Now this makes me wonder if the Japanese did "borrow" tanks from the Russians at some point.
Probably not, even so it won't be T-34s, those were needed on the Eastern Front against the Germans. Far as I am aware, T-34s only showed in the Far East in 1945 for the invasion of Manchuria and by then it was the T-34/85 which will murder any Japanese tank that even dare appear on the battlefield.
I don't think there were a lot of historical cases of tanks being seized and placed back into battle in general; correct me if I am wrong here. It seems like there would be a lot of hassle involved in trying to do that. Mainly, if your military doesn't manufacture the parts or ammo for enemy tanks, putting one into battle for your side would make it a one-and-done deal; no extensive repairs and no resupplying.
Of course, free is free, and free armor could definitely have its advantages in war. On the other hand, I would think the costs of training a crew in how to use a foreign vehicle would be a bit high for a tank with ultimately less mileage than the ones that come from friendly factories.
Other than research, I think most seized enemy tanks and weapons were scrapped and had their parts melted back down into steel. Again, correct me if I am wrong.
I don't think there were a lot of historical cases of tanks being seized and placed back into battle in general; correct me if I am wrong here. It seems like there would be a lot of hassle involved in trying to do that. Mainly, if your military doesn't manufacture the parts or ammo for enemy tanks, putting one into battle for your side would make it a one-and-done deal; no extensive repairs and no resupplying.
Of course, free is free, and free armor could definitely have its advantages in war. On the other hand, I would think the costs of training a crew in how to use a foreign vehicle would be a bit high for a tank with ultimately less mileage than the ones that come from friendly factories.
Other than research, I think most seized enemy tanks and weapons were scrapped and had their parts melted back down into steel. Again, correct me if I am wrong.
In some cases, I'm pretty sure the Japanese used captured allied equipment. During the initial push through the Philippines and Dutch East Indies, there were several cases of whole armor units being abandoned due to lack of gas, or mass surrenders leaving whole units of functional vehicles.
The Japanese were certainly scrapping absolutely everything, regardless of being nailed down or on fire for iron, but considering how short they were on industrial capacity, a functional weapon in the hand was worth two that might hypothetically be available later, especially when they then had to fortify those same islands against recapture.
They would certainly be one-and-done, though - you need a constant supply of ammo to really use those things, but then again, the Japanese were not exactly great about getting ANY supplies through, so if they captured some ammo, and their own guns don't shoot them, but you have some captured guns lying around...
I don't think there was any reason for them to have captured Russian equipment, though. They very specifically were not fighting one another (to Hitler's great annoyance) until the last couple months of the war, when Stalin thought it would be hilarious to start swiping some of the Northern islands of the Japanese archipelago while Japan was bracing for an invasion of their mainland, and not give them back after the war ended.
I don't think there were a lot of historical cases of tanks being seized and placed back into battle in general; correct me if I am wrong here. It seems like there would be a lot of hassle involved in trying to do that. Mainly, if your military doesn't manufacture the parts or ammo for enemy tanks, putting one into battle for your side would make it a one-and-done deal; no extensive repairs and no resupplying.
Of course, free is free, and free armor could definitely have its advantages in war. On the other hand, I would think the costs of training a crew in how to use a foreign vehicle would be a bit high for a tank with ultimately less mileage than the ones that come from friendly factories.
Other than research, I think most seized enemy tanks and weapons were scrapped and had their parts melted back down into steel. Again, correct me if I am wrong.
