Italian and Japanese Heavy Tanks

Japan had no interest in invading Africa, they knew that UK had that on lockdown and they didn’t have the resources to do it. I am 100% sure that Japanese High Command would of double down on invading Australia over that. The idea behind controlling Indian ocean was to do two jobs. First: Close Burma Road since the Chinese were getting heavy equipment from the US. People forget the bulk of the IJA was in China and China was always the end goal for Japan. Two: Cutting the Persian trade route was more of a request from Germany. People forget that the Battle of Madagascar was the only battle during WWII that had both Germany and Japan in the same battle.

@abworsham4

I’ll settle with Japan giving Germany two “I-boats” (basically the Japanese version of U-boats, but with totally different functions due to differences in doctrine). I call them I-boats because all the ships in this group of ships (with several classes) started with the letter”I” (there was also the shorter range, possible cheaper, older, and generally inferior RO- boats). These submarines carried the type 95 torpedo, superior to the famous type 93 on Japanese cruisers and destroyers. More submarines for the Battle Of The Atlantic is always a great thing, and U-boats, especially those manned by great crews, with these torpedos could have been deadly.

In return, Germany could give Japan some of their experience in radar and optics-it was a real problem for the Axis, not sharing technology with each other, even though the Kriegsmarine was ordered to under direct orders from Hitler (who they didn’t follow). This is especially a problem as the Allies did share technology with each other.

I think German panzers would not have helped Japan anyway, as they would have been too heavy to transport, and armoured warfare in general was not needed on the islands of the Pacific and China (who didn’t have many good tanks at all, so Japan had no need to have better tanks). If I had to choose a land weapon for Japan to use, I would choose the 88mm anti aircraft gun. A superb anti tank gun that can fight any US tank and possibly a good help for the anti aircraft armament of Japan’s ships (if it could be adapted to naval use).

It could have made a difference I think, the brits could still not beat the blitzkrieg then.

And their army was 10x smaller then the italian, whose moral would raise by the arrival of the germans/first defeats of the british.

But of course, malta should be taken first.

Guys,

––Great story!

----This somewhat reminds me of the Japanese pilot that was shot down over Midway Island while flying down the middle of the airstrip, at 20 ft. altitude, INVERTED!  :-o It was a spectacular feat,…until he was blasted out of the sky. I’d imagine many of you have read about this.
----There were many “interesting” stunts of this nature. With the witnesses usually being too stunned to react appropriately, especially as they only lasted split-seconds, or very briefly at the most. Human nature affects us all sometimes, irregardless of nationality.

'Tall Paul"

@wittmann:

Thanks Empireman. That is excellent!
Is Google run by an A&A enthusiast?
Seems we are not the only ones to think  badly of France’s military prowess.

Haha yeah I remember seeing this a while ago and though I should put this up.

Gar,

––Yep, exactly. I didn’t want to be too detailed and make the discussion drift off topic. I have read three or more books with “valid” accounts concerning this.

----You know, sometimes I (almost) feel “old-school” because I’ve learned most of my military history knowledge through books I’ve bought rather than the internet. I’ve simply never taken the time to “surf” the net like that.

----And thank you very much “El Dominatro Magistero” for sharing your knowledge of Island History with us “normal folk”. :-D

“Tall Paul”

I think if the italians had modern weapons they would of stayed and fought more.

I wonder how many other tanks are still out there…well, under there in Europe and Russia. There were many tank battles and with the marshes in Russia, if a tank got in, it was definitely hard to get out.