mosquitoman
Master Sergeant
Definitely, good at soft skinned vehicles but tanks were a tougher nut to crack for it. Best anti-tank air to ground weapon would have to be a 500lb bomb. Easier than a rocket to use and more accurate
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mosquitoman said:Definitely, good at soft skinned vehicles but tanks were a tougher nut to crack for it. Best anti-tank air to ground weapon would have to be a 500lb bomb. Easier than a rocket to use and more accurate
Lt General Tadamichi Kuribayashi had been assigned to command the garrison of Iwo Jima in May 1944. He had served in the United States as a deputy defence attaché and considered the USA the "last country in the world that Japan should fight." When he arrived he immediately began to reorganise the chaotic defences that were in place and with the arrival of additional troops and Korean labourers began a huge construction programme that included tunnels, caves, gun emplacements, pillboxes, bunkers and command posts, many of which were mutually supporting and linked by a vast underground communications system. Many were so well constructed that the intensive naval shelling and aerial bombing in the weeks before the attack simply failed to damage them. A lot of these fortifications were dug into the soft pumice-like volcanic rock, which mixed well with cement to provide additional reinforcement. Supply areas, ammunition stores and medical facilities were all constructed within the underground tunnel system and when the fighting was at its height, many Marines reporting hearing voices emanating from the ground below them. The tunnel system was so extensive that many of the troops that were defending Mount Suribachi managed to escape to the north before the volcano fell.
http://www.rickard.karoo.net/articles/battles_iwojima.html#Japanese
1. A maze of tunnels
The Japanese on Iwo Jima were so thoroughly dug in that little more than the muzzles of their guns showed above the ground; everything else was hidden in a maze of subterranean chambers and connecting tunnels.
2. 6 - months construction
Garrison commander Lieut. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi had spent six months supervising the construction of innumerable installations around the island. Mount Suribachi was honeycombed with seven levels of tunnels connecting about 1,000 chambers. The network in the hilly northern quarter of the island had tunnels that branched off to incorporate numerous natural caves. The flat center of the island afforded few natural strong points, and the builders, forced to start from scratch, laid out one section of their underground defenses in a neat grid.
3. Defense and counterattack
In most of the defense systems, multiple entrances allowed the Japanese to mount sudden counterattacks from unlikely quarters. The defenders could outflank advancing Marine units by racing unseen through the tunnels to another entrance in the attackers' rear. In case of naval shelling or aerial bombardment, the defenders could retreat deep into the maze.
http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/text/x19/xm1923.html
I mean, get this, for seventy-two-days before the battle, the Air Force came in, and they dropped enough bombs on this tiny little island to make it the single most bombed spot in the entire Pacific War, and then three days before the battle, the Navy came in with enormous battleships, and they rocked the island, shoving shells the weight of Volkswagens, against the island. They resculpted the mountain of Mt. Suribachi. They didn't kill anyone, they only rearranged the sand. See, the Japanese were not on Iwo Jima. They were underground.
If any of you have ever been to Toronto, there are two cities of Toronto really. You're up above ground there are buildings, it looks like a city. You go underneath, there's a whole other city with five-star restaurants, dry cleaners, subways, grocery stores, people are living underground, just like Iwo Jima — 22,000 Japanese troops underground. Now Steven Spielberg's making a movie about this. and you'll see for the first time that everybody thinks it's like European fighting — throw a grenade they pop up, shoot them. Now these guys were underground on a five-mile-long island. There were sixteen miles of tunnels. These tunnels were shellacked. They had electrical systems, lights, ventilation systems, and they connected 1,500 different rooms. They were alive and well, and bombardment could not get them.
http://www.webb-institute.edu/Alumni/bradley_lecture.php