Effectiveness Of Japanese Tanks ...

Depends upon the time frame. Most of the same weaknesses you mention were true of the French tanks in 1940, which were considered some of the best in the world and insofar as main gun and armor thickness outclassed the German tanks that they faced. Of course they lost badly but much of that was due to poor doctrine rather than poor tanks.

 

Yea, this is so true. How on earth did they intend to communicate, signal flares, flags? Any nation that puts that time, effort, resources, and men inside a tank and doesn't put a radio in it deserves to get its ass kicked. It just means they do not properly understand mobile warfare.

 

I dont beleive early T34s had radios in them.

 

Nope they didnt. Special command tanks and such did but, Soviet armor behaved much like their infantry comrades, in large gaggles with mass attacks and equally massive losses. A feast for anti-tank gunners. :bang: Keep the ammo comming! It's truely amazing how the Soviets took such heavy losses and kept on coming. I doubt that can ever happen again.

 

Sure it can, there's even more people around today than there were then!

Seriously though, the lack of radios is a serious flaw in a tank but how many nations had had a chance to figure that out? This was the first war in which tanks would need to do anything other than just "move forward and shoot". Only with the advent of anti-tank weapons and tank combat do tanks need good communications.

 

The Germans realized the effetiveness of radios real fast after WW1.


So you dont think, that the fact that the Soviet government had total and absolute control of the press affected the way the Red Army faught? German troops were seen as heros and liberators. In 1941 the Red Army was held together by fear more than anything else. Once the reality of German occupation set in, the people changed their attitude.

 

Also - radios is only the start - once you've got radios (which is simply a superior (possibly only really workable) signals doctrine) you've got to use them properly. It is true that good tactical thinking would inevitably bring about better tactical training and the use of radios but it is equally true that the presence and use of radios in tanks could bring about better tactical thinking and thus the required training and expertise.

 

Yes, indeed they feed off eachother.

 

i read a studs terkel acct of the street battle of manilla 41 were a la nat gaurd tank unit with stuarts had a good close range slugfest with jap armour in which the stuarts mostly prevailed till they ran outta gas and ammo....the crews ending up in the dreaded jap pow camps of bataan

 

Good Men spent time in POW camps becouse American tanks suck

 

Like Majorwoody said, the tanks had the upper hand until they ran out of fuel and ammunition. How can you blame the tanks?

For the most part, American tanks were quite up to the task, and in some cases they were far superior to their enemies. This goes for the Stuart in the Pacific as it does for the Sherman when it first appeared. No Americans went to POW camps because of the Stuart in the Pacific, that's for sure.

 

They look fairly convincing here, at least:

 

What do you bade that on? The tanks ran out of gas and ammo, which is probably one of the worst dreams of a tanker during combat.



When was that picture taken? The one with the Stug that has sandbags on it.

 

I don't know when, but from the terrain, I'm fairly certain that it was taken in Africa (I know of no deserts of that size in Western Europe )

Christian

 

The tanks America put on the field of battle were garbage. Completely out classed by German tanks. Only our mass production saved the day. So put away your America First Kool-Aid.

 

This thread is about the discussion of Japanese tanks, though, which were generally inferior to the US tanks.

 

And they were even worse.

 

Which were worse than which?

 

Lets see, Japanese tanks were among the worse tanks around. Slow, poor armor, no radio, Asia/Pacific isnt really a good battlefield for tanks. Thats why developement of Japanese tanks lagged far behind the world leaders in tank design.(Russia and Germany)

 

Still, they performed fairly well against the British in the first part of the war. A poor tank is better than no tank.