RE: [OT] Sea Leopard

Ryan M Gill wrote:

>It seemed like your statement indicated that since the Chinese and
>Koreans didn't have tanks, then the Japanese wouldn't have found them
>useful. (the two to tango comment).

Sorry, I merely meant to imply that Tank-on-tank combat was not likely
to 
occur in Manchuria, regardless of how wide-open it was.

>Large scale tank battles are an oddity. Usually it is a matter of
>tanks supporting infantry in their advance on a held position and
>then exploiting the holes in the line. Battles like Kursk are the
>exception, not the rule.

True, but they were more likely in arenas with A) Lots of tanks on both 
sides and B) Plenty of room for them to manouver.

>>
>>Yes, useful.	In large formations like those found in Europe and
Africa?
>
>Nope. But just because I'm not using two full batteries for an attack
>on this mountain strong hold doesn't mean that some artillery would
>really help the attack.
>
>
>>
>>Let's see.  My blanket statement was that MOST terrain in the
>>pacific wasn't suited for LARGE-SCALE tank combat.  Other than
>>exceptions like Korea and Manchuria, most of the pacific WAS pretty
>>jungle-clad, no?  Or maybe I'm hallucinating all those trees in
>>places like the Phillipines....
>
>Yes, a good portion of SEA is jungle. As it was learned in Vietnam,
>tanks do very well in jungle. Even with man carried ATW's. During
>WWII, this would have been borne out as well were it really pressed I
>think. The Japanese never developed a number of things the US used
>for island landings and were still using barges as a means of landing
>troops when the Allies had developed the Higgens boats and other
>landing craft. Further, the US development of other tracked and
>armored amphibious vehicles worked well.

There were a lot of things the Japanese failed to develop properly, many
of 
which would have been much more useful than a better tank.

>WWII battles were in Burma, Malaysia, Phillipines, Vietnam, China,
>Thailand, Laos, etc. Lots of Jungles, lots of rough terrain, lots of
>places tanks would be able to be useful. Just like in the Bocage.
>
>My point is that they were useful. Not in large massive numbers, but
>useful. The Japanese Army officials didn't see fit to develop a good
>tank or continue to develop designs to maintain parity with the
>allies.

A good point, but it seems our points kind of just miss each other.  My 
point is that while useful, tanks were not the lords of battle they were
in 
Europe/North Africa/SovU.

3B^2

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