WW2: The Composition and Capabilities of the Japanese Military

[CBR]

Well, yes and no.

However, Baseplate was a tactical success. Was it the kind of massively lopsided victory the German air corps had grown accustomed to in their heyday? No, but it was a success nonetheless. Despite its numerous problems at this stage, the Luftwaffe was able to plan and execute a powerful strike against the far superior Allied air forces. IIRC, the Allies lost around 500 planes while the Germans lost only half that number, and a large portion of that was due to friendly fire losses due to a failure to alert the flak batteries that German planes would be flying over them. Had American manufacturing not have been so overwhelmingly superior, such a loss would have been a major blow to the Allied air corps - achieved 4 months before the war in Europe was over.

Contrast that to the Japanese operations at the time, which seemingly revolved around the best ways in which to hurl their planes into American ships. That relates back to my original sense that the Japanese deterioration was suprisingly acute.

Looking at losses provided by Wikipedia which comes from the book " Bodenplatte: The Luftwaffe's Last Hope" then the Allied lost 336 planes and had 190 damaged versus Luftwaffe losses of 271 lost and 65 damaged. Destroying 24% more than you lose could be considered a tactical success I guess but when looking at permanent pilot losses (213 KIA or POW) for the Luftwaffe, while the allied lost nowhere near that as many planes were destroyed on the ground, then it was an utter failure.

If this had been an operation in a very short war of a few days duration, then the pilot losses would not have mattered that much perhaps and it could even be considered a small success, especially if damaged planes cannot be repaired in time, but when you are fighting a long war of attrition you dont want to waste pilots like that.

To compare with Japan: Late '44 the average Navy fighter pilot had 40 hours of flying time and the Army apparently were down to 60 or 70 hours. But have found one claim that said 100 hours for the Navy so not sure which number is correct.

Luftwaffe training had been cut down to around 100-110 hours by '44. In the summer that year a survey of their pilots found that a majority of the pilots had seen between 8 to 30 days active service. Only a small percentage had an average of 3 months of service.

So depending on what number we pick the two airforces either had similar training or it was worse for the Japanese. If it was worse that would partially explain why their late war performance was worse than the Luftwaffe.

Sources for numbers:
http://www.allworldwars.com/The%20De...r%20Force.html
http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/F/i/Fighter_Pilots.htm
http://www.combinedfleet.com/ijnaf.htm


CBR

[PanzerJaeger]

Looking at losses provided by Wikipedia which comes from the book " Bodenplatte: The Luftwaffe's Last Hope" then the Allied lost 336 planes and had 190 damaged versus Luftwaffe losses of 271 lost and 65 damaged. Destroying 24% more than you lose could be considered a tactical success I guess but when looking at permanent pilot losses (213 KIA or POW) for the Luftwaffe, while the allied lost nowhere near that as many planes were destroyed on the ground, then it was an utter failure.

As mentioned, a not insignificant portion of the Luftwaffe losses can be attributed to their own Flak guns due to clerical oversight. I'm not sure that should be involved in a comparison of their performance against their targets. In any event, any German loss at this point could be considered irreplaceable as they were so numerically inferior - whether it be a pilot or a simple rifleman. Had the US forces had any equity of scale with their German counterparts, I think Baseplate would have been a significant achievement. In fact, their ability to launch the operation at all and the success they did manage was a significant achievement, albeit insignificant to the overall effort.

To compare with Japan: Late '44 the average Navy fighter pilot had 40 hours of flying time and the Army apparently were down to 60 or 70 hours. But have found one claim that said 100 hours for the Navy so not sure which number is correct.

Luftwaffe training had been cut down to around 100-110 hours by '44. In the summer that year a survey of their pilots found that a majority of the pilots had seen between 8 to 30 days active service. Only a small percentage had an average of 3 months of service.

So depending on what number we pick the two airforces either had similar training or it was worse for the Japanese. If it was worse that would partially explain why their late war performance was worse than the Luftwaffe.

Sources for numbers:
http://www.allworldwars.com/The%20De...r%20Force.html
http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/F/i/Fighter_Pilots.htm
http://www.combinedfleet.com/ijnaf.htm

CBR

Very interesting. This is the type of info I was looking for.

The Japanese forces don't seem to be as well documented as the other combatants. There is definitely info out there - especially on the technical specs of their ships and planes, but not the wealth and detail that there is on the others.

Any info on the tactics and training of the ground forces?

Things got out of hands in China because the Kuomintang (and later, the CCP) were too stuborn to give up, and because the local japanese generals went crazy (against the IJA headquarters' opinion), not because Japan wanted to conquer whole China and exterminate the Chinese population. They did it because they couldn't force the nationalists to accept peace, and thus, had to fight to death.

Could you expand on that some?

[CBR]

As mentioned, a not insignificant portion of the Luftwaffe losses can be attributed to their own Flak guns due to clerical oversight. I'm not sure that should be involved in a comparison of their performance against their targets. In any event, any German loss at this point could be considered irreplaceable as they were so numerically inferior - whether it be a pilot or a simple rifleman. Had the US forces had any equity of scale with their German counterparts, I think Baseplate would have been a significant achievement. In fact, their ability to launch the operation at all and the success they did manage was a significant achievement, albeit insignificant to the overall effort.

First I'll have to make a small correction as I forgot to add the few Ju88's that was lost/damaged too so total German loss was 280/69. It says 84 were shot down by their own AAA (another 88 from Allied AAA)

I'm not judging their performance based on losses. And of course there are several ways to judge it. One way of looking at it would be losses from air to air combat only. In that case it appears to be 62/25 in favor of the Allies but maybe having bomb loads would have had an effect. But there is no doubt there was a difference in skill.

I'm merely looking at the consequences of the operation. It hurt the Luftwaffe more than it hurt the Allies. And yes there is no denying that they did manage to launch an operation like that and even achieve surprise but that is just half the battle and they failed in the other half as it was just too ambitious. Adolf Galland was also against the operation according to Wiki.

In the end it would not have mattered much because as you say any loss was irreplaceable and the war was to end in defeat in a few months anyway. But if one looks at the way they could have done the most damage to the Allies then Bodenplatte was the wrong way. Not sure about the survival rates but it might have been somewhere between 50-70% (unless at low altitude) so as long as the pilot is shot down over friendly area he can jump into another fighter after a quick smoke and coffee

The Japanese forces don't seem to be as well documented as the other combatants. There is definitely info out there - especially on the technical specs of their ships and planes, but not the wealth and detail that there is on the others.

Any info on the tactics and training of the ground forces?

Well I gotta admit I'm more attracted to their sexy looking warships and airplanes than their army. Although they managed to show some strategic skill that surprised the allies in the beginning of the war, my impression of their army is that it was somewhat lacking.

http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/resour...rea2/drea2.asp for the Soviet-Japanese conflict of 1939. There is some stuff about their weapons and doctrine.


CBR

[Agent Miles]

The Japanese were in a total war with us. We did nuke two of their cities. I am pretty sure that the IJA would do whatever their Emperor ordered.
The Japanese would get to the West Coast with enough supplies to take their objectives, just as they did in SE Asia. Then they could live off the land like I said, unless FDR burned California to the ground. The “divisions” that the U.S. called up in two months were no more trained soldiers of a professional army than those colonial forces that the Japanese defeated in SE Asia. The Wehrmacht was poorly supplied in Russia that first winter. It didn’t stop them from destroying half that country. Sure we would still defeat the Japanese. The choice is, stubbornly continue to fight Japan or sign a truce. Millions of Americans would have died and the country would have been ruined. In the meantime, Hitler could conquer a starving Russia in the summer of ’42 and Churchill would have to do the best he could with a starving Britain alone against Fascist Europe.
The U.S. was prostrate in early 1942. Our army was totally untrained. The main power of our navy was in ruins except for a few aircraft carriers and a new theory of naval power that 90% of the naval commanders didn’t even believe in (we still built battleships after PH). Our aircraft were obsolete or outclassed by the Japanese. We had totally underestimated our foe the way all of you still do today.

[Sarmatian]

Even if I do agree that US troops lacked training and experience, I certainly wouldn't equate them with colonial troops IJA defeated in SE Asia. Those colonial troops were little more than a police force, they weren't reinforced or properly supplied and they lacked armour. Japan's infantrymen were fierce fighters, due to their rigorous training and discipline but they couldn't compete against a modern mechanized army which uses combined arms, as was evident at Khalkin Gol, where they were trounced by the Soviets. Read the article provided by CBR (thanks for the article CBR btw, great read)

It is impossible for a modern army to live of the land. Even if they do manage to find enough food (which is questionable), they would still need medical supplies, ammunition, spare parts etc... Where did you see a WW2 army living of the land? Those isolated groups of 5-10 soldiers that got lost in various jungles in SE Asia can't be considered an army.

Even if it were remotely possible for them to actually land on west coast, the end result would be the loss of all those troops and defeat of Japan much before 1945. Surprisingly, that's the reason they didn't try it...

[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.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

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.

If our tanks were ridiculous the Japanese tanks were more like paper-covered rickshaws. The M-3 Lee would probably have been a sufficient tank to combat the Japanese tank forces at the time and it was just an interim solution for us.

Not only have you completely failed to show that the Japanese would have been able to put any number of divisions on the shores of California, but you have also assumed that the American populace wouldn't fight back, the US army would be powerless to stop the relatively ineffective force that was the IJA, and that the US would be willing to surrender to the Japanese even though Roosevelt was looking for a reason to get into the war, but couldn't for a while because of the lack of domestic support.

[Geezer57]

The hypothetical Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor is explored in-depth by author/historian Harry Turtledove in his novels Days of Infamy and End of the Beginning. The author captures the flavor of the period extremely well, both novels are solidly written, and get good reviews. Given his historian background, no glaring historical anomalies are found here. Good stuff - recommended.

[Agent Miles]

To clarify, I was not talking about the Japanese doing everything they did in WW2 and then invading the U.S. As CBR's earlier link argued, that would not work. I was always arguing that the Japanese manpower, sealift and supplies that they did have and did use in SE Asia and the Pacific taking their objectives should have been used in a blitzkrieg directed against Midway (when it was defenseless), then Hawaii before it was reinforced (B-17s can fly to Hawaii, but not fighters and you cannot reinforce or hold anything without control of the air) and then the West Coast (when a paper army was our only defense). Everything that could be spared would focus on this goal the way Clausewitz would want it. The Japanese would still lose a protracted war, but to fight this protracted war instead of signing a truce, FDR would have to abandon Russia to Hitler (T-34 crews don’t fight well if they don’t eat our lend-lease food and we literally fed Russia) and perhaps force Churchill to a truce with a Nazi dominated Europe. Millions of Americans would perish and we would have to fight the battle for Okinawa a thousand times to retake California.
I have shown that the IJN had enough sealift to do this and that their forces would generate enough combat power to meet this goal. If need be, the IJA in China could suck it up for a few months so that a maximum effort could be made against the U.S. The Japanese sealift would be taking supplies to the West Coast and bringing back whatever can be plundered, to include slave labor. U.S. subs operating from, Panama I suppose would be using the torpedoes that didn’t work against these merchant ships. As soon as FDR sees the light, you give back the continental possessions in return for a truce with open trade, and then gear up to overrun Asia.
No one has demonstrated how the Japanese supplies and sealift that did exist at that time and were used effectively would somehow only work everywhere except against the U.S. mainland. No one has explained how the real U.S. military that existed in early 1942 would manage to stop this despite inferior equipment, training and skill.

[CBR]

The Japanese were in a total war with us.

That is the problem isn't? Japan did not plan nor prepare for a total war as they thought they could win with a bit of shock and awe that would make the decadent and weak Americans cave in. That was the problem for the Axis powers in general really: the Allies thought in longterm for both production and training and won the war on attrition.

We did nuke two of their cities.

The US ability and willingness to use nuclear weapons in 1945 says nothing about Japanese ability and realistic objectives in 1941.

I am pretty sure that the IJA would do whatever their Emperor ordered.

Most of the Japanese army was busy in China so it does not matter what the Emperor wanted. Even if they magically produced 200 divisions out of thin air they would also have to magically produce a large freighter fleet to transport such an army.

The Japanese would get to the West Coast with enough supplies to take their objectives, just as they did in SE Asia. Then they could live off the land like I said, unless FDR burned California to the ground. The “divisions” that the U.S. called up in two months were no more trained soldiers of a professional army than those colonial forces that the Japanese defeated in SE Asia. The Wehrmacht was poorly supplied in Russia that first winter. It didn’t stop them from destroying half that country.

I don't see how you can even compare the ability or ~10 Japanese divisions to 150+ Axis divisions in Russia. And yes they had trouble with supplies in the winter '41 and had been advancing for several months with more or less proper supplies. A modern army does not work unless it has supplies. The ammunition takes up more weight than its food.

If you noticed in my Pearl Harbor link it is even stated that the Japanese High Command admitted before the Midway operation that they could not even supply a garrison there. So that invasion would ultimately have been temporary.

Here is an interesting Time Magazine article from March 1942 talking about the problems with lack of shipping. It also mentions how 3.5 tons of shipping was needed so supply one soldier in France in WW1 and that number now was higher. Such a number would also increase the further away one has to transport stuff and the Pacific is a bigger ocean than the Atlantic: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...3059-1,00.html

Luckily someone did all the calculations for a Japanese invasion of Hawaii. It is a very long post that involves lots of numbers and logistics.

Here is one quote regarding shipping needs for one division:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Calculating IJA shipping requirements.

The TO&E of a typical IJA triangular division (reinforced) is here

ibiblio.org/hyperwar/Japa.../hb-17.jpg

24,600 men
7,930 Horses
3,500 Horse carts (assumed)
411 LMG's
453 50mm knee mortars
78 A/T rifles
114 x HMG's
18 x 37mm A.A.
72 x 70 or 75 mm gun
12 x 105 mm gun
7 Tanks
284 trucks.
15 cars.

Food supplies: 2 months.
Units of fire: 2
Supplies: gasoline, lubricants: 2 months

Summary: Cubic Feet / % of total lift

Using the USMC tables and the assumptions described above, the shipping costs for the reinforced IJA division at the link above are:

Men and Baggage: 2,263,200 cubic feet. = 40%
Horses, baggage and equipment: 1,732,560 cubic feet = 30.7%
Tanks: 7,091 cubic feet = Negligible
Divisional weapons: 42,332 cubic feet = 1%
Vehicles: 328,099 cubic feet = 4.9%
Support and construction: 21,066 cubic feet = negligible
Ammunition: 354,295 cubic feet = 6.3%
Food (Horses and men): 863,244 cubic feet = 15.3%
Gasoline and lubricants: 39,973 cubic feet = 1%

Total cubic volume: 5,651,861 cubic feet.
Shipping required @ 30 cubic feet per ship ton = 188,395 tons.

So 188,395 tons for one division. When looking at the total amount of shipping it becomes obvious that Japan did not have the capacity for more than a few divisions.

But the conclusion is that it was possible but not a sure thing. And also we would now be looking at late Jan/early Feb before that operation is even over. Even if it was possible to go further and invade California it would most likely be March if they were unrealistically quick. And still not involve a lot of troops.

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtop...?f=65&t=120787


CBR