Quote:
Originally Posted by Raellus
The Japanese, although tough and determined enemies, were cursed with some of the worst tech of the war.
Pretty much all of their weapons systems were inferior to the Western equivalent. The Zero was king for a while, but as soon as allied pilots figured out not to get into a turning/climbing fight with it, it lost a lot of its mystique. Later Allied designs like the Hellcat and Corsair were superior. The Yamato super battleship was impressive and would have been superior in most respects in the age of the battle line, but in the era of naval air, it was a dinosaur.
Japanese infantry weapons were generally crap, across the board. The only major exception was their little "knee" mortars, which could generate impressive close-in indirect fire support. They never had enough artillery, their tanks were crap, and most Japanese infantrymen fought with long, unwieldly bolt-action rifles.
It kind of makes one wonder how the Japanese would have fared with better weapons systems and better leadership.
|
Some of their warship designs, munitions and aircraft were actually quite good throughout the war and highly regarded, but unfortunately they werent as good as what America was producing, nor could they build them in them in anything like the quantities that America could with ease. The Yamato despite it dimensions and the size of its main batteries was a technologicaly inferior battleship to US Navy Iowa Class, and would probably have lost if it had ever encountered an Iowa in battle. The British Vanguard might have taken it out as well.