The Far East

Ok, there must have been some tank vs tank engagements while fighting the Japanese.

The Brits/Commonwealth, the Americans, the Chinese, and the Soviets (when they joined in) all had tanks. Some more than others, but they all had some.
Admittedly most of the territory in the Japanese 'Co-Prosperity Sphere' was not good for tanks (jungles, teeny coral islands, etc) but tanks were used by both sides on all fronts.

Does anybody know of anything here?

 

I do remember reading of one clash between 5 japanese mediums and 5 Lee/Grants.

Result 4 burning 1 abandoned Japanese mediums without reply.

Sorry can't remember any of the fine details.

 

Well, the average Japanese medium was lighter than a Stuart in both armour and armament. Grants are impenetrable monsters to them.

 

I am fairly sure that most engagements would have ended badly for the Japanese. At least, later-war engagements against the UK/Commonwealth, USA & USSR.

Early war British armour in the Far East and the bits & bobs available to China would not fare so well...

 

Am I correct in my rememberance that the only Shermans sent to the Pacific were the Sherman 75s (and 105s), rather than the AT-optimised 76s?

 

I'd like to hear more about Far East armoured clashes. I know zilch!! All I know is flame thrower tanks were used widely but that's about it!

 

Well, there is allways the Manchurian campaign of 1945. But whatever the Japanese could muster of tanks, they were seriously outnumbered by a Soviet tank force consisting of IS-2s, T34/85s and 76mm Shermans. Must have been pretty one-sided.

But what about the Khalkin Gol, 1939 ? Where Zhukov had his combat debut ( ? ) as a tank commander. The Japanese had air superiority ( 450 aircraft ), 3 Infantry Divisions, 500 guns and 180 tanks. Zhukov had at his disposal 100000 Infantry, strong artillery, 580 ( outclassed ) aircraft and 498 tanks. I don´t know the exact type of tanks used by the combatants, but one source says that the Soviets used BT-7 and BT-8 fast tanks amongs other types. Anyway, Soviet armour won the day, despite Japanese air superiority.

 

As far as I remember that was a classical double envelopment by the Russians. Japanese tanks ended up trying to assault dug in AT guns while cut off from their supply lines. Never fun.

 

I've never read that there was any refusal to send 76mm Shermans to the Pacific, but then again I've never seen a photo of one there. It makes sense to save them for the European Theatre when a 75mm Sherman can more than handle anything the Japanese threw at it. How bout it Danyel?

 

In the movie "MacArthur" there is footage of an Easy Eight on the beaches of Luzon. This must have been a mistake because as far as I know the M4A3E8s weren't in action by that time. But the quality of the shot was so bad that it might just have been real footage.

 

I can´t see any reason why they couldn´t have shipped a few 76mm Shermans to the Pacific after VE day. But according to Steven J. Zaloga ( "M4 (76mm) Sherman Medium Tank 1943-65" ) : "The M4 (76mm) was never deployed with the US Army´s separate tank battalions in the Pacific. This was because of the poor quality of Japanese tanks, which were so thinly armored that they could be easily destroyed by the 75mm gun. The same applied to US Marine tank battalions, which also exclusively relied on 75mm versions of the M4 medium tank series"

 

Well, you've done it now. We all want to hear more. Nice post!

 

Hi

The Nomonham incident

Yours

tom!

 

Apparently the Japanese had 4 tank 'divisions'
(From http://mailer.fsu.edu/~akirk/tanks/ again)

Tank units in the Japanese Army:

1st. Tank Group (Division)
Nickname: "Taku" (Development) Formed in December 1941 in Manchuria.
Renamed a Division in June 1942.
This unit operated in Manchuria until the final days of the war in which it was transferred to mainland Japan.

2nd. Tank Group (Division)
Nickname: "Geki" (Hit) Formed in December 1941 in Manchuria.
Renamed a Division in June 1942.
Moved to the Philippines in 1944 and was destroyed as an effective unit in March 1945 by the Americans.

3rd. Tank Division
Nickname: "Taki" (Water Fall) Formed in June 1942 in Mongolia.
Ended the war in China.

4th. Tank Division
Nickname: "Hagane" (Steel) Formed in July 1943 in Japan directly from tank school and operated much like the German Panzer Lehr Division.
Ended the war in Japan - never saw combat.


So there must have been some action!!!
Plus - take a look at the site I mentioned - the Japanese certainly had a good range of specialist armoured vehicles, not just tanks...

 

There was a brief armor engagement on Guadalcanal. On 23 October 1942 nine Japanese Type 95 & Type 97 tanks of the 1st Independant Tank Company were quickly destroyed by 37mm AT guns, gernades and an SP 75mm gun of the 1st Marine division.
There were Japanese tanks on Tarawa, but they were dug in and used as pill boxes, the fate of most Japanese tanks in the Pacific.
The 1st Marine division experienced a Japanese tank counter attack during the invasion of Peleleliu on September 15 1944. Between 13-17 Type 94 Japanese tanks charged the Marines and were wiped out by heavy fire from all types of weapons. There wasn't enough left after the battle to determine exactly how many Japanese tanks were involved, it appears that two survived the charge. Individual Marine unit claims for tanks destroyed was around 180(!), many units obviously combining for the kills. The two surviving tanks were destroyed in another counter attack later in the day.

 

So far all the actions mentioned (and thanks guys - they're all good! Seriously. I'm glad to learn about this side of the war) have been mostly tank vs anti-tank. Very little tank vs tank.
I do kinda assume that this was the more common form of armoured warfare out in the Far East!

But somewhere, out there, must be a record of some Japanese tanks tangling with enemy tanks...

 

Well, in any case, it would have been short and very likely with an obvious outcome... None of the enemies of the Japanese empire could make tanks that sucked so badly.

 

Britain did in the 1930s.
China had a whole host of obsolete/crappy tanks.

Remember that until 1941 (and even after that!) the Far East was really not a priority for anybody. Good equipment was kept in Europe.

 

The only tank engagement I ever read about in the Manchurian Campaign in 1945 was over in about 10 minutes. The Russians had both T-34 76's and 85's and SPGs. The Japanese had tinkertoys.

The thing that scared the hell out of the Russians was the suicide bombers. They lost more than one tank to a guy in a hole in the road with a hammer and a 500lb bomb. Not to mention the ones that hid in the ditches by the roadsides.

 

This would make sense, since the role of the Marine tanks would, of course, primarily be infantry support, which is what the Sherman was originally designed to do in the first place. And the Japanese tanks posed very little threat to the M4 in any of its variants. I have read where Japanese A/T guns destroyed Shermans during the invasion of Tarawa. This was at extremely close range, of course.