.
yeah three months of actual war > two years of """""operating""""" over China.

>>3314654
>I can't believe you typed this thinking you were saying something profound and smart.
A big argument about the IJN is that the IJN couldn't easily replace its pilots. I'm saying that even if the British Empire had a much larger nominal population, it faces the same problems in replacing skilled personnel, as the British were not heavily inclined to use Pajeet,his several million countryment or most of the British Empire's population as pilots.

>>3314656
Except that the vast majority of the war was fought on land, by the RAF, which was actively taking FAA pilots due to a shortage on that end. Or am I supposed to suddenly factor the IJA's pilots into this as well?

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occasionally bombing chinese peasants gave japan more carrier experience than fighting germany
t. no one ever (until today)

>>3314658
There's a bit more that goes into the pilot pool than the manpower stat. You need to stop thinking the world actually works like in HoI.

>>3314676
>There's a bit more that goes into the pilot pool than the manpower stat. You need to stop thinking the world actually works like in HoI.
Yes, training policies, how veteran pilots are employed and the quality of instructors matter as well. Which is important because for much of 1939 much of Britain's pilots were going to the RAF, not the FAA, due to the upcoming war in France.

>>3314674
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Volunteer_Group
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_engagements_of_the_Second_Sino-Japanese_War#1937
Consider reading before typing words.

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>>3314689

>>3314636
As you increase the number of carriers, the problem becomes more acute.

If the Indian Ocean Raid had turned into an actual fleet action, I don't think the British would have come out very well.

The Americans proved at Midway that # of planes is critical. They had one fewer carrier but only 15 fewer carrier planes than the Japanese because of they crammed every plane into every possible space. Remember, you have to think of a carrier not as a ship (though it is a ship) but a floating airfield. An airfield is more useful the more planes are stationed at it. You add in Midway's airfield and suddenly the Americans have air superiority despite having an inferior fleet and lots of mediocre aircrew.

Having high tech radar and AA defences and ground crews and all the other stuff are nice perks but mean jack shit if you can't actually contest the air with your planes vs their planes. Ask the Luftwaffe Field Divisions.

>>3314700
Not an argument. Here's a chance to make one, though:
>In the first four months of the war from July to November 1937, the Chinese Air Force flew 137 sorties, attacking Japanese army positions, and engaged in 57 air battles with Japanese airplanes; the Chinese Air Force shot down 94 Japanese planes and damaged 52 on the ground, but lost 131 aircraft.[10]
How many planes did the Fleet Air Arm down in 1939?

>>3314701
Part of it also is that the British had far more overseas territories to protect, so the odds of it mustering an equivalent air force on the open sea is unlikely.

In the unlikely chance that the IJN ever got close to Europe, though, they'd get absolutely murdered by land-based aircraft due to their shitty damage control. In the Mediterranean Illustrious took fifteen dive bombs and was still operable. The Hiryuu took four, Akagi took one, Kaga four and Souryuu three at Midway before succumbing.

That's where British armored carriers shine, being able to survive the bombs once they hit. Though they didn't really get off unscathed either.

On a related note,
>http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-030.htm
is an interested reading on American and British carrier design differences and the efficacy of the Armored Carrier. Since the Japanese and Americans similarly opted for an unarmored hangar-floor strength deck setup, some comparisons can be reasonably drawn.

>>3314701
>If the Indian Ocean Raid had turned into an actual fleet action, I don't think the British would have come out very well.
British planes had radar and would only have engaged at night.

>The Americans proved at Midway that # of planes is critical.
Actually no, Midway proved the opposite, that in 1942, against treaty carriers, a small handful was enough to fuck real shit up if you were able to find the other guy's carriers first.
You need to realize that carrier battles don't happen like in your anime. All of Jap planes and all of US planes did not launch and fight each other at once.

>You add in Midway's airfield and suddenly the Americans have air superiority despite having an inferior fleet and lots of mediocre aircrew.
At no point did the Americans have air superiority, even and especially over Midway itself. You really have no fucking clue, do you?

>Having high tech radar and AA defences and ground crews and all the other stuff are nice perks but mean jack shit if you can't actually contest the air with your planes vs their planes
Are you trying to win a non sequitur contest against yourself?

>>3314703
Are you trying to argue that actual carrier operations experience matters less for accumulating carrier operations experience than the number of planes you shoot down?

>>3314742
No, I am arguing that the IJN was not fighting against defenseless peasants or a few rickety biplanes in the 2 years of war leading up to 1939, but against Chinese, American and Soviet pilots in relatively modern planes.

I am not trying to undermine the experiences of the Fleet Air Arm, especially in 1940 and thereafter, once Italy entered the war; I am simply trying to say that the IJN had both substantial experience in carrier operations and in air combat over China (particularly in Shanghai), two years before the Fleet Air Arm began to obtain combat experience in the first weeks of the war.

>>3314734
>Actually no, Midway proved the opposite, that in 1942, against treaty carriers, a small handful was enough to fuck real shit up if you were able to find the other guy's carriers first.
This is not untrue, but the results belie the amount of planes US pilots threw at the CAP before it buckled. Including Midway's counterattacks and the Yorktown's attacks, the IJN CAP fended off attacks from some 89 aircraft before catastrophic failure; part of Midway's failure was Nagumo's indecision, which left the CAP exhausted and strung out.

The other half of the failure was terrible IJN AA, poor damage control, poor air-group coordination between carriers and some questionable tactics. But the Americans were not devoid of this either.

>https://www.usnwc.edu/getattachment/9fe423c2-9276-41c7-be29-04260b8a04c3/Replacing-Battleships-with-Aircraft-Carriers-in-th.aspx
is an interesting reading on American developments in carrier doctrine through the Coral Sea, Midway and the SOlomons.

>>3314454
I see that the effeminate millennials diaper is so full that they can't respond to me challenging them for being so triggered and not understanding how the Japs didn't have time for therapy sessions and play-doh and safety pins and safe spaces.

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>>3312037
>Armor and anti-armor was another glaring flaw.

Pre-war / early war Japanese tanks were as good or better then their European counterparts, adopting a diesel engine in 1933 and the Type 97-kai of 1939 having a three man turret with a commander’s cupola but as the war progressed, the Japanese were on the defensive and production and development of tanks stalled.

And any tank on the planet could have been knocked out by the Soviet 45mm gun or similar anti-guns of the time, including the Japanese 37mm and 47mm anti-tanks guns.

>>3314454

Shut the fuck up you stupid nip, what you didnt know the backwards mentality of japan in the 1940s?

>>3314866
I see baby is a little upset because he has a diaper rash, you can say he's butthurt right now. You're just mad that a millennial like you has a full diaper and can't understand what I just said. Millennials are subhuman.

>>3312037
>>3312109
>>3312188
Also forgot to add - the Japanese government had terrifyingly little control over the forces on the ground. Take a look at how Japan got involved in China in the first place. The Kwantung Army, on its own initiative, assassinated the leader of Manchuria, launched a false flag attack in Manchuria, invaded and occupied Manchuria, and installed a puppet government. This all happened without even notifying the central government or high command, and more often than not the government was left picking up the pieces and trying to work around the new situation because domestic media was rapidly nationalistic and unwaveringly supporting the Kwantung Army's escapades.

The whole twisted Bushido ideal of not backing down also played a major part, both on the local level and nationally. Local commanders felt they had to escalate incidents rather than back down, and the central government couldn't recall units that were provoking such incidents, lest they give the impression of backing down.

So leading up to the war with China, you had progressively worse border incidents with the Nationalists up until Marco Polo Bridge in 1937, when it finally escalated into full-blown war. They tried the same with the Soviets, only for the Soviets to turn around and annihilate the Kwantung Army.

But all that did was shift the Japanese focus elsewhere. The Kwantung Army stopped provoking incidents with the Soviets, but the IJA still went about invading French Indochina without the consent or direction of the central government. That, in fact, was the very incident that sparked the embargoes that (in the eyes of Japan) forced their hand to start the war in the Pacific.

>>3314871

Listen to me you baby dicked chink, you might think that imperial japan was some great power on par with european empires but thats simply not true, you did well against asians (lol) but against western empires you stood no chance, your mentality was so backwards you thought killing yourself was more honorable (twisted jap mentality honor) than defeat, and well, you lost so i suggest you take a note from your fellow subhumans and kill yourself

>>3314727
Listen you diaper shitting baby, this isn't about Japs being a powerful empire it's about you subhuman diaper-wearing millennials that wouldn't understand and would probably be triggered over fighting the Imperial Japanese Army.

>>3311026
>when every different rifle model in the arsenal takes a different sized round
Japs are dumb

>>3311065
>couple interesting weapons in its arsenal
I'm curious, what were they?

>>3314782
>the IJN CAP fended off attacks from some 89 aircraft
Your use of raw numbers without any context only reveals your lack of knowledge. You really need to develop some selfawareness and realize that writing volumes of shitpost doesn't make you look any smarter.
The first USN divebombing attack resulted in burning Jap carriers. It's that simple. Japanese CAP couldn't stop divebombers, not at Midway nor at any other battle, and American CAP couldn't stop Japanese divebombers in 1942 either, even with radar.

> part of Midway's failure was Nagumo's indecision, which left the CAP exhausted and strung out.
>The other half of the failure was terrible IJN AA, poor damage control, poor air-group coordination between carriers and some questionable tactics. But the Americans were not devoid of this either.
Rattling off memes is nice and all, but the fact is IJN never stopped American divebombers regardless of what battle it was or who was in command.

>>3315711
>Your use of raw numbers without any context only reveals your lack of knowledge.
This is a very funny thing to say when your subsequent argument
>The first USN divebombing attack resulted in burning Jap carriers.
Is completely incorrect. VMSB 241's 27 dive bombers attacked at 0710 with no success against the Japanese CAP. Hell, the first American Airman to be downed in battle was piloting a SBD. It was only after 4 more waves of attacks that the Enterprise's dive bombers arrived at 1022.

>but the fact is IJN never stopped American divebombers
see above.

>>3315711
>Rattling off memes is nice and all, but the fact is IJN never stopped American divebombers regardless of what battle it was or who was in command.
>24 August 1942: - 1315 While still launching the strike wave, SHOKAKU is suddenly dive-bombed by two ENTERPRISE search bombers. Though the new radar room had detected them and sent warning to the bridge in a radar "first" for Kido Butai, it is not received in time. But lookouts spot them at the last minute and Captain Arima turns full right and just evades the bombs.
>7 May 1942: -At 0855, while attempting to cover the Tulagi and Port Moresby invasion forces, SHOHO is attacked by the US airstrike. Turning hard to port, the carrier dodges the first three bombs. The next three attacking SBDs are engaged by 2 A5M4 and abort their attack. One SBD is shot down.
>4 June 1942/(5 June JST) - The Battle of Midway: - 0810 Enemy plane dives on SORYU.
>- 0815 10 enemy planes attacking SORYU.
>- 0819 Many bombs being dropped in the vicinity of SORYU. SORYU and HIRYU engaging with fierce AA-fire. No hits received.
Both American and Japanese CAPs were capable of intercepting dive bombers in spite of rudimentary tactics at the beginning of the war. In the Coral Sea and Midway, the Japanese were overwhelmed ultimately by the amount of planes thrown at them in succession.

>>3314859
>And any tank on the planet could have been knocked out by the Soviet 45mm gun or similar anti-guns of the time, including the Japanese 37mm and 47mm anti-tanks guns.
The Char B1 had no trouble shrugging off German 47mm Anti-tank guns in France.

>>3314886
That is terrifying and hilarious. But onto armor, if I recall correctly in the late 20s and early 30s Japan improved and in some cases may have led the way in armor technology only for them to abandon it by the prewar period. Am I remembering correctly or am I wrong?

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>>3316190

Didn’t matter, as the Char B1 was broken down half the time anyway and in a Char B1 vs Type 97 battle, the Japanese tank could easily outmaneuver it and still destroy it, as the Japanese 47mm gun could penetrate its frontal armor out to 750 yards.

After the Americans, they had the 2nd strongest navy. As it turns out, the one navy they faced was the American one.
Their army was not very strong.

>>3312138
The leadership from the Meiji Period/War against Russia was not the same leadership as the one in WWII.

>>3316252
>Didn’t matter, as the Char B1 was broken down half the time anyway
Untrue; though the Naeder steering did sometimes malfunction, it did not do so nearly enough for it to reliably do so.
>and in a Char B1 vs Type 97 battle, the Japanese tank could easily outmaneuver it and still destroy it
This isn't a video game, where one tank can freely drive around the other. Even if they tried, France's S35 would still outrun, outmaneuver, outgun and outarmor the Chi-Ha.
>as the Japanese 47mm gun could penetrate its frontal armor out to 750 yards.
It can't. The weakest armor on the B1bis's frontal armor is the upper hull, which is 60mm at 20 degrees. The Chi-Ha could barely penetrate 60mm flat at 750 yards; the Type 1 would need to be somewhat closer for that, assuming no secondary angling is in place whatsoever.

Add to this that the SA 34 could penetrate the Chi-Ha at well over 1500 m and it's unlikely the Chi-Ha would have gotten anywhere.

>>3311065
Is there a quick run down on the various types of ships? I never understood the difference between battleships, battlecruisers, heavy, light, cruisers, destroyers...

>>3316430
> I never understood the difference between battleships, battlecruisers, heavy, light, cruisers, destroyers...

armor/offensive armament<--->speed/economic compromise

>>3316430
Turn the clock back to the mid to late 19th century. With the advent of the steam engine, you now had enough power to put armor on a ship and still make it able to move around somewhere faster than swimming. And thus you get the first sort of technological arms race; better engines would allow for better armor, which in turn necessitated better guns to try to pierce that armor.

And thus you had the first battleships, slow, heavily armed and armored fuck you vessels, built to engage the enemy fleet and destroy it in a climactic battle.

Then, in 1866, you had the invention of the first underwater torpedo. It's hard to armor ships below the waterline for engineering reasons I'm not too sure of myself. By 1873 you had ships that were designed to carry these torpedoes into battle. And no matter how well armored your battleships were, they were vulnerable to torpedoes. And now you had a problem. For roughly the same cost, someone could build a hundred of these little torpedo boats, and while your battleships would sink a bunch of them before they closed enough to launch the torpedoes, they would sink your expensive prizes.

Thus came the destroyer, or as it was originally called, the "torpedo boat destroyer". And it was exactly what it sounded like. A ship, big enough and well armed enough to sink torpedo boats (after all, the massive guns that battleships used on each other were massive overkill for a tiny torpedo boat), but smaller, cheaper, and surrounding the battleships, such that it would at least be extremely difficult to close to torpedo range. Of course, they'd be swept away by a real capital ship, but that's not the point, they're an adjunct to the battleship.
1/2

>>3316430


Cruisers developed somewhat alongside this setup. Battleships were powerful, but they were expensive, and often slow and tended towards poor cruising range before needing to stop and restock (often for more coal). And especially for empires like the British and French, who had far flung colonies and a need to project power to them, you needed something that maximized range. That was the cruiser. Bigger than destroyers (if you get too small, it's hard to maintain seaworthiness in rough weather), but smaller and less well armed and armored than battleships, they were more designed to go all over, and interdict shipping, or protect your own from the same. And of course as one of your rivals developed a cruiser, you saw a need to develop a faster, tougher, better cruiser than what he had, which in turn inspired him to do the same to you. And gradually, cruisers got bigger and had more teeth.

Battlecruisers were in some ways the end of this development. You take a battleship, and take out most of the armor. This reduces a lot of weight, so it's faster and can cruise farther. But of course it loses its protection, and if it goes up against a real battleship, it's in trouble. But it should be able to outrun anything that isn't a cruiser, and it's got much better guns than a cruiser, so it should be able to filet it if it comes to that.

Hope that little run through helps.

>>3316430
Battleship - big guns, heavy armor, meant to operated as part of the battle line.

Battlecruiser - evolved from armored cruisers during the first decade of 20th century, carried similar caliber main armament to the battleships but usually had less main guns and weaker armor in return of being faster than battleships.

Large cruiser - a type of extremely large and heavily armed heavy cruiser (carrying main battery of 9 12-inch guns) build by Americans during WW2, were meant to counter German Deutchland-class panzerschiffes.

Heavy cruiser - very much an artificial type of ship created by naval treaties following WW1, usually displaced less than 20k tons (with treaty heavy cruisers being around 10k tons) and had its main battery size be around 8-inch.

Light cruiser - evolved from armored cruisers during the early 20th century, the name itself is shortening of phrase "lightly armored cruiser", by WW2 light cruisers were defined by being cruisers that had main battery guns of 6-inch or smaller in size.

Destroyers - originally evolved to protect larger warships from enemy torpedo boats, by WW2 they were evolved into small (usually 1 to 2 thousand ton) torpedo armed warships capable of operating with the fleet and engaging in ASW and AA-duty.

>>3316333
> > Didn’t matter, as the Char B1 was broken down half the time anyway
> Untrue

Half the Char B1 losses in the Battle of France were due to mechanical breakdowns, most often due to the pneumatic trans.

> > a Char B1 vs Type 97 battle
> This isn't a video game

Exactly, and thus things like reliability, speed, situational awareness, etc. also play a part, in addition to armor, the Char B1’s only advantage.

> > as the Japanese 47mm gun could penetrate its frontal armor out to 750 yards.
> It can't.

62mm @ 0* @ 750 yards
51mm @ 30* @ 500 yards

>>3312109
>Small numbers of pilots meant that men were merely flying longer and more frequently to compensate, unsurprisingly burning them out faster than normal.

Wasn't this also the case with the Luftwaffe? Why didn't they seem to experience the same level of pilot incompetence and burn out, but rather racking up aces left and right?

Yes, I do know the Luftwaffe was incompetent in their own right but it is interesting how both they and the IJAAF seemed to diverge in skill early on.

I don't think anyone mentioned it but the japanese merchant navy was very neglected by the authorities in favor of the navy.

iirc the british and the americans each had more than twice more tankers than Japan.
And despite having fewer merchant ships the japanese didn't bother to protect them that much.

Despite having good tacticians Japan had a really outdated strategy. They fail to understand that this was a war of attrition and they thought they could negotiate with the US if they won a few decisive battle.
They also thought that battleships still were the most important ships instead of carriers.

>>3316764
it was because of planes and lack of qualified personnel. The germans could take a few bumps in pilot numbers and be okay. Japanese lost hundreds in every carrier at midway and had them whittled down to nothing during the island hopping campaign.

>>3316465
>>3316522
>>3316522
>>3316695
Thank (you) for the various explanations. Quite helpful information to keep in mind.

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>>3316097
>VMSB 241's 27 dive bombers attacked at 0710 with no success against the Japanese CAP.
Um, you might want to stop getting your information from "My First Midway" picture book if you want to have big boy discussions. VMSB-241 did not divebomb, they used pleb-tier glide bombing technique because most of them were shit newbs who had 2 hours or less experience in the plane.

> It was only after 4 more waves of attacks that the Enterprise's dive bombers arrived at 1022.
And none of those 4 more waves were divebombers practicing actual divebombing. Guess what happened after the first, actual divebombing run on a Jap carrier, a dead Jap carrier.

>>3316917
From what I understand, the Japanese strategy wasn't so much about the decisive battle, they knew they could never defeat the US, but more about buying time to build defenses in all the islands they managed to conquer. Thus, the US would lose too many men trying to take the islands back and would decide the war in the Pacific would not be worth it. It's not that stupid actually.

>>3316764
>Why didn't they seem to experience the same level of pilot incompetence and burn out, but rather racking up aces left and right?
I can't speak for the Japanese, but I know the Luftwaffe tended to over-claim to a ridiculous degree on the Eastern Front, where the highest kill claims happened. Everyone tended to overclaim on all sides, especially in campaigns that were particularly taxing on pilots, but the Luftwaffe took this to a ridiculous degree at times.

For example, Luftwaffe claims for the Crimea campaign of 1943-44 are up to 5,000 aircraft depending on the source. Barkhorn (2nd highest scoring ace) was credited with 50 kills alone in that campaign, and both Rall and Hartmann also saw service there. However, Soviet records admit the loss of less than 200 aircraft, and the total aircraft committed was likely less than 500.

Overclaiming is not exclusive to the Luftwaffe:
>Flying Tigers credited with more aircraft than IJAAF ever committed to the theater
>Claims on both sides in Kuban campaign amount to 2-3 times the number of enemy aircraft committed
>VVS and IJAAF both overclaim at Khalkhin Gol, with IJAAF having a higher percentage of "extra" claims
But the Luftwaffe claims in the Eastern Front tended to be even more inflated than normal.

It also probably helped the Luftwaffe that their Experten were going up against an air force caught with its pants down. The VVS didn't really finish its reforms until 1944, and a combination of flawed doctrine and training and a steady supply of aircraft makes for plenty of targets for Luftwaffe. The Japanese didn't have that luxury - the Chinese air force wasn't as significant a presence, and, just as it was over Europe, the Anglo-American air opposition offered a far more difficult opponent than the VVS did.

>>3317612
It is when you don't have resources to make sure that your island garrisons get supplied or a way to make sure that the yanks just don't jump from one useful island to next and blockade/bomb to submission those that aren't worth of taking.

>>3311026
In all military matters they were superior to other Asians but inferior to Europeans. If they hadn't involved in WW2 they could have beaten China for example.

>>3317837
>If they hadn't involved in WW2 they could have beaten China for example.
They got involved in WW2 because they couldn't beat China.

>>3316764
Germans went to pilot school at a very early age where they practiced the basics of airplace control through gliders as early as 10-12 if they showed academic prowess. They spent all day piloting gliders and landing them, soaring through mountains etc and shuffled around military camps before they bumped up to airplanes. So the worst ones quickly washed out while the ones that did well already had nearly a hundred more hours of air time.

>My limited experience reading the life of a Nazi child growing up during the time of Hitler

>>3317677
Most of the islands in the pacific were too small to be consequential. They would have also needed a rapid-response navy that could deploy from the Islands and intercept the American force. Plus setting up defensive positions is a laborious task.

>>3314701

> They had one fewer carrier but only 15 fewer carrier planes than the Japanese because of they crammed every plane into every possible space

This is actually because American carrier planes had folding wings, which made the plane heavier and reduced performance at the benefit of making a parked plane much smaller. Kaga and Akagi had more deck and park space than the Yorktowns, but you could park 3 F4F in the same space as 2 A6M.

>>3316724
The chars weren't unreliable the situation around them was. The soviets lost most of their tanks the same way.
>tanks breaks
>can't send out a crew to retrieve it due to enemy overrunning positions or need to retreat and don't have the ability to recover it
Germany had a similar problem in late 44

>>3317612
It's pretty stupid actually
>need to maintain supplies chains to the islands for raw materials, ammo and men
>navy is rapidly outclassed and can't deliver the supplies you need
>can't produce the supplies you
>the islands end up being starved and singed
>your men commit suicide or pointless suicide charges rather than fight

>>3317612
>but more about buying time to build defenses in all the islands they managed to conquer
i think that tactic dates back to the japs conquering german islands in the pacific during ww1, which brought them reward with being granted these islands in the peace treaties

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>>3318316
> The chars weren't unreliable the situation around them was.

Nonsense, it wasn’t a supply issue, when half your Char B tanks break down _on their own_ it’s a shitty tank and that’s not even getting into the one-man turret, glacially slow speed and the hull gun that’s aimed by the fucking driver (using the unreliable pneumatic trans).

> The soviets lost most of their tanks the same way.

Because Soviet manufacturing practices (i.e. Communism) was for shit, even though the T-26 and BT tanks (British and American designs) were fundamentally sound designs.

> Germany had a similar problem in late 44

Because the Panther and Tiger were unreliable designs + parts shortages.

Japanese tanks were on par with Western tanks of the same period, the Japanese only lost the tank race as the war progressed, as they had to put all their effort into the navy in a defensive war but there was no design or manufacturing issues with Japan that wouldn’t have allowed for better designs, which they did end up producing at the end but only in very limited numbers.

>>3311026
It was the best WWI army in WWII

>>3317480
Wrong, see >>3316175
Particularly the earlier attack on Soryu. Perhaps your anime may not be a 100% accurate depiction of the actual battle.

>>3312288
Japanese engines were as good as anyone's up to about 1943. Their problem was fuel, as in poor quality tetra-ethyl leaded aviation gasolene, and nowhere near enough. They often had to substitute lower octane/TEL avgas which degraded engine performance and durability.

>>3314454
can't hear you over the sound of my diaper filling

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Pound: Prime Minister, I have to report to you that the Prince of Wales and the Repulse have both been sunk by the Japanese – we think by aircraft. Tom Phillips is drowned.
Churchill: Are you sure it's true?
Pound: There is no doubt at all.
Churchill hangs up

"In all the war, I never received a more direct shock... As I turned over and twisted in bed the full horror of the news sank in upon me. There were no British or American ships in the Indian Ocean or the Pacific except the American survivors of Pearl Harbor, who were hastening back to California. Over all this vast expanse of waters Japan was supreme, and we everywhere were weak and naked"

>>3317837
>If they hadn't involved in WW2 they could have beaten China for example.

You can't not get involved in WW2 if you're going after China. USA was in the middle of making the next state, Chinesota, when the Japanese decided they wanted a piece of the Chinese cake as well since all the Europeans fucked off from there.

The American-funded government ended up getting fucked by the Commies in the end, though. So no Chinesota thus they settled for annexing Hawaii as a consolation prize.

>>3312284
>The sights on the Mosin Nagant go up to like, 1000m or something

if sight is a kilometre, you can shoot fascists furthest away than their inferior rifle

>>3314475
Pride cometh before the fall.
We havent had a peer comparable to our military in decades, so we spend our shit on useless stuff. Decadence to the highest degree.

>>3314475
Except the military of the US infighting is just a puff of smoke and for fun/games. When it comes down to it they work together to accomplish a goal.

Some of the best short range infiltration tactics of the war

>>3317850
>>3319874
I'm speculating a scenario where Japan engages in a 1vs1 with China without embargoes or international pressure.

>>3314892
looks like he strikes your nerves huh fucking mongrel subhuman eurocuck