Not sure about the ship between South Dakota and Ohio. It says メイ (May), but that's not state name, so likely doesn't mean an individual ship's name.

I changed it to Maine (BB-69, the planned third Montana-class unit) - I'm assuming it was just a typo, leaving ン off the end.

Shit, son, nowadays America loses all will to fight if you flash a few dead babies across the news. Japan would kick our asses today! lol

Isn't it the other way around?
Show women, children and dogs getting killed and the world went crazy with vengeance

Seika said:

Isn't it the other way around?
Show women, children and dogs getting killed and the world went crazy with vengeance

Hm. Did you know that not so long ago Russia resolved a hostage situation by killing the hostage takers and 200 hostages? No one cared.

If America harms the head of one "innocent", whole world is up in arms.

Admiral Yamamoto made a prophetic statement that if the war against the US will continue for more than 6 months, further results will be disastrous.

The Japanese Army and Navy had a history of taking on superior forces and winning, so there is precedence for them behaving so cocky. Unfortunately, such tactics didn't work against the Americans; Japan's devastating attack on Pearl Harbor destroyed the battleship line, but also forced the reassignment of a fair amount of traditionalist and conventional officers that failed to see the attack coming.

Where as the IJN was marred by traditionalist battleship doctrine throughout the war (even as carriers were becoming accepted as the dominant players, the IJN still kept some of the same old strategies), the USN was free, or rather, forced to become innovative with what they had, which were their carriers and the submarine force that the IJN had ignored during their first assault.

Steak said:

Hm. Did you know that not so long ago Russia resolved a hostage situation by killing the hostage takers and 200 hostages? No one cared.

If America harms the head of one "innocent", whole world is up in arms.

America kills innocent people on a regular basis without incident. We broke into an Afghan school in the dead of night and killed all the students because we thought they were terrorists a few years ago. Did you know? Did you care? Most people didn't. Sure, it made the news, but hundreds of things nobody gives a shit about make the news every day.

AbyssNova said:

America kills innocent people on a regular basis without incident. We broke into an Afghan school in the dead of night and killed all the students because we thought they were terrorists a few years ago. Did you know? Did you care? Most people didn't. Sure, it made the news, but hundreds of things nobody gives a shit about make the news every day.

Because Obama was in office. :)

Steak said:

Because Obama was in office. :)

There you go, Obama can kill all the babies he wants and nobody will complain. Seems like America's war-making capability is as fighting fit as ever.

Actually I meant scene of children killed by the opposition...

So there's still an "as long as it's not close to home / mainland" mentality?

Seika said:

Actually I meant scene of children killed by the opposition...

So there's still an "as long as it's not close to home / mainland" mentality?

Yeah, after 9/11, we got on our hands and knees, removed our military bases from Saudi Arabia, and asked Osama if there was anything else he wanted us to do to appease him. We certainly didn't launch two wars against Middle Eastern countries, getting hundreds of thousands of people killed.

And here's another fun fact.

They knew all of this way, way before World War 2.

General Kuribayashi (of Letters of Iwo Jima fame) went to America in the interwar period to learn about America. He then spent the rest of his career trying to convince IJA High Command that it was folly to take on America. Up until the the end of his life, defending Iwo Jima from the Allied Troops.

The reason why he was assigned to Iwo Jima? For trying to convince IJA High Command that it was suicide to go to war against America.

As for atrocities, every country has them. Singapore has Operation Coldstore and the continued suing of people who so much as scream like retarded children about how bad Singapore is.

Welp, at least this guy actually ecognizes it was folly going to war against the USA. What is funny is that none of the strategic objectives in th pacific the japanese wanted to conquer (mainly Indonesia and Malaysia) were held by the americans. And the USA would have never gone to war even if Japan conquered those.

There's the Phillipines in the middle of the way.
Is Guam an American territory back then ?

I think the part that they're worried about is Britain.
Britain, who is buddy buddy with USA have interests in southeast Asia, such as Malaysia and Singapore and... Indochina (or is that part mostly French's ?). And there's also China (or has the nationalists drive out most foreign influences in China ?)

If Japan attacked, and Britain ask for help from America, Japan are going to get punched from the east side.

Although America seems to prefer being in position where they can say "they hit me first, I'm just retaliating" and wait until Nazi or Japan to officially declare war.

BTW, why did they (colonialist countries back then) don't just buy the country instead of invading ? It's not like they need the country that much instead of just the natural resources.
Is that economic colonialism way just not practicable in pre-WW2 days ?

Seika said:

Is Guam an American territory back then ?

Yes, Guam was also becomes an insular territory by the US under the Treaty of Paris on 1898.

BTW, why did they (colonialist countries back then) don't just buy the country instead of invading ?

The US did buy the Philippine Islands from Spain after the Spanish-American war, but further result was not very good and the Filipinos back then weren't happy about it, eventually the US acquired the islands by force.

Seika said:

BTW, why did they (colonialist countries back then) don't just buy the country instead of invading ? It's not like they need the country that much instead of just the natural resources.
Is that economic colonialism way just not practicable in pre-WW2 days ?

I think part of the reason may be that they found it too troublesome (and unprofitable) to bargain for what they wanted from unaccommodating natives that owned those resources. Taking what they wanted whenever they liked was far more preferable to ask nicely and hope the other party would approve and, more importantly, keep their side of the bargain after taking the Europeans' money/goods.

And of course, there's the human need to step on anything/one we regard as our inferiors.

Seika said:

BTW, why did they (colonialist countries back then) don't just buy the country instead of invading ? It's not like they need the country that much instead of just the natural resources.
Is that economic colonialism way just not practicable in pre-WW2 days ?

In a manner of speaking, they did "buy" a lot of the resources. (Just not at remotely fair rates.)

Although we now see it mostly as military force, (and rightly so,) the trick the colonialist powers generally tried to pull to justify it to their own nation, (much of this was done by corporations, I.E. West India Trade Company,) was that they were selling goods to the natives on a tab, and then demanding payment back in return... with absolutely criminal levels of interest. (In fact, even the West African Slave Trade was based upon trading goods to the Africans who would do business with them, and then demanding slaves back in payment.)

It's just that, if you try to reposes the house of every villager around with your flagrantly unjust business practices, you're not going to stay in business (or avoid getting lynched) for long without having the force of arms of the local law enforcement on your side, so they decided to set up their own cops and legal code, too.

Ah, there's also that... Like the opium war too.

My initial thought is that, while i can't debate much about it, if those anti globalization peoples are right, taking over resource by "legal" means has been a lot more successful nowadays.
After all, back then they can just like...

Japan: We will back the Manchurian Emperor
League of Nation: No, you're violating Chinese sovereignty.
Japan: You know what, fuck you. I'm quitting the League.

And in a restless world, unilaterally nationalizing foreign assets probably have less repercussion than today (bar foreign army matching into your capital)

Seika said:

And in a restless world, unilaterally nationalizing foreign assets probably have less repercussion than today (bar foreign army matching into your capital)

Tell that to Ukraine and Georgia. Hell, Russia gets to keep its veto on the UN Security Council, thus completely defeating any attempts to have the UN do anything, even so much as lecture Russia.

Ultimately, it's the willingness of the rest of the world to do something about a nation's misbehavior that determines what International Law they must follow.

Small, oil-rich Middle Eastern country? Play by the rules, or the world invades. Small, dirt-poor Middle Eastern country? Fuck it, go ahead and gas your own people. Big, militarily powerful, nuclear-armed oil-rich Russia? Yeah, take whatever parts of Ukraine you want.

Japan and America were on a collision course because America was willing to support China in fighting against the Japanese, because they saw Japan's rise as a threat. Japan, meanwhile, saw European colonialism as unjust (fair enough,) and that they, as Asians, therefore had the right to set up their own colonialism in Asia, instead. (Because oppression's only cool if someone of your own race does it.)

NWSiaCB said:Japan, meanwhile, saw European colonialism as unjust (fair enough,) and that they, as Asians, therefore had the right to set up their own colonialism in Asia, instead. (Because oppression's only cool if someone of your own race does it.)

I don't think they cared one shit about what the white men did to other Asians. What they were more concerned about was that the same would not happen to them as well. Which is in fact one of the major factors that contributed to the fall of the Bakufu and the establishment of the Sachou government under Meiji Emperor.

Estavali said:

I don't think they cared one shit about what the white men did to other Asians. What they were more concerned about was that the same would not happen to them as well. Which is in fact one of the major factors that contributed to the fall of the Bakufu and the establishment of the Sachou government under Meiji Emperor.

Well, there was some good reason for them to think that at first. However, as time went on, their policy was, more-or-less, "Asia is for the Asians". Like with certain other nations at the time, radical right-wing nationalist and racial supremacist factions managed to take up a significant portion of the military command structure.

They took on distinctly Imperialist overtones to the lands they could claim; They tried to force Koreans to adopt Japanese names, and told others that they could keep their old religions, so long as they recognized the divinity of the Emperor. (Which is basically what all the old empires did, from Persia to Rome to China.) This did not sit well with the Muslim portions of South-East Asia. (Modern-day Myanmar, Indonesia, and the Philippines.)

Worse, as the war really turned desperate for Japan, they basically just straight-up started using the native peoples of some of their conquered territories for slave labor.

For more fun, fun reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Muslims#Imperial_Japan_in_World_War_2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_occupation_of_the_Dutch_East_Indies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_occupation_of_the_Philippines

In fact, if you look at the reaction of Japan to the Washington Naval Treaty, most of the old guard were actually more-or-less OK with it. Even Adm. Yamamoto (architect of Pearl Harbor, Midway, etc., basically, the lead admiral up until the US killed him) actually stated there was reason to be satisfied with the treaty. (Mostly because he knew how much of a disparity there was between Japanese and American industrial capacity - he saw even a 5:3 ratio of ships as doing more to limit American naval power than Japanese, as a fraction of capacity. Plus, it restricted Europeans and America from building naval fortifications, which was a definite boon to expansionist Japan.)

The feeling was, generally, that Europeans were looking down on the Japanese because all those other, inferior, Asian peoples were easily conquered, so they had to make their own empire made of Asians to make the Europeans show some respect.

^ We're racist, but we don't just go hating everyone else equally

NWSiaCB said:

Tell that to Ukraine and Georgia. Hell, Russia gets to keep its veto on the UN Security Council, thus completely defeating any attempts to have the UN do anything, even so much as lecture Russia.

That's totally different thing. Russia's case is annexation.

What I meant is nationalization, where the country's government one-sidedly take over foreign investments in their land against previously agreed contract.
Multinational companies with strong lobbyist in the capital wouldn't just let these kind of things happened especially if the business is very profitable (such as natural resource exploitation operation). Neither would their home country if those operations are contributing a lot to their economic power.

Now there's international court, economic sanctions, etc.
In a warring time, they probably would just send gunboat to do the diplomacy.

Seika said:

That's totally different thing. Russia's case is annexation.

What I meant is nationalization, where the country's government one-sidedly take over foreign investments in their land against previously agreed contract.
Multinational companies with strong lobbyist in the capital wouldn't just let these kind of things happened especially if the business is very profitable (such as natural resource exploitation operation). Neither would their home country if those operations are contributing a lot to their economic power.

Putin did that, too. When a major oil baron in his country started to threaten him politically, he had him imprisoned, stripped him of his oil assets, and gave them away to an underling to make the largest oil company in the world, and a major source of Putin's wealth and power. See: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/20/world/europe/mikhail-khodorkovsky.html?_r=0

NWSiaCB said:

Putin did that, too. When a major oil baron in his country started to threaten him politically, he had him imprisoned, stripped him of his oil assets, and gave them away to an underling to make the largest oil company in the world, and a major source of Putin's wealth and power. See: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/20/world/europe/mikhail-khodorkovsky.html?_r=0

wow wow slow down guys, since when this topic become political. Those are "theirs" problem not us and why should we bother someone that we don't even know.
Keep cool man....

This has, so far, been the most historically enlightening threads I read. All from a post about anthropomorphic metal ships talking about history.

d_(=_=)

argeey94 said:

This has, so far, been the most historically enlightening threads I read. All from a post about anthropomorphic metal ships talking about history.

d_(=_=)

What better way is there to learn history in a fun, educational way than with moe-fied weapons of war?

After reading all this^ one thing came to mind:

"Everyone is afraid of Russia, even Russians are afraid of Russia"

Joker.Hat said:

After reading all this^ one thing came to mind:

"Everyone is afraid of Russia, even Russians are afraid of Russia"

Unless you're Subutai, the only man who managed to conquer Russia.

Joker.Hat said:

After reading all this^ one thing came to mind:

"Everyone is afraid of Russia, even Russians are afraid of Russia"

Osorussia.

NWSiaCB said:

They took on distinctly Imperialist overtones to the lands they could claim; They tried to force Koreans to adopt Japanese names, and told others that they could keep their old religions, so long as they recognized the divinity of the Emperor. (Which is basically what all the old empires did, from Persia to Rome to China.) This did not sit well with the Muslim portions of South-East Asia. (Modern-day Myanmar, Indonesia, and the Philippines.)

Even the Philippine government back during Japanese occupation wasn't really a Japanese ally, and Japan ultimately failed to conquer us back then because of 3 things. Guerillas, Muslims and great insidious minds, who simply played along.

However, as a byproduct, there were Japanese armymen who actually made friends with us amid the occupation that time. This became evident as WW2 ended, the anger towards the Japanese waned faster, whereas other countries, their hatred persisted to this day.

Also, there were random acts of kindness from no less the Japanese themselves during those dark times.

http://www.filipiknow.net/captain-isao-yamazoe-philippine-hero/
http://www.filipiknow.net/masue-masuda-almazan-japanese-heroine/
http://www.filipiknow.net/common-misconceptions-about-wwii-in-the-philippines/

Orochi_Herman said:

Even the Philippine government back during Japanese occupation wasn't really a Japanese ally, and Japan ultimately failed to conquer us back then because of 3 things. Guerillas, Muslims and great insidious minds, who simply played along.

However, as a byproduct, there were Japanese armymen who actually made friends with us amid the occupation that time. This became evident as WW2 ended, the anger towards the Japanese waned faster, whereas other countries, their hatred persisted to this day.

Also, there were random acts of kindness from no less the Japanese themselves during those dark times.

http://www.filipiknow.net/captain-isao-yamazoe-philippine-hero/
http://www.filipiknow.net/masue-masuda-almazan-japanese-heroine/
http://www.filipiknow.net/common-misconceptions-about-wwii-in-the-philippines/

well.. it's because i think it's in that year supposed that the PH government and American government already agreed upon the independence of the PH but then war broke down so the independence got delayed :T

Joker.Hat said:

well.. it's because i think it's in that year supposed that the PH government and American government already agreed upon the independence of the PH but then war broke down so the independence got delayed :T

Well, that's certainly true. Funny enough, the Japanese also promised independence after the war.

well the world have always been in favor of the big guy like russia and US. And LoN and UN which was setup in order to make thing fair couldn't do jack shit since the big guy hold the seat in security council and other will often not mess with their decision if they don't want a economic depression happen whether by lack of oil/gas or being blacklisted by US government.
Europe once try to normalised the relationship with Russia since in the case of third WW they are definitely gonna get fucked hard while US gonna remain mostly unharmed. But that failed hard. Even now with IS on the rise US still try to use the situation to make political gain even if it gonna fuck their allies (Iraq) up instead of reaching a compromise with Russia to deal with the common enemy. And before anyone said but Syria gov is bad, remember Libya? The US said they were bad and now admit that they fucked up.

From what I recall, the Japanese plan was to strike quickly and as effectively as possible to intimidate the Americans into giving up on the idea of challenging the Japanese domination of the Western Pacific Ocean, and have a peace treaty signed within six months to a year of the Pearl Harbor attack. The realistic Japanese commanders knew they had no chance in a prolonged war with the United States. They knew they had six months to maybe a year to defeat the Americans enough for the Americans to give up on the war. After a year, the American industrial capacity would catch up and completely out produce the Japanese, and they knew the Americans could and would do that. They never expected to defeat the Americans in terms on invading and taking any real part of North America. They likely didn't even consider taking Hawaii seriously, or if so that was end game for their offensive to block the Americans until peace was sued for.

They didn't count on their attack on Pearl causing inflamed hatred from the Americans. They also didn't count on the Americans being better as "warriors" than the Japanese expected. The attack also forced the Americans to rethink their planned tactics due to not only the battleships being taken out of the equation, but also the older commanders being killed or removed from their positions early in the war. Plan Orange was what the Japanese tactics had been planned around, and the Americans didn't go with it as planned. The Decisive Battle the battleships of Japan were waiting for never came because the Americans didn't use Plan Orange to save the Philippines, because with the damage the Japanese caused in 1941 and 1942, Plan Orange could not be done. At least not without retaking several islands first and building up some more ships to defend the troop ships. Also the Americans decided on "Europe first", Japan later.

They also probably didn't expect that some of the American ships didn't sink when they were "killed". Several American carriers and other ships kept coming back when they were reported sunk. In fact, all but two of the battleships sunk at Pearl came back to haunt the Japanese.

ithekro said:

From what I recall, the Japanese plan was to strike quickly and as effectively as possible to intimidate the Americans into giving up on the idea of challenging the Japanese domination of the Western Pacific Ocean, and have a peace treaty signed within six months to a year of the Pearl Harbor attack. The realistic Japanese commanders knew they had no chance in a prolonged war with the United States. They knew they had six months to maybe a year to defeat the Americans enough for the Americans to give up on the war. After a year, the American industrial capacity would catch up and completely out produce the Japanese, and they knew the Americans could and would do that. They never expected to defeat the Americans in terms on invading and taking any real part of North America. They likely didn't even consider taking Hawaii seriously, or if so that was end game for their offensive to block the Americans until peace was sued for.

They didn't count on their attack on Pearl causing inflamed hatred from the Americans. They also didn't count on the Americans being better as "warriors" than the Japanese expected. The attack also forced the Americans to rethink their planned tactics due to not only the battleships being taken out of the equation, but also the older commanders being killed or removed from their positions early in the war. Plan Orange was what the Japanese tactics had been planned around, and the Americans didn't go with it as planned. The Decisive Battle the battleships of Japan were waiting for never came because the Americans didn't use Plan Orange to save the Philippines, because with the damage the Japanese caused in 1941 and 1942, Plan Orange could not be done. At least not without retaking several islands first and building up some more ships to defend the troop ships. Also the Americans decided on "Europe first", Japan later.

They also probably didn't expect that some of the American ships didn't sink when they were "killed". Several American carriers and other ships kept coming back when they were reported sunk. In fact, all but two of the battleships sunk at Pearl came back to haunt the Japanese.

Well the above is true, it omits the fact that the war (which was inevitable) was supposed to be started in 1944, which is why all the stuff which was really needed came so late in the war or was made impossible to obtain via lack of resources. Sadly, the cancer in control of the government IJA command staff pushed for war as soon as possible forcing Yamamoto to plan the war that actually took place instead.

Orochi_Herman said:

Also, there were random acts of kindness from no less the Japanese themselves during those dark times.

http://www.filipiknow.net/captain-isao-yamazoe-philippine-hero/
http://www.filipiknow.net/masue-masuda-almazan-japanese-heroine/
http://www.filipiknow.net/common-misconceptions-about-wwii-in-the-philippines/

Orochi_Herman said:

Well, that's certainly true. Funny enough, the Japanese also promised independence after the war.

Well, look at the Allies right now...all fucked up

Yes, the Japanese may have been brutal to us Filipinos but there are times that some of the Japanese forces showed kindness to us. (Like the founder of National Bookstore here on PH actually befriended Japanese soldiers and would often buy slippers during their 'off-duty' hours becuase they find the Philippines 'too hot and humid' for them.)

However, after their defeat and up until this day, no matter how you well researched this articles about the Japanese being good to their colonies, you will be branded and labeled as a symphatizer, uneducated, traitor, no remorse for the trauma, no love for the country and many more. You will also be called out or worse, get cancelled in social media.

There are also other Filipino authors tried to shed the Japanese in a good light but in the end, they were scrutinized, mocked and cancelled.