"Japanese worse than I thought" Topic

Just recently started doing some reading/research on the Pacific front overall.

Reading Leckie's Strong Armed Men, and all I have come away with is that the Japanese army, navy, and air force was hopelessly outmatched against American forces.

There are examples of a handful of American planes taking on many times their # and shooting them down. At one point Leckie talks about a single fighter going up to engage 20 or 50 zeroes and shooting down 4 by himself.

In attacks on Guadalcanal and other places seem poorly organized. And the defense of Betio fared little better.

Every naval engagement in the book ends with a win for the Americans (albeit bloody ones at times)

Any one have any sources or explanations why the Japanese didn't seem to generate any successes anywhere vs. the Americans? or point towards material that tells another side of the story?

Thanks

Matt

I don't have any specific sources, but one conclusion I came upon is that, in general, the Japanese were definitely behind the US in the technology race.

Take the Zero FREX. For 1941 it had adequate performance. The A6M2 could achieve 332mph…at a time when the German Bf.109F was coming into service and able to achieve 390mph with some versions able to achieve even higher speeds. Yet while the A6m was very maneuverable and had long range, it was able to achieve this only by sacrificing durability. In the hands of a skilled pilot of course it could be very dangerous, but if pilot skill is otherwise equal…

The armor situation wasn't much better. Although tank warfare was not a major feature in the US involvement in the pacific war, the vast majority of Japanese tanks were obsolete, and what good tanks they had were hoarded for the Home Island defences. Japanese tanks were more successful against the Chinese, but you wouldn't have needed really advanced designs considering the paucity of armor the Chinese had, until some units were re-equipped with US equipment.

While I can't really speak to naval technology, as that is an area I am less sure about, at the very least they were able to achieve parity with the US…but the US could simply build more of everything.

Damon.

A large number of Japanese pilots who had significant combat experience in China and the Pacific were dead by 1942 or 1943 (a number of these guys had been flying combat missions since the 30s), so American pilot experience was peaking while Japanese experience was bottoming out.

The Japanese navy suffered heavy losses at the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway and, after that, no longer controlled the Pacific Theater.

Japan did not have the US' production capacity.

I don't understand why you think the Japanese didn't have any success anywhere against the Americans.

Their performance in 41-42 was remarkable so do not discount them entirely.

From what I am reading the Japanese attacks are wasteful disasters (Guadalcanal & counterattacks on Betio) that have a ridiculously high amount of losses.

The only "victory" I have read about so far has been Wake island and even there. The Japanense lost 10 men for every 1 American lost. Granted the Americans were defending and that seems "normal"
But when the roles are reversed on Tarawa, and with all the things going wrong for the Americans (low tide, having to wade in from hundreds of yards in the sea) the Americans still suffered less casualties than the dealt and succeeded in taking the atoll, which seems odd

Again I don't have a lot of knowledge on the subject so I am looking to get my bearings, but from what I am reading the Americans totally outclasses the Japanese in all aspects.

Did you stop to think who wrote those books?
The Japanese kicked plenty of ass early, but were outmatched by industry and man power.

Did you stop to think who wrote those books?

I did stop to think who wrote the books. Leckie is obviously very biased in his descriptions, but I don't think he is fudging actual numbers.

The Japanese kicked plenty of ass early, but were outmatched by industry and man power

that's my question, was it the equipment and hardware? Because from Leckie's book it seems like the Japanese were over-confident and dismissive of the Americans (They wired in the "victory" on Henderson airfield when it never materialized) and their attacks seemed to be futile attempts that failed, and failed miserably against the Marines.

The Tokyo Express dribbling in reinforcements that are cut to pieces in combat or never even get off the boats (from the disastrous Buzzard Patrol)

it seems to me like the Japanese troops were poorly led and inferior to the American marines. Leckie's book is just a list of drubbing after drubbing, on land air and sea.

Try reading Shattered Sword by Parshall

The Japanese took terrible care of their personnel – for example, while the US Navy treated their naval aviators like gold the Japanese wasted them like crazy

As Grossman points out, in 1941 they kicked a lot of people's ass (including Dug-out Doug McArthur) – read out Malaysia and the Philippines – but the Japanese army and navy had a very thin logistical tail which pretty much was run out by 1943

Early war victories:

link

If the Japanese weren't kicking ass and taking names, everyone and their brother wouldn't have been concerned about invasion.

Sure, obsolete and inferior equipment, lack of flexibility, insufficient medical support, insufficient motor transport, insufficient supply chain, etc., etc. The Japanese were tactically inferior, but they were certainly not inferior to anyone in terms of the ability to withstand hardship, courage, tenacity and the willingness to fight.

Look where each side started. On July 8,1853 four black ships led by USS Powhatan and commanded by Commodore Matthew Perry, anchored at Edo (Tokyo) Bay. Never before had the Japanese seen ships steaming with smoke. They thought the ships were "giant dragons puffing smoke." They did not know that steamboats existed and were shocked by the number and size of the guns on board the ships.
America invented flight. That they were able to suprise us and the British in 1941 is astounding. Midway was a near run thing that could have gone the other way.

'Long Lance' and fights vs US Cruisers would be the only area I can think of where the Japanese fared well.

also mind set had a lot to do with the japanese losses and eprformance.

the miltiary establishment allowed what had been an otherwise modern and capable military to turn into a disastrously backward and anachronistic affair. then to make matters worse on the ground, they faced a military force designed for firepower and heavy fighting, and good at it. teh japanese charged into a wall of bullets thinking that the Marines would melt away like the Chinese and to a lesser extent the British. the Japanese should have been prepared for the marines to be more like the soviets in the fighting during the nomohan incident, when they handily defeated the Japanese.

finally add in a drastic disparity in industrial capacity and japan never had a chance to win.

if the military had stayed the comparatively modern and capable fighting force seen 25-ish years earlier, things would have been much different. of course if this had been true they probably would not have sought the same level of conflict they ultimately committed themselves to.

it's also a good thing to note that the navy was not nearly as susceptible to the same constitutional level of stupidity as the army and airforce. that would be why most of the notable successes by the japanese armed forces were usually executed by the navy.

One of the critical factors that really screwed the Japanese is how they treated their aviators.

First, air wings were part of the ship, so if you had a shot to hell carrier with an intact air wing, and an intact carrier with a shot to hell air wing, the Japanese were down 2 carriers, not 1.

Second, the Japanese really failed to recognize that modern combat required well-trained troops, not just harshly-disciplined troops. The Japanese aces? They stayed on the front lines, usually until they died. American aces? They got cycled back to flight school to teach the new guys.

Another problem was that the entire Japanese high command was infatuated by the idea of the single decisive battle, like they had in the Russo-Japanese War.

Japanese aircraft tended to catch fire pretty frequently too, and the lack of armor, to keep them maneuverable, eventually caught up with them, and their pilots.

The US military production machine quickly rose to the occasion, and there was no way that the Japanese could compete with that, on an even footing, once the shooting started.

Technically the Japanese were away behind the US but in terms of motivation and willingness to fight they were in a class by themselves As Westerners it is hard for us to understand why a Japanese soldier would consider it an honour to die for their emperor and nation but they did and even when they knew they had no chance hey fought to the end

In War there are a lot more factors other then technical equipment. It can be argued that the damage caused by the Kamikazes was greater then would have been achieved by normal air strikes. The Japanese used their obsolete aircraft the best way they could.

When you look at the Pacific from a logical point of view the Japanese had very little chance to win the war in 1941 and had definitely lost by mid 1942. They were able to drag out the war until August1945and if the atomic bomb had not been used it can be argued that the war and the Invasion of Japan would have gone on possibly as late a1948with millions of casualties. Although they did not win the war the Japanese did all they could in dragging out the war as long as they could always hoping for a negotiated settlement. Possibly if they had been fighting a country that was less determined then the US they may have got their treaty in 1942

Looking back at history they have succeeded in the long run as they have been able to maintain their own distinct society and culture to this day despite being totally defeated and occupied by a foreign power. Many Japanese today consider that to be worth fighting WW2.

The Battle of Savo Island obviously doesn't feature highly in Leckie's book then. Sometimes called the worst defeat in the history of the USN. link

When the Japanese re-armed after the war, they put a great deal of emphasis on fully automatic weapons. Few Japanese soldiers survived the island hopping campaign, but those who did had been very impressed by American firepower. Their descriptions indicate American firepower significantly in excess of that shown on our T, O & Es.

Grelber

Exactly. Savo was a disaster for the Americans, and the impact was that the American invasion fleet fled and left the Troops on Guadalcanal without supplies or support and totally vulnerable to constant shelling by the Japanese Navy.
Only the fact that the vast majority of the Japanese Army was in China prevented the U.S. Troops there from being overrun. Well, that and Japanese overconfidence stemming from their string of victories which led them to commit their counter attacking ground forces piecemeal.

The Japanese did not seem to advance their technology during the war. Simple things like SMG development make a difference on the ground. Their supply chain was very bad. They seemed to rely more on fighting spirit rather than innovation.

For decades the Japanese experience was that the West may have the fancy toys and claim to be top of the world, but if you pushed them hard enough they tended to crumble; Russian empire, Germans at Tsingtao, the interwar cold-feet approach, and the collapse of the European colonial empires of 1941 only reinforced this view. This meant that the Japanese clung to the idea that if they could hold on long enough and inflict enough casualties, the allies would eventually give up (that and the belief that they could pull off a few more Tsushimas and Pearl Harbors)

The Japanese had expanded their military considerably in the 1930's at a very high cost, which means that to continue to run as it did, Japan had to go on and conquer more territory and expand its access to raw materials. Which in turn fuelled the need for more equipment and strained Japan's limited resources.

This meant that Japan went to war with a well-trained and decently equipped army, but it had little or no reserves and the replacement rate was sub par and worst of all it had to spread those resources over a gigantic portion of the globe, compounding the problem to a degree that makes the German effort in the USSR seem easy and straightforward in comparison.

Military progress from about 1935-1941 was quite rapid, some of the newest equipment in the Japanese military less than a decade old was obsolete in 1941. The new equipment was too little, too late.

Add to that the baffling incompetence displayed by the Japanese High Command (though they did have flashes of brilliance), increased faith in blind fanaticism and the belief that destiny was on their side and would intervene at the right moment.

More than any other theatre of WW2 I think the Pacific tends to perpetuate the most myths. I think part of the problem is that Japanese accounts of the war in English are rare or non-existent for many of the battles.

Don't forget that even in the late part of the war the Japanese inflicted heavy casualties on Americans in the Philippines, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. By 1943 the technical disparity between the two forces was too much to overcome by willpower alone.

Keep in mind that Japan was an island nation with few natural resources and a population of 70 million at the outbreak of the war and was punching above its weight to begin with.

The Japanese did not seem to advance their technology during the war.

Nor did they adequately anticipate Allied (principally US) advances in technology. Besides actively seeking information on enemy developments, the other major powers, for lack of a better word, brainstormed about what the enemy might be working on. Besides the hard data gathered from intelligence sources, a lot of "soft" information was considered. Two of the guiding principles for this sort of work were a) if we've thought of this, assume the enemy has as well, and b) always consider a worst case scenario.

The Japanese failed in this regard. They were continually surprised, even shocked, by Allied advances in technology, industry and capability.

I seem to recall that the US built more aircraft carriers than the Japanese built total ships. Extrapolate that factoid to cover all aspects of modern warfare and production.

As noted above, the Japanese could send lots of troops anywhere in the Pacific but couldn't supply them, so they withered on the vine and lost effectiveness quickly. For instance, Guadalcanal.

Once ashore, the horrific impassible terrain on said place or New Guinea attrited more troops as they advanced to contact, not to mention loss of scant equipment like artillery.

So once in contact with the US forces what do you have? Starving, tired, sick troops, guns with only a few shells each and no good knowledge of the enemies positions. What to do when your imperative is obey and conquer? You attack with what you got and have your head handed to you on a platter.

I think on the sea the Japanese gave as good as they got till the numbers swung against them, besides their naval attack plans were overly complex and subject to disruption.

It was a bad idea for the Japanese to attack the US.

Having instilled an attitude of offense at every level and a natural determination to die for the emperor, They were never going to have the right people in the right place doing the right thing, since the quality people had a habit of killing themselves pointlessly.

Hence such activities as support and logistics were treated as subordinate and dishonourable vocations.

Examples?

Convoy protection was neglected as it had no honour!
yet the japanese had advanced submarines…as they were offensive and tied in with the national doctrine

Army air force…poorish arcraft…they were support weapons

Navy?…Best massively ranged carrier aircraft in the world in 1941…

No other nation has ever had current seaborne aircraft superior to their land based compatriats! It is unheard of.

very interesting answers. thanks all for your input.

Next question. Could the Japanese have done things better if they had a different mindset? OR were they doomed to failure due to their outlook?

I've thought about the Japanese Army's seeming poor performance myself. For proof of such, I think the fighting between the Japanese and Soviets back before the Germans invaded the Soviet Union should be sufficient.

As for your second question. Had they thought things through differently they might have decided to purchase the things they needed rather than embark on a war of conquest.

Even in small arms they lacked equipment!

Lets start at the smallest

Type 14 was no match for the 1911, hell no handgun was a match for 1911, as it's still one of the best handguns out there.

The diffrent bolt action rifles naturaly did not stand much of a chance against the Garand and Carbine, even if the carbine is underpowerd.

Type 99 smg, is again no match against the Thompson.

The japanese type 99 LMGs were not that good, but they did have plenty of them, and was probebly ok, larger magazine then the BAR, but the BAR was more versatile, letting you fire even standing up if you wanted to.

The HMGs of japan with the "clips" with just 30 rounds pr clip was no match for the 1917s and 1919s, the 1919s were much more manovrable and much higher sustained rare of fire.

The american 1919 may not have been up to par against the MG42, but against the type 92, it was a god.

But that did not stop the japanese from killing and killing, remember in all the island battles the japanese were outguned and outmaned, yet the did manage to kill thousands of marines and soldiers in each of those battles.

The effectiveness of Japanese air power declined disastrously after mid-1942. As incredible as it might seem, as late as 1943 the Japanese Navy was only training 100 new naval aviators a year! With the losses at Coral Sea and Midway, they were hopelessly outclassed in the air after that.

What could the Japanese done differently?

I would argue that they overreached, they assumed that the US would accept deal if they inflicted enough casualties. If they had kept their expansionist goals to controlling Korea, parts of China and some of the key shipping lanes in the Pacific while avoiding the British, Dutch and American colonies and forces stationed in the Philippines and Singapore, and avoided Pearl Harbour I don't think the US and British would've intervened in what they say as a regional struggle while having to contend with the Nazis.

They could also have changed tactics earlier, by Pelilu, they had stopped most of the banzai charges into machineguns.

If they had used the same tactics on guatacanal and other early battles they did on pelilu and later battes, those early battles would have been much harder before the marines and army was used to fighting the japanese.

When they charged with 3000 soldiers againt henderson field, they waisted then, imangen how long it would have taken to rout out 3000 japanse in the jungles!! if they had not killed them self so bravely on MG fire.

The Japanese needed to attack Russia, not the Western powers. An attack on Russia would have enabled the Nazis to beat the Soviets and then turn on the. British . They and the Dutch could then have been coerced into giving the Japanese the oil and minerals that Japan needed.

As the US would not have declared. war on Germany in 1941 or 42 and the British would have been out of the war the Japanese would have the oil and raw materials to finish the conquest of China .

Of course the Japanese were too stupid to do this because they could not envisage themselves playing second fiddle to the Germans.

I play a FPS game on line the Red Orchestra Heroes of Stalingrad the Pacific mod is a pretty good example of how bad the Japanese small arms were. Getting stuck with almost a 5 ft long musket while up against a M-1 Garand or Thompson is pretty frustrating.
Check out the Rising Storm mod if you are a pacific theater nut.

link

The Japanese were firm believers in the theories of Alfred Thayer Mahan and were firmly committed to their fleet as their main weapon. Attacking Russia would have drained resources away from the fleet, something the Japanese were loathe to do.

The Siberian resources were not as important and developed as they were in the post-war era with the crux of Soviet oil and industry in the Caucasus, it would have been a costly resource, that would have to be shared with the Germans, grabbing the Dutch Indies was a far more interesting as it would put them in control of sea lanes going to the Indian Ocean.

For years Japan and Britain had common interests in the Pacific and cooperated. The Japanese perceived this as a sign that Britain would phase away from the Pacific and leave them in charge, but as the British turned to the USA and their growing fleet, Japan felt cheated. Another problem was the US were a major provider of oil and other resources and grew increasingly dependent on these. In order to become the dominant power in the Pacific, they had to beat the Americans and gain their own sources of oil, metal and rubber to keep their military industry going.

Japan has very little choice if it wants to become the dominant power in Asia/Pacific, it needs resources to carry on the war, even if they do invade Russia, Hitler is still likely to declare war on the US and the IJN would be very hard pressed to make at least a statement that might lead to a war with the US anyway.

The japanese type 99 LMGs were not that good

However, it (IIRC) has the distinction of being one of the few LMGs designed to mount a bayonet. Banzai!

At least they did not try mounting bayonets on their anti-tank rifles.

They were so bad… and yet 36,000 of them sufficed to capture Singapore along with the garrison of 85,000 troops.

If your rules make them a pushover, check the rules.

I dont think any rules set makes them a pushover (aren't they considered overpowered in the new FoW supplement?)

the reason for this post was in the book I am reading they lose battle after battle in the land, sea, and air to U.S. forces. And many of their battles seem futile gestures with brought about by incompetent leaders.

One of the things that would have made the Japanese much more capable of winning a modern war is a recognition of when it would be the best time to die for the Emperor. Not a good time, the BEST. Like the mythical Soviet soldier charging the MG because his Commissar would shoot him if he ducked to the side and flanked the position, the Japanese ed away thousands of troops in suicidal frontal attacks instead of flanking the position and destroying it from a weak angle.

Another killer was that the different branches of the Japanese military fought against each other for resources and the Emperor's attention. Sure, every nations suffers from this to some extent, but the Japanese branch heads were actively sabotaging their opponents.

This extended to the inner branches of the Navy, as well. The I400-class submarine carriers were designed to get their 3 seaplanes close enough to attack the Panama Canal. Cutting the Canal would force US reinforcements to take another 3+ months to transit all the way around South America, and would allow the Japanese to ambush them with subs. But due to infighting, the required numbers of subcarriers were not built in time to be useful.

the reason for this post was in the book I am reading they lose battle after battle in the land, sea, and air to U.S. forces

The book must focus on 1943 and after then, since 1942 saw plenty of Japanese victories. Seriously, does the book treat Pearl Harbor, Wake, or the Philippines as Japanese defeats? Because any objective analysis would show that they weren't. Coral Sea was tactical win (though a strategic defeat) and Midway could very easily have gone the other way if the US had been a little less lucky. I'd suggest checking out Pacific Crucible by Ian W. Toll for a more measured analysis of the first part of the war in the Pacific.

-Will

After everything said above not much to add. Very different cultural and general mind set.

"The proud nail is often hammered flat" common Japanese saying.

It's all in the schools.

The Japanese never had a policy of withdrawing their expert and veteran pilots and rotating them through the schools to train others and impart their knowledge to a next generation. Their theory was that if the best crack pilots stayed in the front lines there would be no need for replacement because they wouldn't be shot down.

Like the proverbial 10 cent hamburger- nice if you can find it.

The Americans made no such mistake. They cycled out their veterans quickly to the schools. The result was that once losses mounted, as they always do, the Japanese were left with a small crack force of aces, backed by a mass of terrible pilots with little training, while the Americans had a mass of good pilots.

Of course to be fair, only the crème de-la-crème of personnel can be turned into pilots, and how much "crème" you get out of a population is dependent on the size of that population.

The Japanese also had a mentality that emphasized "spirit" which was a forlorn hope that extreme bravery could outweigh material and organizational inferiority.

The "Banzai" charge works at no level.

Take the Zero FREX. For 1941 it had adequate performance. The A6M2 could achieve 332mph…at a time when the German Bf.109F was coming into service and able to achieve 390mph with some versions able to achieve even higher speeds. Yet while the A6m was very maneuverable and had long range, it was able to achieve this only by sacrificing durability. In the hands of a skilled pilot of course it could be very dangerous, but if pilot skill is otherwise equal…

The Japanese weren't that bad on tech. Remember carrier planes don't have quite as good performance as land based equivalents having to haul round all the kit associated with carrier takeoff and landings. The F6 Hellcat introduced in '43 only had a top speed of 380mph at time when most land based fighters had top speeds of 400+ mph. The main problem they had was getting reliable, powerful engines. Planes like the N1K2 "George" and the Ki-84 "Frank" were the equal of the best allied fighters, when their engines were working.

People are bringing up events that happened before the book like Philippines and Pearl Harbor (the battle of the 5 sitting ducks is in there though) How were those successes possible? What changed for the Japanese between early and mid war? Did they succeed in the Philippines because they had overwhelming odds in their favor?

As I go on through the book each Japanese attempt to take ground is just a hopeless slaughter of men. Aogiri Ridge being the most recent one I just read about. Successive waves charging into massed firepower and failing. Their commander charging forward with a Samurai sword?!?

Surely they should have learned their lesson at some point that banzai charges into marines is a auto-lose

Surely they should have learned their lesson at some point that banzai charges into marines is a auto-lose

Go back in time and take the place of a Japanese Officer who is left to lead one of these attacks. try telling your commanders what you just said. See how long it takes for them to recommend you kill yourself in shame, and inform you your family has been stripped of all valuables and had their honor and place in society lost forever. Tell us how that works out for you.

Born into a society that accepts no defeat and has an unflinching will to carry on an attack, however hopeless and futile, was just how it was. You would know nothing different, and to do anything else would have been shameful to you and your family.

Remember that even after the first Atomic Bomb, over half of the IJ High Command wanted to keep fighting. Death before Dishonor.

Never underestimate the effect of a strong culture or brainwashing/indoctrination. Example: North Korea.

"What changed for the Japanese between early and mid war?"

I would say one important thing is that their western opponents started taking them seriously. At the start of the war western forces assumed the Japanese couldn't fly well – or anything else and the west would win just by showing up.

Early crushing defeats made the Japanese seem supermen. Once western forces calmed down and worked at fighting well the flaws in the Japanese system began to show. That took most of 1942.

Don't underestimate the decadence of the western colonial structure in Asia. When the Japanese closed on Singapore, many of the elite sat in the bars and tried to drink all the booze before the Japs showed up. Perhaps if they'd been filling sandbags or something like that…

No one was more prophetic than Admiral Yamamoto. He knew the US well having attended Harvard, visited the US Naval War College and been an attaché in Washington. He knew what the US was capable of and of course made this statement in mid 1941 on the results of a war with the US: "I shall run wild considerably for the first six months or a year, but I have utterly no confidence for the second and third years."

That knowledge also lead him, reportedly, to state, after the mistiming of the declaration of war and the attack on Pearl Harbor: "I fear all we have done today is to awaken a great, sleeping giant."

Without denigrating his own countries forces he fully understood what the full scope of the US capabilities were.

Early crushing defeats made the Japanese seem supermen. Once western forces calmed down and worked at fighting well the flaws in the Japanese system began to show. That took most of 1942.

Yes, this is an extremely important point that vtsaogames makes; before the war most western military thinkers basically saw the Japanese as sub-human. It was assumed that their 'physical deficiencies' prevented them fighting, flying or performing any military operation effectively.

This got turned completely on it's head come December 1941. In the following 6 months the Japanese mopped the floor with the opposition so thoroughly that they now were viewed as super-human by the Allied troops they faced. It was 'common knowledge' among the British troops on the ground during the battles leading up to Singapore that the Japanese could 'see' in the dark like bats, for example! So on the Allied side it was a combination of massive underestimation followed by massive overestimation that basically handed the initiative to the Japanese.

On the Japanese side, it's important to note their tactics *worked* in the early part of the war; those Banzai charges actually did carry enemy positions, their 'fly 'em till they drop' mentality with their elite aviators allowed their carrier fleet to sustain an unprecedented tempo of operations, etc. They did more with less, and their string of victories seemed to reinforce the Japanese view that the Western nations were decadent and ready to fall. This all caught up with the Japanese eventually as the Allies settled down and started to apply their own strengths. But by this time 'victory disease' had already settled into the Japanese mind set.

Another factor that worked against the Japanese, and others have already alluded to, is that it was a culture that did *not* readily tolerate questioning the ideas of your superiors. So if the officers and men silently questioned the ideas of their leadership it was *not* safe to verbalize those doubts. Besides, all of these tactics and ideas had produced those great victories in 1941-1942, so who would dare to question them now? The Japanese were unable to shift their mental paradigm fast enough as the war changed.

That's my two cents on the most pertinent points, at least. By late in the war of course the US had such an overwhelming material superiority I'm not sure a change in Japanese mindset it would have made any difference at all….

-Will

in some ways the Western assessment of the Japanese in 1941 was not wrong. The Germans had. the best army in the world and they had crushed the Russians who had, in 38, crushed the Japanese. Similarly the woefully equipped Finns had given the Russians real trouble. The Japanese could beat the Chinese, but they could not win a definitive and crushing victory against an army that was not even as good as the Italians.
And these assessments were not wrong. Against a full strength Western Army in open territory, the Japanese army (not the fleet) would have really struggled. Their tanks were poor, their artillery old fashioned, their machine guns and small arms poor. After all their main MMG was effectively a French Hotchkiss, their rifle an underpowered Italian relic.
However, they started the war with three great advantages:
1) Their morale and small unit initiative was terrific. They were not at all defensive minded and kept working toward an objective.
2) They were fighting in terrain that concealed them and kept combat at short range where Allied firepower was minimised
3) Their opponents were second grade armies. The British in Malaya had a large proportion of low grade Indian troops. The Americans in the Philippines had poorly trained and equipped Philippine army units. In Malaya the British had no tanks, In both campaigns the Japanese soon established air and sea supremacy.
Like the Germans in 44/45 the Japanese performance was flattered by being on the defensive and being heroic, but they were in no position to win mobile victories. Mostly all they could hope for was to put up the cost of an Allied Victory.

Two comments:
First, it's my understanding that the Germans left their best pilots on the front lines, how is that different from the Japanese?
Second, it's hard to learn from previous mistakes (or write about them) if everyone in a position to learn those lessons dies.

What gets me is that despite books like Musashi's Five Rings (never mind Sun Tze), the Japanese never really wrapped their heads around the idea that they should ALWAYS try to attack the enemy's weakness, and head-on attacks are always a LAST resort.

They also failed to connect the idea of having a master teaching others his way of the sword with the idea of having an Ace pilot teaching new pilots…