Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: usersatch

Anyone read anything about the Solomons from the Japanese point of view to confirm/deny?

Recently I read Frank's Guadalcanal, which is written with research from both sides. I recommend it.

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: usersatch

Anyone read anything about the Solomons from the Japanese point of view to confirm/deny?

Recently I read Frank's Guadalcanal, which is written with research from both sides. I recommend it.

Thank you. On the "to buy" list. Definitely overlaps with my struggle against my honoured opponent Rob. [:)]

Japanese standard doctrine is to attack head-on to pin the defenders and a fast flanking unit encircles.
Worked well in China and Malay peninsula.  Less effective in the little islands and jungles.

Take note that the Japanese do not have a defensive plan only until late in the war (cave networks, etc.).
Even in a defensive campaign they will charge!  You can say that they are still "medieval" in thinking despite technological advance.
And everyone is resigned to the notion that their only fate is death for the Emperor.

So if the invasion on the home islands were to materialize the US will surely take a beating.

ORIGINAL: usersatch

Do you think any of it (their lack of tactical soundness on Guadalcanal) had to do with their disdain and arrogance towards allied troops? Up until then, besides little old Wake Island and Corrigedor (sp?), who put up a hard fight against them? Perhaps they thought it would be a "cake walk" so they got lazy in their planning and execution. On paper, they should have mopped up the island fairly easily.

Anyone read anything about the Solomons from the Japanese point of view to confirm/deny?

From the beginning they totally underestimated the size of the invading Marine force. They would have sent a battalion or two, so they assumed the US would have as well. Took them quite a while to come to grips with the fact that the Americans had landed an entire Division.

My dad went through the Pacific war on an LST. He always said "McHale's Navy" got it about right.

[quoteFrom the beginning they totally underestimated the size of the invading Marine force][/quote]

Agreed. IJHQ was caught completely cold by the initial invasion and lack of communication between the IJN (who had both excellent recce and also excellent maps of the area including shipping lanes/channels) and IJA GHQ meant that for ages they were feeding in troops piece-meal.
With hindsight the Japanese got it toally wrong at Guadacanal, and even Yamamoto's understanding & grasp of the strategic implications failed him. The last thing they wanted to do was get drawn into a heavy, drawn-out brutal war of attrition that would bleed their land, navy,a nd perhaps most crucial of all naval air arm almost totally white. They should have had two simple choices :
(1). Pull back and don't defend the central Solomons area (Russell, Lunga & Tulagi) & minimise losses
(2). Throw in everything bar the kitchen sink from the word go & kick the USMC straight back to Noumea. After Mikawa's stunning naval victory on 08-09th August '42 they had ample opportunity to move in lots of heavy reinforcements and supplies for a few days.
But no, somehow they managed to choose the worst and third option :
(3). Drip- feed in elite units piece-meal and let losses mount in an appalling stalemate war of attrition

ORIGINAL: sfbaytf

I watched a show recently about the Malay Campaign and it gave alot of credit to the IJAs use of bicycles, flanking tactics and ability to cross obsticles like rivers quickly using primative methods. I would guess like any army, much depended on he skill and imagination of their leaders and ability to adapt. If at Guadalcanal the Japanes were lead by the same leader that ran the Malay Campaign-Gen Yamishita would they have used the same frontal charge tactics

Masunobi Tsuji , one of General Yamishita's most agressive, brillant (and eccentric) staff officers in the Malaya campaign was present at Guadalancanl. There, Tsuji planned and led the last two attempted assaults by the Japanese forces to expel the Americans from the island. Afterwards, Tsuji personally returned to Tokyo after these failures to urge the evacuation of the troops from Guadalcanal. I think even the super agressive Tsuji found the supply and terrain conditions there too apalling for the sort of improvised-on-the spot tactics that worked so well in Malaya.

Alternatively perhaps his super-agressive tactics just weren't working...
When the US went on the offensive good and proper the Japanese excelled at making good use of terrain and setting up defensive positions and strong-points, the US then invested heavily in recce, identifying these said 'bottle-necks' and trying to bomb/bombard them off the face of the earth before any advance/'big push'. Also lots of specialist weapons (like the tiny tim rocket and also flamethrowers) were developed especially for this kind of work.

The Japanese were trying to maintain two offensives at the time the Marines were on Guadalcanal.  The army wanted to get all the reinforcements to continue their push for Port Moresby, the navy wanted forces to retake Guadalcanal.  Ultimately the Guadalcanal offensive got priority, but by that time it was too late to change the outcome; the Marines had gotten enough reinforcements and supplies to withstand any attempts.  Trying to maintain both offensives is what ultimately defeated them.

ORIGINAL: xj900uk

Alternatively perhaps his super-agressive tactics just weren't working...

Well....this time he was also up against some highly motivated US Marines. Not a gaggle of colonial and constabulary forces less than interested in dying for a foreign government in far away London. [;)]

Trying to maintain both offensives is what ultimately defeated them

True but I have always contended getting sucked into a major battle of attrition on Guadalcanal cost the IJ dear for little gain. During this campaign Yamamoto's strategic grasp of things must be called into serious contention

ORIGINAL: John Lansford

The Japanese were trying to maintain two offensives at the time the Marines were on Guadalcanal.  The army wanted to get all the reinforcements to continue their push for Port Moresby, the navy wanted forces to retake Guadalcanal.  Ultimately the Guadalcanal offensive got priority, but by that time it was too late to change the outcome; the Marines had gotten enough reinforcements and supplies to withstand any attempts.  Trying to maintain both offensives is what ultimately defeated them.

That they couldn't supply two offensives of approximately 2-3 divisions total doesn't speak well of their logistical capabilities; especially considering that they were relatively close to Rabaul, one of their best equipped and built up bases.

The Japanese had a pretty good look at the size of the invasion forces, I've never understood why they weren't able to reverse engineer a better estimate of the number of Marines on the ground.

I think it was lack of communication between the IJN and IJA. The former had excellent recce & maps of the islands & never passed them on to the later (who, I think, never asked for them!). Also the IJN did a fair amount of recconisance for photos over both the islands for its own information but again, never passed them on the IJA who had to actually do the fighting

ORIGINAL: xj900uk

I think it was lack of communication between the IJN and IJA ...

Re Shattered Sword, there was no love loss between the IJA and the IJN, whom the former considered "elitist".

ORIGINAL: xj900uk

Alternatively perhaps his super-agressive tactics just weren't working...

No tactics can work in the face of sufficient material superiority. Allied air superiority and constant naval presence around Guadalcanal meant that Japanese forces were doomed to be inadequate from the start, unless IJN beats the Allied fleet decisively. Except, after Midway odds already were against IJN and only successes of Japanese subs gave them even a chance of such victory. Except then IJN wasted it by not committing enough surface units when they had an edge (one of quite many cases when the fear of losses resulted in losses that would have been preventable otherwise). And tried to push the responsibility for resolving the situation on IJA, resulting in repeated failed offensives.

Similarly, almost all of the land battles in the Pacific were fought in the conditions that pretty much excluded the possibility of Japanese victory from the beginning, however well Japanese fought (and the first major Allied offensive operation at Buna-Gona demostrated that Japanese defensive tactics are not to be underestimated). Because Allied air and sea superiority allowed them to create such conditions, and all that. Similarly, because retreat was impossible or meant starving and dying out from diseases in the jungle, Japanese were doomed to take disproportional losses once their defensive lines collapsed and support elements, wounded, etc, were wiped out en masse.

By comparison, in the Burma theatre, where conditions were much less stacked against them, Japanese forces were overwhelmed only in 1945, that's after losing much of their strength in the desperate attempt to create a miracle by going on the offensive against Imphal.

Ep 5. Action sequences were great, first half not so great. Difficult not to compare with BoB but...

IMO-Henderson field was the key. No airfield no sustained naval presence, no easy resupply. WitP/AE doesn't really capture the real effect air power has on these factors. In the game you can run DDs around airbases with litte conquence. In RL that was a death wish at the time. The days of DE running picket duty with radar, ships packed with AA and proximity fuses was years off. In 1942 ships were very very vulnerable to air attack- radar wasn't widely available and not well understood and AA was still pretty weak.

By Eugene B. Sledge:

http://www.usni.org/magazines/navalhistory/story.asp?STORY_ID=2225

I didn't know they had to jump out to disembark from those "Amtracks(?)".
Very cumbersome.

Later amtracks had rear doors; some of the ones at Pelieliu were the older ones that didn't so the troops had to roll over the sides.