4th August 2004, 10:35 PM
Not much to say about the rest of that, but regarding surrender (AND retreat, I forgot to mention that they would never retreat or back down from a mission), that IS a valid tactic that DOES benefit the nation doing it! They didn't see the reasons, but here's what the History channel has taught me...
Surrendering and retreat do two things. First, the obvious, more of your men will survive. Near the end, they really were running low on soldiers. Even surrender gives the chance that some will somehow escape or be released... The second thing only applies to surrendering. If you surrender, you have now succesfully burdened the force you surrendered to. They are now less effective a unit, much less effective, as they are now locked in place for a good while until they at least find another unit to take the prisoners to a camp, and that camp must be manned. Japan's adherence to this part of bushido in particular was disasterous. Another thing that failed the Japanese was their ultimate incarnation of this system. This was the infamous kamekaze flyer, the person willing to kill themselves for the good of the Emporer. It didn't work, and it failed on so many counts. First off, while it DID catch the allies off-guard to see the enemy suddenly flying straight AT them in a suicidal manner, when they caught on, it was easy to gun down these things before they even got close enough for the dive bomb. The problem with this tactic is the soldiers and equipment lost in the process. Fight to live, and you get to serve another day, fight to die, your nation just lost another bit of it's fighting force. Think Starcraft. How often does someone doing a suicide run, the person figuring "I'll loose most of my soldiers, but the enemy will FALL!", ever win? Hardly ever (I speak from my own sad experience :D), because the person fighting to keep their units alive has more firepower at the end of that fight, and thus can easily push onwards to victory.
Japan's bushido code (in the form it was in during WW2), while it may not have been THE deciding factor in their loss, was a MAJOR one to be sure. It wasn't just an immoral code to have, it was also a terrible strategy.
Oh and, current day Japan certainly seems a lot less racist than you make it out to be. That could just be on the surface, but you know, that's just how it seems. They sure have a lot of caucasians in positive roles. I will admit just about every black(african american just doesn't work when referring to japanese characters :D) character in Cowboy Bebop was a bad guy (almost, and those 2 or so guys that weren't were enough to make things equal in a sense).
I'll also say there's enough stuff in their various fiction to support that at least a large number WANT whatever's left of WW2 Bushido to die away...
And GR, I kinda figure N_A would be VERY angry to read that, but ya know, that blind anger would kinda go to show how... *prepairs to state this in a way that would offend N_A the absolute most* PRIMITIVE and ILLOGICAL that OUTDATED "morality" TRULY is.... TECH BUZZ WORDS!
Surrendering and retreat do two things. First, the obvious, more of your men will survive. Near the end, they really were running low on soldiers. Even surrender gives the chance that some will somehow escape or be released... The second thing only applies to surrendering. If you surrender, you have now succesfully burdened the force you surrendered to. They are now less effective a unit, much less effective, as they are now locked in place for a good while until they at least find another unit to take the prisoners to a camp, and that camp must be manned. Japan's adherence to this part of bushido in particular was disasterous. Another thing that failed the Japanese was their ultimate incarnation of this system. This was the infamous kamekaze flyer, the person willing to kill themselves for the good of the Emporer. It didn't work, and it failed on so many counts. First off, while it DID catch the allies off-guard to see the enemy suddenly flying straight AT them in a suicidal manner, when they caught on, it was easy to gun down these things before they even got close enough for the dive bomb. The problem with this tactic is the soldiers and equipment lost in the process. Fight to live, and you get to serve another day, fight to die, your nation just lost another bit of it's fighting force. Think Starcraft. How often does someone doing a suicide run, the person figuring "I'll loose most of my soldiers, but the enemy will FALL!", ever win? Hardly ever (I speak from my own sad experience :D), because the person fighting to keep their units alive has more firepower at the end of that fight, and thus can easily push onwards to victory.
Japan's bushido code (in the form it was in during WW2), while it may not have been THE deciding factor in their loss, was a MAJOR one to be sure. It wasn't just an immoral code to have, it was also a terrible strategy.
Oh and, current day Japan certainly seems a lot less racist than you make it out to be. That could just be on the surface, but you know, that's just how it seems. They sure have a lot of caucasians in positive roles. I will admit just about every black(african american just doesn't work when referring to japanese characters :D) character in Cowboy Bebop was a bad guy (almost, and those 2 or so guys that weren't were enough to make things equal in a sense).
I'll also say there's enough stuff in their various fiction to support that at least a large number WANT whatever's left of WW2 Bushido to die away...
And GR, I kinda figure N_A would be VERY angry to read that, but ya know, that blind anger would kinda go to show how... *prepairs to state this in a way that would offend N_A the absolute most* PRIMITIVE and ILLOGICAL that OUTDATED "morality" TRULY is.... TECH BUZZ WORDS!
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)