Slowing Allied ground idea

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

Well, we have Tsjui as a primary source. As both leader of the special planning committee for Malaya, and then the Chief of Operations for the army that did it, he surely knew. This is a very unusual practice - and not just for IJA. It is the only instance I am aware of where a non-SOF unit had more than one primary weapon per line troop - and those right up front. Without bikes to carry the weight it would not have been feasible. Without the paved roads of Malaya it would not have been feasible either. [South Seas Regiment was another bicycle infantry unit, but they abandoned the bikes on the Kokoda Trail - because they were not helpful] It implies a kind of tactical flexability we don't often attribute to IJA troops. 5th Division was, however, the very best of the best - the only Class A Semi-Motorized Division committed to the SRA operations, the only thing similar was 48th Division - a Semi-Motorized Class B Division. We didn't do well against that one either - and it was outnumbered a whole lot more than 2:1.

Are you sure this isn't a miss-copy or a miss-translation? It's very hard to believe that the Japanese even had the MG's to do this if they wanted to. Might the original have referred to an extra MG per squad? Or even platoon? This would still have been an impressive increase in firepower..., and required an impressive increase in logistical support to keep supplied with ammo...

[jwilkerson]

Unfortunately, over the past 20 years, historians have pretty much determined that SLAM was making a lot of stuff up ... Roger J. Spiller led the charge almost 20 years ago ... we've studied this unfortunate situation in my graduate (military) history program to help us understand the ethics expectations of the profession. I'm not sure Spiller's entire original article is online (well it is on JStor, but not everyone has access to that one) .. but he is a link with some tid-bits.

http://warchronicle.com/us/combat_historians_wwii/marshallfire.htm

Perhaps one of the most unfortunate parts of the story .. is that SLAM might have been right in his conclusions!! But it is also now pretty clear that he didn't have the data he said he had.

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

Unfortunately, over the past 20 years, historians have pretty much determined that SLAM was making a lot of stuff up ... Roger J. Spiller led the charge almost 20 years ago ... we've studied this unfortunate situation in my graduate (military) history program to help us understand the ethics expectations of the profession. I'm not sure Spiller's entire original article is online (well it is on JStor, but not everyone has access to that one) .. but he is a link with some tid-bits.

http://warchronicle.com/us/combat_historians_wwii/marshallfire.htm

Perhaps one of the most unfortunate parts of the story .. is that SLAM might have been right in his conclusions!! But it is also now pretty clear that he didn't have the data he said he had.

Thanks for the commentary.

Many years ago, I did a cross-national statistical study of percentage infantry casualty rates in WWII as a function of rank. It was quite interesting--the rate doubled between privates and sergeants, doubled again by platoon sergeant, doubled once more between platoon sergeants and lieutenants, and then dropped to about half the rate for privates at captain. It said something about risk-taking behaviour in combat that went against standard sociological models of norm-controlled behaviour.

I also did a study similar to that of Dupuy on combat power. Whereas he over-parametrised (more parameters estimated than data points), I was careful not to, using about eight times as many data points and estimating only a couple dozen parameters. I got much more robust results, too.

[JeffroK]

m10bob,

I understand many individuals carried a second weapon, but an entire infantry Division, must be around 6,000 men. I seriously doubt.

All we have is a reference in 1 book, totally uncorroborated.

None of the Histories I have read, (The British & Australian Official Histories) nor any personal reminicences support this claim.

Mike Scoll has probably got it right.

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: JeffK

m10bob,

I understand many individuals carried a second weapon, but an entire infantry Division, must be around 6,000 men. I seriously doubt.

All we have is a reference in 1 book, totally uncorroborated.

None of the Histories I have read, (The British & Australian Official Histories) nor any personal reminicences support this claim.

Mike Scoll has probably got it right.

JeffK my friend, I'm with ya..I was only commenting on an individual unit trained for specific missions, but an entire division would be kinda unusual, huh.[:D]

[timtom]

ORIGINAL: timtom

After Sam Marshall published his seminal "Men against Fire" in 1947, the US Army picked up on one of his findings in particular - that men in combat could as a rule not be counted to fire at the enemy. 15-35% of a rifle company could be expected to actively engage the enemy in any given engagement, Marshall held, citing his own research as evidence. This lead to the Army coming up with the so-called Train-Fire program, intented to specifically adress the non-firing issue in training. The stated purpose of Men Against Fire was to show how, in spite the new nuclear wunder-weapon, infantry would still be needed in future wars. The whole fire-ratio thing is only a small part of a wider discussion why and when men would or would not display aggressive behaviour in combat, which in turn only makes up part of the book. Already pushed to the front by the Army, later writers lashed on to Marshall's "25% fire-ratio" with a vengeance however.

In 1988, Roger J. Spiller of the Combat Studies Institute, US Army Command and General Staff College, published an article that basically buried Marshall's 25% by demonstrating that Marshall had at best been very liberal in his use of evidence, at worst made it up.

The school of historians (Doubler, Mansoor, Rush, Bonn etc), who in the last decade or so have been busy replacing the myth of the Wehrmacht being made up of 10-foot tall supermen with one of the US Army being made up of 10-foot tall supermen, have leapt at Spiller's arguments with gusto, as they see Marshall as the first revisionist out to belittle the US Army. This I think is to rather misrepresent what Marshall was trying to do - I think his conclusions were thought to be universal - and he was, according to himself, a great friend of the US Army and as such not afraid to critisize it.

Reading the late David Hackworth's autobiography, who functioned as Marshalls assistant in Vietnam, Hackworth clearly cared about Marshall yet thought him a bit of a boob, although Hack's antagonism also stemmed from Marshall failing to back him up when he came out against the way the Army was pursuing the war in Vietnam. Hackworth thought that Marshall was obsessed with the idea of being a military sage/genius/great general. Like Spiller, Hack could find no evidence in Marshall's service records that he had any actual combat experience in WWI, as Marshall claimed, but would side-step in his own memoirs. Certainly Marshall's anthology "Battle at Best" often makes toe-curling reading, being rather self-contratulating (*understatement*).

Incidentally Hackworth, who can hardly be said to lack direct experience of combat, agreed with the general thrust of Marshall's fire-ratio arguement, writing that in any unit 10% were go-getters, the rest rock-huggers (paraphrasing).

Thus Marshall wasn't above making fictions about himself, and Spiller's convincingly shown the evidence behind the 25% claim to be bogus. Whether than means we should then discard Marshalls very substantial body of work is another matter. Marshall had a background as a journalist, and his work is journalist in nature. He didn't claim to be a scholar. If one were to be generous with regards to the 25% issue, while he went over the line in trying to ram home the point, it might be said that his overarching point - that the drive within a tactical unit springs from a minority of it members - stills stand, and that if his work is taken as a whole, he does in fact provide plenty evidence for this. Marshall can hardly be blaimed for others seizing upon the 25% ahead of the many other issues he discusses.

Or maybe once a thief.

tm.asp?m=1083398&mpage=11

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: m10bob

ORIGINAL: el cid again

Well, we have Tsjui as a primary source. As both leader of the special planning committee for Malaya, and then the Chief of Operations for the army that did it, he surely knew. This is a very unusual practice - and not just for IJA. It is the only instance I am aware of where a non-SOF unit had more than one primary weapon per line troop - and those right up front. Without bikes to carry the weight it would not have been feasible. Without the paved roads of Malaya it would not have been feasible either. [South Seas Regiment was another bicycle infantry unit, but they abandoned the bikes on the Kokoda Trail - because they were not helpful] It implies a kind of tactical flexability we don't often attribute to IJA troops. 5th Division was, however, the very best of the best - the only Class A Semi-Motorized Division committed to the SRA operations, the only thing similar was 48th Division - a Semi-Motorized Class B Division. We didn't do well against that one either - and it was outnumbered a whole lot more than 2:1.

Several of the guys in my team carried multiple weapons in the field.
I personally carried an M 16, an M 79 "thumpgun", and an M 1911a1.
(The M 203 was considered crap).
Expedient alteration of weapons carried devient from any manual/TOE certainly started prior to the Roman Legions, I'm sure.

Ah - but that is a different kettle of fish. This is an ISSUED and UNIVERSAL practice in a LARGE unit - and that is - as far as I know - unique. In Viet Nam we were permitted to carry a "personal weapon" (i.e. pistol) of our own in addition to issue for the position - and many individuals didn't carry the issue weapon at all (at least in the Army it was common to carry an AK vice an M-16 - if you can believe the patrols that stayed overnight in my village). But what major unit in any army ever issued two long arms per line troop?

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: el cid again

Well, we have Tsjui as a primary source. As both leader of the special planning committee for Malaya, and then the Chief of Operations for the army that did it, he surely knew. This is a very unusual practice - and not just for IJA. It is the only instance I am aware of where a non-SOF unit had more than one primary weapon per line troop - and those right up front. Without bikes to carry the weight it would not have been feasible. Without the paved roads of Malaya it would not have been feasible either. [South Seas Regiment was another bicycle infantry unit, but they abandoned the bikes on the Kokoda Trail - because they were not helpful] It implies a kind of tactical flexability we don't often attribute to IJA troops. 5th Division was, however, the very best of the best - the only Class A Semi-Motorized Division committed to the SRA operations, the only thing similar was 48th Division - a Semi-Motorized Class B Division. We didn't do well against that one either - and it was outnumbered a whole lot more than 2:1.

Are you sure this isn't a miss-copy or a miss-translation? It's very hard to believe that the Japanese even had the MG's to do this if they wanted to. Might the original have referred to an extra MG per squad? Or even platoon? This would still have been an impressive increase in firepower..., and required an impressive increase in logistical support to keep supplied with ammo...

You are correct in this: IJA was short of heavy weapons - and it makes the concept more strange than it might appear for another army. But Tsuji goes on at some length about how it worked in practice - and the Mayalys bringing the weapons/ammo/bikes forward - so it seems impossible it means anything other than it says. Certainly this unit was very effective - even compared to other units in the same campaign. Yamashita took only 3 of 5 divisions offered - on the basis that he could support these properly. Possibly they stripped the other units ? They just sat for weeks and weeks - until allocated to another theater (Burma).

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

Unfortunately, over the past 20 years, historians have pretty much determined that SLAM was making a lot of stuff up ... Roger J. Spiller led the charge almost 20 years ago ... we've studied this unfortunate situation in my graduate (military) history program to help us understand the ethics expectations of the profession. I'm not sure Spiller's entire original article is online (well it is on JStor, but not everyone has access to that one) .. but he is a link with some tid-bits.

http://warchronicle.com/us/combat_historians_wwii/marshallfire.htm

Perhaps one of the most unfortunate parts of the story .. is that SLAM might have been right in his conclusions!! But it is also now pretty clear that he didn't have the data he said he had.

This charge - at least - is wholly false. I was able to work with that data in his home for about 30 months. I have never understood the charge - which I only encountered later in life - because I had been able to work with the files. Each troop had his own folder. An entire staff was involved, and there were standardized procedures and questions, and primary data about the location, date and person collecting. SLAM didn't trust the Army under the MacNamara DOD to preserve data in whole - and I believe you will find he arranged for the entire set to be preserved. We just had the primary documents of Prang reviewed for publication (and they are the basis of The Pacific War Papers): one day we probably will see a similar work based on SLAM.

[JeffroK]

"at least in the Army it was common to carry an AK "
 
Makes resupply a bitch, plus would invite some incoming fire based on the sound of the weapon,
 
Cid, apparantly 5th Japanese Infantry Div did it, at according to you.
 
Mr Tsuji seems to be an interesting character,
On his CV you would add causing the Nohoman Incident, being responsible for causing murders of the Bataan Death March POW's(Luckily some Officers ignored him), planning the assault on Edson's Ridge(Bloody Ridge??) and execting an Allied Flyer and eating his Kidney.
 
 

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: JeffK

"at least in the Army it was common to carry an AK "

Makes resupply a bitch, plus would invite some incoming fire based on the sound of the weapon,

Cid, apparantly 5th Japanese Infantry Div did it, at according to you.

Mr Tsuji seems to be an interesting character,
On his CV you would add causing the Nohoman Incident, being responsible for causing murders of the Bataan Death March POW's(Luckily some Officers ignored him), planning the assault on Edson's Ridge(Bloody Ridge??) and execting an Allied Flyer and eating his Kidney.

Tsuji was indeed involved at Nomanhan - as a staff officer - a major I think. Very unlikely he could "cause" it. He also was involved with the OTHER Russian Japanese war over by Korea - for sure as a major there. Always recorded as a Japanese defeat - I note for the record Russia does not now claim the territory they then invaded - and never has between now and then either. I am not sure the Japanese "lost" that border dispute?

The charge about the Bataan Death March is contained in one book I have seen - but once again - the actions of troops as recorded by eyewitnesses do not appear to have been organized. I think it was much more a function of the things going wrong in IJA. See Soldiers of the Sun, which compares IJA in WWII with US Army in Viet Nam for discipline issues after a record of better performance. Also Warriors of the Rising Sun.

Tsuji was an anti-colonial. That did not prevent him from admiring Churchill - whom he says must practice zin! -
or other Europeans or Americans. I am skeptical that such charges are consistent with his attitudes. Got any sources?

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: JeffK

m10bob,

I understand many individuals carried a second weapon, but an entire infantry Division, must be around 6,000 men. I seriously doubt.

All we have is a reference in 1 book, totally uncorroborated.

None of the Histories I have read, (The British & Australian Official Histories) nor any personal reminicences support this claim.

Mike Scoll has probably got it right.

I suggest you travel in the country and talk to survivors. Also that you start reading Thai and Malay histories. Just because you don't read it in British or American materials does not mean it is uncorroborated. SLAM was right: go to the countries that know - and do NOT focus entirely on English materials written by people not there.

[JeffroK]

[>:]
 
As 5 Div fought against mostly Indian, British & Australian troops, I would imagine that they would make continual reference to the amazing output of firepower by the japanese troops.
 
They dont.
 
They were continually outthought and outfought down the peninsula, but I cant see were they were smotheered under LMG fire.
 
Plus the histories were written by people who were there, it was a tradition of the AWM that the Author served intheatre.
 
I cant see how an malay history would help, very few Malays fought. Plus 5 Div landed against only minor Thai defenses so they also would have little reference to base upon.
 
Uncorroborated means that you havent posted a second (or more) reference, despite your continual harping about proper research techniques. I doubt the supporting reference would exist.
 
I suppose this would fit in with your Jeeps over the Kokoda track comments as to their accuracy.

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

Unfortunately, over the past 20 years, historians have pretty much determined that SLAM was making a lot of stuff up ... Roger J. Spiller led the charge almost 20 years ago ... we've studied this unfortunate situation in my graduate (military) history program to help us understand the ethics expectations of the profession. I'm not sure Spiller's entire original article is online (well it is on JStor, but not everyone has access to that one) .. but he is a link with some tid-bits.

http://warchronicle.com/us/combat_historians_wwii/marshallfire.htm

Perhaps one of the most unfortunate parts of the story .. is that SLAM might have been right in his conclusions!! But it is also now pretty clear that he didn't have the data he said he had.

Sid,

I'm not going to debate this with you, you've made it clear to me in the past that you don't respect historians, their profession or their creditials. I just made a statement of fact, that my military history program studied the SLAM case as example to learn from regarding ethics. The program is both taught and attended by many students and faculty from the USCGSC at Leavenworth. If your creditials rivaled theirs (Spiller is a professor there himself) I'm sure I'd be listening to you instead of (or in addition to) them. In the mean time, the readers can make their choices based on the data they have (or can get).

Joe

p.s. If you've really got the missing papers, please send copies to Dr Spiller !!! The whole problem is that no one else on the planet has ever seen them - and they've looked hard - that's what all the hullabaloo is about!!! [:D]



This charge - at least - is wholly false. I was able to work with that data in his home for about 30 months. I have never understood the charge - which I only encountered later in life - because I had been able to work with the files. Each troop had his own folder. An entire staff was involved, and there were standardized procedures and questions, and primary data about the location, date and person collecting. SLAM didn't trust the Army under the MacNamara DOD to preserve data in whole - and I believe you will find he arranged for the entire set to be preserved. We just had the primary documents of Prang reviewed for publication (and they are the basis of The Pacific War Papers): one day we probably will see a similar work based on SLAM.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: JeffK

[>:]

As 5 Div fought against mostly Indian, British & Australian troops, I would imagine that they would make continual reference to the amazing output of firepower by the japanese troops.
They dont.

This seems a key observation. During the First World War, when the Germans first encountered the amazing volume of accurate fire the BEF's "Old Contemptables" could put out during a "mad minute", one of their Divisional Commanders reported to his Corps Comander that the "entire BEF was armed with machineguns". Encountering a foe with much superior firepower to your own (expecially if it was totally unexpected) is not the kind of thing that would have gone unreported. This claim of Tsuji's just doesn't seem to be substantiated anywhere else, and I remain unconvinced that it isn't either a miss-translation or an outright lie by a known war criminal.

[el cid again]

[quote]ORIGINAL: JeffK

[>:]

As 5 Div fought against mostly Indian, British & Australian troops, I would imagine that they would make continual reference to the amazing output of firepower by the japanese troops.

They dont.

REPLY: No - instead Churchill grossly overstates the number of divisions in the op. Perhaps that was an assumption on his part? Perhaps it reflects what intel told him? Either way - they could only account for the performance of these three divisions by saying they were eight. Perhaps they are telling us - in their own way?

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: JeffK


I suppose this would fit in with your Jeeps over the Kokoda track comments as to their accuracy.

At least I have driven a Jeep on the Kokoda Track - although my US Army history says it was called "the Kokoda Road" up to a certain village. And I did write about the "steps" on the trail part - which ought to make it clear I know about them. Accuracy does no good if you ignore the details.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

Unfortunately, over the past 20 years, historians have pretty much determined that SLAM was making a lot of stuff up ... Roger J. Spiller led the charge almost 20 years ago ... we've studied this unfortunate situation in my graduate (military) history program to help us understand the ethics expectations of the profession. I'm not sure Spiller's entire original article is online (well it is on JStor, but not everyone has access to that one) .. but he is a link with some tid-bits.

http://warchronicle.com/us/combat_historians_wwii/marshallfire.htm

Perhaps one of the most unfortunate parts of the story .. is that SLAM might have been right in his conclusions!! But it is also now pretty clear that he didn't have the data he said he had.

Sid,

I'm not going to debate this with you, you've made it clear to me in the past that you don't respect historians, their profession or their creditials. I just made a statement of fact, that my military history program studied the SLAM case as example to learn from regarding ethics. The program is both taught and attended by many students and faculty from the USCGSC at Leavenworth. If your creditials rivaled theirs (Spiller is a professor there himself) I'm sure I'd be listening to you instead of (or in addition to) them. In the mean time, the readers can make their choices based on the data they have (or can get).

Joe

p.s. If you've really got the missing papers, please send copies to Dr Spiller !!! The whole problem is that no one else on the planet has ever seen them - and they've looked hard - that's what all the hullabaloo is about!!! [:D]



This charge - at least - is wholly false. I was able to work with that data in his home for about 30 months. I have never understood the charge - which I only encountered later in life - because I had been able to work with the files. Each troop had his own folder. An entire staff was involved, and there were standardized procedures and questions, and primary data about the location, date and person collecting. SLAM didn't trust the Army under the MacNamara DOD to preserve data in whole - and I believe you will find he arranged for the entire set to be preserved. We just had the primary documents of Prang reviewed for publication (and they are the basis of The Pacific War Papers): one day we probably will see a similar work based on SLAM.

Somehow somewhere we have managed to miscommunicate. I could not have "made it clear I do not respect historians, or their methods" since that isn't true. I do historical research for historians, official and unofficial, and I have no clue what might have given you such an impression? SLAM was merely the first historian I knew personally - and nothing I ever learned from an academic or military historian ever contradicted what he taught. Nor have I ever met a historian who was not impressed with at least the part of his writing we discussed. I don't believe the US Army ever had a "bad" historian - including him. And whoever told you he didn't have records was either making it up (some people think this was the case for political reasons) or misinformed. I am informing you otherwise - and that is direct evidence. His could be measured in tons. [Since I have shipped this sort of thing, and I myself have more than 2 tons, I have some sense of what that means] Now as to their fate - I left the area when I joined the Navy - so I was not there when something had to be done with them. If I wanted to find them I would talk to the executer of his estate.

[DuckofTindalos]

ORIGINAL: JeffK

"at least in the Army it was common to carry an AK "

Makes resupply a bitch, plus would invite some incoming fire based on the sound of the weapon,

Cid, apparantly 5th Japanese Infantry Div did it, at according to you.

Mr Tsuji seems to be an interesting character,
On his CV you would add causing the Nohoman Incident, being responsible for causing murders of the Bataan Death March POW's(Luckily some Officers ignored him), planning the assault on Edson's Ridge(Bloody Ridge??) and execting an Allied Flyer and eating his Kidney.

With some fava beans and a nice Chianti (pfpfpfpfpfpftttt...)[:D]

[DuckofTindalos]

I am informing you otherwise - and that is direct evidence.

Good Lord...[X(][8|]