Why could the Japs in WWII not into tanks? How did they conquer

Because how useful are tanks in an island hopping campaign and against foes with no tanks

>>32785168
Nigga the place was beach, swamp, and ocean. Tanks are memes there.
Instead, they used a superior airforce, a superior Navy, and a proper, meth high, religius, and fanatic Army

This shit thread is now going to die. Im fine about that

The Japanese bought into the light tank doctrine at the start of the war, so they never had the time/resources to fix it later

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>>32785168
They (rightly) devoted most of their very limited resources to air and sea power.

They had some stuff that was almost on par with western equivalents but it was kept for reserve for the defense of the mainland that never happened.

standard m1 ball out of a garand causes spalling with the thickness of armor used in most jap tanks, and .30 M2 AP can penetrate from every side

File: Type 3 Chi-Nu.jpg (219KB, 2048x1496px) Image search: [Google]

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>>32785168

They could build good tanks when they needed to.

They build tanks equal to the Shermans by the end of the war, but they were saving them for the American invasion of the home islands, which never came thanks to the atomic bombs.

>Why could they not into tanks?
They did, they just did them good enough.

>how did they conquer much of pacific with poor tanks?
Because the islands are shit for tanks and the people they were conquering didn't have tanks, and they also didn't have the means to deal with the tanks the japs had in the very few instances they got to deploy them.

Too much emphasis is placed on tank vs tank combat. Tanks were primarily for infantry support at the time, and the tanks the japs had were good enough for that job so they rightfully left them where they were at and put the rest of their resources into the navy and air force

>>32785179
Tanks are extremely useful in an island hopping campaign.

>>32785168

They didn't need them until M4s starting rolling in.

By that time, the war was pretty much over.

>>32785540
M80 that tank looks like absolute dog shit. Are you being serious?

>>32785533

They trained to use rifle grenades as anti-tank weapons too.

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>>32785530
>almost on par with western equivalents

>>32785807
They were heat grenades though. It's not like they were pure fragmentation grenades

>>32785168

>How did they conquer much of the [large ocean] with poor [vehicles that operate on large expanses of land]?

>>32785860
Yes I forgot that the Japs drove the Yamato straight into the Philippines, Cadet.

>>32785860
They used their tanks extensively in their Philippines and Malaya campaigns.

>>32785168
their tanks were unstoppable against 3rd world China, so the Japs didn't think they'd ever need to make better ones.

Also they thought that tanks were just a meme and that western powers fell to Germany because they were weak and not because of Germany's usage of tanks

>>32785901
no, that was okinawa

>>32785168
>japan
>korea
>phillipines
>hong kong
>singapore
>siam
>malaya
>new guinea
>east indies

Literally none of these places are conducive to armored warfare. The only place where they actually mattered was Manchuria, which they rolled over, and China, which they rolled over.

>>32785540
>chi nu
>equivalent to the sherman
the gun is bretty gud but thats about the only thing it has going for it
desu if its fighting shermans they prolly should have used a smaller one so they can take a lighter, non-refrigerator turret

>>32785540
>They build tanks equal to the Shermans by the end of the war

Shermans didn't even show up in the pacific till 44 anyway.

>>32786505
Shermans were first were first used in the Pacific at Tarawa in 1943.

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>>32785540
>They build tanks equal to the Shermans by the end of the war

And by the end of the war, the Americans were building tanks better than the Sherman. The Chi-Nu MIGHT have been able to handle the 75mm Shermans, but it had no chance against 76mm Shermans and M26 Pershings

>>32785168
Chinks had none so all they needed were armored cars and small tankettes

>>32787029
>covered pan muffler style exhaust
>M26
that's a M46 patton desu

>>32787029
I would not call the M26 better. It suffered from the same issues as the German 'cats': looks great on paper and works on the testing grounds, not so well during combat.
M26 had a weak engine and the the transmission had problems.
During the Korean War they broke down and then were replaced with M4s, which did the job just fine.

>>32785179
>Because how useful are tanks in an island hopping campaign

Extremely useful.

>and against foes with no tanks

Even more useful. There's nothing to stop you.

The Japanese had great tanks…for Asia.

You have to remember that the only country with decent tanks in Asia at the time was Russia. After Khalkin Gol, the Japs basically gave up trying to bully Russia again, and so they had little need for comparable vehicles.

>>32785807
yeah
m2 ball penetrates ~14-15mm RHA at 50 yards from personal experience
jap light tanks had ~13mm plate on the sides and back

>>32785168
Japanese tanks were excellent for their purpose: getting to where the enemy wasn't expecting tanks. They were light and could cross improvised log bridges, meaning they could get almost anywhere.

Japanese tanks are one of the main reason they were able to defeat a British force twice their size in the battle of Singapore.

>>32785438
They never really needed heavier tanks, as they were mostly fighting the Chinese, who had little to no armor.
Yes the majority of the Japanese army was in mainland China, even throughout the entire US island hopping campaign. The US were mostly up against locals and second rate troops.

>>32785168
>island hopping campaign
The japs never island hopped though. They conquered islands, but they never "hopped" by bypassing strongpoints.

>>32786386
There is one place where the Japanese could have done with some decent armor: Nomonhan / Khalkhin Gol. The soviets handed the Japs their asses.

>>32789856
How reliable were the little buggers?

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I'd argue Japan had some of the best tanks of the 1930's and they weren't really surpassed until '39

>>32789899

Only as reliable as the Japanese heavy industry could supply, which was not very well by the end of the war.

Not that the designs themselves are bad, it's just there's not much you can do when the specific sparkplugs you need come from a factory that just got buttfucked by B-29s

>>32785828
why would you use him as a reaction image?

>>32785168
>How did they conquer to much of the Pacific with poor tanks?

Search engines, do you use them?

They didn't need tanks because of anime.

>>32789856
>The US were mostly up against locals and second rate troops.
US were mostly up against first rate troops.

>>32785540
>They build tanks equal to the Shermans by the end of the war

Hardly. The Type 3's gun may have been comparable to the M3 75mm, but in terms of armor and mobility, the Sherman beats it handily. Even the earliest Shermans had glacis plates with a line of sight thickness of 93mm, versus a mostly unsloped maximum of 50mm for the Chi Nu, and the Continental R975 C1, the weakest engine ever put into a Sherman, had a 160 gross horsepower advantage over the Mitsubishi V12. And the Marines were mostly using twin diesel M4A2s, which were slightly more powerful and more reliable than the radial engines.

File: 7_TP_tank.png (110KB, 448x276px) Image search: [Google]

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>>32792293
I would argue that the Polish and the Germans would be the top contenders for that distinction, though the 7TP and the Panzer III did arrive a bit late I suppose. Japanese tanks were pretty good for the time period though, considering their intended purpose.

>>32793247

The islands were defending by second-rate troops not up to snuff to tough it in China

>>32795093
No, the only troops left in China at that point were occupation troops because they largely halted all offensives there to focus on the Pacific.

>>32795093
No, the best divisions were pulled from China to defend against western troops.

>not up to snuff to tough it in China
I hope you were kidding.

>>32785168
>How did they conquer to much of the Pacific with poor tanks?
japan won against russia

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>>32792293
>>32793520
I would say that the SOMUA S-35 was the best tank in the world until 1939

>Good armor
>Good gun
>Decent mobility
But it was a pain to repair and maintain and it had only one overworked crewman in the turret

Because the American embargoes destroyed their oil access and shipping that shit in from China was a logistic nightmare.

>>32789856
The western perspective has a tendency to completely ignore the Sino-Japanese side of the war. The Kwatung army was the largest, most prestigious, most influential, and most successful part of the entire Japanese military. They were such an enormous success that they pretty routinely just ignored orders from the mainland with no retribution of any kind. Hell, they decided to invade Manchuria and create an entirely new fucking country by themselves.