Fuck, is it 2010 /k/ in here?
Were there any instances when Banzai charges weren't epic failures?
Jack Brooks
Ian Green
A concentrated and determined bayonet charge is a great tool for breaking through an enemy, but it needs to be either followed up with troops to secure an area, or directed at a very particular target that can be swamped. Japanese banzai charges in the pacific were often just remenents of a group that had been fucked thinking it was better to go out with some honor.
Nathan Sanders
technically a banzai charge?
John Smith
*laughs in gunpowder*
Nathaniel Reyes
this is a myth
Lincoln Bennett
t. John Jackson
Christian Campbell
Sengoku warriors were leagues more rational than their IJA descendants.
David Butler
>So often that the Chinese start deploying regiments armed only with swords so they would stop routing when the Japanese showed up with bayonets.
Wrong.
Big Sword Units - more properly called sword and pistol battalions- emerged out of WWI tactics.
Chinese observed on both sides on WWI and saw shock and infiltration tactics employed by Germans. In Hutier tactics, troops carried short hand weapons like pistols, the first SMGs, cavalry carbines, and then clubs, knives, and hatchets and shitloads of grenades in order to sneak in and wreak havoc in trenches. Spearheading infantry assaults in a line.
The Chinese then subsequently employed this in their army. Just right in time for the Warlord Period to commence. The Warlords- all of them- had units of infiltration and shock infantry armed with the same things as their European counterparts did. With one exception: a fucking dao sword.
Hence their name: sword & pistol units. If you're up against these men, you're more likely to get killed by a pistol round or a hurled grenade than a dadao.
Christian Turner
>Japs beat the Russians, Koreans, Chinese, British, and kick the Americans out of the Philippines.
>Some faggot on Veeky Forums decides the Japanese couldn't run a military because they must have been insane for willingly making large-scale suicidal sacrifices for their country
I hate the modern man
Oliver Sanders
I talked to a US veteran, he said that during WWII Japanese soldiers were taught to observe/listen for bolt action rifles. The point was to bayonet the enemy soldier while they pulled their bolt open to re-chamber a round. Unfortunately, the M1 Garand rifle was semi-automatic and threw Japanese soldiers into confusion and banzai charges failed.