ORIGINAL: RETIRED
ORIGINAL: el cid again
Japan is about 10% the size of the US economy. It is not bad - and was more efficient than Germany - and most of what went wrong was bad decision making.
So the basic assumption is that everything is 1 long ton = one point? That would seem reasonable, and at least make it possible to find numbers to work with. I question your last sentence above. No figures I've ever come across seem to indicate that the Japanese got more "output per man hour" than anybody except the Italians. I know that until Speer the Germans were horrible at resource and manpower allocation (because niether the Nazi's who had the power or the Wehrmacht who made the decisions knew one damned thing about modern industrial practices as invented by the Americans). But everything I've run across showed the Japanese military to be equally incompetent in this field..., and split into two "warring factions" to boot. Where did you get this observation?
It might better be said "they were unequally incompetent in this field."
In part it was cultural and institutional. In the Army in particular, logistics was not regarded as truly the business of a samouri. A division might have a captain as its supply officer - so he lacked the clout from rank alone that a similar officer would have in a Western army. But do not confuse statements like these to yield complete understanding of the situation. The exceptions were, understandably, effective. If Yamashita was a contemporary Japanese great captain (and most historicans think he was), it was not only because he was Rommel like in his conduct (i.e. respected even by enemies for his conduct in the field) - it was because he believed logistics should be the heart of an operational plan. Offered no less than five divisions for the invasion of Malaya, he used only three, on logistic grounds: the available transport could not support more than that. Not quite believing him, he was given four - but one was not used at all - until it transferred to Burma Area Army. Turns out he was quite right: when the British surrendered he was considering suspending offensive operations due to a lack of ammunition and supply within a day or two. The system could barely support three divisions at the pace they had marched, taking Singapore in exactly 100 days.
Yamashita was not alone - other Japanese appreciated the significance of logistics. The navy, perhaps a more important branch in a naval war, was modeled on RN, and anyway a modern navy is forced to focus on maintenance (because ships in salt water are constantly rusting, and machinery used is constantly wearing and breaking down). Japan had its own Albert Speer - and to a degree it reorganized its economy. In the vital area of aircraft production (see The Air War - not the big picture book but the little one comparing all war aircraft economies) Japan did far better than Germany or Italy in terms of production for its size - and naturally that was reflected in things like productivity. Yet it was not as productive as the US or the UK. By the time it got better, we were better still. Nevertheless Japan did things I was formally taught it did not (like convert automotive factories to aircraft production - in fact it did so too much - hurting tank production until it was too late).
Related to this is behaviors off shore. The Army (that institution which was possibly the very worst of all in terms of logistic focus) a theater commander literally broke military law in his treatment of people in Malaya. Charged by critics - an investigating commission was sent. Its report is quite surprising: It found the general guilty as charged, but it recommended NOTHING be done - because his policy was in Japan's interests. Indeed, oil production was restored ahead of plan - and that in spite of a failure to capture Palembang undamaged and the loss of a shipload of oil experts due to being sunk. This had ripple effects, and it was decided to release all impressed labor in China and other territories,
to return siezed real property to its owners, and other measures - on the logistic basis that the economy would be better off with free people working their own assets. [Fashist theory was not anti-economic - and no where in the world was economic growth better than in Manchuria during the great depression - where it was consistently double digit. In fact, structurally, the United States is a fashist country (small F) insofar as we too believe in private ownership of the major means of production operated under government regulation. Fashist theory was not inherently in favor of inefficiency in the sense socialist or communist ideology is on a structural basis.]
Japan entered WWII with the most modern (and fastest = potentially most efficient in terms of cargo/unit time over a fixed distance) merchant marine in the world. It also enjoyed interior lines - something a US Army Handbook of Military Forces says it effectively exploited. It evolved some reasonable concepts of standardized cargo ships and also (pre war) it had perfected plans for escorts which were adequate. This great asset was not well used: there was never enough shipping to support the economic system - in spite of significant capture of enemy ships (something we cannot simulate because code does not allow it - too much was allocated to military operations and not enough was returned as planned); there were (after 1942) too many losses and not enough production to make it up; there was initially no Grand Escort Command and no plan to mass produce low end escorts in sufficient numbers. [For details of all this, good and bad, see Parillo: The Japanese Merchant Marine and World War II] Parillo argues that the resource could have been better managed, and that to things done too late could have been done sooner.
Strategically, the war is about autarky. That is, Japan does not seek world conquest, just local conquest, and that for economic reasons. It does not plan to invade North America and occupy the White House. [The famous remark by Adm Yamamoto was meant to create a shock: "we will have to dictate peace terms in the White House" was not said because it was possible to do - it was said to convey how much it would take to make Americans surrender.] Instead, Japan believed it could set up a regional, complete economic system - and then make it cost prohibitive to attack it - in part due to sheer distance. USN estimated it was never going to be more than 50% unit effective due to distance alone - compared to how it could fight off our coasts - so we agreed. And Parillo concludes (after looking at the numbers) there was "more than enough" oil to "meet the needs of the Empire" - and also he gives us the numbers for 26 other commodoties - with a similar outcome. Except for uranium (not a factor in pre war thinking) Japan is better off than we are in terms of there is no missing vital raw material. [We lack things like tin and antimony, and USN taught me in basic training there are 40 other things we don't have enough of which must come from other parts of the world]
