How did Japan think they could take on the US...

A delcious and succinct description of Japan's plan, thats /thread lads.

The loyal jap dogs were given the title "honorary aryans" simply because they were very nationalist.

The japs were pleased that they were not part of the "subhuman" category and part of the "master race" so it instilled hubris in the nation which fueled their sadistic murders in China, SEA and eventually led to the attack on the United States.

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Of course japs are tje most superior race in asia about visual-physical side But they arent in the world....

Cause there are white.....

this plus Meiji samurai fighting spirit propaganda that was maybe the most successful meme of all time

its like if we wuz kangs insisted we wuz all kangz. every single person is descended from kangz.

hmm.......?

they are no japanese who japan can beat usa

Please dont talk abou tha fucking trash 2ch.

Ah, yes. The populist spoonfeeding of kangdom in Nationalism.
>Enroll today for the glory of glorious Nippon and its glorious people. You too can be a glorious Samurai today and fullfill the glory of our glorious nation!

Wrong, the diplomatic message that was supposed to be delivered before pearl harbor was merely a declaration that Japan found American demands to withdraw from China to end the embargo unacceptable and Japan was ending the negotiations. It was not a declaration of war.

>Their technology was behind the rest
Not really they were kinda on par if not better in some aspects

they just were lacking in resources

that answers OP's question as well

>if we attack them in a surprise attack, killing thousands of their men, surely we'll be able to build an unassailable foothold in key oil fields while they spend months rebuilding their force projection capabilities.

>Not really they were kinda on par if not better in some aspects
Actually no. They were pretty much behind in every single aspect of technology in general or military tech in particular.

they were taking colonies and territory from Russia, Germany, Britain, and the US from Meiji era to Midway, so to say it was behind seems off.

Yeah I bet that had everything to do with Japanese tech advantage and less with their proximity to what was the other side of the world for European powers.

>closer proximity
that didn't help "literally every non-Euro but Japan" (and America) when Europe was conquering their shit.

There is a thing called pride.when a man is called upon to do his duty he goes.thats the problem with people now days. No sense of honor,duty,country,family,pride. The japs fought with everything they had. They lost the war,but they gave it everything they had. They were still cruel fuckers

Rifle behind every blade of grass

The south was winning for a while and had them on the ropes

>the south didn't have a viable choice
They could have chosen not to wage an unwinnable war that would kill off a significant portion of their working men.

The only technology they had an edge in was a superior long range fighter. Their small arms, naval targeting, damage control, carrier ship construction, armor design, bomb sights, and logistics were vastly inferior to America's. Most of which never really improved over the course of the war.

Did you know that when japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 the small arms they were using were almost identical to the ones in service when they surrendered after 14 years of near constant war. Despite doing a great deal of jungle fighting they never developed a standard issue sub machine gun, and they distributed ammunition in unwaterproofed lacquer boxes.

Weren't their tanks hot garbage as well? Not that they'd need them in the jungle but still

I never actually heard them use tanks in WWII

I remember they once conquered British territory with bicycles

What made the Japanese army inimical to progress? Was it a social or a structural thing or a combination or something?

yeah that was what I meant when I said they had bad armor design

they used them in China but many of their tanks didn't have anything other than a machine gun

The IJA seemed to feel that developing new weapons and other technologies were really not that important because fighting spirit was what won wars, not fancy new gadgets. You also have to consider that they were managing quite well for the first 12 years of the war (if we consider 1931 to be the start date) because the armies they were facing off against were either even more backwards and incompetent than them or poorly equipped colonial militias. So you can see why they would start to believe their own bullshit about the paramount importance of elan.

The IJN was a bit more realistic since a warship itself is a piece of technology, but they too had problems with the notion of constant improvement.

I think you guys should give this documentary on IJA small arms a watch, its really eye opening into just how lacking in ambition the japanese were when it came to development of new technologies, or even of sorting out glaring flaws in their current technologies.
youtube.com/watch?v=YIphRs4j1uM

In addition to what said, you have to remember that the IJA, as well as most aspects of the Japanese military and government, were absurdly fractured. Turf wars are bad enough in the Pentagon nowadays; they have nothing on the Japanese of that era.

For instance, you might or might not be aware that the Japanese NAVY fielded 3 SNLF teams of paratroopers. only 1 of those 3 teams actually had paratrooper training in the sense of learning how to jump out of airplanes (well, gliders), but it was very important for their dick waving contests with the army, so of course they had to have them.

Departments fought against departments, and even individual units were in constant competition with each other. In that sort of environment, identifying problems with equipment and sending back the feedback and communication necessary for effective R&D is enormously difficult, and you get all sorts of deliberate cockblocking (That colonel of the unit I hate wants this new rifle? I THINK IT SUCKS!) in addition to just enormously bad communication.

Weren't the japanese destroyers of the interwar period basically the most advanced designs which other countries copied, though? Why did they lost their edge?

>Weren't the japanese destroyers of the interwar period basically the most advanced designs which other countries copied, though?
No, they were not advanced, and no one copied Jap designs. Jap destroyers were bigger and had more guns on them because Japs cheated on treaty limits.
Also because they were so overloaded they tended to be shit at seakeeping.

>Not that they'd need them in the jungle
Tanks were used to great effects in jungle warfare by both the Japs and the US.

Rusdians didn't fuck off after a surprise victory. They just underestimated Japan, pushed with railways under construction and got fucked in the ass by Japan's superior ships.

>The next major innovation came with the Japanese Fubuki class or 'special type', designed in 1923 and delivered in 1928. The design was initially noted for its powerful armament of six five-inch (127 mm) guns and three triple torpedo mounts. The second batch of the class gave the guns high-angle turrets for anti-aircraft warfare, and the 24-inch (61 cm) oxygen-fueled 'Long Lance' Type 93 torpedo. The later Hatsuharu class of 1931 further improved the torpedo armament by storing its reload torpedoes close at hand in the superstructure, allowing reloading within 15 minutes.
>Most other nations replied with similar larger ships.

Is wikipedia simply wrong then?

>I never actually heard them use tanks in WWII
I don't doubt it. You don't sound like someone who knows very much.

>I remember they once conquered British territory with bicycles
Japs used tanks in Malaysia.

>Is wikipedia simply wrong then?
Yes, Wikipedia is simply wrong. Does that surprise you?

One reason that Japan made the decision to attack Pearl Harbor when it's so clear in hindsight that they never had a chance against America was that the Japanese high command was heavily dominated by officers of the IJA with no representation given to the diplomatic corps.

Because of this they looked at a map of east asia and said "America's control of the Philippines is quite problematic, should it come to war they could easily cut our empire in half." They all operated on the conventional wisdom from Hollywood movies and fascist propaganda that since America was a highly materialistic democratic nation they would have no appetite for the sacrifice war would require, and all they had to do was get a few shocking victories to get America to quickly back down.

Since there were no representatives from the diplomatic corps in the high command nobody thought to ask any American experts if their assessment of America was correct.

The lesson here is that going to war without properly understanding the country you're fighting against can end quite badly. Just a shame that's a mistake America herself has repeatedly made since then.

The head of the Japanese Navy was totally against attacking America. He repeatedly let the rest of the forces know of his opinion and pleaded with the emporer to not provoke the sleeping beast.

But Tojo and company already had control of the country, the media and the emporer. To suggest that Nippon may not win was nearly treasonous at that point. Japanese society became very militarized after the Meiji restoration, as they saw conquests and technology as the only thing stopping them from sharing the same fate as China and most of the rest of the world.