WW2: The Composition and Capabilities of the Japanese Military

[Agent Miles]

The U.S. didn't have a modern mechanized army in 1942. We didn't have anything resembling that in Jan. '42. Why does everyone seem to think that Patton's Third Army would have defended the West Coast?

Here's a link by a USN Commander about sealift in WW2.
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/cno/n87...campaigns.html
Specifically the Japanese:
"The rate of successful delivery of military supplies to front line units averaged 96% in 1942, declining to 83% in 1943, 67% in 1944 and 51% in 1945.(90) These statistics fail to capture the extraordinary indirect effects of both U.S. submarine and air attacks on Japanese merchants as the Japanese had to resort to carrying much of their supplies within the combat zones by slow, inefficient means such as barges, fishing boats and the like. These direct and indirect effects of U.S. attacks clearly impacted Japanese army units. Throughout the war, munitions deliveries were 15% below front line needs, and 33 to 50% of all food sent to the front was lost due to attack or spoilage.(91) Accounts from front line units depict significant efforts to make up for lack of food deliveries by gardening, fishing, or bartering with natives with sporadic accounts of cannibalism in especially poorly supplied areas like New Guinea.(92)"

This hardly describes a situation in which the Japanese would be starving. They had 6 million tons of merchant shipping. We only had 16 M tons in the Pacific at the end of the war. The torpedoes on U.S. subs didn't even work at the beginning of the war.

1.4 million draftees were taken into the U.S. army in the summer of ’41. Although seven months training may give you a half-way trained private, it certainly isn’t enough time to train sergeants or officers to lead them. Even by Kasserine, we still weren’t ready. Only skilled pilots knew how to survive combat with Zeros and you have to survive that combat to become a skilled pilot. Our tanks were ridiculous. As with the navy commanders, 90% of our Army officers were ready to fight WW1 again. Now all this formidable war machine must do is protect a thousand miles of coastline from a real army.