For PanzerJaeger, comparing the armies of WW2

[Martok]

What do you guys think of the American military?

It certainly had some good units, but without the massive support it usually had at its disposal, it was prone to falter - especially the regular infantry divisions.

My own opinion of our military forces in WW2 is that they were....okay. Decent, but not great. I suppose one could potentially argue that ours was the best (due to our significant advantages in men and material), but I usually prefer to grade such things on a per capita basis.

American commanders were generally competent but not brilliant (aside from a few notable exceptions such as Patton). Our training and doctrine was solid & fairly well thought-out, while still allowing for innovation & adaptation when necessary. American vehicles, guns, and equipment generally weren't anything particularly special (I always think of the very-average Sherman tank), but they were relatively reliable and fairly easy to service.

The one area in which I would say the US excelled was in logistics -- again, at least partially because of our resource advantage. We seemed to do pretty well at keeping our troops reasonably well-supplied on a (more or less) consistent basis.

In the pacific, however, the Marines dominated. Does that speak to their skill or the deficiencies of the Japanese?

I'd say it's a bit of both. In addition to the Marines being somewhat better and more thoroughly trained, we were also able to take advantage of the Japanese' faulty tactics and doctrine.

The IJA seemed to suffer from a "personal skills in combat are more important than the whole" syndrome, and never fully adopted the more standard "professional" stance used by most other major armies at the time. I don't think Japanese army commanders ever truly grasped the full meaning & importance of coordinating one's units to achieve objectives -- they were too locked into traditional "samurai mode" (so to speak).

Of course (as mentioned before), we also had the overall advantage in personnel & equipment, which definitely helped. The fact that the US Pacific Navy had managed to cut off support to Imperial troops certainly didn't hurt either.