Are there any military history afficionados out there who think they pretty much know it all? Here’s a question: which vehicle would win in a straight drag race? An M3 Stuart or a Japanese Type 95 tank? On paper, the two armored vehicles are evenly matched for speed. In this corner, the US Stuart M3 at 14.7 tons, 250 HP Continental W-670-9A, 7 Cylinder air-cooled radial. Facing it is the Imperial Japanese Type 95 Ha-Go at 7.4 tons powered by a 120 HP Mitsubishi NVD 6120 air-cooled diesel.
Amazingly, we know the answer. Allied troops raced both of them on film right after the war. The race starts at the 7:20 mark on this video. You might want to guess the winner before watching. No cheating now.
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Should have been one of the earliest episodes of “Pinks”. Its fun to see the “testosterone” thing alive and well as we go through history.
Query, W. Do you know if this was filmed in AU?
And here I sit on dial-up with no practical way to find the answer.
This looks like it was filmed in the British 14th Army rear areas.
Put your money on the Honey… quality of manufacture and field service will be telling.
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W, how do you maintain such protean interests?
Momentum matters.
As I said on “The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes” thread change happens at an interface and it is often stimulated by morally questionable activity. Without foolish youths attempting Saturday night drag racing there would be no trained engineers inspecting captured technology.
This exercise happened immediately before the battles of Kohima and Imphal that turned back the Japanese invasion of India. In strategic importance those engagements could be compared to the German defeat at El Alamein in 1942. Information gained in these tests could have prevented a Japanese breakthrough.
The Burma theater is neglected by most Americans. The experience gained in jungle fighting in WW-II, and not only in the Island Hopping campaigns, along with post war British insurgency suppressions, contributed to the allied institutional knowledge base. To many Americans now believe that we blundered into Vietnam with no understanding of how to fight in a tropical environment. That ignores all this accumulated professional experience. It even disparages America’s own experience in the Philippines. Sometimes the enemy convinces you that you do not know what you know.
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5 open threads. Can the warp drives take the load Cap’n?
The M3 in the video appears to be the M3A3 version, which was used mainly by the British and other allied units. The U.S. mainly used the M5.
One of the few places the original M3 did get used by the U.S. was in the Phillipines, after the Japanese invasion, with the 192nd and 194th tank battalions. On 31 Dec 1941 the Japanese captured Baliung. Company C of the 192nd attacked, and in the fading light of early evening M3’s charged around the narrow streets of the town, engaging Type 95 Ha-Gos of the 4th Sensha Rentai. The M3’s knocked out 8 Type 95’s with no loss to themselves.
Based on that history, I guessed that the M3 won the race.
When the British forces in North Africa got the first M3’s they named them “Honeys” – they were remarkably fast, maneuverable, and reliable compared to the British tanks they had been using – and most astonishing of all, you could do sharp S-turns in the desert sand and nothing fell off!
I’d say the Type 95 was faster just gueesing though.
LOL Well it is a tank with some armor and two guns with a dedicated, well trained crew against anyone WITHOUT Anti tank weapons and used within it’s operating envelope it would be formidable. I hope the IJA awarded these men many medals for courage.
Well, I said the M3. That was a cool film.
I would not liked to have come up against an M3 — much less an M4, in a Type 95, but it seems well-evolved for the kind of war the Japanese had to fight in China and in the early Pacific campaigns, specially as the allied commanders and troops (particularly in Malaya — where the Japanese gained a lot of miles with tank panics) were unready from the training and doctrine perspective to cope with Japanese tanks at all.
But against real opposition the Type 95 was a total coffin — specially for the tankers who had to meet the Soviet T-34′s, JS-1′s and JS-2′s in Manchuria in those things.
I can’t think of any WWII era AT weapon that the Type 95 would be proof against either.
a – the Foley work on that film SUCKS. better to have left it silent
b – in a race of that length, both tanks are well past any accelleration issues that may have given the diesel torque an edge. at that point it was simply whoever had that taller final gear ratio.
This brings back memories of “The Haunted Tank”.
Whenever that Stuart got into trouble, the ghost of J. E. B. would appear and get them out of it.
Life of the Mind: Absolutely sir! Preventing a Japanese-German link-up in the Indian Ocean was THE critical element of 1942
if not of the whole war. The Canal, Midway, the Chindits, The Marauders and on and on. It was one close-run thing.
Not only were there the material advantages to the Axis of such a link-up, IMO it would have meant that Tojo and Hitler were no longer running their show. Yammamoto and Rommel would have been. Wouldn’t want those two in charge, they were a lot more astute than the others.
Paul Johnson has said that had the link-up been successful, the war would have gone on into the 1950s and been settled with widespread use of nukes—–not all of which would have been ours.
“Close-run” may be an understatement.
The M3A3 would could won no matter if the Type 95 was faster, since with the powered turret and gyrostabilized gun it could have blown the Type 95 to pieces quite readily.
By the way, one of the best WWII movies, “Sahara,” features Humphrey Bogart and the Stuart’s larger and much weirder stablemate, the M3 Grant. Be sure to catch the film if you can.
A stopgap the Grant it may have been, and a weird design it was, but it sure got the Africa Corps’ attention in North Afrcia and was pure terror to the Japanese in India and Burma.
I have often wondered just why the Japanese did not make a serious effort in the Indian Ocean in early 1942 — beyond Nagumo and Ozawa’s carrier raid. A larger naval effort, combined with an amphibious operation against Ceylon would have put the British hold on India in serious jeopardy.
The Japanese had the troops — and the shipping — the reinforcements for Iida’s 15th Army in Burma (the reinf. units were 18th Div. and 56th Div. — both from Yamashita in Malaya, plus 2 tank regiments) that arrived by sea in Burma in March/April when that campaign was already decided, and when the Japanese were getting “Operation C” — their raid — under way.
Had the Japanese wanted, and had they loaded it for an amphibious operation, they could have sent that force to Ceylon instead of Burma. That would have been strategically much more interesting than Nagumo’s otherwise rather pointless raid. The British were also lucky that the Japanese didn’t loiter for awhile, and (perhaps in conjuction with taking Ceylon) spend time wrecking Indian coastal shipping.
Beyond India’s the real prize, inhibiting allied access to the Persian Gulf oil and making the Suez route hazardous. Once that happens, the game’s up, at least for Britain.
I admit, over the long run, the supply problems were pretty daunting. But if the war got into the long run, the Japanese were dead no matter what they did. That’s why their grand strategy in late 1941 (the decision for war with America) is so hard to comprehend. The Indian Ocean was the only theater where the Japanese in particular had any prayer at all of getting a knockout against any of their foes. The Allies were long run unbeatable as long as America was in — but the UK and the Soviets had to make it to the long run — and of that pair, I think the British were weakest — and the Japanese could have gotten at them in the Indian Ocean, with their naval high card.
In general, I tend to think the big Japanese mistake was going to war with the US at all. They underestimated the cluelessness of contemporary American isolationism. The Japanese should have ignored America, steamed right by the Philippines and just grabbed the Dutch East Indies — turning everything they had on Britain, and daring Roosevelt to come in. He surely would have wanted to, but absent a direct attack on America or its possessions, I wonder if he could have managed to chivy Congress into line in time?
One of the unknown side effects of the raid on Tokyo by the Army, was to convince the Japanese that they had to go after Midway. There was real support for going all out into the Indian Ocean. The April raid against the British had opened the door for an attack on Ceylon. Imagine what a different war, if in July of 1942, a Japanese fleet sails up the Red Sea, at the same time Rommel is poised to strike East. The Middle East, and India would have fallen like ripe fruit. We had no way to stop them. If the raid on Ceylon had included even a small invasion fleet, the British had little to stop them.
The reason this winning gambit never had a real chance of being chosen was the Japanese never thought they could beat America. All they were trying to do was keep us away long enough to win in Asia, because they thought we lacked the will to win a long war. They thought the effort required to fight Japanese bases over the vast Pacific in a war of attrition, would result in America agreeing to a truce, leaving them in charge of Asia.
That was why Pearl Harbor was so important. The sleeping giant had awakened. The interesting parallel to today is that the MSM & damocrats have fed the giant sleeping pills.
Quite a good point about the race only being about final gearing, not power.
But no Japanese tank I am aware of had a serious chance against any western tank.
Their guns were not powerful enough to kill our tanks.
As for any link up with Rommel. No way.
The Afrika Korps’ Achilles heel was logistics. The Royal Navy controlled the Mediterranean and remember within a year of the Pearl Harbor attack we invaded North Africa.
Akrika Korps was doomed because Mussolini bit off more than he could chew with his ill fated military adventures that spread German resources too thin when they had to bail him out.
As I remember it US industrial output was greater than the whole rest of the world in 1940 and in 1914 it was greater than the combined output of all the belligerents fightnig WWI.
We were always going to kick their butts.
They just didn’t have a competitive industrial base, nor access to natural resources.
Pissy little countries, both of them.
Re Presbypoet’s point as to Midway, No. 13.
Given the situation as the Japanese found in mid-42, and assuming that the Japanese were not going to try for an Indian Ocean knockout, and even given that the Japanese had no clue about the US code breaking activities, Midway was about the worst move the Japanese could make, and the way that they went about it compounded their problems.
To begin with, the Japanese (and I mean Yamamoto and his staff) do not seem to have been clear what it was that they wanted out of the Midway operation. Did they want a showdown with the US carriers? Or were they trying to grab real-estate to round out their defensive perimeter?
If the latter, Midway was too far out to supply and much too close to Hawaii (there was no way they were getting Hawaii, they didn’t have the shipping, even if the IJA would have alloted the troops – exceedingly unlikely). They didn’t even have the shipping assets to supply Midway assuming they had got it. (Ugaki Matome apparently admitted to a skeptic that the place could not be supplied or held).
For the same reasons, if the point of the Midway operation was to force the US carriers to battle, the Americans could have simply declined engagement — for the reasons given, the Japanese couldn’t develop a base there, much less supply it. It would have been retaken later. It was certainly useful as a sentry for Hawaii, but it was not indispensable.
Fighting at Midway put the Japanese under too many operational and tactical handicaps — the place was near enough to Pearl Harbor where the US could reinforce the air bases almost at will and closer to the main fleet base of the US than of the Japanese, with all the attendent advantages for the US this would entail – if only because safety for US cripples and supplies is much nearer than for Japanese forces.
Given the handicaps, in fact, perhaps the biggest objection to the Japanese plans (besides the brain-dead Aleutians operation tacked on to the plan) — was that Nagumo’s carriers had much too much to do. They were supposed to reduce the Midway airfields AND watch out for a reaction force coming from the nearby main enemy naval base? Every carrier in the Japanese fleet, with full strength air groups, probably wasn’t enough. (Why didn’t the fools sail Zuikaku with a scratch air group? Why didn’t they give Nagumo the Mogami class cruiers? Think what he could have done with their extra search planes!)
If the Japanese really wanted a showdown with the Pacific Fleet’s carriers — the optimum place for it from the Japanese point of view was the Coral Sea and the Southwestern Pacific theater in general — forcing the Americans to stand in defense of their line of communications with Australia (in particular New Caledonia, the New Hebrides, Fiji and Samoa). The logistical problems would have been harder than Midway for the Japanese, but they would have been harder for the Americans too — so much further from Pacifc Fleet’s main bases.
Unlike at Midway, there was no possibility Nimitz could decline battle for the routes to Australia. The carriers had to come out — just like they did for Port Moresby and the Battle of the Coral Sea – and they’d have had to come further.
As it was, the whole Port Moresby/Coral Sea episode was pretty mindless as the Japanese ran it. Zuikaku and Shokaku were the Japanease margin of superiority over the USN at that point in time. But alone, they weren’t quite strong enough to prevail in the Coral Sea, and sending them out on what amounted to a sideshow kept them out of Yamamoto’s “decisive battle” Midway.
As a conclusion to this little rant, think how the Doolittle Raid almost blew up in our faces. The whole event sure scrambled Japanese thinking and planning. But the Enterprise and Hornet were irreplacable at that point in time, and the fact that Task Force 16 was out of pocket running the raid meant that Lexington and Yorktown had to fight in the Coral Sea alone. It turned out well, but the Doolittle Raid was, by miles and miles, the most ill-advised and risky thing the Americans did in the whole Pacific War. Nothing the Raid accomplished could have balanced the loss of Enterprise or Hornet, or the near loss of Yorktown in addition to Lexington.
Had the cards broken a little differently, or had the Japanese sent an extra big carrier (Kaga was proposed in the early planning stages in lieu of Carrier Division 5), or better Nagumo with all six – things could have turned out very badly, and the Americans might have seen their carriers cut up in detail.
My high school physics teacher, a 1930′s Naval Academy graduate who was in command of a seaplane tender enroute to Pearl on 7 Dec 1941, said he considered the attack to simply have been a case of the Japanese reacting to preserve their precious honor. The actions the USA took relative to the Japanese war in China – supplying China, cutting off oil, metal, and technology to Japan – was a slap in their face. The attack on Pearl Harbor was simply a version of seppuku in response to that insult – that was his view.
Given that, the Doolittle Raid (another of my high school teachers was a bomb/nav on that mission) reflected a low cost way to slap their faces once again – and thus throw them into confusion.
India was definitely a low priority theater and until the latter part of 1944 pretty much got equipment that no one else wanted. Japan did in fact invade India through Burma later in the war, but that was more of a desperate attempt at a spoiling attack in response to the Allied buildup in India and successes elsewhere.
The vast distances of any Indian Ocean deep strike and the Midway drive revealed a crippling logistical problem: the IJN did not have a suitable merchant fleet. Her merchantmen normally traveled at HALF the speed of the slowest Allied convoys. ( 2 knots vs 4 or 6 ! )
That’s the whole reason for the strung out IJN assault upon Midway. Yamamoto was hanging back with the transports — too far back as it turned out.
The British were well reading the IJN transmissions in the Indian Ocean — and bobbing out of the way. The IJN found the campaign extremely frustrating. Further, the gambit reduced the Pacific campaign into idle: the margin of advantage was gone.
Any move towards the Red Sea would have permitted the Royal Navy to cut the IJN off entirely. Her tankers would have never survived the transit.
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Hands down the worst strategic blunder of the Pacific War — and the European War — was shifting the B-29s into China. The cost in men and equipment was astronomic. The blow-back against the Chinese Army in the field was the worst outcome of the entire war. Southern Chinese losses were so bad it had a direct impact on their Civil War and Korea. Further, it lengthened the war in Europe by months — probably six. Think upon the delay’s impact on post-war Europe. B-29s in Europe might have been decisive in the battle for Warsaw. They certainly would have shut down Ploesti — FLAK was virtually ineffective against the B-29. ( 32,000 feet was too great for the 88mm since most shots must be angled over. )
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One need only read Stinnett to understand how attuned the White House was to Japan’s shame-honor logic.
Such thinking was entirely behind the Doolittle Raid. By every other metric the gambit was insane.
At a deeper level, the USN wanted to keep the IJN steaming, steaming, steaming. It was plain that she only had so many tons of fuel set aside at the outset. If her reserve could be run down she’d become home bound. Generally speaking, that’s what happened. Tremendous opportunities were lost as the IJN husbanded her fuel after the first surge.
BTW, a lot of the refining capacity ( Shell’s, mostly ) was destroyed before the Japanese could save it. Actually, refinery is too strong a word: think distilleries.
Ultimately Japan got the math wrong: she only had enough fuel to tease her into the conflict — not enough to prevail.
Quite so about Japan only having fuel to get into it with us. But up to that point, their war had not been very energy intensive, nor were any of their enemies (that I can think of) particularly competent militarily.
Of course you can say that about the Germans, too. Who did they ever beat? Pussy neighbourhood. Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Greece, Holland, Belgium, France? Big deal.
It’s no fluke that Germany didn’t try to invade Switzerland. Every time they tried an incursion the Swiss shot them down (using the same Bf-109s that the Luftwaffe had). Switzerland alone was not pacifistic, did not live in an ideological fantasy world and had a well armed, competent military.
You’d reckon even Lefties should be able to figure out why Switzerland’s attitude was sensible and the other neighbouring nations’, preposterouly dysfunctional given Hitler’s presence at the helm of the fatherland.
Hah!
Blert (No. 17),
Count me as skeptical as to the ability of the RN in the Indian Ocean to operate effectively against the IJN in 1942. To the extent such was possible, it would have been by submarines, the whole surface effort they had available or in prospect 42 was little more than bait for the Japanese carriers. Admiral Somerville was indeed bobbing out of the Japanese path — and with good cause, but had Raymond Spruance, Marc Mitscher or Bull Halsey been driving those Japanese carriers, I know where the British fleet (and their position in the Indian Ocean) would have wound up.
Then we get into the question of bases and general effectiveness of RN submarine forces at that time (even with Ultra and help from the USN). On balance, I think the logistical chain for an Indian Ocean offensive had a chance of holding up long enough to sink the British effort in that theatre. I’m possibly a trifle too influenced by Willmot, but I think the Indian Ocean campaign was Japan’s best move.
You’re right about the general weakness of the IJN’s logistical train. It had to be focused one front at a time, and was barely adequate, and it was one reason why Midway turned out a hash. Yamamoto should have left the Aleutians force and his main body back at Hashirajima — they did nothing but burn oil.
Absolutely right about the “steaming, steaming” observation. I still think the Doolittle Raid was pretty crazy, except in hindsight.
You’re absolutely right about the B-29 decision. The US always had too exaggereated a view as to what was possible either out of China, or in China.
FWIW: Doolittle’s Raid was originally going to be Chennault’s Raid.
The first group of Flying Tigers were to stabilize the situation and then reinforcements sent in to reverse the IJA gains. These latter would have included some medium bombers which would be detailed to sprinkle some modest quantities of HE in and around Tokyo to provoke some insane Japanese reactions.
As the AVG fliers were legally Chinese, the USA could have plausibly denied involvement and remained officially nuetral.
After Pearl Harbor though there was no need to
maintain nuetrality. And of course there was a need to speed up the time factor. And Chennault had not secured the land bases needed. So Jimmy D came up with the idea of launching land-based bombers from a carrier.
It worked. And was a close-run thing.
Tank Chase
The Japanese lacked the oil for an Indian Ocean strategy.
It lacked the oil for the Guadalcanal strategy it id follow:
See:
http://www.combinedfleet.com/guadoil1.htm
Next, let’s examine Japan’s situation with respect to petroleum production at this stage in the war. In the fourth quarter of 1942, Japanese oil production (which was almost entirely concentrated in her conquered territories, such as the Indies) was 1,194,000 tons. Of that, only 643,000 tons made it to Japan (which is where practically all the refineries were), the rest being either lost to attack, or consumed in the conquered territories. So roughly 214,000 tons of oil per month was making it to Japan. However, the Imperial Navy alone was consuming about 305,000 tons of heavy oil (in the form of fuel oil) per month by this stage in the war (Parillo, p. 237). Keep that figure in mind: 305,000 tons.
Furthermore, by this time (October-November 1942) it must have been begining to become clear to the Japanese that the oilfields in Java and Sumatra were not going to be brought back into production at nearly the rate that pre-war estimates had counted on. The Dutch and their Allies had done a much more thorough job of demolition in the oilfields than the Japanese had hoped. This, coupled with the sinking of a transport filled with equipment and valuable refinery personnel, meant that Japanese efforts to get the production field back into production were doomed to be much slower than hoped by the Japanese military. The fact that the Imperial Navy had built up large stocks of petroleum before the was could not compensate for this sobering knowledge, especially given the high rate of fuel consumption thus far in the war. The week-long Battle of Midway alone had consumed more fuel than the Japanese Navy had ever used before in an entire year of peacetime operations (Willmott, “The Barrier and the Javelin”). With this in mind, let us examine what it took to fight effectively around Guadalcanal.
Yes, but I’m sure the M95 got better gas mileage. And if reviews of the day were anything like Consumer Reports’ evaluation of modern automobiles, the M95 would have been found to have a much better-appointed interior, with a smooth transmission and a notable lack of manufacturing defects. Despite the fact that the M3 had better armor, speed, maneuverability and firepower, the Japanese tank would no doubt receive the coveted “Editor’s Choice” award.
I read “The War of the World” by Niall Ferguson and was impressed with the fact that the US never faced more than a third of the Japanese Army, the majority were bogged down in China throughout the entire US-Japan conflict. Probably has something to do with the paucity of land in the particular sphere of conflict — China can hold a lot of people. The Pacific Ocean can hold vastly more, but infantry is pretty ineffective in the water.
Darren (No. 22),
The IJA was extremely parsimonious in allocating troops to the Pacific theater, which they in general viewed as an IJN concern. For 1941-late 42, the Japanese Army wanted to have lots of troops available in Manchuria in case the “persimmon ripened,” as they put it, in Germany’s war with Russia, so that in the event of Soviet collapse, the Japanese could grab part of Siberia. There was a big build up from late 1940 on which did not reach its peak till 1942.
The army allotted only 12 or so division equivalents, plus supports (out of the 51 it had in late 41) to overrunning the “southern areas” — Philippines, Dutch East Indies, Malaya and other points of interest in South East Asia, and the army was extremely reluctant to part with more. (Reading about the early campaigns, one is left amazed at the relative paucity of Japanese forces successfully used to seize such vast spaces — shows how unprepared the allies were for war).
Later, the IJA vetoed a number of IJN proposals that involved bigger troop committments (e.g. invasion of Ceylon — the troops went to Burma instead, which did interest the Army b/c of the war in China; as well as vetoing any efforts towards an invasion of Australia). Australia was, for shipping reasons, a fantasy anyway, as was Hawaii, but they also turned down bigger efforts in the South Pacific in 1942 that might have borne fruit, and they didn’t fortify their conquests as much as they should have.
The Army and Navy had the worst of relations, and generally lied to each other about progress on the several fronts — the Navy, for example, did not tell the Army the details of Midway. They governed planning not by orders issued by a combined staff, but by “Central Agreements” which were negotiated like international treaties. They ran separate military production programs and effectively fought two different wars.
By the time the Army was more interested in releasing troops to the Pacific, the war was a good way to being lost, and, thanks to multiple demands and the US submarine campaign, it was increasingly hard to find the shipping to move the troops, let alone supply them. Lots of troops were ultimately taken out of Manchuria — some went to the Pacific (Iwo, Okinawa, Philippines, Mariana Islands got most late war), some to China — the IJA launched a huge offensive there in 1944, somewhat because of the B-29 raids from the Chinese fields, as an earlier commenter pointed out, but also because the Chinese were an enemy that could be gotten to without swimming.
Alvin D. Coox’s Nomonhan is pretty good on Japan’s plans in Manchuria, and his book with Saburo Hayashi, Kogun — sets out the IJA’s view of the war.
Life of the Mind @ #4
I came to know of The Battle of Kohima when it became my duty to learn the tune “Heroes of Kohima”
It is the first tune of the three provided.
The link also provides a number of videos related to the battle.
http://www.mtraks.com/artist/kohima/
Enjoy
heyyoukids
IIRC the fastest accelerating war ship is the USS Enterprise. In any case it is not too shabby for 100,000 tons (more or less).
My father, who fought on Bataan and was taken prisoner, said you could knock out a type 95 with a 50 cal. But ground forces lacked anything bigger than 30cal.I would imagine you could take one out with a 37mm anti-tank gun from as far as you could aim it.
dla #28: If your Old Man is still with us,
please pass on my thanks and high regards to him and all of the other Battling Bastards.
Darren #22: And besides that, the Type 95 would come with a 250,000 Yen rebate or 0% financing.
Oops, almost forgot:
In the race, the Type 95 took Second Place while the Stuart was next to last.