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'Why the heck didn't the Japanese send their battleships down to Guadalcanal and put Henderson Field out of business for good?'
Very interesting discussion. He looks @ IJN strategy, fuel consumption by BB & DD & other IJN capital units, & concludes that IJN was fighting the worst kind of war possible in the Solomons, & eating up fuel while unable to adequately reinforce or resupply or deliver heavy weapons to the IJA units fighting for their lives. An excellent read.
The Japanese have always had rather poor logistics.
The Japanese have always had rather poor logistics.
This came from planning for their ideal war. They hoped for the "Great All-Out Battle" with the US. In this scenario the USN would come charging across the Pacific, far from their supply bases, and, after weathering repeated attrition attacks by submarine and aircraft, would arrive battered and beaten at the home waters of the IJN where they would be destroyed by superior tactics and the spirit of Yamato. (yada-yada).
The upshot of this (combined with the close targets to the west) was that they expected the Big Fight to be close to home, where the short-legged ships, destroyers and the like, could dash back into port to refuel and resupply. This policy meant cheaper ships, and with the eternal battling over funding with the IJA that was important.
Now, we should remember the old saying about what happens to a plan when we have first contact with the enemy...
This came from planning for their ideal war. They hoped for the "Great All-Out Battle" with the US. In this scenario the USN would come charging across the Pacific, far from their supply bases, and, after weathering repeated attrition attacks by submarine and aircraft, would arrive battered and beaten at the home waters of the IJN where they would be destroyed by superior tactics and the spirit of Yamato. (yada-yada).
...
Yah, but I think this kind of planning was endemic to the IJ military, army & navy. Looking back @ their campaigns in Korea, Manchuria, China & off into WWII in the PTO, the IJ often won the day by committing their reserves & making all-out efforts (with the allocated forces. Remember that the bulk of IJA force was haring after partisans & guerrillas in China.) They did careful planning & prep in terms of intelligence & scouting the ground/enemy dispositions/enemy order of battle & personnel, troop strength & etc.
I can't tell if the IJ officer corps, imbued with the values of Bushido, neglected to take enemy learning curves into consideration. I think they seriously underestimated the US' will in the PTO, & mistook the US Navy for the Russian Imperial Navy that was so soundly defeated @ Tsushima Strait. Certainly the IJ had a low opinion of the multi-ethnic, multi-national origins of the US.
Like the US experience with the German military, we lost tactically to the IJ up until mid-1942. After that, slowly, the US pre-war industrial & production planning began to yield results, & we cycled expertise back from the PTO & ETO into training. Now there's an air of inevitability in the histories of WWII - but that wasn't obvious @ the time.
I can't tell if the IJ officer corps, imbued with the values of Bushido, neglected to take enemy learning curves into consideration.
I think it is important to differentiate between the skilled Japanese strategic land warfare planning and their infantry tactics used at the Division level and below.
Their WWI style tactics lagged far behind other combatants and relied very heavily on Bushido to push attacks through. Japanese confidence grew as their out dated tactics were successful against the poorly equipped / trained Chinese and the poorly motivated British. Trained, motivated troops equipped with modern weapons (USMC), however, caused these tactics to fail badly.
It is important to me to remember that the Tokugawa samurai wouldn't recognize the Bushido Code the gumbatsu pushed on the general public in the '20s and '30s.
I think it is important to differentiate between the skilled Japanese strategic land warfare planning and their infantry tactics used at the Division level and below.
Their WWI style tactics lagged far behind other combatants and relied very heavily on Bushido to push attacks through. Japanese confidence grew as their out dated tactics were successful against the poorly equipped / trained Chinese and the poorly motivated British. Trained, motivated troops equipped with modern weapons (USMC), however, caused these tactics to fail badly.
Two words - John Basilone. In the battle for Henderson Field in late October of 42, he singlehandedly killed hundreds (some even speculate thousands) of Japanese troops who kept attacking in wave after wave of banzai charges. He held off an entire regiment with just two machineguns and his .45. I once read that at one point, he had to personally run out into his fire zone to clear away bodies because they were piled up so deep his field of fire was blocked. It cost the Imperial Army a lot of troops to eventually learn that what worked against the British wasn't going to work against American Marines.
I think it is important to differentiate between the skilled Japanese strategic land warfare planning and their infantry tactics used at the Division level and below.
Their WWI style tactics lagged far behind other combatants and relied very heavily on Bushido to push attacks through. Japanese confidence grew as their out dated tactics were successful against the poorly equipped / trained Chinese and the poorly motivated British. Trained, motivated troops equipped with modern weapons (USMC), however, caused these tactics to fail badly.
There's a point there - the IJA succeeded often enough by sheer audacity - going around the fixed artillery shore defenses @ Singapore, for instance, which fired only to sea. The British defenders thought the landward side was too hard to get through in quantity, with equipment - but the IJ had scouted & found ways through on bicycle & light tanks, & IJA was able to bluff the defenders there @ the end.
If the British & US troops had foreseen what being taken prisoner by the IJA entailed - Would they have surrendered? The British @ Singapore might have prevailed - the US @ Philippines had lost a lot of supplies & materiel, & the Philippine levies were only half-trained & hadn't been issued all their gear yet. & the USAAF bombers in Philippines failed to carry out their strike on the Japanese airfields in Formosa, which might have derailed the IJA invasion timetable & so given Gen. MacArthur sufficient time to shift supplies away from the beaches. A lot of imponderables there.
In the case of the US - we had fought the Civil War, & remembered the lessons - & also WWI. The Germans & IJA, as I recall, thought it was unfair (unsporting?) that we would mass arty on their positions, & fire prodigious amounts of shot & shell. The same for crew-served weapons - the IJA fought on a much more economic basis (look @ their machineguns - firing short strips of ammo, rather than belt-fed).
We (the US) tended to call in arty fires, everything within range, & fire until the target was toast - & sometimes even that wasn't enough. Nonetheless, US arty was the prime killer for us. We preferred expending rounds to expending troops, & the difference showed. As long as we could deliver beans to bombs in quantity, on time, where needed - banzai attacks were counterproductive.
IJA tactics also failed against the Soviet troops in WWII on the Manchurian border. The Soviets were in tanks, better tanks than the light IJA models (the IJA didn't see any point to a medium tank or heavier, nor long-range bombers - they didn't have any targets for them @ the time, & the road net in Korea, Manchuria, China was mostly unpaved & epic in the rainy season).
On a cultural note, the IJA was reportedly more hidebound than the IJN - which patterned itself on the British Navy, & saw the British as their model. The IJN had a more worldly view of power projection, as they also studied British Empire & trade, & Mahan on naval power. The IJA, as I recall, patterned itself more on the Prussian Army - when they saw any need for a foreign model.
Two words - John Basilone. In the battle for Henderson Field in late October of 42, he singlehandedly killed hundreds (some even speculate thousands) of Japanese troops who kept attacking in wave after wave of banzai charges. He held off an entire regiment with just two machineguns and his .45. I once read that at one point, he had to personally run out into his fire zone to clear away bodies because they were piled up so deep his field of fire was blocked. It cost the Imperial Army a lot of troops to eventually learn that what worked against the British wasn't going to work against American Marines.
They counted ~900 dead at that fight, so probably not thousands.
We (the US) tended to call in arty fires, everything within range, & fire until the target was toast - & sometimes even that wasn't enough. Nonetheless, US arty was the prime killer for us. We preferred expending rounds to expending troops, & the difference showed. As long as we could deliver beans to bombs in quantity, on time, where needed - banzai attacks were counterproductive.
a resident of Manila during the liberation of Manila asked a GI why they keep on bombarding the walled city of Intramuros because there are so many people trapped there. the GI just retorted : "you mean to say we still have to shipped back these arty shells back to the states?"
This came from planning for their ideal war. They hoped for the "Great All-Out Battle" with the US. In this scenario the USN would come charging across the Pacific, far from their supply bases, and, after weathering repeated attrition attacks by submarine and aircraft, would arrive battered and beaten at the home waters of the IJN where they would be destroyed by superior tactics and the spirit of Yamato. (yada-yada).
The upshot of this (combined with the close targets to the west) was that they expected the Big Fight to be close to home, where the short-legged ships, destroyers and the like, could dash back into port to refuel and resupply. This policy meant cheaper ships, and with the eternal battling over funding with the IJA that was important.
Now, we should remember the old saying about what happens to a plan when we have first contact with the enemy...
So why would the IJN, and IJ military in general, think that the Allies were going to conduct operations in a way that would give Japan an advantage? Typically it's just the opposite, if intel is at least decent.
Maybe I should start a new thread on "What did IJ think their success path was in WWII, starting with Pearl Harbor?"
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Shadow plays
