How strong was the japanese army during WW2? They seem kinda bad but they faced the USA, so it might not be fair...

How strong was the japanese army during WW2? They seem kinda bad but they faced the USA, so it might not be fair. How did it compare against smaller european armies (France, Italy, UK)?

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The biggest problem the IJA had during WW2 was re-supplying their troops once they were planted on islands. American submarines would surround islands held by Japan and make it nearly impossible to bring in reinforcements. Japan's main way of getting around this was to have additional troops ride in on IJN destroyers. Destroyers are fast enough that submarines pose very little threat to them. The problem with doing this is that, well, destroyers just really aren't very good as troop transports. They don't have a lot of spare empty space for storage. You can't fit tanks or artillery inside of a destroyer, so troops are getting dropped off with light weapons and that's about it.

And then you've got the eternal problem of getting food & ammunition to troops once they've been dropped off. The best way to do this would be to simply bring in much-needed supplies on cargo ships. But again, submarines make that very difficult. Japan often tried to resupply troops by having destroyers swoop in near the island and dump food into the ocean in watertight packages, hoping that it would drift ashore where soldiers could collect it. The problem with this is that sometimes packages would drift out to sea rather than towards the shore. An even bigger problem is the fact that American soldiers can pick up these packages just as easily.

So really, it doesn't even matter how good you are at fighting if the enemy is able to completely control the environment around you. Sometimes, instead of attacking Japanese soldiers directly, Americans would just firebomb whatever food sources they could see on an island. Once potential food sources have been eliminated, the Japanese defenders are in a hopeless position because they can't bring in food supplies, whereas U.S. marines could easily bring in food on cargo ships.

This pretty much.

The combat prowess of the IJA didn't count for anything because their logistics were shit, just think about it for a second. In the early battles of the Pacific War, US Soldiers and Marines were going up against battle tested veterans of campaigns against the British and Americans. A lot of them put up stiff resistance but at the end it was all for nothing because Japan couldn't resupply them with the food and ammo to keep on fighting. Now what you get is Japan losing its veteran and NCO pool while the US Army and Marines built theirs up as well as losing valuable supplies to naval raids on their cargo ships.

Japan was fucked from the start, I don't think they could've maintained supply lines after the Battle of Midway.

Originally did good at jungle warfare against the Europeans such as UK at Hong Kong and Singapore but the European armies of the far east were poorly organised and had shit moral, after reorganization (seen for the UK under General Slim) the Japs weren't as effective being defeated badly at the battles of kohima and imphal (the two most underrated battles of ww2 imo).
In respect to fighting the Americans hit the nail on the head, the IJA would get trapped on the islands without resupply because the IJN would get their asses kicked by the USN. Further more the IJN and IJA hated each other, their rivalry was fucking insane like in the US the marines and Army have healthy competition with one another. In imperial Japan the two services would deny each other resources and funding with the IJN becoming the favorite child and the IJA suffering because of it. This can be seen with the IJA's shit tanks which were not up to western standard so when they faced the well trained new Commonwealth Army and the well supplied US marines they were mauled.
Tbqh the IJA is probably the most underrated and well performing Axis military service of ww2 and thats coming from an Anglo who is still bitter at the fall of Singapore which was a fucking embarrassment.
In spite of lack of funding and supplies they still did better than most other Axis forces even though they fought from 1937-45.

You can see how the IJA changed up its strategy in an attempt to make do with what it got, the Battle of Peleliu was a complete meat grinder and I sometimes wonder what would've happened if the Japs could've gotten resupplies to keep the fighters going. Their Defense in Depth was absolutely insane, they practically turned the entire island into a fortress. The Marines and Soldiers attacking were forced to shoot and burn out every single defender on Peleliu, do you think that if the IJA and IJN put their differences, they would be able to actually win any of those battles against the US? They were putting up a hard fight to begin with already

Nah Japan never had a chance, USA's industrial power was too much same applies with the Soviets and Germany.

checked and thank God for the bomb, invading the home island and having to split Japan up with the Russians would've been really shitty

The bombs saved Japan's legacy. A sacrifice for Nippon

As Napoleon said, an army fights on its stomach. No matter how well or how hard the Japanese soldiers fight, they are still doomed by the fact that they don't have the ability to bring in food, fresh water, ammunition, artillery, tanks, fuel, and the other myriad things that an army needs to sustain a fight. American submarines completely neutralized Japan's ability to get supplies to their soldiers in the field.

A very good book to read (or listen to as I did) is "Japanese Destroyer Captain" by Tameichi Hara. Many times during the war, he was asked to ferry troops and supplies to islands under siege by the U.S. marine corps. Using destroyers as transports avoids the problem of American submarines, because a destroyer is fast enough to avoid getting hit by torpedoes. The downside is that destroyers have very limited storage space, so troops who are brought in by destroyer are going to be lacking in necessary equipment. The constant frustration of not being able to properly support Japanese ground troops is covered in detail. He often despairs that he is dropping off soldiers to certain doom, because he knows that they will have to fight marines who are well-supplied and heavily armed.

I know the question is about army but you've got a pic of a sub lad so i'll give you some stats on the armed forces generally.
Tonnage limitations imposed on Japan in the years leading up to WW2 by the Washington Naval treaty were not as severe as France or Italy:
>The tonnage limits defined by Articles IV and VII (tabulated) gave a strength ratio of approximately 5:5:3:1.75:1.75 for Britain, the United States, Japan, Italy, and France.
This meant for every 1.75 tonnes Italy or France had in Capital ships and Aircraft carriers, Japan was permitted 3 and then 1st rate powers UK and USA 5.
The GDP of the Japanese is usually considered to be about the same as the French Empire's, significantly greater than Italy's but not nearly equal to Britain's.
It's safe to say that they were a more formidable force than Italy (I think Churchill even explicitly said as much) and probably even France, the fact that the Battle of Singapore
>resulted in the Japanese capture of Singapore and the largest surrender of British-led military personnel in history.
suggest there is even some hint of parity between the British and Japan at the time.
The absolute majority of US combat deaths were as a result of engagement with the Japanese. The resource gap there is just insurmountable though (twice the population and more than access to more than 10 times the Coal, Iron and Crude Oil)
This might be construed as memes but the Japanese simply didn't have the same culture of surrender as some allied nations that you have mentioned, the fact the US saw it necessary to pursue the advent of nuclear weapons and actually use them as a means to fight these people bears witness to the challenge they faced.

If Khalkin Gol is any indication, they really didn't have their shit together. The 1939 Soviet Union was able to annihilate the IJA in Manchuria despite having the nearest railhead a four-day drive away (compared to the IJA's half day drive). IJA artillery pieces were poorly standardized, outdated, and poorly coordinated, and supply lines for them were so bad that, despite having only half the guns the Soviets assembled, the IJA ran out of shells. In fact, the Soviets managed to increase their fire rate as the artillery duel portion of the campaign happened, all while being able to outrange and outgun the Japanese pieces. The IJA was so outdated in their artillery doctrine that they seriously tried to deploy a spotting balloon not once but twice for their gunners. Their tanks were infamously some of the worst of the war, and Khalkhin Gol proved that beyond a doubt. During the only tank assault the IJA launched, the assault was stopped by roughly a company of infantry and something like seven armored cars.

And that's just the issue on the equipment side of things. There's plenty of doctrinal issues endemic to the IJA. Most glaring was the level of initiative local commanders took it upon themselves to take regardless of the orders of higher ups. Local commanders seemed to love provoking and escalating incidents. The Kwantung Army famously assassinated the leader of Manchuria and later occupied it all without notifying the central government. The war in China started a similar way - progressively larger border incidents ultimately spiral into a full-blown war because the IJA feels it can't back down. They tried to do the same thing to the Soviets. Over 1,000 border incidents happened before Khalkhin Gol, and only after the Soviets almost completely annihilated the Kwantung Army did the IJA even make an attempt to get their men under control. But all they did was shift focus. They invaded French Indochina on their own, which got Japan into WW2.

Beginning of WW2, they had the second best Navy being behind England. Towards the end of WW2, America caught up in their navy and placed Japan in third.

They were even more powerful than nazi germany, in all fields except for airpower and heavy tanks

Meh, I would rank them ahead of Nazi Germany in airpower because of their aircraft carriers. At the beginning of the war, Japan easily had the best naval aviation in the world. Of course, that changed once the USA started pumping out new aircraft carriers like crazy, but at the beginning of the war, Japan was unquestionably number 1 in that area. And heavy tanks were a waste of resources. Medium tanks all the way.

Realistically, what would have happened if the allies had to invade the home island? Also would the Soviet Union really take a piece out of Japan like they did with Germany?

You're both retarded. Their carrier force could never carry more than about 600 planes at a time. Meanwhile, the Germans built one and a half times as many planes, and their models like the 190 and the 109 were way better than anything Japan had in the air. Japan also had shit tier medium tanks, shit tier artillery, shit tier communications, shit tier coordination, and was actually pretty bad at anything beyond screaming like retards and dying for the cause. Germany was enormously more powerful.

Invasion of the home islands would probably take 6-8 months, be enormously bloody, but ultimately successful. There isn't that much geographic scope, although you'd have furious (but largely ineffectual) resistance every step of the way.

The USSR isn't getting invited to mainland Japan without several thousand landing craft they don't have. If Japan doesn't surrender, they're far more likely to overrun Korea and pour into China, not try to invade amphibiously.

I mean the guy who Saif naval aviation of the Japanese was superior is right, unlike the Germans the Zero was state of the art for carrier battles. Doesn't mean it's as good as a spitfire or Bf109 or p-51d but it was better than anything else that could be launched from a carrier.

Couple corrections. The "Tokyo Express" destroyer runs were done not due to the threat of submarine, but rather to avoid air attacks.

Henderson Field on Guadalcanal provided air cover for most of the Solomons, and cargo ships did not have the speed to make it back to safety after a night-time delivery. The Japanese tried repeatedly to neutralize the airfield but couldn't.

Furthermore, not have air superiority meant that the Japanese could not build infrastructure that would allow more direct loading from deep-draft cargo ships, which is why they resorted to tossing supplies into barrels and floating them onshore.

> The GDP of the Japanese is usually considered to be about the same as the French Empire's

Lol no, Japan was way behind France. People always under-estimate how much resources the French had due to their rapid defeat, but the French actually had a ton of resources available. Including their colonial empire, France had a GDP twice that of Japan. The Japanese economy was nominally slightly smaller than Italy's, but adjusted for PPP was somewhat larger.

>Originally did good at jungle warfare against the Europeans such as UK at Hong Kong
Hong Kong was undefended.

>Germany was enormously more powerful.
>Only built 1 aircraft carrier which never saw combat

>Beginning of WW2, they had the second best Navy being behind England.

At the beginning of the war, they were ahead of Britain.

>Towards the end of WW2, America caught up in their navy and placed Japan in third

Towards the end of WW2, Japan wasn't third. They were last. They had fucking nothing left.

Land based air>Carrier air at literally everything except when you have to project force to somewhere you can't reach with land based planes.

Therefore, German aviation> Japanese aviation.

>ignoring the fact that the German navy desperately needed carriers to be relevant

>Ignoring the fact that the theaters Germany was seriously fighting on were in Russia, and then later in France, where carriers would do jack shit.
>Ignoring your incestuous heritage that makes you think that the only form of air power comes off a carrier deck, or that all wars are fought over seas.

Tell me, oh wise user, where were the carrier forces that supported Overlord? Husky? Dragoon? Where were the carrier offensives in the Mediterranean? Why wasn't Britain using its carriers in the Battle of Britain? Could it be that carriers are shit when trying to send them up against land based fighters and bombers that can carry as much as 7 times the load?

Where was Germany fighting, moron ?

>Wasting steel on fucking aircraft carriers
As if wasting it on battleships wasn't dumb enough when a few hundred more U-boats would have starved the British

The IJA and IJN had probably the most ridiculous endurance of any nations soldiers, going on the smell of an oily rag and a 500g rice ball a day in tropical conditions and winning is fucking insane

Ehh, not him, but a few hundred extra u-boats probably wouldn't have been enough, especially if you can't keep up the steel allocations to replace the inevitable losses. The Germans were nowhere near hitting the British breaking point, hell, they weren't even stopping the acceleration of their war economy historically.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hong_Kong
Yeah nah m8.

Some random troops were sent for the purposes of reassuring the locals but in no way meant to offer any real resistance. You don't win modern battles with just a bunch of conscript darkies and no air support or heavy equipment.

>going on the smell of an oily rag and a 500g rice ball a day in tropical conditions and winning is fucking insane
When did the IJA and IJN win on those conditions?

>not sending carriers up the volga to win the battle of stalingrad

Philippines, Malaya, New Guinea until Milne Bay. Their rations were always spartan

They did not fight in 1941 on 500g of rice a day.

>Their rations were always spartan
Japs were issued 3400-3700 calorie per day per regs.

Imperial Japanese logistics were a nightmare. More soldiers of the IJA died from starvation and related disease than all enemy action combined. They couldn't feed or equip their troops past the initial stags of any operation. Troops in the field knew that the Japanese soldier was exceptional. Dedicated, ferocious, and skilled. Also perpetually out of food and ammunition, forcing whole units to resort to banzai charges because the only other option was to retreat to die later of starvation or try to make some breakthrough happen in a last ditch effort.

Well its closer to 600, plus some barely and seafood, but they rarely consumed that much because when you're doing short range infiltration behind enemy lines like the Japanese did all the time early on you want to conserve what you have
In optimal conditions where they could also forage as they were expected to do

>In optimal conditions where they could also forage as they were expected to do
No, they were issued 3400-3700 calorie per regs. Obviously this was not feasible when they were cut off from supplies but their rations were never intended to be spartan except in your anime-influenced imagination.

>Anime influenced
I'm wondering where you get that implication, they had 1.5 cups of rice and barley a day and that's not even 300 grams and they were basically required to forage

Having read a few books about Guadalcanal, it becomes pretty clear that they were some hardcore fuckers. I cant imagine what its like having to treck miles in jungle on a bit of rice and some maggots, assault and get kicked back, and then having to retreat down the same road while people are dying all around you.

>Where was Germany fighting

The naval conflict was centered around the North Atlantic.

U-boats are great for commerce raiding and general harassment, but they can't win by themselves. The problem is that u-boats can only stay underwater for a short-period of time. The u-boat must surface to recharge its batteries and replenish its air supply. During that time when the u-boat is on the surface, is quite vulnerable, especially to aircraft. Having a few carriers in the North Atlantic to provide air cover would have made it much more difficult for Britain to find and destroy u-boats.

What crippled the Bismark? Swordfish torpedo-bombers deployed from the HMS Ark Royal. Without air cover, the battleship Bismark never stood a chance. A torpedo struck the Bismark's stern, disabling the steering systems and leaving the German battleship crippled. The rudder became locked in place and Bismark was trapped in a continuous 12-degree turn to port.

>U-boats are great for commerce raiding
That's literally the only chance Germany had to win on on the sea, I find it interesting you leave out how a U-boat was responsible for basically every UK carrier that got sunk in ww2

>War in the North Atlantic
>Relevant
>Bismarck
>Even being relevant to the sideshow that is the Battle of the Atlantic.

Doubling down on your stupidity doesn't make you less an object of derision, user. The war in Europe was predominantly fought on land, not sea. I mean for fuck's sake, when it comes to smashing up a convoy, the Bismarck isn't really any better than the Scharnhorst or Gnisenau, and the Brits did just fine not sinking the first until the end of 1943, and not getting the second at all.

To be fair, the SCS got the Glorious. And weren't there only 3 fleet carriers sunk in the first place?

>I find it interesting you leave out how a U-boat was responsible for basically every UK carrier that got sunk in ww2

That's actually not true. HMS Glorious was sunk by gunfire from the German battleship Scharnhorst.

Courageous, Ark Royal, and Eagle were all sunk by U-boats, Glorious is a meme for sure though

Wasn't the Eagle a seaplane tender and not a "real" carrier? Or am I mixing it up with the Argus?

Eagle had complement of 30 aircraft so yeah you are mixing it up

I wasn't making an argument for the Bismark. I was making an argument for aircraft carriers. The simple fact is that you cannot win with u-boats alone, and I've already explained why, but I'll do it again. A u-boat can only stay underwater for a limited period of time. It must surface to recharge its batteries. And while the u-boat is on the surface, it is quite vulnerable to attack, especially from aircraft. Without aircraft carriers nearby to counter enemy planes, your u-boats will be hunted down and destroyed from the air.

Courageous and Glorious were in the same class of ship.

>I wasn't making an argument for the Bismark. I was making an argument for aircraft carriers.
An extremely stupid argument,.

>The simple fact is that you cannot win with u-boats alone, and I've already explained why, but I'll do it again.
Missing the ENTIRE point.
It's not about what vessels are necessary to win a naval war. Germany was not (or at least should not have been) in the business of fighting naval wars at all. No matter WHAT they do, they will lose to the UK on the water, let alone the UK and the U.S. The entire thing is a colossal waste of effort, except insofar as you can provoke your enemy into expending more defending their water than you do threatening it. The way for Germany to win the war (the whole war, of which the naval part is a tiny sideshow) is to secure absolute mastery of Europe, first by knocking out France, and then the USSR; which proved too much for them.

Carriers are useless for that. Therefore, CV are useless for Germany. All your whining about commerce raiding and U-boats is irrelevant, and you are a moron.

But the Royal Navy got scared after Courageous got btfo and never ever used carriers for that role during the entire war, it's why they came up with really fucking dumb ideas like this shit
Was more referring to how Wehraboos act about it

I'm talking about carriers as a counter-air asset. Yes, carriers can be used against submarines, but that's a job more relevant to escort carriers than fleet carriers.

I really don't know why you're having such a hard time comprehending such a simple concept, but I'll repeat it another time and see if you can wrap your head around it. U-boats cannot stay underwater forever. They must surface to recharge their batteries. During this time, they are vulnerable, especially to aircraft. Therefore, you must have a way to keep enemy aircraft away from areas where your u-boats are operating.

This is where aircraft carriers come into play. Aircraft carriers can carry fighter planes. Fighter planes can shoot down enemy aircraft. Therefore, the aircraft carrier protects your u-boats from being destroyed by enemy aircraft. It does this by deploying fighter planes which intercept and destroy enemy aircraft before they have a chance to threaten your u-boats. This creates a temporary "safe zone" where your u-boats can operate with minimal risk.

There. I'm really not sure how to break it down any further than that.

>This is where aircraft carriers come into play. Aircraft carriers can carry fighter planes. Fighter planes can shoot down enemy aircraft. Therefore, the aircraft carrier protects your u-boats from being destroyed by enemy aircraft. It does this by deploying fighter planes which intercept and destroy enemy aircraft before they have a chance to threaten your u-boats. This creates a temporary "safe zone" where your u-boats can operate with minimal risk.
This is the dumbest thing I read on Veeky Forums since this retarded board became a thing.

>There. I'm really not sure how to break it down any further than that.


The part where you factor in the OTHER fronts of the war, the ones on land, and how strategic production needs to take into account other needs, things like tanks, planes, artillery, ammunition, small arms, trucks, halftracks, trains, etc.

The toss up isn't between u-boats and carriers; the toss up is between either of the above and more forces that are useful to help you defeat your enemies in Europe's mainland itself. But I'm sure you'll repeat your little pasta, because your double digit IQ is incapable of understanding how you're not even responding to the point.

And while not addressed to me

>I'm talking about carriers as a counter-air asset.
You only need this if you're attempting to project force outside of your land bases, a stupid move for Germany. You don't need carriers, you need Ju-88Cs and FW-190s, which will kick the shit out of any dinky little carrier plane.

*sinks your useless carrier focused on air defence*

Why hasn't anyone mentioned the sino-japanese front? It was where the IJA was doing most of it's fighting ang it also showed that they could barely defeat a non-industrialized country crippled by a civil war. After V-E, as soon as the Red Army showed up, they were completely steamrolled, even worse than Germany in Op Bagration

>You only need this if you're attempting to project force outside of your land bases, a stupid move for Germany.

Depending on land-based aircraft isn't really an option for Germany. I mean, just look at a map. Britain can rely on land-based aircraft in addition to aircraft carriers. Germany doesn't really have that option if it wants to operate effectively in the North Atlantic. In order for a u-boat campaign against Britain to be effective, it must be supported by aircraft carriers.

If you doubt this, just look at the Pacific theater. The American submarine campaign against Japan was devastatingly effective. So why was America able to wage an effective submarine campaign against Japan, whereas the German u-boat campaign against Britain was a failure? The answer is that America had enough aircraft carriers in play to counter Japanese aviation.

Also, you seem to stuck in a mode where you think I'm arguing that land-base aircraft are useless. I never argued that. Land-based aircraft are very useful, but you can't completely rely on land-based aviation in a conflict of this scale. Aircraft are limited by speed and range. An aircraft carrier acts as a mobile air base, allowing you to quickly concentrate air assets in areas where they are in high demand.

>Why hasn't anyone mentioned the sino-japanese front?
Because it wasn't a total war in the sense that most of the rest of WW2 was. Both Chiang and Mao were hoping that the Japanese would concentrate on the other one of them and leave them the last one standing in China after the Western powers inevitably took them apart. What fighting their was far more resembled irregular asymmetric conflicts than open and direct total war fighting. Japan took over the rich coastal plain very early in the fighting, and declined to spend much time or effort digging the remaining Chinese out of the mountains; and when they were annoyed into doing so, even as late as Ichi-Go was, they were able to easily go where they want, when they wanted, and the only difficulty was actually occupying the territory they trampled through.

It's the same reason that nobody mentions things like the continuing air war over Britain post 1940, or the anti-Vichy campaigns throughout all of Africa. They might have gone on for a while and actually been important, but they don't have that same degree of intensity.

>Depending on land-based aircraft isn't really an option for Germany. I mean, just look at a map. Britain can rely on land-based aircraft in addition to aircraft carriers. Germany doesn't really have that option if it wants to operate effectively in the North Atlantic. In order for a u-boat campaign against Britain to be effective, it must be supported by aircraft carriers.
>STILL missing the point.
Germany shouldn't be operating in the North Atlantic, and attempts to do so are throwing good money after bad.

>If you doubt this, just look at the Pacific theater. The American submarine campaign against Japan was devastatingly effective. So why was America able to wage an effective submarine campaign against Japan, whereas the German u-boat campaign against Britain was a failure? The answer is that America had enough aircraft carriers in play to counter Japanese aviation.
And, you know, the British adopted a convoy system, wheras the Japanese didn't, the Japanese had a much smaller and more concentrated convoy artery, whereas British shipping was scattered all over the globe, and oh yeah, the Japanese didn't have a 5:1 tonnage advantage over their rivals before another major naval power joined in to help them out. But sure, reduce it to your one idiotic factor.

>Also, you seem to stuck in a mode where you think I'm arguing that land-base aircraft are useless. I never argued that.
Well, back up thread when you claimed that Japan had better aviation than Germany, you did in fact argue just that, becuase SURPRISE, aviation encompasses more than carrier aviation.

>Aircraft are limited by speed and range. An aircraft carrier acts as a mobile air base, allowing you to quickly concentrate air assets in areas where they are in high demand.
Yeah, high demand areas like the Ruhr valley! And over Kiev, Crimea, Kursk, Moscow, etc!, and bombing London. Oh wait, no, carriers wouldn't do shit in any of those high demand areas for Germany.

>This is where aircraft carriers come into play. Aircraft carriers can carry fighter planes. Fighter planes can shoot down enemy aircraft. Therefore, the aircraft carrier protects your u-boats from being destroyed by enemy aircraft. It does this by deploying fighter planes which intercept and destroy enemy aircraft before they have a chance to threaten your u-boats. This creates a temporary "safe zone" where your u-boats can operate with minimal risk.
Why wouldn't you just attack enemy shipping with your aircraft instead of using aircraft to protect uboats attacking enemy shipping?

>Germany shouldn't be operating in the North Atlantic

Germany shouldn't have started the war in the first place, but since they did, they are obliged to operate in the North Atlantic. The only way that Germany has even the slightest chance of winning is by cutting Britain off from the United States. Victory in Europe is impossible without victory in the Atlantic. Victory in the Atlantic requires u-boats...and aircraft carriers. Both. Not one or the other. Both.

Didn't the IJA have some pretty iron discipline, and really good morale?

The quality of their crews and officers was excellent, as were some of their ship designs (excellent cruisers and destroyers, coupled with reliable long-range torpedoes and the know-how to employ them aggressively). Torpedoes were a regular feature of ship's armament, even on heavy types like cruisers.

However, as with their air force, they were unable to maintain the quality of their crews through the years of the war. American warship designs quickly enough caught up, and American innovations like radar gun direction (the Japanese relied mostly on optical gun direction) and the proximity fuse for AA batteries gave them an significant edge as well. The talent pool and training regimens of the US Navy were extremely resilient and could turn out quality crews and officers as fast as the ships could be rolled out, which was scary fast as things really got going.

So the IJN totally deserves credit for the state they had got themselves into by the start of the war, especially considering how recently and rapidly they'd modernized and industrialized. They were good men on good ships with good weapons. They just couldn't keep up with the losses.

>Really good morale

The "Japanese holdout" phenomenon seems to prove that morale in the IJA was extremely high. If somebody keeps fighting till the 1970's without surrendering then they certainly must have had "really good morale."

>1 guy holds out
>possibly a media stunt

what?

>Germany shouldn't have started the war in the first place, but since they did, they are obliged to operate in the North Atlantic
Why are they "obliged" to operate in the North Atlantic? None of their strategic goals are in the North Atlantic. They're all on the continent, and they don't need to defeat Great Britain to keep them, just outlast them. Defeating the USSR, while enormously difficult and perhaps impossible, is still more likely than starving out Britain, which is not necessarily the only way to skin that particular cat.

>The only way that Germany has even the slightest chance of winning is by cutting Britain off from the United States. Victory in Europe is impossible without victory in the Atlantic.. Not one or the other. Both.
You have yet to demonstrate any of that; furthermore, this plan is more fanciful than a Sealion, (even some sort of 1941 go through Spain to let the Italian fleet out Sealion), which can be done without either U-boats or CV, and just a lot of planes in the channel and the North Sea.

> Victory in the Atlantic requires u-boats...and aircraft carriers. Both
Victory in the Atlantic is never going to happen, even if the Germans channel their entire war economy into carriers and U-boats you imbecile. The British empire has a larger economy, a colossal head start, a fleet with actual experience in operations, more shipyard capacity, a friendly resource pool in the form of the U.S., and a plethora of bases they can operate out of, while the Germans are restricted to continental Europe. They are NEVER going to make this work.

>Why are they "obliged" to operate in the North Atlantic?

There is literally no way to defeat Great Britain without committing to extensive naval operations.

>they don't need to defeat Great Britain to keep them, just outlast them.

And there lies the problem. As long as Great Britain is being supplied by the USA, you can never "outlast" them. The only way to win is to somehow cut Great Britain off from outside help.

>They are NEVER going to make this work.

Of course not. That's exactly why they failed in real-life.

don't stop, o autists, this is too entertaining

>And there lies the problem. As long as Great Britain is being supplied by the USA, you can never "outlast" them. The only way to win is to somehow cut Great Britain off from outside help.
Sure you can. You just keep going longer than they're willing to keep fighting. Especially if you've become master of Continental Europe, you don't need to attack them at all, even if the U.S. was willing to prop up a British war economy indefinitely.

>1,800,000 tons

Being "Master of Continental Europe" hardly matters if the Allies can use Great Britain as a base for invasion of Vichy France. In order for Germany to maintain control of Europe, Britain must be forced to the negotiating table, and there is no way to make that happen without extensive naval operations.

When the Atlantic wall was being started, some 80+% of Heer forces were fighting Russia. By the time of D-Day, it had declined to "only" about 2/3 of them facing off against the Soviets.

If we somehow posit a world where the Germans defeat the USSR (And to be honest, that in and of itself implies some pretty serious divergence from history as we know it), then everything changes. An invasion of Occupied France is going to be way different when Germany has the luxury of putting more of their steel allocations into fighters, making it harder to pull Transport Plan shenanigans, and when you have about a hundred extra divisions to roll over anyone who tries to land anywhere.

Britain alone will never overcome that kind of resistance, it would take America entering the war (likely) and almost certainly being willing to use the atomic bomb to break them; but at that point, investing in your carriers isn't going to stop it anyway, so the ultimate point remains; the Battle of the Atlantic was a strategically defensive theater, and not one where the Germans had any chance of actually carrying the decisive offensive, so allocations of scarce resources into its persecution in a big way by constructing capital ships is a serious mistake.

>it would take America entering the war (likely) and almost certainly being willing to use the atomic bomb to break them

Britain was already developing nuclear weapons before the Americans started, in fact the reason the Americans managed it so quickly is partly due to the British agreeing to share all their work, on the understanding that America would share the nukes. Of course, America didn't share, and forced Britain to re-invent the nuclear bomb for themselves, again, after the war.

>willing to use the atomic bomb to break them

Nukes were invented specifically to destroy the Nazis, you think America was scared of Japan? Only the G*rms inability to fight and their subsequent easy defeat thru conventional means spared them the cleansing light of atomic fire.

>Britain was already developing nuclear weapons before the Americans started, in fact the reason the Americans managed it so quickly is partly due to the British agreeing to share all their work, on the understanding that America would share the nukes.
Britain alone is not likely to get the sort of air superiority over Germany proper to deliver a nuke even if they have the technical capacity to figure them out as well as the industrial capacity to build them. There's a reason they stuck to night bombing and generally suffered some pretty horrendous casualties.

>Nukes were invented specifically to destroy the Nazis, you think America was scared of Japan? Only the G*rms inability to fight and their subsequent easy defeat thru conventional means spared them the cleansing light of atomic fire.
My point is, that level of commitment won't be stopped by the Germans diverting steel away from land production and into a few carriers that would almost certainly get sunk within months of their deployment. Germany is not going to win the war in the North Sea, and trying to do so is a stupid ass idea.

Which is why if you read my first post you will see I state original eastern formations of the British during the war were shit so the Japanese performed well but after slim and reorganisation of "darkies" the Japanese got fucked.
Hong Kong was defended (albeit not very well).
You are wrong.

>Germany is not going to win the war in the North Sea, and trying to do so is a stupid ass idea.

The entire war was a stupid ass idea, but if you insist on starting a war, then you must have a plan to win in the Atlantic. The entire western front hinges on the Atlantic.

>Britain alone is not likely to get the sort of air superiority over Germany proper to deliver a nuke even if they have the technical capacity to figure them out as well as the industrial capacity to build them.

You have no basis for saying this, because it's untrue. Britain was outproducing Germany in aircraft and in everything else, too. It won the battle of Britain and was conducting daily bombing attacks on Germany before the Americans joined, achieving total air superiority would have been a serious challenge but you only need temporary superiority over the target area in order to drop a nuke, and that was well within the capability of the UK alone.

>Germany is not going to win the war in the North Sea, and trying to do so is a stupid ass idea.

Germany has no prospect of beating Britain at all, not at the start of the war not at any point during the war. All they could hope for is to force a ceasefire, a prospect they blew by losing the BoB but which an "alternate history" Nazi Germany /might/ be able to do by reforming their airforce.

Hitler never wanted war with the West, not least because he knew from personal experience that Germany had no way to defeat Britain. The Allies actually standing up for Poland was something he didn't expect and had no answer for, had things gone the way he wanted Germany would have faced the USSR alone (and probably won).

>The entire war was a stupid ass idea, but if you insist on starting a war, then you must have a plan to win in the Atlantic. The entire western front hinges on the Atlantic.
The Western Front does not need to be won, it simply needs not to be lost. I have no idea why you're insisting on this.

>You have no basis for saying this, because it's untrue
It is true.

>Britain was outproducing Germany in aircraft and in everything else, too.
This is true, but it is not the whole picture. Britain does not have infinite base space, and certainly not infinite projection from its base space which is largely restricted to England proper. Furthermore, the ratio of planes that the British produced relative to Germany was 1.097:1, which is tiny. It is not going to give them free reign over the skies, since their single engined fighters can't make it there and back. It won't correct their ass-backwards air war doctrine, focused on mostly unescorted night bombing attacks on morale in a total war.

> It won the battle of Britain and was conducting daily bombing attacks on Germany before the Americans joined
Which took on average about 5% losses per sortie and did jack shit. You didn't get serious strategic bombing damage until the Battle of the Ruhr, which was carried by the Americans.

>achieving total air superiority would have been a serious challenge but you only need temporary superiority over the target area in order to drop a nuke, and that was well within the capability of the UK alone.
Show me a fighter they had that could get to Berlin and back from England. If it's got two engines, bear in mind it'll probably get torn to pieces by any mono-engine plane.

There was a way to defeat Britain, but it would have been a victory based on politics. People tend to forget that in the early days of may 1940 Britain was extremely close to starting ceasefire negotiations with the Germans, but instead of Lord of Halifax Churchill succeeded Chamberlain. Now if we assume dove Halifax would have taken the position of prime minister instead of Churchill, we can assume that ceasefire negotiations would have started. Of course Hitler was pretty keen on keeping the UK out of the war in the first place, so successful negotiations are definitely likely. But another key factor in this is that Japan should get the right to take over Dutch Indonesia. This eliminates the need of Japan to attack the US in the first place since it will allow them the required resources. I don't think that sacrificing the main colony of an already occupied state without an enormous impact would have been a price too high for Halifax in these negotiations.

Now we can see the plan slowly developing. With a neutral UK and a Japan that won't attack the US it is very likely that the axis win crucial time. Eventually I doubt it that Roosevelt would continue the isolation policy until forever, but the lack of both Pearl Harbor and a Britain in severe need would give the America First initiatives much much more space and popularity, so I doubt Roosevelt would be able to neutralise those sentiments before let's say 1943/4(if ever).

This gives Germany and Japan enough time and resources to go all out on the Soviet Union, with Germany being able to focus all of its resources on the SU and Japan being able to launch an offensive around Vladivostok (which of course wouldnt be effective in terms of overal strategic gains but would be pretty useful for keeping invaluable siberian Infantry divisions far away from the front with Germany). (1/2)

>Germany has no prospect of beating Britain at all,
Precisely.
not at the start of the war not at any point during the war. All they could hope for is to force a ceasefire, a prospect they blew by losing the BoB but which an "alternate history" Nazi Germany /might/ be able to do by reforming their airforce.

A far more viable alternate history idea is that they beat the Soviets (Which is unlikely, but considerably less so than knocking Britain out of the war) and then simply absorbing attacks until Britain tires of the war. That would not require reforming of their airforce, and it certainly wouldn't require a carrier air force.

This strategy still doesn't guarantee an axis victory because the Soviets would still be able to pull off a hell of a fight if you just take into account their sheer amount of divisions, Industrial base, huge territory and high moral. But a Soviet Union without any support from the US and having to deal with both Japan and Germany (yes Khalkhin Ghol but again the japanese are mostly used as a method of keeping resources and divisions from the German front) and Germany that can go all out against the Soviets with enough supplies ( I forgot to mention but gaining access to middle eastern oil should be another part of the peace package with Britain. I don't know whether giving up these colonies would be a very likely step from Britain but I can definitely see them being obligated to export oil to Germany) would be in the best position imaginable to defeat the Soviet Union

Britain was quite able to build more airfields, "lack of space" not a limiting factor for their airpower.

> It won't correct their ass-backwards air war doctrine

You think BRITAIN is the one with the backwards air doctrines? The nation with the best RADAR and most modern fighter command of any of the belligerents? The nation with the best aircraft and pilots of the war? They're the ones you think were backward?

The reason the British bombed by night is because you don't need to see your target when you have radio navigation, and firebombing cities and carpet bombing industrial areas is not a high precision activity. It's true that bombing cities doesn't break a nations morale as was assumed at the time, but it DOES kill their future soldiers and diverts resources from the war, Britain couldn't have won the war with just bombing but they would have gotten to nukes first and they certainly had the technology and capability to drop a nuke on Berlin.

>simply absorbing attacks until Britain tires of the war

This would never happen because Britain was winning and had no reason to give up. Britain had millions of men to draw on from her empire and the resources of what was then the second biggest economy on Earth, meanwhile Germany would be facing constant uprisings across occupied Russia while British bombs and attacks of opportunity bled them dry. It is Germany, not Britain, that had to win the war as quickly as possible, all the indicators were moving in favor of the Brits the longer the war lasted.

Well if we follow user's scenario of an axis victory against the SU while the UK is still alive (extremely unlikely but ok) I don't think that the UK would have the winning hand. On the other hand I don't think they would be losing, but I see something akin to a stalemate happening then. Of course there would be partisans but the Nazis would be able to throw a big fat majority of its troops on the Atlantic Wall, while at the same time having the resources to launch initiatives in the middle East and possibly India during a later stage. UK's convoy network would definitely in a very threatening situation under these circumstances and while continuing the bombing raids is effective you also have to keep an eye on the falling support for the war in the UK if the whole conflict would start to look like a war without an end

Britain could only win if she developed nukes first. She had a big head start and better scientific infrastructure (not having Hitler diverting attention to useless Wunderwaffen helped) but it is not impossible that an alt-Germany could beat Britain to nukes. Taking out London is game over for the UK, getting a nuke there would require an accurate rocket but that's one area the Germans actually led in.

But I agree some kind of "white peace" is likely if Germany actually beats the USSR, followed by a Cold War between Britain and Nazi Germany.

>what is USS Ranger
>what are all the RN carriers used for the Malta runs
0/10 try harder

>Britain was quite able to build more airfields, "lack of space" not a limiting factor for their airpower.
Lack of space in which they can project force over where they want to is a factor. A Spitfire VBonly has an operational range of about 375km, and far less if you actually want to dogfight.

>You think BRITAIN is the one with the backwards air doctrines?
Yes, their "demoralization bombing" didn't work despite massive expense and losses.

>The nation with the best RADAR and most modern fighter command of any of the belligerents?
You don't know what doctrine means, do you?

>The nation with the best aircraft and pilots of the war?
You're joking, rihgt? The Americans beat them all out in just about every fields, and they never for instance, produced an interceptor like the FW-190, or a general purpose attack plane like the Ju-88.

>They're the ones you think were backward?
Yes, they were backwards in doctrine. Douhet's theories as to the fragility of nations to aerial attack were demonstrated completely wrong; Germany did NOT crumble from aerial attacks, and all the industrial damage (done in spite of, not because of British doctrine, which wanted to focus on dehousing and morale) only served to slow German armaments growth, it didn't actually knock them backwards. Contrast that to CAS heavy doctrines of the Germans and Soviets, which led to large breakthroughs and actual support of their land forces, and yes, they got a hell of a lot more for a hell of a lot less.

>The reason the British bombed by night is because you don't need to see your target when you have radio navigation,
Then why did they start bombing at day when they also had radio navigation? Could the horrific losses they took during the Heigholand Bight campaign have anything to do with it?

>and firebombing cities and carpet bombing industrial areas is not a high precision activity.
And it's also not a high efficiency activity.

>It's true that bombing cities doesn't break a nations morale as was assumed at the time,
It was not some common assumption of the time. You had considerable debate even within bomber command as to whether or not it would work, and doubts as to the efficacy of such going all the way back to World war fucking one.

> but it DOES kill their future soldiers and diverts resources from the war
And it costs enormous resources to attempt, such that Britain cranked out literally thousands of these othewrise useless planes, crewed them with air and ground crew running at over a million, and got what exactly for that investment? Similar resources invested into CAS at the beginning of the war probably would have saved them France, with the air resources they had.

>Britain couldn't have won the war with just bombing but they would have gotten to nukes first and they certainly had the technology and capability to drop a nuke on Berlin.
No, they couldn't, because they had no planes that could escort a bomber from England to Berlin, which you totally misunderstood when you think "Well they'll just build more airfields" apparently thinking they'll do this in the middle of the North Sea or some shit. Bombers go out, and they'll probably get shot down.

It is not Britain, but the threat of American intervention, as well as ramping Soviet resistance that makes the long war unwinnable for the UK. Even with her empire, Britain only outproduced the Germans by a ratio of about 1.3:1; that's not enough to come from behind and invade Europe, especially if the Germans pull a rabbit out of their hat and either break or come to terms with the USSR.

Not involved in Husky, nor did they embark on offensives of their own (note, offensives are not raids; Taranto, while effective, is not an offensive)

I'll check it out, I've read most of the memoirs of Marines and Soldiers fighting the ground war but I have a hard tiem finding IJA memoirs, the closest I could find was onward towards our noble deaths

>Yes, their "demoralization bombing" didn't work despite massive expense and losses.

You realise this was a GERMAN tactic, right? And saying it "didn't work" is beyond retarded, it didn't force the Germans to surrender but it did do significant damage to German industry and wiped out hundreds of thousands of subhuman G*rms into the bargain.

>You don't know what doctrine means, do you?

On the contrary it is extremely apparent that you are the one who doesn't know what the words he uses mean.

I'm done wasting my time on you, read a book and get fucked you dumb faggot.

>The Western Front does not need to be won, it simply needs not to be lost.

True, but the best way to not lose is to win. The best defense is to deliver a strong "knockout punch" that incapacitates the opposition.

>Thread is clearly intended to focus on Pacific theater, specifically the IJA

>Devolves into Anglo vs. Kraut shit-posting anyway.

>You realise this was a GERMAN tactic, right?
No, it was a German strike of opportunity, and one that did not work. The actual German doctrine for air power was to support Heer advances, which was phenomenally effective.

> And saying it "didn't work" is beyond retarded, it didn't force the Germans to surrender but it did do significant damage to German industry and wiped out hundreds of thousands of subhuman G*rms into the bargain.
The Americans did that with daylight bombing (actually hitting shit) and focusing on industrial targets, not housing blocks.

>On the contrary it is extremely apparent that you are the one who doesn't know what the words he uses mean.
I'm not the one that claimed that radar was a doctrinal aspect. You did that all by yourself.

Yes, but the "opposition" is more than just Great Britain. Of the four major powers that Germany fought, the UK is the one that can do the least to directly threaten Germany. Proper strategic focus would be on the land powers, France and the USSR. Hobbling your ability to fight either of the above to increase your chances of doing something to the UK (and by playing their own game at them) seems like a bad move.

Maybe I should have made this more clear earlier in the thread, but the reason I'm focusing so much on Britain is because if I'm in charge, I'm not going to invade the USSR at all unless the situation in the west has been resolved. It makes absolutely no sense to open up a two-front war by attacking Russia at this point in time. I'd rather maintain the non-aggression pact.

Best part:
>3/4 of the japan-related posts aren't even about the IJA

Logistics is everything. Early in the war when there was general cohesion between the Imperial Japanese Navy (the main source of logistics) and the Imperial Japanese Army, the Imperial Japanese Army easily scored victories against the Allies (or rather ABDA). Case and point - Battle of Singapore where the Japanese were outnumbered 4-1 by the British but resulted in the largest capitulation of British forces in history. The Dutch East Indies campaign as well where the Japanese were outnumbered 3-1 but took 1/4 of the casualties of the Dutch along with 100,000 prisoners.

Of course, things turned to shit once the Japanese navy started taking irrecoverable losses.

> 7000 Canadians
>darkies
> ok m8

I don't think that the European armies (The British, Dutch, French, etc.) had poor morale in the east. They simply were overconfident to a relatively racist extent that Japan as a non-European nation would ever be successful in an attack against them.

- Sending Force Z (2×capital ships + 4×destroyers) to Singapore without any air cover resulted in them being destroyed by Japanese aircraft.

- Not believing the Japanese would be smart enough to exploit the terrain resulted in the Japanese using bicycles to rapidly move troops (forcing the Allies to keep retreating and not set up a proper perimeter) as well as the Japanese using light tanks in the jungles (without much opposition). The British belief in their technology which resulted in the aircraft stationed in East Asia to be completely outclassed by Japanese fighters.

- Belief in Singapore being the 'Gibraltar of the East'. Singapore's naval guns didn't even contribute much to the fight in the end.

The second point being very similar to the German invasion through the Ardennes where they were fighting an overconfident enemy, not a demoralised one. The demoralisation only happened towards the end when routed.