Japanese off board Artillery Guadalcanal, the war

[plloyd1010]

The short answer to your main question is yes. Artillery sucked, infantry weaponry & support sucked, tanks & armor doctrine sucked.

Japanese war planners recognized these deficiencies and came up with what they considered the appropriate response. Namely they emphasized the spiritual/morale side of war over the material. This resulted in very courageous, determined soldiers of high initiative. One of the problems is that such a doctrine is self-reinforcing. The result being that since high moral determined soldiers will over the enemy opposition, weapon development is less important, and so the cycle begins. In the end, Japan has little modern artillery, and the infantryman with a bayonet can do the job just fine.

That worked fine against the Chinese (equipped troops supplied by corrupt warlords) and Russian militia (poorly equipped, poor leadership, only partly trained). Against the Americans (and other Westerners) 20+ year old artillery just wasn't up to snuff. Closing with troops, lavishly supported by machine-guns, and having reasonable fire support doctrine, brought the whole idea crashing down.