Author: Belisaliu
As we all know, compared with the world-class navy at that time, the construction of the Japanese army during the Second World War was not a little bit bad. Although the Japanese Army is definitely powerful in Asia, it was really a bit embarrassed when beaten by the Soviet army in the Battle of Nomenhan.
In World War II, tank can be said to be the king of land warfare. At the same time, the Soviet, Germany, the United States, Britain and other countries were constantly developing new technologies, and various powerful tanks were put into service one after another. For example, German tiger , leopard tiger ; American Pershing series; Soviet Stalin series, etc. are all powerful and advanced.
Tiger tank
Only Japan has not only not launched new tanks during World War II. The old guys serving in the army have small and ugly appearance and poor performance, and are nicknamed "Little Dou Ding". This is really a naked humiliation. So today, the author will take all readers to analyze why the Japanese Army's equipment is so poor.
95 light tank
relatively weak national economy
Generally speaking, a country's weapons production is an important part of the country's military economy. Then, naturally, it will also be subject to the country's comprehensive strength, especially the foundation, structure and scale of heavy industry. Perhaps different from the impressions of many readers, Japan in the 1930s and 1940s was undoubtedly the most developed country in Asia and one of the world's great powers. However, at that time, Japan's overall economic level was still far behind that of the powerful European and American countries.
Take the per capita national income in 1939 as an example. The United States is $554, Germany is $520 (a mustache does have luck and strength), the United Kingdom is $468, France is $283, Italy is $140, but Japan is $93, which is only about one-sixth of the United States.
Not only that, Marx Werner said in "The Military Powers of the Great Powers": "Japan's industry is the most fragile and immature among the great powers." According to the situation in 1913, the proportion of the five countries in the world's industrial production was 38%, 14%, 16%, 6%, and 1% respectively. By 1937, it became 38%, 10%, 11%, 5%, and 4%, and Japan was still ranked last, and it was still a huge gap with the United States.
What is more terrifying than insufficient industrial production capacity is that Japan is still a country with extremely lack of resources. Japan is very dependent on overseas supply of various metal ores, oil, rubber, cotton and other military or civil necessities.
Affected by this, Japan's heavy industry foundation was extremely weak at that time, accounting for less than half of the industrial structure in 1936. Therefore, Japan's industrial foundation at that time could not meet the needs of war, and the industries such as heavy artillery and automobiles were seriously innate. This also laid the groundwork for the later failure of Japanese Army tanks.
T-34
The relatively strong naval
Although, it was a fact that Japan's overall productivity was not strong at that time. But theoretically, if you tighten your belt and supply the army with all your strength, your army equipment will not be so stretched. But what the Army general at that time did not expect was that the Army tightened its belt and calculated carefully every day, but the benefits fell on the Navy.
To be fair, in fact, among the world's powerful countries at that time, the only one of the United States was able to feed the army and the navy. Others, such as the Soviet Union, Germany and France, emphasize the army and the navy; the United Kingdom, focus on the army and the navy.
But even if it is so despised the United Kingdom - because of some historical problems, British Army has always been inferior, and there is no word "royal" before - in World War II, the army was equipped with Cromwell medium tanks, Churchill heavy tanks, etc., which are relatively good tanks.
Cromwell tank
On Japan, it can be said that starting from Meiji Restoration , although there was no naval army at that time, the beams of these two major military branches had already been formed.
Before World War II, for national strategic considerations, the military expenditure of the Japanese Navy was always higher than that of the army. After all, Japan is an island country. Between 1918 and 1930, the total military expenditure of the Japanese Army was 2.801 billion yen, and the total military expenditure of the Japanese Navy was 3.832 billion yen. On the surface alone, the latter has nearly 40% more military expenditure than the former. And what is even more terrifying is that the army's military expenditure is often "delayed" and "delayed" for various reasons, and fewer people actually fall into their hands, and the gap with the navy is even greater.
In an era when all the great powers in the world were crazily expanding their armies and preparing for war, the situation of the Japanese army can only be said to be barely starving to death. For example, in 1936, the budget for US Army was US$611 million, four times that of the Japanese Army. In the same year, Germany's total military expenditure was 7.5 billion yen, which was nearly twenty times that of the Japanese Army, and most of them were used in the Army.
Japan's number one land enemy, the Soviet Union, is even more terrifying. After two five-year plans, the Soviet Union's national strength was at the peak of the world and attached great importance to army construction. The annual army's military expenditure was more than ten times that of the Japanese Army. The Far Eastern Red Army, which was not valued, had the funds equivalent to the total military expenditure of the Japanese navy and land. It can be said that the two are not the same heavyweight class at all. It is reasonable that Japan was later beaten to pieces in the Battle of Nomenhan.
Japanese tank troops during the Battle of Nomenhan
Few and poor weapons production
Based on the problems mentioned in the previous article, under the premise of extreme military expenditure in the 1920s, the Japanese Army had no choice but to shut down a large number of arsenals, which can be said to be aggravated.
1931 When the shameless Japanese army launched the September 18th Incident, its annual output of the army arsenal was only 3,600 rifles and 10 tanks. In comparison, the Soviet Union had a total annual output of tanks after the national mobilization, which was more than the number of rifles made by Japan.
It can be said that during the entire World War II, Japan's military production was beaten by the United States, Soviet , British and German in all aspects, and could only play against Italy, which was so-called. Not only are the small number, but the weapons produced by Japan in World War II are generally of poor quality.
95 light tank
Taking the then King of Land War tank as an example, Japan did a very bad job. Tanks are sporting steel and must rely closely on the entire technical team and personnel of the automobile industry. Today, Japan can be called the automobile kingdom, but in the 1930s and 1940s, the automobile manufacturing industry lags far behind the European and American powers, including Italy. Yes, you read that right, not even Italy.
The Douding Tank
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The weak automobile industry determines that it is difficult for its tank manufacturing industry to achieve great results. In 1926, when European and American powers had already played tanks, Japan had just begun to try to build tanks by itself.
In February 1927, the Japanese Army Technology Headquarters imitated the No. 1 combat vehicle of the French Renault tank and was successfully developed. In 1929, the Osaka Arsenal developed the second chariot, the Type 89 chariot. During World War II, the other two tanks that the Japanese Army relied on, namely the Type 95 Light Warrior and the 97 Mid Warrior , were made in 1935 and 1937 respectively.
97 tank
In terms of artillery , the largest caliber artillery equipped among the three tanks of the Japanese army is only 57 mm. Although the power of a tank cannon does not only depend on the caliber, it often lacks persuasiveness when the caliber is too small.
In contrast, the Soviet Union did not mention the Stalin series heavy tanks (at the end of World War II), which could be called black technology, but were only relatively old T-34 and KV-1 tanks, and were also equipped with 76mm caliber artillery (in fact, there were even larger caliber improvements later, of course, Japanese tanks also had improvements later). The power of the two is simply incomparable.
KV-1 heavy tank
What is worse than the poor and weaker than the firepower is that the tonnage armor and maneuverability are completely behind the times.
According to European and American standards at that time, even the largest Type 97 medium tank in the Japanese army weighed only 15.5 tons, which can only be regarded as an light tank . In comparison, a tough character like the Tiger King Tank weighs 60 or 70 tons, which is simply the difference between adults and kindergarten children.
The tonnage is not large, so the armor is naturally weak. In the Type 97, the thickest part of the armor of the tank is only 25 mm, and the Type 95 light tank is even worse, and the thickest part of the armor is only 12 mm. In addition, the steel quality of the Japanese tanks was not high at that time. In fact, these two main tanks were not as good as defending against the enemy tank gun , even the heavy machine gun and anti-tank rifle were a bit hard to defend. I don’t know what the tankers of the Japanese Army were in at that time. I guess they were not much better than the members of the Kamikaze Death Squad tied to the living coffin!
97 style medium tank
Then readers may ask here: Since it is an "light tank" with armor like a paper paste, then the 97 and 95 styles must run very quickly, right? But the answer is a bit cruel. The maximum speed of the Type 95 light tank is 40 kilometers per hour, and the Type 97 medium tank is only 38 kilometers per hour, which is the same level as the relatively bulky Tiger-style heavy tank that everyone remembers.
Then, it is natural that Japanese tanks, which are not capable of firepower, armor, and are still maneuvering, are at a disadvantage in the confrontation with the US Soviet tanks.
On the battlefields of Myanmar and the Philippines, facing the US M3 tanks, it is difficult for Japanese tanks to destroy their frontal armor. The M3 should not be too easy to use the armor of Type 95 and Type 97. What made the Japanese Army even more desperate was that the M3 among the tanks served in the US Army at that time was the worst.
M3 tank
In January 1945, the US military launched a landing operation in Luzon Island, Philippines. At that time, the Japanese army had a 2nd Tank Division garrison, which was under its jurisdiction, the sixth, seventh, tenth and eleventh tank regiments. Although this tank force is not even a fraction of it on the battlefield of the Battle of Sudkursk. But for the Japanese Army, it is already a treasure.
However, in just one month, hundreds of tanks from the Japanese tank division were almost wiped out. Even throughout the process, the US military unilaterally crushed, and there was nothing exciting about tank battle worth talking about. This is also a microcosm of Japanese Army tanks during World War II: they have no sense of existence and die silently.
Kursk tank war
Perhaps it was stimulated by World War II. Today, the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force is still relatively dedicated to the tank forces. But compared with our tank troops, it is still far from each other. If some right-wing elements cannot see the form clearly and try to provoke right and wrong, their subsequent fate will inevitably be like the tanks of the Japanese Army in World War II.
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