(August 10, 2023 at 8:24 pm)Helios Wrote:

Quote:The fun thing about the 20th C. "samurai" was that they never defeated China, even when it was fighting them AND a civil war. Definitely not bushido material.

To my knowledge the Samurai never defeated China

I was talking about the eight years war between China and Japan in the current era.

(August 10, 2023 at 7:48 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: The Japanese fighting soldier and sailor was as fierce as they come. There is no nobility in war.

Fierce, yes, but lacking some vital attributes of good military men,  such as the ability to identify the center of gravity of a situation, quickness in sizing up the odds, and flexibility to adapt to the odds.

(August 10, 2023 at 8:14 pm)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote:

(August 10, 2023 at 7:48 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: The Japanese fighting soldier and sailor was as fierce as they come. There is no nobility in war.

The fun thing about the 20th C. "samurai" was that they never defeated China, even when it was fighting them AND a civil war. Definitely not bushido material.

Yamamoto Isoruku was adopted into a samurai family to give the line some much needed new blood.

Japan was well positioned to defeat China if she had not grossly overestimated her own powers and overreached.    The reason why late imperial and early Republican China had never been able to successfully oppose western imperialism is western imperialists take relatively small bites, and China was too riven by internal conflicts to ever rally the whole country to try to reverse these relatively modest if humiliating concessions.   Japan being right on china’s door steps was better placed than any western colonial powers to sustain such an approach.   But japan grossly overestimated her own powers and grossly overreached in china,  so she accomplished what western colonial powers had hitherto avoided doing, which was to launch such broad and brutal aggression across so much of China that they manage to rally most of the fraction in china’s civil war to at least call a truce and oppose the common external foe with successful defense in depth.

(August 10, 2023 at 8:14 pm)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote:

(August 10, 2023 at 7:48 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: The Japanese fighting soldier and sailor was as fierce as they come. There is no nobility in war.

The fun thing about the 20th C. "samurai" was that they never defeated China, even when it was fighting them AND a civil war. Definitely not bushido material.

The Nanjing Massacre was such fun.

It has been said the entire basis of imperial japanese military training was to brutalize and dehumanize the recruits to cause them to harbor overwhelming hatred born of humiliation which can then be transferred to the enemy soldier and civilians.

(August 10, 2023 at 9:43 pm)LinuxGal Wrote:

(August 10, 2023 at 8:14 pm)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote: The fun thing about the 20th C. "samurai" was that they never defeated China, even when it was fighting them AND a civil war. Definitely not bushido material.

The Nanjing Massacre was such fun.

That was fucking weird.

(August 10, 2023 at 9:50 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote: It has been said the entire basis of imperial japanese military training was to brutalize and dehumanize the recruits to cause them to harbor overwhelming humiliation and hatred which can then be transferred to the enemy soldier and civilians.

Salusa Secundus.

(August 10, 2023 at 9:28 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote:

(August 10, 2023 at 7:48 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: The Japanese fighting soldier and sailor was as fierce as they come. There is no nobility in war.

Fierce, yes, but lacking some vital attributes of good military men,  such as the ability to identify the center of gravity of a situation, quickness in sizing up the odds, and flexibility to adapt to the odds.

They labored under poor leadership.

(August 11, 2023 at 1:00 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:

(August 10, 2023 at 9:28 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote: Fierce, yes, but lacking some vital attributes of good military men,  such as the ability to identify the center of gravity of a situation, quickness in sizing up the odds, and flexibility to adapt to the odds.

They labored under poor leadership.

True their leaderships tendency to senselessly waste men was a hamper.

http://ibiblio.org/hyperwar/Japan/Monos/