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Originally Posted by Vexx
And we had team sports that trained all those soldiers in how to interact as a team.
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This played out in other interesting ways. People today often associate the Japanese with team spirit and esprit de corps, so it can come as a surprise to many to read that Japanese fighter combat in World War II
emphasised one-on-one dogfighting tactics, in keeping with the battle traditions of the samurai. In contrast, United States tactics focused on teamwork, theoretically because of the American tradition of team sports. This doctrinal difference is further reflected in the design of fighter aircraft on both sides, with the Japanese favouring firepower, range and manoeuvrability, while the Americans tapped on technology and tactics to keep pilots alive as long as possible. (That is, Zerg vs Marines. Literally.) Machines can be replaced. Skilled pilots, once lost, are gone forever, as the Japanese would eventually realise much too late.
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Originally Posted by Endless Soul
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For me, the interesting points were:
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The enemy does not pay much attention to hand-to-hand fighting.
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The Americans make much of firepower, especially the power of artillery, and lay only small stress on bayonet assaults.
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We are so used to the fire-and-movement tactics of modern combat that we forget that bayonets were once considered highly necessary weapons. It used to be that once a company had expended its rounds to soften a target, its soldiers would fix bayonets before making the final charge to finish off a stricken enemy.
Such small-unit tactics were still considered valid as recently as during my own time as an infantry officer cadet, about 20 years ago. It's the poor bloody infantry's job to take and hold ground and, in the past, it was assumed that this would necessarily mean fighting tooth and nail to dislodge enemies from fortified positions.
Even so, bayonet tactics were already falling out of favour by the time of World War I. That the Japanese still placed emphasis on it illustrated the growing obsolescence of their infantry tactics.
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What Japanese staff officers think of the land warfare tactics used by U.S. forces is set forth in an official Japanese document. These beliefs indicate clearly why the Japs have specialized in infiltrating, surprise, and deceptive tactics to such a great extent against our forces.
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I couldn't help but smile, because that one paragraph encapsulates a fundamental aspect of the Chinese/Japanese art of war. For the Chinese and the Japanese,
warfare is all about deception. Both cultures are replete with legends of brilliant generals who outmanoeuvred opponents through trickery, and the very best commanders are those who achieve victory with minimal losses.
That's not to say Western commanders don't know the value of espionage and deception, as the likes of Erwin "Desert Fox" Rommel would amply show. But, doctrinally, it's true that Western tactics typically favour sheer firepower over feints and manoeuvres. Hence the emphasis on grenades and artillery.
In fact, I note wryly that American military doctrine, as observed by the Japanese, would still have been familiar to me and my fellow cadets 20 years ago. The approach to defence and assault is fundamentally the same, despite a time gap of 50-plus years.
In defence, dig in and prepare for a pounding. Though it's never explicitly said, the unspoken assumption is that if you're tasked to hold ground,
you're as good as fucked, so you might as well prepare for the worst. Yes, don't bother to counter-attack — you're not likely to be in any shape to do so after enduring just one assault (assuming you're still alive, that is).
If you wonder why such an assumption exists, do try to experience an artillery live-firing exercise at first hand, if you ever get such an opportunity. The closest I got was for the live firing of a battery of now-decommissioned 106mm jeep-mounted recoilless rifles. Standing on a forward observation post, I could still feel my legs turning to jelly from the force of impact as the shells landed several kilometres away.
Now imagine if you were at ground zero...
It's game over, man. Game over.