<human>:  Why did the Americans lose the Battle of Tarawa?
<bot>: The Americans lost because they were outnumbered. The Japanese had a lot more men than the Americans. The Americans had about 2,000 men, while the Japanese had about 6,000. The Americans also had a lot of machine guns, but the Japanese had a lot of rifles. The Japanese also had a lot of artillery, which they used to bombard the Americans.