Significance of the Chinese military contribution to World War 2 disputed.

Phead128

Captain
Staff member
Moderator - World Affairs
The Original Poster here:

I personally lobbied to remove 'bolding' completely, since they refused to include China in the bold, because that required the addition of France, whose contribution was on par with conquered Poland, however, you can't include some of the major victorious Allied powers and leave other one significant one (China), just because France was given a legacy prize for Great power status of the "pre-WW2" era in the UNSC....

So I basically got them to remove the bolding.
 

solarz

Brigadier
Are you claiming that WW2 China can hold out on the Eurasian mainland alone? Against Japan and a Germany with no other full scale threat to it remaining?

I would argue that not even the USSR could pull that stunt off...

No, China can hold out in China alone. And no other full scale threat? What do you call the UK and USA?

Furthermore, what makes you think that Germany is even interested in invading China? They're not going to do it out of mere charity for Japan, and Japan is not going to tolerate Germany trying to get a piece of its cake. In order to invade China, Germany has to cross either Siberia or the Gobi desert: i.e completely untenable supply line, and lots of risk for little to no gain.

Japan was never going to be able to keep up its occupation of China, not once Chinese Nationalism has been aroused.
 

nemo

Junior Member
The reason why the performance was so bad for the Chinese armies during WW-2 was not cowardice, but something more mundane -- China run out of bullets.

China produced around 1.1 billion rounds of bullets in the war, and production was fairly constant, averaging about 175 million rounds a year. US Lend-Lease send around 700 million rounds during the war, and most of that arrived only after Burma Road reopened. So at most China had around 300 million rounds a year. That's less than 100 round per person per year -- which is not even enough to train a soldier on marksmanship.
Chinese soldiers usually carried only 30-50 rounds while Japanese carried 200 rounds per riflemen. Hence Chinese troops has less staying power. So you have instances of larger Chinese troops running from smaller Japanese troops -- why? because they run out of ammo!

It is less surprising, then, why PRC is able to fought US to a standstill in Korean war with essentially the same troop -- because they now have enough bullets!
 

Phead128

Captain
Staff member
Moderator - World Affairs
Without China's stalemate against 3 million Imperial Japanese Army troops, Japan would have seized Russian Far East while Operation Barbarossa was underway against Stalin's Soviet Union.

In fact, it was China that permitted Stalin to re-direct some 30 divisions worth of Siberia troops from Siberia because Japan couldn't conquer China as fast it wanted too, the Chinese spirit and will to crush all foreign invaders was too greater for the Japanese.

Had China fallen, then Japan would have invaded the Russian Far East for sure - I highly doubt Russia could have fought two fronts against Germany and Japan at the same time, the Russian factories west of the Ural mountains would have been destroyed by the Japanese. the Eurasian continent would have been lost had China not fought ferociously against the Japanese .

knock it off Phead128
bd popeye super moderator.
 
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Lezt

Junior Member
Without China's stalemate against 3 million Imperial Japanese Army troops, Japan would have seized Russian Far East while Operation Barbarossa was underway against Stalin's Soviet Union.

In fact, it was China that permitted Stalin to re-direct some 30 divisions worth of Siberia troops from Siberia because Japan couldn't conquer China as fast it wanted too, the Chinese spirit and will to crush all foreign invaders was too greater for the dwarf barbarian foes.

Had China fallen, then Japan would have invaded the Russian Far East for sure - I highly doubt Russia could have fought two fronts against Germany and Japan at the same time, the Russian factories west of the Ural mountains would have been destroyed by the Japanese. the Eurasian continent would have been lost had China not fought ferociously against the Japanese dwarves.

That is not necessarily true, Stalin was only willing to shift the Siberian divisions to the European theater after Dec 1941 - Pearl harbor. He contends that the Americans can hold off the Japanese, but did not have much faith in China holding off the Japanese.

Japanese policy, if you do read their war diaries, have been decided by the southern drive after the defeat at Lake Khasan and Khalkhin Gol.

We frankly don't know what will happen had the Japanese decided to go north, I have my doubts that a Japanese invasion - with Inferior tanks and unmechanized armies will fare will in the vast plains and cold of Siberia.

P.s. Japanese are people too, no matter how horrible in perception or in reality - until you can see that, you cannot learn from history. - there is no need to call them dwarfs
 

Lezt

Junior Member
The reason why the performance was so bad for the Chinese armies during WW-2 was not cowardice, but something more mundane -- China run out of bullets.

China produced around 1.1 billion rounds of bullets in the war, and production was fairly constant, averaging about 175 million rounds a year. US Lend-Lease send around 700 million rounds during the war, and most of that arrived only after Burma Road reopened. So at most China had around 300 million rounds a year. That's less than 100 round per person per year -- which is not even enough to train a soldier on marksmanship.
Chinese soldiers usually carried only 30-50 rounds while Japanese carried 200 rounds per riflemen. Hence Chinese troops has less staying power. So you have instances of larger Chinese troops running from smaller Japanese troops -- why? because they run out of ammo!

It is less surprising, then, why PRC is able to fought US to a standstill in Korean war with essentially the same troop -- because they now have enough bullets!

War is more more than about bullets, don't forget Japanese stockpiles were also stolen/taken.

the PLA and ROC forces, have very limited amount of sub machine guns, light machine guns, heavy machine guns, anti tank weapons, mortars, grenades, trucks, logistics, tanks and more.

The PLA forces in Korea, had vast improvements over the PLA in WW2 in this regards
 
Without China's stalemate against 3 million Imperial Japanese Army troops, Japan would have seized Russian Far East while Operation Barbarossa was underway against Stalin's Soviet Union.

In fact, it was China that permitted Stalin to re-direct some 30 divisions worth of Siberia troops from Siberia because Japan couldn't conquer China as fast it wanted too, the Chinese spirit and will to crush all foreign invaders was too greater for the Japanese.

Had China fallen, then Japan would have invaded the Russian Far East for sure - I highly doubt Russia could have fought two fronts against Germany and Japan at the same time, the Russian factories west of the Ural mountains would have been destroyed by the Japanese. the Eurasian continent would have been lost had China not fought ferociously against the Japanese.

watch your wordings. are you still living in the ancient days of racism?
 
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xywdx

Junior Member
I think the KMT at the time calculated their contribution just enough so the allies won't lose.
Japan was at the time spending as much as over 70% of their income on the military, whereas the US was just warming up, once Japan lost their momentum the war was already decided.
Chiang did not need to risk his precious assets to kick the Japanese out of China, so he focused his attention on how to consolidate power after the war.
 

bd popeye

The Last Jedi
VIP Professional
Japanese are people too, no matter how horrible in perception or in reality - until you can see that, you cannot learn from history. - there is no need to call them dwarfs

Exactly. No matter how you feel about the Japanese atrocities during WWII no need to insult anyone. End of discussion about insults. The forum rules clearly state..

http://www.sinodefenceforum.com/ann...-before-posting-important-please-read-20.html

5, The following posts will be deleted or edited;

Posts that are offensive to any ethnic, racial or religious groups or government. This isn't political forum.

Posts that prompt hatred between different countries or groups of people. This includes,"Nationalistic chest thumping", "country bashing" remarks and underhanded attempts to insult various countries and governments.

bd popeye super moderator
 

nemo

Junior Member
War is more more than about bullets, don't forget Japanese stockpiles were also stolen/taken.

the PLA and ROC forces, have very limited amount of sub machine guns, light machine guns, heavy machine guns, anti tank weapons, mortars, grenades, trucks, logistics, tanks and more.

The PLA forces in Korea, had vast improvements over the PLA in WW2 in this regards

Think about this for a moment. To take supplies, you need victories, and victories are relatively rare, and you must spend ammos to achieve that. And Stealing is far from easy, even if you pass the guards -- and amount must be small, else it would draw overwhelming response (remember stealing happened on enemy territories). This is no way to supply an army -- especially when you have territories to defend and not merely running a guerilla war.

While Chinese armies are short of weapons, it's not that short. China did managed to produce over half a million rifles, 40000 light machine gun,
20000 heavy machine guns, etc. The production would have been larger and heavier if resources like steel is available (or example, China abandoned production of 75mm guns and 37mm anti-tank guns because the lack of high quality steel, while they have the ability to produce those weapons). And note while weapons are subject to combat losses, they are not consumed.

Unless you are talking about small skirmishes, logistics have a disproportionate
importance in warfare. Unfortunately, non-professionals tend to lose sight on that.
 
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