Quote Originally Posted by Vanoi View Post
To back up their infantry against American tanks?
So, Japanese armies fighting pitched battles with American ones...? Uhhhh...this strategy is still not making sense.



You don't need a big tank to take out a Sherman tank. This would have been possible too, considering the US didn't achieve naval superiority until really 1944. All the Japanese needed was a tank with a big enough gun to take out a Sherman. That would not require a big tank.
Right, but why do you need a tank at all? The Japanese were on the defensive on all their islands, they weren't going to go on any further offensive anyway. Medium tanks would make sense only for counterattacks, but even then considering the overwhelming firepower the Americans had and the confined environment, I doubt they would have helped much.

Air superiority would be a problem, but look at this from the perspective of the Japanese. Do you think they knew they would lose air superiority to the Americans?
Right, and again from the perspective of the Japanese, what would be the use in a medium tank? They might have found more use from a tank destroyer, but still I can't see how that would make more sense than powerful anti-tank guns, since a Japanese tank destroyer would largely be operating as a static or less than mobile weapon.


Obviously not if Shermans were rolling up to them and burning them out. Their defensive strategy on most islands was not effective, Hiding in caves and bunkers does not work against an enemy who knows exactly how to defeat those defenses.
It was effective in causing high casualties among the Americans, but I don't think the strategy big tanks and pitched battles would have gotten them any further.