Why did Japan perform so poorly in WW2?

[Spoonist]

Do you disagree with it, or did you just rather I complimented you on your post instead of making my own?

I woudn't really disagree with the stuff that I had already pointed out, now would I?
Then the other stuff, if I had disagreed wouldn't I be better served by responding to the posts above yours instead?

The island battles are not really indicative, since the Japanese forces were usually cut off from supply, heavily outnumbered, and having little or no heavy equipment or air support. The tendency of the units deployed there to fight to the last man also skews the casualty figures heavily. Typically a European force would not have fought until 99% out of soldiers are dead and less than 1% taken prisoner or captured wounded, as at Iwo Jima.
It also somewhat misses the point. The Japanese goal was to delay the US as long as possible with these battles, and they did indeed take a long time to clear out thanks to their prepared defensive positions.

Don't you agree that ALL OF THIS was covered in more detail and more accurately by other posters already in this topic?
Hence the "what do you think that you contribute to the topic" question.

[HMS Conqueror]

I contribute concision.

[Alkaloid]

The Japanese were pretty keenly aware that the Army was inferior by western standards so the desire to compensate for that by building ridiculously elaborate bastions and fortifications was hoped to make up for it.

Part of their problem was that while their high command may have had some idea of that, the Army itself didn't. Their experiences in China and Singapore lead them at a lower level to think they were actually pretty damn good soldiers with better equipment than their enemies, not that they fought third rate soldiers at best or that they took Singapore because Britain essentially abandoned it as soon as things got hairy, a problem compounded by the British habit of sideways promoting officers that proved incompetent to Singapore rather than stripping them of command. That's why 'elite' Japanese Army or marine forces that started encountering properly trained equipped and lead Allies forces had a habit of wildly overestimating their numbers and quality, which just compounded the rest of their problems.

The island battles are not really indicative, since the Japanese forces were usually cut off from supply, heavily outnumbered, and having little or no heavy equipment or air support.

The problem wasn't that they were cut off from heavy equipment or air support, it was that they had no heavy equipment or aircraft suitable for CAS to be cut off from.

[Spoonist]

I contribute concision.

Thank you.

[CaptHawkeye]

Part of their problem was that while their high command may have had some idea of that, the Army itself didn't. Their experiences in China and Singapore lead them at a lower level to think they were actually pretty damn good soldiers with better equipment than their enemies, not that they fought third rate soldiers at best or that they took Singapore because Britain essentially abandoned it as soon as things got hairy, a problem compounded by the British habit of sideways promoting officers that proved incompetent to Singapore rather than stripping them of command. That's why 'elite' Japanese Army or marine forces that started encountering properly trained equipped and lead Allies forces had a habit of wildly overestimating their numbers and quality, which just compounded the rest of their problems.

I strongly agree with this. The surprising successes the Japanese had in Malaya and the Philippines led them to believe at all levels that the disparity between them and the west wasn't as great as they initially believed. Even though the defense of both locations on the part of the Allies was completely half-assed. Pearl Harbor was great but anyone who thought it may had been a fluke (read: it was) was silenced by the utter annihilation of Force Z and the defeat-in-detail of ABDA naval forces later around Java and Borneo. Yet again all of these successes had less to do with Japanese Bushido and far more to do with mistakes both apparent and subtle on the part of the defenders. No one was going to convince Japan's leaders of this though, at least not until Saipan fell. At which point it was definitely too late to turn back.

[Sea Skimmer]

It also somewhat misses the point. The Japanese goal was to delay the US as long as possible with these battles, and they did indeed take a long time to clear out thanks to their prepared defensive positions.

Keep in mind the formal goal only became to delay in the inner defensive line in late 1944 which was never completed. In 1943 and early 1944 the goal was not to delay, it was expected to stop the Americans cold and no inner defensive line existed behind the Gilbert, eastern Marshall islands and Rabaul. The US cracked the line and Japanese plans were thrown into chaos allow a relatively easy advance all the way to the Marianas. If the Japanese had planned on a delaying strategy they might have done things considerably differently. As it was being defeated horribly, and in just a few days even at Betio island and Makin, which were the best defenses they ever put up in ratio of attacker losses to defender numbers kind of forced a change.

[Sidewinder]

As a Chinese-American, I'm constantly amazed by how incompetent the Japanese military leadership was. Japan claimed the US embargoes forced them to attack it and the European colonies in SE Asia, to gain the resources they needed. Why did the US embargo Japan? Because Japan invaded China, which the US had interests in.

So why not negotiate a deal, in which Japan would agree to a cease-fire with the Chinese government- something they could easily get, as Chiang Kai-shek was an obsessive but incompetent boob who wanted to ignore the Japanese so he could continue persecuting the Chinese Communists- and the US would lift the embargo in response? They already controlled Manchuria/Manchukuo, so why the obsession with conquering the rest of China? And when Japan itself is being threatened by invasion, why leave all those soldiers to continue persecuting the war in China- a war they thought they'd win in THREE MONTHS- instead of withdrawing them to reinforce the Home Islands' defenses?

[Simon_Jester]

I strongly agree with this. The surprising successes the Japanese had in Malaya and the Philippines led them to believe at all levels that the disparity between them and the west wasn't as great as they initially believed. Even though the defense of both locations on the part of the Allies was completely half-assed. Pearl Harbor was great but anyone who thought it may had been a fluke (read: it was) was silenced by the utter annihilation of Force Z and the defeat-in-detail of ABDA naval forces later around Java and Borneo. Yet again all of these successes had less to do with Japanese Bushido and far more to do with mistakes both apparent and subtle on the part of the defenders. No one was going to convince Japan's leaders of this though, at least not until Saipan fell. At which point it was definitely too late to turn back.

The Japanese navy was closer in quality to other navies than their army was to other armies.

The main weaknesses of the IJN in the early years were the lack of radar, the lack of a staff good enough to inoculate against victory disease (see Midway), and the sheer size difference between them and the US Pacific fleet. The last of those wasn't their fault, and despite the first two I would say that they were a pretty damn good navy. Their defeat, and their extreme late-war weakness and impotence, were the result of factors beyond their control.

Whereas the IJA wasn't just weak in terms of size or lack of equipment, they were weak doctrinally, and logistically because of the way they treated their soldiers. To some extent, I think this reflects bad conscious choices on the army's part, so I'd say the army was a lot more subpar. And that they were a lot more vulnerable to thinking "we won because we are superior" instead of "we won because we were fighting the enemy's junior varsity on their worst day."

[PainRack]

The Japanese were pretty keenly aware that the Army was inferior by western standards so the desire to compensate for that by building ridiculously elaborate bastions and fortifications was hoped to make up for it.

Part of their problem was that while their high command may have had some idea of that, the Army itself didn't. Their experiences in China and Singapore lead them at a lower level to think they were actually pretty damn good soldiers with better equipment than their enemies, not that they fought third rate soldiers at best or that they took Singapore because Britain essentially abandoned it as soon as things got hairy, a problem compounded by the British habit of sideways promoting officers that proved incompetent to Singapore rather than stripping them of command. That's why 'elite' Japanese Army or marine forces that started encountering properly trained equipped and lead Allies forces had a habit of wildly overestimating their numbers and quality, which just compounded the rest of their problems.

God,not this shit again. Justify your comments.

Perciveal didnt have the relevant staff training sure,but his lower level organisation skill against the IRA and pre war is recognised.

I swear that everytime I see this pop up,I see a revisionist intent on brushing away British strategic weakness in the East and ignoring the Japs tactical performance. I'm too biased by previous experience,so please excuse my discourtesy if I wish you to elaborate,even though the burden of proof is on me.

[Sea Skimmer]

So why not negotiate a deal, in which Japan would agree to a cease-fire with the Chinese government- something they could easily get, as Chiang Kai-shek was an obsessive but incompetent boob who wanted to ignore the Japanese so he could continue persecuting the Chinese Communists- and the US would lift the embargo in response? They already controlled Manchuria/Manchukuo, so why the obsession with conquering the rest of China?

Well, after the 1937 fight at Shanghai, totally defeating the Chinese became a matter of saving face and honor, since the Nationalists almost threw them into the sea. Once the win in three months plan failed, well HONOR IS EVEN MORE OFFENDED.... As for the deeper historical reasons, it seems like a pretty straightforward case of China being the only power around militarily weaker then Japan, and big enough to be worth conquering. Japan had wanted an empire ever since the Meiji Restoration, they actually sent ships all over the Pacific looking for unclaimed islands in vain, and by the 1930s the military rulers had the means and an overheating economy to content with. They tried to slowly take apart China, the Chinese wouldn't allow this and stuff snowballed. The hundreds of thousands of dead didn't help make things more acceptable. Japan was so heavily mobilized I think it was clear to the war lords by 1940 that it was now, or never. If they gave into US demands they'd need to demobilize to keep the economy running. Why want an Empire? Well, everyone used to want Empires and Japan hadn't grown out of it or realized how expensive they would be even when they didn't require massive wars. Being a resource poor island group didnt help things.

The US demanded a withdraw from everything but Manchukuo, I can't see the Japanese ever accepting this. However they could have tried to build themselves out of the oil embargo by using Chinese labor to build coal-oil conversion plants and mine more coal. This was proposed, and suggested to be far cheaper than a war. It was rejected because it would have taken years, and in the interim Japan might have been vulnerable. They did after all have to constantly worry about Stalin.

And when Japan itself is being threatened by invasion, why leave all those soldiers to continue persecuting the war in China- a war they thought they'd win in THREE MONTHS- instead of withdrawing them to reinforce the Home Islands' defenses?

Japan did steadily drain men and material out of China after the end of 1942, by 1945 they were pulling back completely in many sectors and moving a lot of troops to defend the coastal regions. Prior to 1944 though, Japan was still fighting the war on delusional terms, it was only after the fall of Saipan and the first downfall of Tojo that they began to act like the situation was as bad as it was. By then, Japan had also lost much of her merchant marine and redeploying really large forces from China could not be done easily. Some Japanese resources did come from southern and central China as well, mainly rice, and the Japanese forces in China would litterally go on short term offensives just to steal rice harvests and so support themselves.

Also the US was by 1944 using China as a base to bomb Japan with early B-29 raids, and US fighters and tactical bombers were at times heavily attacking Japanese coastal shipping, both of which were direct strategic threats. So loss of face aside, real reasons existed to hold onto China. The US made strategic deception efforts several times to suggest that Hong Kong (during the Philippines Operations) and later Shanghai (for Okinawa, intended to be done again prior to invasion of Kyushu) would be US targets.

[Zinegata]

The Japanese navy was closer in quality to other navies than their army was to other armies.

The main weaknesses of the IJN in the early years were the lack of radar, the lack of a staff good enough to inoculate against victory disease (see Midway), and the sheer size difference between them and the US Pacific fleet. The last of those wasn't their fault, and despite the first two I would say that they were a pretty damn good navy. Their defeat, and their extreme late-war weakness and impotence, were the result of factors beyond their control.

Doctrinally, the Japanese Navy wasn't exactly a shining example of new military thought either. People often talk about Pearl Harbor as being the event which heralded the end of the battleship, but this ignores the previous raid conducted by the British Navy at Taranto, or of the numerous pre-war exercises conducted by the US Navy which showed the general helpleness of battleships against aircraft (but whose results were overturned by the then battleship-obssessed USN).

Moreover, it's notable that the Japanese never quite shook off its battleship mania. The Midway battle plan actually involved using the battleships to deliver the killing blow, as opposed to the carriers. Only after Midway did the Japanese finally admit the preeminence of the carrier, but by then it was too late to stop the completion of the Yamato and Musashi.

In fact, the IJN's doctrine would consistently lag behind the times. Their submarines for instance were still largely forced to act as part of a battlefleet, as opposed to an independent commerce-raiding arm like the U-boats or the USN Submarine fleet. Heck, the only area where the Japanese were doctrinally equal (or even superior) to the Allies was with their destroyer/cruiser surface warfare practices... but this was also partly because of very poor USN surface warfare practices. Once the USN corrected their doctrine - which came around the same time as the widespread introduction of radar - the IJN destroyers and cruisers were screwed.

[Sea Skimmer]

Also even after Midway, the Japanese still tried to seek surface actions and heavily divided the forces they had such as at Santa Cruz rather than concentrating on screening carriers. This didn't change until the Philippines Sea. Its really just crazy how much the Japanese broke up naval forces, Midway is an infamous example, but when you look at say, the invasion of Java, its in some ways even more crazy. Most of the entire IJN was at sea, and somehow the battle comes down to a few allied cruisers and destroyers actually engaging a Japanese cruiser-destoryer force which is not highly superior, and thus places an entire reinforced division in its transports at risk in the eastern invasion force. Then later Houston and Perth actually did attack the western invasion force transports at anchor before being sunk. This is all leftovers from the decisive battle planning, which called for numerous independent groups to somehow make a massive simultaneous night attack guided by Bushido and magic.

Japanese submarines were pretty awful, technologically and operationally. Very foolish of Japan considering what an equalizer good submarines could be; just as they near totally ignored naval and land mine warfare. Some people have suggested, and I tend to agree with that we can partly explain the utter failure of Japanese submarines even when they were given anti commerce roles, such as off the US and Indian coastlines in 1942, because they were so cramped and uncomfortable the crews were just exhausted.

[PainRack]

Wasn't Sherman tanks used successfully by the USMC in the anti bunker role in 1944?Anyone has more details on this? There's a pop history book out regarding this topic.

[Zinegata]

Wasn't Sherman tanks used successfully by the USMC in the anti bunker role in 1944?Anyone has more details on this? There's a pop history book out regarding this topic.

The Japanese had very few weapons that could take out a Sherman, with a lot of their anti-tank guns still being in the 47mm or even 37mm range. So even without the specialist flamethrower variant or the 105mm assault gun variant the Sherman was still a monster against the Japanese.

[Mr Bean]

Correct the Japanese anti-tank methods were worse than anyone except the Polish (And that only because the Polish got knocked out before anti-tank rifles became competently useless).

Japanese anti-tank options included
The Type 2 Grenade launcher (Arisakia mounted rifle grenades with 40mm HEAT grenades)-Mostly ineffective
The Type 97 Anti-tank Rifle (20mm crew serviced rifle that weighed three times as much in exchange for automatic fire which was impossible to use due to massive recoil, no better in penetration German PzB 38 due to lack of tungstun for rounds)
The Banzi method inculding digging a hole with a pile of explosives for one Kamikaze to set off when tanks got near, to backpack charges which were just several demo charges lashed together in a handy suicide backpack.
They also had 37mm, 45mm and 75mm AT guns of which only the 45mm was both mobile, easy to hide and could penetrate a Sherman.... to the sides at least
And lastly mines, lots and lots of anti-tank mines both emplaced and as infantry AT weaponry when slung on the back or sides of a tank and set off by a secondary or timed charge.

[Sea Skimmer]

Lots of those Japanese mines were made in the field out of artillery shells and had limited reliability. The best anti tank gun they had was the Type 90 76.2mm field gun, which was also the best field gun they had, major limitation of employing it as an anti tank gun. Combat ranges tended to be low though, so while the 37mm gun never worked well, the 47mm certainly did at 500 yards. A lot of US armor use in the Pacific was with the Stuart though, including all main armament flamethrowers prior to 1945 when the first Sherman flamethrowers appeared at Iwo Jima, and not much can fail to destroy a Stuart.

http://cgsc.cdmhost.com/utils/getfile/c ... e/2906.pdf
If anyone wants to take a look, a nice wartime report on Japanese anti tank warfare can be found here; though being wartime material technical details cannot be expected to be 100% accurate, though most are since its based on capture. Also covers the mighty Japanese tank hoards.

[Mr Bean]

The Type 90 was 75mm according to my sources as well as rarely encountered as a dug in AT gun except on Okinawa, in Iwo it was mostly used as artillery as it was like the Soviet 76.2mm gun in being dual purpose Artillery/Anti-tank. There was also the Type 88 AA/AT gun which was encountered much more often but again rarely used as an AT gun.

[Sea Skimmer]

Doesn't really change the fact that it was the best thing they had around; under 1,000 were produced so it was not to be expected as common. I'd be surprised if over twenty were ever used in one battle. Commie ZiS-3 meanwhile had an actual one hundred times greater production. Pretty excellent demonstration of how poor Japan was really, considering it was a prewar design based on a 1927 French design and they still couldn't produce really serious numbers of them.

[CaptHawkeye]

Doctrinally, the Japanese Navy wasn't exactly a shining example of new military thought either. People often talk about Pearl Harbor as being the event which heralded the end of the battleship, but this ignores the previous raid conducted by the British Navy at Taranto, or of the numerous pre-war exercises conducted by the US Navy which showed the general helpleness of battleships against aircraft (but whose results were overturned by the then battleship-obssessed USN).

Well, it should be pointed out that both at Taranto and Pearl Harbor, the ships being attacked had no air coverage, were immobile, and lacked normal damage control procedures. The crew of Oklahoma actually started abandoning the ship almost as soon as the attack began. Force Z was a better example of the problems posed to battleships by airplanes, but Prince of Wales's underwater protection scheme was sort of suspect and the British probably had one of the worst DP guns of the war. Repulse wasn't helped by the fact that it lacked torpedo blisters either.

I think the trials conducted by Billy Mitchell were very misleading. He came to the right conclusion but for all the wrong reasons honestly. It's true that the Navy guys did try to sabotage the bombing test for Ostfriesland against him but at the same time, a number of factors that contributed to the success of the test would be very different in a real situation. None of the tests considered real factors like damage control teams, moving and evading targets, and anti-aircraft fire. At the same time aerial torpedoes were forbidden to be tested, but that probably had more to do with the fact that the threat of torpedoes against modern ships was already well studied. The Navy did not want to waste valuable target ships on things they already knew.

In fact the tests actually encouraged battleship designers in many countries to factor in the danger posed by aircraft which led to widescale adoption of organized and purpose-designed AA batteries on ships before World War 2. For a short period in the 1920s and 1930s I think the battleship guys were sort of vindicated on paper. Most military airplanes were still wooden biplanes and couldn't carry munitions heavy enough to sink a battleship. It wasn't until the late 30s that faster, all-metal designs carrying much heavier bombs and torpedoes really started to turn the tables.

[Thanas]

I would tend to agree with that - as Bismarck and the channel dash showed, using early 30s designs against battleships who are moving fast would not have much of an effect save for freak hits (Bismarck) and little effect when there were covering ships (channel dash).

[Blayne]

Part of the problem with the IJA is inherent to the process of its creation (or rather it's expansion?); its military size wasn't all that large in the pre war years but once the military interventions abroad started happening the military was rapidly expanded to deal with new security concerns. To handle this is where the bushido nonsense and the cruel disproportional discipline entered into currency and that's part of the reason why the IJA became what it was.

Unfortunately my copy of R&FOTGP by Kennedy is at my friend's place so I can't source it.

[Mr Bean]

To throw in a comment here.
There is only two where Japan shinned, in every other grouping they turned in some of the worst performance of any of the Military's of the second world war.
The first only lasted the first three years and that was in fighter and bomber training. The Air-force the Japanese went to war with was top notch. They worked well together, objectives were prioritized over personal glory and practice and training budgets were lavish. Merit was the one and only method of advancement and many pilots had pulled support mission in China so they were veterans even if the enemy could not do much shooting back.

They then took this well run, well trained airforce onto carriers and simply used them up. Throwing your best into every battle with simple attrition means sooner or later your twenty ace pilots are down to ten and when you rotate some home to train the next generation you lose even more. Add onto this the fact that the planes flown while agile and well armed were also fragile. So something a P-40 or Corsair pilot might survive a Zero pilot could not because his plane was unarmed and caught fire easily. Later on this was rectified to some extent but Japanese planes were always more vulnerable than counterparts.

The second was in small bore artillery usage, the number of first hand stories and accounts of read on how effect the Type 92 70mm gun was used in the various island campaigns and in China. The Type 92 is a little off as it's a very light gun for it's size because it's designed like a paratrooper gun to be easily manhandled around yet still keep a decent shell size. There are accounts out there of a pair of Type 92's staying in action by the same gun crews for up to three days. Of shutting down entire battalions worth of advancement by firing so often and so many locations as one gun was reported as eight. On Guadalcanal twice hour long barrages were called in from offshore ships to silence a single Type 92 and failing because ten minutes into the barrage the Japanese crew had withdrawn the gun into a crater from a shell barrage from earlier to wait out the artillery then were back in position less than a minute after the fire stopped.

[Blayne]

Wasn't I think the problem with the air crews was that they didn't rotate veteran pilots back to train the next batch so the quality of the air crews went down? Along with not having proper plans to expand the training of air crews to keep up with the attrition, you had out of 3000 pilot cadets only 20 or so graduate back in the 1930's which lent itself to excellent air crews but not good in terms of quantity?

[Mr Bean]

Wasn't I think the problem with the air crews was that they didn't rotate veteran pilots back to train the next batch so the quality of the air crews went down? Along with not having proper plans to expand the training of air crews to keep up with the attrition, you had out of 3000 pilot cadets only 20 or so graduate back in the 1930's which lent itself to excellent air crews but not good in terms of quantity?

Getting into the fighter wings was hard. Worse pilots could still serve in recon and bomber wings. As for not rotating them home remember the Pacific lended itself to giant carrier slug fests with hundreds of miles between fights. You could fight for your life for four days and then not see combat again for another six weeks only to fight for your life again in massive carrier on carrier brawls. Coral Sea for example occurred over two hundred square miles of ocean. Meaning you might spend your entire tour at sea fighting every few weeks, rotate home for six months and come back just to get into the next set of giant landmark Naval battles.

[Sidewinder]

Wasn't I think the problem with the air crews was that they didn't rotate veteran pilots back to train the next batch so the quality of the air crews went down?

To rotate veteran pilots, your nation needs a large population- not to mention training facilities and other logistical resources- to provide replacements for those you pull from the frontline. This lack of resources was a reason the Luftwaffe failed to do so during WW2 (source: How to Lose WWII).