Re: Japanese - several points
Hi Pat
Glad to see you are back.
Light infantry is a post war "concept" which when applied to WWII obviously causes some confussion. Rapid deployment forces were called paratroopers in WWII.
The Japanese preffered the 70mm howitzer to a mortar as the battalion support weapon because it outranged the opponents mortars. Its very high elevation also meant that it could still produce "plunging" fire 'a la mortar'. All Japanese howitzers are much lighter than their Allied equivalents, concessions to being horse drawn and the general staffs belief that they would very likely be deployed in jungles. Wether or not this 'light' artillery makes Japanese infantry divisions "light" is hair splitting as their OOB was the same as everyone elses "heavy" infantry.
Thus I think McMichael assertion that light infantry emphasizes "mindset and tactics over material" is not relevant to the Japanese as they had a full set of Equipment ie they were "Heavy" infantry.
The link you supplied originally also stresses this point for the Japanese infantry but none of the combat examples given support it. In fact just the opposite for example one commander was very worried to lose his AT guns, he didnt think no problem I'll just use "mindset and tactics".
ie the Japanese did have a mindset and did have tactics but not because they lacked equipment they just thought they were better soldiers than everybody else and its arguable that they were. Again in WWII the French general staff believed that "elan" would win the day, the troops knew better.
Best Regards Chuck.
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