WWII's Top Mistakes - Japan

zander_0633 said:
Well, That is indeed one of the HUGE mistakes of the Japanese Army!
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Indeed. But to be fair America was in a rather similar mindset before pearl harbor. It's one of the interesting ironies of warfare that the obliteration of virtually the entire pacific fleet was the catalyst to create a new fleet strategy that Japan had no hope of countering.
 
they had ambitions but absolutely zero capabilities to do so.

More interesting was their death ray program. They experimented with using waves to form a death-ray gun to kill people but never really could make it feasable. Interestingly enough the "death ray" wave frequencies where in the same band that radar uses. They had the right idea even before the western powers really grabbed a hold of it... but their focus on death blinded them to the use the western powers developed for the tool, radar.
 
I agree with chinese -canadian, the Japanese would have liked to destroy the carriers, but as luck would have it they were out of harbour at the time.

Whispering Death said..........
''Did any minisubs, spys, or scout planes ever try to radio back, "CALL OFF THE ATTACK, ALL THAT ARE HERE ARE BATTLESHIPS NOT CARRIERS!" Did Yamamoto ever say, "we have to call of the 2nd wave of bombers because there are no carriers there! We must save our armarments until we find them, quickly send out all available search planes to find those carriers!"

By then the Japanese had fully committed themselves to war and there was definitely no turning back.
The die was cast, it was sink or swim, do or die....well, I think you get my drift.
With the oil embargo in place and Congress passing the 2 ocean navy program [planning to build a fleet equal to the the next 2 biggest navies combined] the Japanese had little choice, war, or cave in to American demands and once committed they weren't going to worry if a few carriers weren't in harbour.

The intent of the attack on Pearl Harbor was to neutralise American naval power in the Pacific, if only temporarily, to give the Japanese time to over run South East Asia, set up fortified bases and bleed the Americans.

The Japanese were convinced that the Americans were a soft polyglot race, and didn't have the Bushido fighting spirit of the Japanese soldier, and wouldn't be prepared to fight a long bloody war of attrition.

How wrong they were.

And It didn't matter if the Japanese got it wrong by depending on battleships to much or not, [although they had arguably the best carrier force in the world in 1941]... the Americans would in time, vastly out produce Japan in carriers [over 100 to the Japanese less then 20] battleships, aircraft, manpower and every thing else you can think of [which Yamamoto predicted]

It would eventually be almost no contest, and thats where the Japanese regime differed with their nazi partners, who thought they could conquer the Soviet Union, they knew that in the long run they had little chance against the Americans.
 
You overdo the myth Ashes. The first point I would like to make is that it isn't as if the Japanese completely discounted carriers. If they where in the harbor they would have be on the bottom by the end of the day no question. The point is priorities. The American strategy was multiple localized battles with carriers in the ocean and marines on land "island hopping". The Japanese strategy was one big climactic battleship duel in blue water. That mindset was their downfall and why they focused on battleships.

The myth is they where racist and we where strong, it's cute and it feels good. But when you read what Yamamoto actually thinks and writes along with the other top brass they arn't idiots like the sword swinging butchers in the POW camps. They have a gameplan, they have strategy, and it failed.

The Japanese wanted to do to America what they did to Russia. Kill the first of the 2 main fleets in a surprise attack, then wait for the 2nd fleet to make its way from one ocean to the pacific ocean, and destroy it in a huge battle.
 
Underestimating the Australians in PNG. The Japanese came no further than Milne Bay, they repelled and were on the back foot for the rest of the war after that. They lost all momentum when the hit Kokoda.
 
They made the mistake of getting the US involved and making a treaty with Hitler.Also for reinforcing every island.
 
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