I don't really understand the japanese strategy in WW2. I know the army and the navy didn't cooperate much...

You're retarded if you don't think oil played a central role in Japanese (and German) military planning and decision-making during the war.

A lot of Japanese leaders were so blinded by ideology and fanaticism that they believed their own bullshit and thought the gaijin were weak, materialistic cowards that stood no chance against superior Japanese fighting spirit.

It probably explains a lot, but the Japanese thought the war in China would last a couple of months. At some point, they should have understood they ouldn't completly subdue the entire country and withdraw. From what I understood, Japan thought the USSR was a bigger threat to their colonial empire.

>but the way they handled the war it seems they had no idea of what they were doing.

That is how many lower japanese officers felt too.

Really, the Japanese high command were not the brightest of people. Japan won some battles because they prepared themselves for those exact battles. But once the actual war started and they had to improvise, they just couldn't. Strategy just wasn't their forté and they were playing catch up on all fronts.

Most of the IJA leadership during the 1930s certainly thought the Russians were the bigger threat and thought a "Strike North" policy was more sound. The IJN thought a "Strike South" policy was more sound and obviously they had an interest in using their naval power against the Europeans and America. Especially after losing decisively to the Soviets at Nomonhan in Manchuria though, Japanese strategies increasingly focused on conquering the Pacific and SEA.

>That is how many lower japanese officers felt too.
Any books on this? I would be really interested to learn how the lower rung of the Japanese military felt about their WW2 exploits

it played a part but im not the retard that made paper then pixels into a monetary policy enforced by assured nuclear armegeddon and carpet bombings. like the bullshit dont even have plastic billed notes what a joke

>chaoticness=anarchism=greater gains
*blocks your path*

so that old fossil taught you the muchitsujo no jutsu chaos technique huh, let's put it to the test

"Japanese Destroyer Captain" by Tameichi Hara

It's his memoires. He's not a suicidal fanatic like many paint the japanese officers and scorns the high command for what he views as ineptitude. He also explains why he thinks they were wrong in detail.

arent you dead yet?

NOICE quality Veeky Forums tip user thx

Their goal was to become the great military power of Asia. To do that, they had to conquer China, so they nipped away at it for years, trying to digest the place. Then they ran into the seriously problem of supplies, made worse by the embargo by the West because of their militarism. So the navy (who were a separate, rival entity to the army) suggested a lightning blow to America. The plan was:

>Destroy the American fleet at Pearl Harbour
>Capture the Phillipines
>Cripple the other Western powers in the region
>Americans are pacifists who'll sue for peace in an instant

The first three went like a charm, however, America didn't surrender. Despite doing pretty much everything the plan called for, they had horrifically misjudged the American character, thinking their isolationism was a veil for cowardice. The Americans proceeded to turn on the factories and pulverised Japan to a crisp.

The Japanese plan was suicide from day one, based entirely on their quest to become one of the big boys of the world. They needed China to become a superpower, needed resources to keep China, defeat the West in the Pacific to get the resources, and defeat the West at home to get the Pacific. It was literally that hopeless, all chosen because of a retarded gamble on American's not sperging out once Pearl Harbour happened.

Resources was the ultimate goal, just the same as Germany's need to expansion into the oil field of Romania and the Caucasus and the farmlands of france.

In Japan's situation, they were under embargo by all the west for their campaigning in China, which was draining their resources fast to keep the campaign going.

so the Army and Navy had conflicting plans to relieve the resource drought. The Army devised Hokushin-ron, or the northern expansion doctrine, where Japan would push into the oil and iron rich Siberia within the Soviet Union, but with so many millions of soldiers tied down in China, Japan couldn't muster much for the invasion, and fought the Soviets at the battle of Khalkhin Gol, where Japan was soundly defeated and the doctrine was given up.

The Navy devised Nanshin-ron, or the Southern expansion doctrine, where they would seize the European colonies in Indochina, Burma, and the East Indies to get their oil, iron, and rubber.

But the Japanese knew that seizing these territories definitely meant war with the US, who was sitting in the Philippines. So Japan gambled on one quick knock-out blow against the US to remove their Pacific fleets from the playing field as long as possible, or best case scenario, intimidate the US to back down entirely. So Pear Harbor was carried out, which certainly hurt the US fleets, but didn't outright remove them from the playing field.

Japan went forward seizing the colonies, but the US was back in fighting shape within 7 months, where the Japanese high command was hoping they would be out of the picture for at least a full year.

>Hara was the only IJN destroyer captain at the start of World War II to survive the entire war and his memoirs serve as an important source for historians

Shit, they really did fight to the last man. Of course his account might not be typical because the guys that bought the propaganda all got killed kamikaze style

>made worse by the embargo by the West because of their militarism.

Wrong. It was not because of their militarism. It was because they signed an ally pact to join the Axis with Germany and Italy.

All three of you are wrong. If it was about China, or joining the Germans, or just general militarism, the freezing of assets and oil embargo would have come a hell of a lot earlier than August of 1941.

The actual cause for the trade restrictions was the invasion of Indo-China, at the time a French colony, but what with France being overrun by Germany at the time, not really one they could effectively control, so when Japan went in to "restore order" to the region, the French couldn't really do much about it.

It's one thing when Asians are fighting other Asians. But when they started shoehorning in on a European power, one that had been on good terms with the U.S. for a very long time, well, that's different now.

It's true though.
Japan had little natural resources at home, and was trying to secure a supply from other Asian countries. This caused us to start embargoing the oil we were selling to them at the time.

It seemed to be a leap of faith by leaders more interested in appearances and short term political success. This is typical of authoritarian regimes, however it was especially true in Japan who had gained Korea, Manchuria and parts of China and believed further war would simply be an extension of this and necessary to protect the gains they had made so far.

Another factor might be Japan's wealth. Japan had greater wealth and more leg room for their prejudices and irrationality, pouring massive amounts of resources into giant battleships that barely had any strategic significance for example.

Also Japan had been largely democratic at one point and could easily return to it unless the military elite either gained victories or dragged Japan into a war where they apparently depended on the military for survival.

No, Asian fucking up Asians mattered to the US.

You do realize Chinkdom is one of the biggest markets for US at the time right?

You do realize the invasion of Indochina was an effort not just to fuck up France but halt all trade to China?

Happy VJ Day.

their objection was unified east asia under japanese hegemony, that means getting rid of western colonialism

>No, Asian fucking up Asians mattered to the US.

I'm not saying it didn't, but it wasn't the cause for the embargo.

>You do realize Chinkdom is one of the biggest markets for US at the time right?

Actually it wasn't, Britain was first, France was second, and Japan itself was third. It however, was still a pretty big market, and the lobby of a collection of Christian organizations (mostly concerned with missionary work) were very powerful.

>You do realize the invasion of Indochina was an effort not just to fuck up France but halt all trade to China?

You realize that's completely wrong? Trade with China had already been almost entirely halted given that the Japanese controlled the entire coastline and the route up from Hanoi with their forces already in China, which is the direction they moved to take the capital from. The only stuff that was getting in was over the road through Burma up to Kunming, but Indo-China had nothing to do with that.

>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Events_leading_to_the_attack_on_Pearl_Harbor
> In 1940 Japan invaded French Indochina in an effort to embargo all imports into China, including war supplies purchased from the U.S. This move prompted the United States to embargo all oil exports...

Trade (and most importantly, american weapons) were still entering China from Indochina and British Burma.

When Indochina fell, the fact that British Burma was most likely next would spell disaster to China. Hence the bloody static war the Brits/Chinks and Nips fought there.

The only problem is they wanted to be just as bad as white colonialists, except Asian. Maybe even worse, because being Asian gave them entitlement to Asian colonies, so they thought they should be able to get away with even more.

this. I feel like we tend to villify japan for doing to asia what our allies(france and the uk) had been doing to africa and south asia for some time

Reminder that the Japanese were weeks away from releasing the bubonic plague in California before the war ended. How fucked would we have been?

>splitting up your forces so you can capture Papua New Guinea instead of rolling hard on the Americans at Midway

Terrible strategy. If not for the ineptness of kraut and nip commanders, the Allies may have actually had to fight hard.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomoyuki_Yamashita

Let's settle it once and for all, was he the sanest and most capable Japanese General?

>swarms through Malaysia unstopped
>captures Singapore will as little casualties as possible by giving generous surrender terms to Percival
>exiled to Manchuria because he refused to treat his captives as subhumans

vaccines for bubonic plague have been around since 1897, so after a few hundred deaths, treatment would be pretty commonplace after the government figures out what's going on.

>Maybe even worse, because being Asian gave them entitlement to Asian colonies, so they thought they should be able to get away with even more.

This is probably the truest statement I've ever read regarding Japanese imperialism.

Not a general, but Yamamoto is rightfully regarded as a brilliant admiral. A very tragic figure.

And getting your purdy yellow asses kicked in one mass national suicide.

Ah my bad!

And insanely tragic too in that he believed in what he was fighting for moreso than even other admirals did. There's an anecdote about him being scolded for addressing his captives as "citizens of the Japanese empire" which would have me believe that he never doubted his righteousness of fighting for a western-freed Asia.

what is the significance of A B C D in this picture

its more complicated than that, there's definitely the imperial japan expanding their empire, but beside that there's a whole pan asianism movement that basically said "asia for asians" even kingdoms like thailand, burma as well as many nationalist movement throughout colonial south east asia at first support japanese invasion

He seems like a top bloke:

>On 23 February 1946, at Los Baños, Laguna Prison Camp, 30 miles (48 km) south of Manila, Yamashita was hanged. After climbing the thirteen steps leading to the gallows, he was asked if he had a final statement. To this Yamashita replied through a translator:[citation needed]

>As I said in the Manila Supreme Court that I have done with my all capacity, so I don't ashame in front of the gods for what I have done when I have died. But if you say to me 'you do not have any ability to command the Japanese Army' I should say nothing for it, because it is my own nature. Now, our war criminal trial going under your kindness and right. I know that all your American and American military affairs always has tolerant and rightful judgment. When I have been investigated in Manila court I have had a good treatment, kindful attitude from your good natured officers who protected me all the time. I never forget for what they have done for me even if I had died. I don't blame my executioner. I'll pray the gods bless them. Please send my thankful word to Col. Clarke and Lt. Col. Feldhaus, Lt. Col. Hendrix, Maj. Guy, Capt. Sandburg, Capt. Reel, at Manila court, and Col. Arnard. I thank you.

this, many japanese generals supported my country independence movement, some of them even ended up becoming citizen and later fight the dutch KNIL forces

t. indonesian

>Ah my bad!

Sorry, my wording was wrong. Yamashita was definitely a general, I respect both him and Yamamoto.

And yeah, Yamamoto was based. Devoted to his nation and had a high degree of sophistication and charm. This might sound racist because ARR ROOK SAME, but Yamamoto and Zhou Enlai are very similar in some aspects.

>I don't really understand the japanese strategy in WW2
Neither did they. You have to understand that Japan practically blundered their way into war by backing themselves into an imaginary corner. Their whole cult of bushido they had going really fucked up their local commands, and well before war had even started the idea of "better to ask for forgiveness than permission" had permeated the Army.

Things like the invasions of Manchuria, the thousand or so border incidents with the Soviets, and the invasion of China were the result not of any directive from high command but some local commanders taking the initiative and then banking on high command being pressured into supporting them.

Just off the top of my head, in the years leading up to WW2, local IJA units had, without any official sanction:
>assassinated the leader of Manchuria
>invaded and occupied Manchuria
>participated in and escalated countless border incidents with China and the Soviets
>Started the Second Sino-Japanese War
>fought two major pitched battles against the Soviets, culminating in the near annihilation of the Kwantung Army

So Japan wasn't exactly planning these things so much as reluctantly going wherever ambitious officers dragged them. And because of the complicity of the Japanese media and the whole bushido meme, the Japanese government was effectively forced to go along, because the alternative was backing down.

They did manage to get the army under a bit more control after Khalkhin Gol, but even then you had the Army taking the initiative well before the government back home was ready. Though they dropped plans to fuck with Russia pretty fast, they just turned around and pushed further into China and occupied French Indochina. The West understandably responded with all their embargoes, and Japan's feeling that they could never back down meant that they were "forced" to go to war.

>but god forbid china ever gets the power to collect on its debt owed

They have it, but decide that WW3 isn't worth using it.

Not to mention that the primary mechanism they're using to control their currency values is holding U.S. debt, and liquidating that is going to make the Yuan shoot up like a rocket, effectively ending their manufacturing export competitiveness.

>Opinions: the thread

Ahh yes because the Western colonialists did shit like Unit 731

>they supported our independence

To turn you into another colony. Just like Vietnam, Philippines, and Malaysia

American
British
Chinese
Dutch

Rejection of western writing systems?

I'm just guessing here

The Japs used "Asia for the Asians" as a front to expand their own empire and they thought of all other asians as subhumans.

Indigenous nationalists were useful as long as they agitated against Western colonialists but they would've become slave labour at best or exterminated at worst.

How the Americans allowed that little weasel Sukarno to become president of Indonesia is beyond me, though.

Japan occupied Indonesia until the very end of WWII. After the war many Japanese troops still joined the Indonesian revolutionaries, at least some of them legitimately believed in pan-Asianism.

>backing themselves into an imaginary corner
I get this impression as well.

On paper the Japanese industrial capacity was so far inferior to that of the US and Britain, that from day one of hostilities they were living on borrowed time.

Ministers and civil servants must have realised this gap in capacity, yet somehow the army got its way which seemed inevitably to lead to defeat.

>at least some of them legitimately believed in pan-Asianism.

Just like some Soviets believed in social equality and boosting the downtrodden.

Problem is that the IDEOLOGY is almost always not the POLICY.

Yeah. The average Jap was a good person. But the people in the government were power hungry imperialists who saw other Asians as subject races. This is all that matters.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Investigation_of_Global_Policy_with_the_Yamato_Race_as_Nucleus

If Japan wanted to save Asians, they would have given them independence instead of dissecting them alive and testing poison gas ob their villages.

>Ministers and civil servants must have realised this gap in capacity, yet somehow the army got its way which seemed inevitably to lead to defeat.
Actually that itself is an interesting thing - they had this mentality that things would always go their way, coupled with the idea that everyone else was out to get them.

Since they had their ports forced open by America in the 1850s, they felt (somewhat rightfully so at first) that the powers of the world were working against them. They modernized fast, saving them from the fate of China, but they were always considered outsiders among the great powers.

Meanwhile, they had a series of wars that gave them an absurd amount of confidence. Everyone expected Japan to get their shit slapped in the 1st Sino-Japanese War, and yet they won. However, they had most of their gains undone by Western intervention, which awarded much of the land won to Russia.

Several years later, they went to war with Russia, with the same result - nobody thought that some minor nation on the far side of the world could take on a great european empire, and yet Japan handily defeated the Russians. And again, you had the West intervene to prevent Japan from making the most of their victories.

Though Japan had joined the Entente side in WW1, they again felt slighted when they weren't given a place at the negotiating table with the same prominence of the rest of the Belligerents, and although the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 was really a good thing for Japan on a strategic scale, it still built upon the idea that the West was trying to keep Japan down.

So by the 30's you had this horrifically misguided victim complex ingrained into the Japanese collective consciousness coupled with a feeling that, regardless of how bad things looked, things would always come out good for Japan (just as it had against Russia and China).

I get that there was a popular sentiment of being the victim of Western machinations to keep Japan down, but among the lettered classes there must have been a realisation of a serious mismatch.

I mean all those bright chaps (who tend to be less affected but jingoism) in various government departments must have realised that Japan was blithely wandering down the road to destruction.

It's remarkable that those guys, who usually inform the course of a nation's direction were overridden by the obviously naive ambitions of the military.

>It's remarkable that those guys, who usually inform the course of a nation's direction were overridden by the obviously naive ambitions of the military.

It's not that remarkable. A similar event occurred in America with the neocons like Paul Wolfowitz being allowed to enact a foreign policy that nobody voted for. But that's all I'll say considering 25 year rule blah blah

This thread is indeed a quality /his discussion. Thanks for filling some gaps without the usual shitstorm.

Regarding the topic of earlier japanese wars , especially those against russia i am always amazed of how incompetent tsarist russia was. If the japanes took these as examples of european and american capability i can relate to their overestimation of their own skills.

Shouldnt be that hard though to realize if they had done their research better..

Pretty much everyone knew, but no one could publicly admit it for fear of losing face.

You saw this crop up on several levels too, not just on strategy. When they were wargaming Operation MI, one of the officers (I forget who) was asked what would happen if the US appeared on the flank (as they did). Instead of replying with "we'd be fucked" he said "we'll crush them!"

Really, the only way Japan could have won was to not to invade China and then help Germany invade the Soviet Union.

Once the Soviets were out of the picture they could then focus on the Chinese or Americans.

Even then its questionable.

Everyone suggests this like it's perfectly reasonable for a nation to just stop persuing it's own goals in order to help out a state across the world that can offer them no help.

How come no one suggests Hitler should have declared war on China instead of fucking around with Austria?

>
Really, the only way Japan could have won was to not to invade China and then help Germany invade the Soviet Union.

>Once the Soviets were out of the picture they could then focus on the Chinese or Americans.

AHAHAAHAAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA

OK, for starters, if you don't have the occupation of China and the rather enormous primary resource extraction they get from that, Japan doens't have a war economy worth a damn.

Even if you did somehow find replacements in terms of coal, iron, hardwoods, food, etc., the Japanse got quite a bloody nose when they tried fighting the Russians from 36-39. Don't forget, troop levels increased in the Far East Command from Barbarossa to the end of 41, they didn't go down; you'd get some traction because the new units were mostly new guys wheras the more experienced troops were sent to fight the Germans, but really, your odds of making any headway are slight.

And even if you somehow did so, you've got the liiiitle problem that Vladivostok aside, you don't have anything actually valueable for about a thousand kilometers in any direction from Harbin, and you're fighting across some of the least developed and most hellish terrain on earth, where the Soviets can tear up the Trans-Siberian Railroad behind them as they fall back.

Even the notion that Japan could serve as a significant distraction to the Soviets is fanciful. At BEST, they'd eliminate Vladivostok as a Lend-Lease port (actually fairly simple) and force the rest of the aid going there to go elsewhere, probably to the Persian corridor.

Look. I know the Japanese would have gotten their shit kicked in by the Soviets. However, it would have been better the Germans when the pushed for Moscow in November in 41.

We all know the Soviets would have attacked eventually so might as well die trying.

>Look. I know the Japanese would have gotten their shit kicked in by the Soviets. However, it would have been better the Germans when the pushed for Moscow in November in 41.

Not really, no. Again, there were significant troops already there, so the possibility of the Japanese making headway is minimal even if they do attack. Lend-Lease hadn't really gotten going by this point, even Vladivostok's importance in the short term is minimal.

The only way it can possibly make an effect is if Stalin and the entire STAVKA are so stupid that they'd redirect troops from an existential threat on their main front to deal with a secondary front. That's just not going to happen.

>nipped away at it for years
heh

>the Soviets can tear up the Trans-Siberian Railroad behind them as they fall back.

That's why you need to lure some Czechs there, possibly under promises of Pilsner, and have them seize the railroad.

Duh.

most people are responding retardedly.

The strategy was to conquer the pacific, obviously. That would've succeeded if their bombing of pearl harbor worked the way as planned. What their goal was with pearl harbor was to reduce the US navy (which had dominated the pacific for a long time prior to WWII) so that the Japanese could have enough time to spread out, conquer all the islands, and fortify heavily. Once entrenched, it would take a very long time for anyone to force the Japanese out.

The issue was the US had all their aircraft carriers out on exercises during the Pearl Harbor bombing (the japanese believed they would have the day off because it was sunday), so no air craft carriers were sunk. Additionally, the US managed to raise several ships that were sunk on pearl harbor, something that was new in the era and the US was the best at doing.

Basically, the only reason the US could Island hop against the Japanese was because the Japanese did not have enough time to fortify their new holdings.

This. As an aside, I think one of the biggest misunderstandings people in the West have about East Asian society is the concept of "face". Not completely on how it works, but rather on its importance. If a Chinese official makes a deal with a businessman from the West that his superiors consider to be subpar, there has to be a way for him to save face.

>so that the Japanese could have enough time to spread out, conquer all the islands, and fortify heavily. Once entrenched, it would take a very long time for anyone to force the Japanese out.

The first time the U.S. attacked an island that was held by the Japanese at the beginning of the war was Tarawa, in 1944. That wasn't enough time to fortify properly? What exactly were all those beach defenses and coastal guns then?

>Once entrenched, it would take a very long time for anyone to force the Japanese out.

When you're being outbuilt by about 8:1, no, not really.

>The issue was the US had all their aircraft carriers out on exercises during the Pearl Harbor bombing (the japanese believed they would have the day off because it was sunday), so no air craft carriers were sunk.

And even if they both had been sunk, it's not like the other 5 were in any way touchable by the Pearl Harbor attacks, nor would that have stopped the construction of the Essex class vessels, which make the pre-war carriers largely academic when they come online.

>Additionally, the US managed to raise several ships that were sunk on pearl harbor, something that was new in the era and the US was the best at doing.

Yeah, it's not like the British raised the scuttled German High Seas fleet so they could use the scrap metal or anything!

>Basically, the only reason the US could Island hop against the Japanese was because the Japanese did not have enough time to fortify their new holdings.

You have no idea what you're talking about.

combinedfleet.com/economic.htm

>Soviets still attack Manchuria in 1945.

>Still lose.

you don't know that. The soviets would walk across an entire continent, after being in a brutal fight with the germans? They couldn't even take China after it willingly became communist.

>was Tarawa, in 1944. That wasn't enough time to fortify properly?

no, it wasn't. The Japanese needed more time, and would've got it if the pearl harbor attacked occured as planned.

>When you're being outbuilt by about 8:1, no, not really.

The US can barely hold anything outside of teh cities of fucking Afghanistan. Israel unloaded it's entire military into lebanon in 2006 and couldn't even get feet on the ground. Defense is much more advantageous than offense.

> it's not like the other 5 were in any way touchable by the Pearl Harbor attacks

You don't know that.

>it's not like the British raised the scuttled German High Seas fleet so they could use the scrap metal or anything!

I didn't say no one else could do it. I said Americans were the best at it.

and you link doesn't say shit about the topic at hand. just talks about the economy. If Japan managed to hold even half of what they took in the pacific, their economy would've been, at the very least, competitive. All those ports and raw materials from the conquered people mean nothing? it's the reason Japan tried to conquer those islands in the first place. They knew their economy was pushing them into a corner, and they needed more territories/ports/land/resources.

>The soviets would walk across an entire continent, after being in a brutal fight with the germans? They couldn't even take China after it willingly became communist.

Not even him, but they have something called a fucking railroad. They mustered up about 1.5 million troops to hit the Japanese with, and could have packed more. Not to mention the overwhelming advantages in armor, artillery, and airpower they enjoyed by then.

>no, it wasn't. The Japanese needed more time, and would've got it if the pearl harbor attacked occured as planned.

The longer you wait, the more the colossal industrial capacity makes itself felt. Sure, you dig in deeper in some islands. Meanwhile, America builds 8 more carriers, each one better than anything you've ever made. They build another ten thousand planes and just bomb you to smithereens, raise hundreds of thousands of more troops to pitch in the grinder.

>The US can barely hold anything outside of teh cities of fucking Afghanistan. Israel unloaded it's entire military into lebanon in 2006 and couldn't even get feet on the ground. Defense is much more advantageous than offense.

Comparing a limited war to a total war. You do realize why that's a terrible idea, don't you?

>You don't know that.

Yeah, I actually do, given that some were based in California, and the others in the East Coast, which is just a bit outside the Japanese reach.
1/2

>I didn't say no one else could do it. I said Americans were the best at it.

You also said it was new, which it most certainly was not.

>and you link doesn't say shit about the topic at hand. just talks about the economy.

It shows how vast the production disparity between the two powers was, and how it was increasing, not decreasing. Time is most definitely not on the Japanese side.

> If Japan managed to hold even half of what they took in the pacific, their economy would've been, at the very least, competitive.

No, it would not have, because you don't actually get a lot of resources, let alone finished products, off of a bunch of corall atolls, especially when U.S. submarines and naval bombers are sinking all of your transport ships.

I want to remind you that the U.S. built EIGHT TIMES as many aircraft carriers as the Japanese did. And that's with a huge amount of their shipbuilding capacity (and a tremendous amount of other crap) being geared towards the war in Europe, which was actually the priority. A pacific empire wouldn't make them anything close to competitive.

>All those ports and raw materials from the conquered people mean nothing? it's the reason Japan tried to conquer those islands in the first place.

No, it isn't. Most of those eastern islands? Was to push the perimiter of air raids back so that you couldn't see another doolittle raid. The only ones entered into for raw resources were China (if you count it) Indo-China, the NEI, and Malaya. Everything else was primarily for strategic mobility, not economic power.

What do you guys think of Puyi?

>nuke-cities
>japanese-have-plans-to-biologically-nuke-cities
>japanese-are-special

he was such a massive tool even Mao didn't feel the need to kill him

Yeah, i'm surprised Mao didn't kill him. I guess he was good for propaganda.

This thread has totally triggered my autism and made me obsessively read wikipedia articles about Japanese naval officers and military tactics and shit I never cared about before. Thanks anons

Not necessarily fighting to the last man as just losing excruciating losses at the end of the war.

you're welcome user

What would've happened if Japan never joined the Axis and just kept conquering chunks of China?

More or less the same thing as real life, except U.S. entry into the ETO would probably be delayed for a couple of months while Roosevelt scrambles to get the votes in place.

What is it that you don't understand? Their strategy was absolutely coherent: grab the natural of resources of south asia and create a defense perimeter in the Pacific islands and then try to force the Chinks into Imperial submission.

Could it have worked? On its own, no. But what if the Germans had won at Stalingrad, succesfully occupied the Caucasus and force a deal on the Soviets, making the European theatre an exclusively Axis vs Angloamericans war? The USA wouldn't have been able to dedicate so much resources to breaking through the Japanese defense perimeter.

The japs also made huge strategic mistakes at the beggining of the war, like not taking Midway and not launching further air strikes over Pearl Harbour to annihiliate the military industrial infrastructure there as to incapacitate it as a naval base.

All this remains a very unlikely scenario as the Germans never really stood a chance to knock out the USSR. But for Japan there really was no alternative than war and hope for the best. What else could they do? Bow down to american demands, pull out of China and become a resourceless cucks at the mercy of the international geopolitics gameofUSA, USSR and the British Colonial Empire?

They had grown too big by then with their uncontested conquests in China, Formosa and Korea to accept a cuck status, furthermore when the whole japanese initial expansion was propped up by the angloamericans as means to counter russian and german influence in the region. By the 1930s the japs had already grown to big to accept the role of useful tools.

>The first three went like a charm, however, America didn't surrender. Despite doing pretty much everything the plan called for, they had horrifically misjudged the American character, thinking their isolationism was a veil for cowardice.

This is some historychannel tier propaganda

Wrong. The principal architect for the war against the Americans was Yamamoto who spent time in America, he understood well that Americans had little stomach for prolonged bloody conflicts and couldn't endure the societal hardships brought on by war. Throughout the war there were riots over material shortages which boiled over to race riots. There was huge public outrage over the casualties suffered in Tarawa which was accompanied with small scale rioting. The Japanese understood that if they defeated the Americans in several decisive battle they could force the US to sue peace, in this they were correct but it was a 50/50 gamble and ultimately they lost.

> But what if the Germans had won at Stalingrad, succesfully occupied the Caucasus and force a deal on the Soviets,

The first part of that statement does not imply the second. In fact, a victory at Stalingrad is a long way from actually occupying the Caucasus, which is itself a long way from knocking the Soviets out of the war.

>The USA wouldn't have been able to dedicate so much resources to breaking through the Japanese defense perimeter.

The U.S. as it was devoted roughly a quarter of their resources to knocking out the Japanese. And it's not like the big shipyards that were used to make the Essexes would easily be converted into something of use in the ETO.

>The japs also made huge strategic mistakes at the beggining of the war, like not taking Midway and not launching further air strikes over Pearl Harbour to annihiliate the military industrial infrastructure there as to incapacitate it as a naval base.

Do you have any idea how ridiculous that is? Do you know how hard the Anglo-Americans tried to knock out port facilities in France with sorties of hundreds of 4 engined bombers? And how that rarely worked? You really think a few hundred CVP could knock out the port itself? Especially when sooner or later the Americans start basing real, land based fighters on the island?

>Wrong. The principal architect for the war against the Americans was Yamamoto who spent time in America, he understood well that Americans had little stomach for prolonged bloody conflicts and couldn't endure the societal hardships brought on by war.

Except Yamomoto was the one warning the rest of the Japanese command that there would be no victory short of actually occupying the White House, which was something even they realized was never going to happen.

>Throughout the war there were riots over material shortages which boiled over to race riots.

No, there were riots over the population movements caused by the necessity to draft and industrialize, it wasn't over the shortage.

>There was huge public outrage over the casualties suffered in Tarawa which was accompanied with small scale rioting.

[citation needed]

>he Japanese understood that if they defeated the Americans in several decisive battle they could force the US to sue peace, in this they were correct but it was a 50/50 gamble and ultimately they lost.

You mean like the Phillipines? Funny how some rather large defeats didn't hamper the home front at all.

Losing the Philippines wouldn't be a fraction as bad as losing a huge naval battle like Midway after Pearl Harbor.

Underrated post.

Why, exactly? You lost a hell of a lot more servicemen in the Phillipines. And even if Midway was lost and say, another carrier or two sunk, it's not like you don't have over a dozen far more modern carriers in various stages of construction.

The former also involves wholesale loss of territory held by America before the war began and no clear timeline as to when they'll get it back.

The Japanese leadership embraced pan-Asianism through the idea of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Basically Japan would boot out all western powers from Asia and construct a unified Asian empire led by the Japanese, who were entitled to rule over it because of their supposed innate superiority.

Looks like somebody got there WWII knowledge form the history channel and Hollywood movies because all of those points are wrong. I suggest actually reading a books from credible historians regarding the Pacific Theater instead of spewing myths and what you think might have actually happened.

>You mean like the Phillipines? Funny how some rather large defeats didn't hamper the home front at all.

The Philippines was not a decisive defeat, the US fully expected to lose the islands in case of war with Japan.

That's because the IJA was leading the war, which makes no sense because the entire outcome of the war was reliant on the navy, yet the navy usually got told to fuck off.

Because that would be solely a damage to American morale. While losing the Philippines was bad, reports of the Bataan Death March had the complete opposite effect and made America even more determined for revenge.

The belief that your side is going to steamroll the opponent side is a common one. Prior to world war one, everybody thought the war would be over in a few months and that it would be an easy victory.

Militarist style thinking distorts your perception of things.

I'm not seeing a citation.

>The Philippines was not a decisive defeat, the US fully expected to lose the islands in case of war with Japan.

So then what is a "decisive" defeat? How come none of the carriers that were sunk had any noticeable effect on U.S. war enthusiasm? You did know they lost quite a bit of those pre-war carriers, yes?

So again, what makes losing a carrier or two so bad? Why is the loss of the Philippines hardening American resolve but apparently the loss of a carrier battle (which had happened before, like at Coral Sea) suddenly going to make the Americans throw up their hands and say it's over?