Saipan
>approximately 20,000 defenders (combat effective) and a regiment of tanks
>Landed marines: around 70,000 total (nearly 4 to 1 numerical advantage)
>massive naval and aerial bombardment (with less results than other islands, due to size and terrain nature of Saipan)
>Japanese employed poor tactics, including lots of Banzai charges (especially towards the end)
>Marine casualties total: 10,000 including more than 3,000 killed, approximately 0.7 casualty for every Japanese casualty

Tarawa
>roughly 2,600 defenders with a small detachment of tanks (subtract 40% of these from the naval bombardment, leaves you with less than 1,500 trained defenders for the ground battle)
>landed marines: more than 11,000. 11.5 to 1 numerical advantage
>very tiny island, less than 3 kilometers across at its widest span, no chance for defense in-depth
>taken in 2 days
>Marine casualties: 3,000, including 1,000 killed in the span of just 2 days, several tanks destroyed, representing a 3 marine casualties for every Japanese dead


Peleliu
>6,500 defenders (4,500 IJA, 1,500 IJN Marines, rest of the garrison was ground maintenance staff and Korean laborers)
>Landed Marines: 47,000, large number of tanks, 8.5 to one numerical advantage
>very tiny island, 3.5 kilometers at its widest span, but rocky terrain and plenty of caves, heavy pre-landing bombardment, but didn't have a massive effect like it did on Tarawa or other tiny islets like Kwajalein
>Japanese employed defense in depth, drawn out battle, counterattacks inland and avoided concentrating on the beaches
>taken in two months and a half in what was estimated to be a 2-3 days affair, very drawn out and protracted fighting on the north part of the island
>Marine casualties: 9,800 including 2,100-2,300 killed, nearly the number of casualties in the campaign at Saipan, against a substantially larger Japanese force
>nearby Angaur cost the 81st infantry nearly 1,500 casualties fighting around 1,350 IJA defenders for a very small island

Iwo Jima
>21,000 defenders, mostly third rate troops, but the island was heavily fortified, army was well led, had plenty of time to prepare
>terrain was barren and open except a large volcanic mountain
>intricate tunnel system
>drawn-out inland battle instead of concentrating on the beaches
>Island's flat terrain, extensive tunnels and use of elusive tactics saved defenders from the brunt of the bombardment
>Landed Marines: more than 50,000 with 20,000 in reserve (most deployed), 5 to 1 numerical advantage
>5 weeks to take
>28,000 total casualties, 1.5 marine casualties for every Japanese dead

Why did Iwo get singled out as an outlier when Tarawa and Peleliu were, when adjusting for things like battlefield size and numbers, seemed to have been harder to take?

Iwo Jima had an iconic photo that immediately occupied the front page of every American newspaper and was used to sell war bonds. When Saipan was happening people were busy talking about D-Day, and also had rather bitter mass suicide episodes. Peleliu took too long.

>>64104803 (OP)
What is truly interesting is the size of Saipan against the size of Peleliu.

Saipan is 115 Sq/Km, 23 Kilometers north to south and 3-5 kilometers across in most parts. Mixed terrain with some jungle, low scrubs, rocky outcrops and caves. Great for defense.

Peleliu is less than 1/9th the size of Saipan, 10 kilometers in length and 3 kilometers at its widest span. It had lots of rugged coral outcrops and rough terrain with plenty of caves, but a decent chunk of the island was cleared for an airstrip.

Peleliu was garrisoned with just 6,500 combat effective troops against more than 20,000 in Saipan, yet tit for tat it was much more costly to take than Saipan, and took more than two months to capture.

It's crazy to look at Peleliu in satellite, the island is smaller than Central Park, yet it took 2 months and more than 2,000 dead to clear out this miserably small island. The word "Defense in depth" is being stretched to the limit here. Crunching the numbers, Peleliu was the hardest battle in the Pacific for the Marines.

This shows that, when the Japanese weren't led by tennoheika banzai retards, they could extract a brutal toll from the attackers, despite the extreme inferiority in both numbers and equipment.

>>64104803 (OP)
>>64104810
Double check your math, retard

>>64104968
This

>>64104968
>This shows that, when the Japanese weren't led by tennoheika banzai retards, they could extract a brutal toll from the attackers, despite the extreme inferiority in both numbers and equipment.
Was that ever in doubt though? I doubt more than a few idiots ever said otherwise. It's well known that the Japanese military's biggest faults were all top-down in nature, or, to put it another way, they were( mostly) led by tennoheika banzai retards. I don't think you are making any new or overlooked point, just restating what has been said before.

>>64104803 (OP)
>defending dug in positions is easier than attacking them
thank you for your insights

Oh it's this seething retard again.

>>64106304
It's all approximated figures, but they're generally accurate.

>>64104803 (OP)
mutts aren't gonna like this thread

>>64107495
I'm pretty sure the hapa that made this was seething at the time, why wouldn't he like it?

>>64104968
>extreme inferiority in equipment.
It really wasn't at the scale of infantry combat. Japs had a good infantry rifle, great LMG and good HMG. Good mortars and field artillery.

>>64106293
Looks like they had better gear than most japs during the war?

>>64107495
shit bait

>>64104803 (OP)
>>Japanese employed poor tactics, including lots of Banzai charges (especially towards the end)
>>Marine casualties total: 10,000 including more than 3,000 killed, approximately 0.7 casualty for every Japanese casualty

I dont want to hear any criticism of Banzai charges anymore

>>64107560
>I dont want to hear any criticism of Banzai charges anymore
Except doing literally anything else resulted in a much higher K:D ratio for the Japs.

someone post the Tarawa vids please

>>64107527
>no SMG's
>bolt action rifles against automatic rifles
>relatively few crew served HMG's
But yeah, they had great mortars.
>>64107542
Standard IJA Jap gear for the war.

>>64104803 (OP)
>>64107123
your figures for Saipan alone are very badly reported and inconsistent

>combat effective
but you don't define "combat effective" for the other campaigns
>10,000 including
wrong, you meant EXcluding, i.e. 3,000 KIA and 10,000 WIA
which includes NONcombatant casualties e.g. logistics personnel
>0.7
10/20 = 0.5, you probably meant 13/20
but if including total Jap casualties it's actually 13/27 = 0.5

unfuck your figures and try again

>>64107622
>combat effective
Ground troops trained in the infantry combat role.
I do, by the way. Read my post.
>which includes NONcombatant casualties e.g. logistics personnel
If it's a combat casualty, it's a combat casualty. I didn't count operational casualties.

Yeah my bad for the American casualties, it's actually closer to 16,000 (13,000 wounded, 3,000+ killed).

>>64104803 (OP)
Also please remember the Japs in those islands were malnourished to the point most casualties were actually due to disease.

There is no excuse for the amount of time and men the US needed to take Tarawa considering the absolutely small size of the island, the FLAT terrain and the naval and aerial bombardment prior to the landing.

>>64107672
Tarawa was bombarded (with ships) only for a few hours before the landing, which proved to be a huge mistake. Still, the effect of the naval bombardment was probably huge since the island was flat, small and sandy.

>>64107668
>I didn't count operational casualties
How would you know? you didn't research how casualties were calculated. especially with US sources, often historians just take the total reported invalid figure which in the Pacific included lots of heatstroke, disease, etc
>I do, by the way. Read my post.
I read
not consistently for all 4 islands, you don't

>>64107622
>>64107668
are you both just pretending to be retarded? Noncombat casualties means people who got sick/starved/etc (which is the vast majority of casualties in most historical conflicts).

>>64107691
are you pretending to be ESL?
look up the difference between "noncombat" and "noncombatANT"

Could Germany have held Peleliu against the Japanese?

>>64104810
Weren't tarawa and peleliu both earlier in the war when they were still figuring out amphibious assaults and methodology?
I also dimly recall one of those being a major gaffe by leadership and an effort to bury it and avoid drawing attention to all the unnecessary deaths. Might be getting it confused with something else though.

>>64107586
>>relatively few crew served HMG's
12 Type 92s in their TO&E doesn't seem that far off from the US Army's 14 M1919s and M1917s

>>64107688
>How would you know? you didn't research how casualties were calculated. especially with US sources, often historians just take the total reported invalid figure which in the Pacific included lots of heatstroke, disease, etc
You're wrong on this, noncombat casualties are counted separately, not as 'wounded'.

>not consistently for all 4 islands, you don't
I already broke up the numbers. Tarawa for example has 2600 defenders, but the real total of the garrison was 4800. 2600 were infantry troops, the rest were laborers and construction personnel.
Peleliu had a garrison sized at 10,000 men, but only 4,500 were infantry, addition to 1,000 Marines, the real combat effective strength of that garrison is at 6,500, the rest were, again, construction and naval maintenance staff.

Most of the troops on Iwo Jima were IJA infantry, there were little support personnel or construction since the Japanese were preparing that battle for a long time, and evacuated all non-essentials.

>>64107841
oh really? what are your sources?

>>64104968
>This shows that, when the Japanese weren't led by tennoheika banzai retards
It's too bad that their military culture/army doctrine promoted this. commanders were encouraged to disobey direct orders and issue their own decisions if they felt the "national interest" wasn't being served. it's what led to the kwantung army trying to coup the civilian government and drag the country into a war against the USSR until they got their shit stomped in at Khalkin Gol. even on a tactical level, there was no way to stop some retarded platoon leader from leading a futile banzai charge if he thought defending a key objective was not "in the national interest"

>>64107850
Peleliu

>>64107892

>>64107892
>Major commands a 250 men regular infantry outfit
>Captain commands a 700 men one
???

>>64107850
Tarawa

>>64107754
if you equate the 6.5mm platoon LMG with the BAR, then a Jap platoon began 1941 with more LMGs than a US platoon; US platoons later added a BAR, I suspect in response to this perceived difference

in terms of medium/heavy machine-guns, US infantry battalions had 14 of .30 and .50 cal guns quite consistently throughout the war; Jap battalions ranged from 8 (the most common) to 12 7.7mm guns, probably due to production shortages.

>>64107850
Saipan (total 29,000)

>>64107904
Acting commanders, probably. Leadership of the defense at Peleliu fell to a colonel, even though a Major General IJA was present.

>>64107986
>>64107957
>>64107892
yes, it is good to know also that you're using Osprey books, but what I meant was:
>how would you know that noncombat casualties are counted separately, not as 'wounded'.

>>64108024
Not a single one of those is Osprey, though.
>how would you know that noncombat casualties are counted separately, not as 'wounded'.
Because Wounded in ACTION =/= sick/wounded. If breaking your ankle while jumping off a boat outside combat counts as wounded, then Rupe the Dupe was WIA at Peleliu.

>>64107698
neither of you retards have provided sources for your figures so no idea whether they actually specify noncombat vs noncombatant in the reference material.

>>64108073
if you mean American casualties, here's the breakdown.

>>64107959
I would as well. The 96 had its caveats about cartridge oiling, but the 99 was an excellent WW2 LMG, and then every platoon has 3 50mm commando mortars. It's just that once you get to their regimental and division assets that things start to fall apart, and even at the battalion level with being a little thin on mortars compared to other TOE&Es

>>64107865
really, the Japanese are easily the worst major military involved in WWII.
>no SMGs, WWI-era infantry weapons and fighting vehicles
>only have shitty interwar light tanks, don't decide to build a medium tank until the war is basically over
>gets their shit pushed in by any army that isn't made up of chinese peasants or half-strength backwater colonial garrisons
>don't invest in AT weapons at all
>in an era of mechanized warfare and combined arms, decide to prioritize infantry training on... light infantry CQC and hand to hand combat
>hands down medieval-tier logistics, regularly lose 90% of your men to starvation and preventable diseases.
>pants on head retarded military culture, leads to numerous disastrous defeats with commanders refusing to cooperate in the heat of battle or command suicidal banzai charges just because they felt like it
>their own armed forces refuse to cooperate and their strategic goals are decided by internal power struggles between the army and navy, not by the state itself

>>64108152
>every platoon has 3 50mm commando mortars
whereas British platoons had only one, which made for a huge initial volley, but at the end of the day, everybody's infantry platoons can only carry the same number of 2" mortar bombs
>once you get to their regimental and division assets that things start to fall apart
plus the Japanese artillery planning dating back to early WW1 standards, i.e. no more sophisticated than precalculated planned shoots, few FOOs or telephones to adjust fire with except for those island defence campaigns, and virtually no use of late-WW1 techniques like creeping barrages

so you see why they got the reputation of banzai charges: their support weapons quickly ran short of ammo and anyway were not very mobile or quick to bring into action

>>64108215
>plus the Japanese artillery planning dating back to early WW1 standards, i.e. no more sophisticated than precalculated planned shoots, few FOOs or telephones to adjust fire with except for those island defence campaigns, and virtually no use of late-WW1 techniques like creeping barrages
It seems like they never had the shells, at least against the Americans. They had to do these pre-planned shoots to conserve ammo, and were reportedly quite accurate.

I'm not as familiar with their employment of artillery in the Chinese theater.

Anyone who hasn't should watch With the Marines At Tarawa. Short newsreel less than 20 mins long completed in 1944 that filmed parts of the battle as it happened. Showed both sides getting fucked up.
The one part I recall is the cameraman catching both marines and IJN in the same frame. You suddenly see a mass of IJN dudes break cover and making a run for it in the background, and a bunch of marines shooting at them in the foreground. Crazy footage especially considering wartime censors at the time

>>64108215
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like the British and Germans mainly used their 5cm mortars to lay smoke at the direction of the platoon leader and it was often dropped from TOE&Es as the war went on, while the Japanese used the knee mortar more like an M79 given that the hi-low pressure system didn't exist yet.

>>64108740
Smoke and flares, yes
The British in particular hardly ever even issued HE rounds, they'd looked into it but decided that a platoon couldn't hump enough ammo and a 2" shell wasn't very deadly anyhow
The mortar was integral to platoon attacks in British doctrine
>it was often dropped from TOE&Es as the war went on
Not sure about that
>the Japanese used the knee mortar more like an M79
Yep

>>64107865
>until they got their shit stomped in at Khalkin Gol
Soviet advantages
>2.3:1 manpower
>7.5:1 tanks
>23:1 armored car/tankettes
>2.25:1 aircraft
>2:1 artillery
>2:1 trucks
Soviets at minimum had a 2 to 1 advantage in almost everything while being much closer to supply lines and still took more casualties, double the aircraft loses, almost 10 times the tank loses. Khalkin Gol would be considered a Pyrrhic victory for any other military if that happened to them, but tankies clutch onto the win because the Soviets simply didn't have anything better to show for their campaigns against Japan.

>>64107865
>until they got their shit stomped in at Khalkin Gol
I guess this counts as "shit stomping" to subhumans because they aren't suffering 5 to 1 casualites while being on the *defense*

>>64104968
This is the incorrect interpretation. In the IJA the lower the rank the more you're likely to be one of the banzai "retards".
Which, by the way, if they weren't banzai retards, they'd not have extracted a bigger toll from the American landing troops. They'd simply have surrendered. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't have the will to fight to the death on an island with zero possibilities of retreat without some sort of banzai spirit.

>>64106954
>top down
One of the biggest flaws was their outdated equipment and that was mostly the fault of their limited industrial capabilities.

>>64109331
>Amelicans
This doesn't make sense for Japanese to say, they have no "L" sound and everything "L" becomes an "r"

>>64104803 (OP)
>>64104810
non ironically you should start a YT channel bud

>>64109919
correct
replacing R with L is a typically chinese slurring
>like my grandma could never stop doing

>>64109919
Japanese people, from my observation, have a sound that's somewhere in the middle of L and R. Clearer pronunciation of R might come down to some dialects.

>>64108211
>really, the Japanese are easily the worst major military involved in WWII
>Italy exists

>>64111210
I know that Italy is traditionally considered the least of the majors, but I would argue they were really first of the minors.

>>64110106
>Japanese is R or L?
It's the same primitive "R" that most languages manage: a flappy, (almost D-sounding if you slow down) tongue-touch to the roof of the mouth. It's neither.
What's baffling is how the Japanese never at least developed a *notation* for a proper R-sound or R-sound, considering China has had an R (legend of Er Lang), and Korean has an L (the -eul suffix.)
What's contemptible is that they didn't even have notation to separate B from P, until some Portuguese missionaries suggested tagging ° onto glyphs to denote "P."
>>64108302
I will rewatch this. It's been years
>>64108740
>knee-mortar is like an M79
Intriguing comparison. M79 can do fairly direct-fire as an option though.

Reminds me... I'll take this opportunity to post some delusional, smug-mask over autistic rage, of modern day Japanese ultranationals...
1/3

Some people are just unteachable
2/3

3/3

>>64104803 (OP)
how do you lose tanks to a blown to shit jap malnourished element in a 1 square mile island without heavy weapons?

>>64111356
They had "quick-firing 47mm antitank guns" at a number of these islands, according to the Japanese videos I've watched.
And don't forget about mortars.

The Japanese garrison on Saipan focused too much on building a defense line on the beach, resulting in heavy damage from naval gunfire and bombing.
This lesson led to the construction of underground positions across the entire island of Iwo Jima and the abandonment of combat on the landing beaches in Okinawa.

>>64107586
How do you lose TWO Shermans to a banzai charge?

>>64104803 (OP)
What got those lads in the picture, MG fire or arty?

>>64111273
Dunno about Koreans but Chinese have clearly distinct R and L sounds (unless you speak Beijing mushmouth in which case there's no hope anyway) so Japs don't have much of an excuse other than "meh we didn't need L sounds anyway"

>>64111398
I kill my Shermans with a bomb on a stick.

>>64104893
>niggermelt swimming hole
>niggerskull dive site
Operation human shield?

based and interesting thread

Pacific front is really probably the most interesting front, and complete hell on earth

>>64111464
Are there any confirmed uses of the spicy lance?

>>64111512
the pacific front was NOT brutal enough for me
it did not have based Dirlewanger and the Come and See brigade

>>64111817
controversial, but somewhat true
all we had was the usual plunder, rape, death marches and concentration camps carried out in the usual way dating back to Carthage and beyond

the Germans did not only that, they tried to industrialise and systematise the process

>asian

>>64111273
>M79 can do fairly direct-fire as an option though.
Right, but they didn't have the hi-low system, so either had a relatively anemic load or bone shattering recoil, and the direct fire options were generally rifle grenades that were pretty unpleasant to shoot from the shoulder and introduced significant manual of arms caveats - like needing to single load a blank, or attach a grenade cup, etc.

Actually, looking at the British 2-inch mortar, which was in the same weight class as the 50mm Japanese one, and not 30lb like the German 5cm mortar, I'm surprised it wasn't used more, given how much the Japanese loved it, and how much the Americans considered the knee mortar a formidable and effective weapon.

>>64112142
>surprised it wasn't used more
it's like having three guns but the ammo load for one gun, and anyway the HE fill was as you say rather low, containing only about twice the explosive of a British hand grenade
>given how much the Japanese loved it
mainly because "sustained fire" and "logistics" wasn't in their dictionary
>and how much the Americans considered the knee mortar a formidable and effective weapon
WW2 was the Americans' baptism of fire, they were easily impressed

>>64108211
They're a lot better if you look at them from the perspective of a force consciously trying to cope with terrible logistics.

>>64112210
They were not very conscious when they continued landing thousands of guys on Guadalcanal without any way of supplying them. The japs call it starvation island. Same story in New Guinea, and Burma. Just constant strategic overreach without any realistic means of supporting it.

>>64111464
>>64111729
There isn’t a single confirmed armor kill with a lunge mine, but multiple incidents of them killing the users. They were literal suicide machines.