United Kingdom of Poland wrote:The Tiger Kingdom wrote:To be fair, the environments the Japanese generally fought in didn't require tanks all that much - islands, jungles...hence the relative lack of Japanese tank development.
Their oil situation also precluded mechanization a whole bunch, as they could barely keep their Navy going with what little fuel they had, much less fleets of tanks and trucks.
still to say you beet japan in a land war was like saying you beet russia in a naval campaign (is there any noticible thing the russian navy did besides causing one of the greatest maritime tragidies ever)
Beating Japan in a land war is no scoffing matter. They may not have had much in the way of technology or equipment, but they had absolutely psycho levels of training, preparation, and indoctrination to compensate, as well as strategies designed to exploit that training, focusing mainly on speed, infiltration, and close-in combat. I remember reading an account written by an American Army officer who spent a year with a Japanese company in training, describing what they went through (at a time of peace, no less) as nothing less than hellish. Training 7 days a week, 16 hours a day. "Holidays" were days where everyone was supposed to work harder than normal. No days off, ever. Barely any food. And, of course, they kicked China around for a decade, kicked Russian ass in 1904-05, in addition to their seizure of all those islands in the opening months of 1942.
Just because one side doesn't have many trucks doesn't mean they're pushovers. It just means they need to be VERY careful as who where they fight, and with whom.
And the Russian navy dominated the Eastern Med in the late 18th century, invented the "icebreaker", helped discover Antarctica (as well explore a great deal of the Pacific), scared the bejesus out of NATO, etc.
