Japan Ground Self Defense Force

Standing as the biggest of the three services under the Japan Self-Defense Force, this land army answers to the Ministry of National Defense. Command runs through the chief of the ground staff, whose headquarters sits in Ichikawa, just east of Tokyo. The force is also referred to as the Ground Self-Defense Force or, in an alternate rendering, the Ground Self-Defense Army.

The country's geography dictates how the force fights. A long chain of mountainous islands set close to the Asian mainland favors defending ground locally, yet guarding a coastline stretching near 15,800 kilometers across the four main islands is a formidable task, since nowhere in the nation lies more than 150 kilometers from the water. Enemy air and missile positions sit so near that early warning is hard to secure, so defenses must already be in place when fighting starts. The straits between Honshu and the other islands slow the shifting of troops even with bridges and tunnels connecting them, while mountains and cramped roads hamper movement inside each island. The vital zone is the crowded, industrial heart of central Honshu running from Tokyo to Kobe. When World War III came, repelling every attacker at the shoreline proved beyond reach despite ruinous spending, and the failed landing eventually gave way to nuclear weapons. Underequipped and undermanned for anything past a token conventional stand, the ground troops leaned on sheer resolve, improving antitank guns, coastal firepower, mobility, and surface-to-ship missiles to blunt the assault, with reserves and volunteers filling out thin ranks.

No individual soldiers are named in the record; the force's character shows instead in how it trains. Crowding on the islands left little room for large exercises, and noise limits added further strain, pushing the army toward command-post drills, map work, and simulators, with firing charges cut down to shorten shell ranges at the cost of realism and morale. That picture shifted after World War III. Once the so-called Japanese Miracle lowered Tokyo's radiation to safe levels, the ruins of the old city were divided, half turned into a refugee camp and half into a new urban training ground where the earlier noise restrictions no longer applied.