There was a special on the History Channel. Basicly said that Japanese guns overall sucked compared to the US counterparts. I think I heard that during peak production, the US made more light machineguns in one month. Than the entire Japanese industry produced in the entire war. They never mass prodused an effective submachinegun either. I got to handle an early Japanese WW2 infantry rifle. To put it nicely it would have made a better club than a rifle, underpowered, fragile. My Mosin-Nagat is a cannon compared to this thing.

scholar wrote: "I never really understood the Japanese strategy. They really seemed content to settle into a defensive action." Bear in mind that the Japanese strategy was to initially take the offensive until they could secure a defensible line and then go on the strategic defensive. The allies were able to disrupt this plan at Guadalcanal, Coral Sea and Midway. The other piece of this is that the Japanese had reached the full extent of their strategic reach by mid 1942. They simply did not have the resources to continue the offensive, or return to the offensive after being checked in 1942. Their only hope was to stop us defensively.

One could almost consider all the fallacies and sufferings of Imp Jap troops in the later war years as "justifiable payback" for all the atrocities they committed in the PTO..

"One could almost consider all the fallacies and sufferings of Imp Jap troops in the later war years as "justifiable payback" for all the atrocities they committed in the PTO." I guess one could say that they earned some seriously bad karma in China. I'm not shedding tears for them any more than I do for German soldiers on the Eastern Front, however, the conditions in which those guys must have lived/fought sparks the imagination. I wonder...are there any Japanese movies or books that depict it? Any Japanese "Alls Quiet on the Western Front"? I was pleased with the depiction for Japanese soldiers in The Thin Red Line, a movie that I otherwise totally hated. A few images in particular conveyed at least a sense of misery and shock. I'd love to see a reverse "Saving Private Ryan." Say, Iwo Jima from a Japanese perspective. I kind of imagine a few soldiers being all "we must die for the emperor" gung-ho. A few just scared out of their wits. And one quiet guy thinking, "screw the Emperor, I want to get the hell out of here."

I'm not aware of any Japanese war movies in the line of "Saving Private Ryan". Film making in Japan really started post WWII and during US occupation and since then WWII is a very sensitive subject.. Not to mention a subject that greatly bothers Japans neighbors. The Japanese Prime Minister visiting a war shrine usually sparks protests from China, Korea and others. I did some checking.. you may want to look for "Ningen no Joken" (The Human Condition) by Kobayashi Masaki. I think it's sort of a Japanese "Schindlers List" done in the late 50's. Its a multi part story about a guy named Kaji who is sent to manchuria to supervise a mining camp during the war.

Thanks for the tip. That does sound very interesting, esp. since it deals with the very tough subject of the occupation of China. Nasty business.

If you read up on the specs of the japanese kit it was all bad. They had a pistol that blew up quite a lot, rifles that were drastically underpowered and tanks that werent too amazing either. I think the banzai bit with the sword was the only thing that reliably killed- no wonder they did it.

Actually they probably deserve credit for how far they made it early in the war in spite of their crap equipment. buzzard

The Japanese mistake was in dividing its forces by trying to occupy and hold territory instead of concentrating its forces for a decisive victory. They had huge segments of their resources dispersed across islands that were not critical to either their defense or the allies offense. The result was they were not strong enough at any single point in the Pacific to resist a major naval attack. The US had the option of bypassing Japanese installations leaving them to wither on the vine or consolidating overwhelming forces at a single isolated locale. The mobility of the US forces meant that the US could pick and choose the time and place of engagement. In the Pacific the Japanese were essentially on the defensive after their initial (first few months) victories.

Wagner wrote: "The result was they were not strong enough at any single point in the Pacific to resist a major naval attack." It seems obvious in retrospect, but it was not obvious then that an island hopping campaign would be successful. The Japanese defense did not take into account a revolutionary new strategy developed by the US. It's easy to blame the Japanese for poor decisions. This is similar to the French decisions with the Maginot line. The Germans flanked them, both literally and with new tactics and strategy. The US did the same thing to the Japanese. The Japanese strategy was good if you were fighting a linear war, but not if you were fighting a blitzkrieg.