Chassepot to FAMAS at Headstamp Publishing
Wool field shirt at Varusteleka
In the aftermath of World War Two, the United States dismantled the Japanese military and took over Japan’s national defense itself. This lasted until he Korean War, when it started to look beneficial to have an armed Japanese force to reduce US military spending in Japan and to protect the country in case of a potential Soviet invasions of Hokkaido. The Japanese Self Defense Forces were stood up, and equipped with surplus American arms – including the M1 Garand as the basic service rifle.
When the US moved to the M14, Japan opted to develop its own rifle instead. This was the Type 64, developed and produced by Howa Heavy Industries. It is a tilting-bolt, short stroke gas piston rifle with an adjustable gas system, folding bipod, and select-fire trigger mechanism. It is chambered for 7.62mm NATO, albeit a reduced-velocity loading that Japan chose to use to reduce recoil and improve shoot ability (especially in fully automatic). The gas system can be adjusted to use regular NATO ammunition (and JSDF machine guns used the standard loading), but for training and any military actions that did not require American ammunition supply, the lower velocity ammunition was a valuable benefit.
This rifle became the standard arm of all Japanese military branches until eventually replaced by the 5.56mm Type 89. Today, they are extremely rare rifles to find, as they were never sold abroad or surplussed. Many thanks to the Ars Mechanica Foundation for giving me access to this example to film for you! You can find their history book here:
That’s one of the widely adopted post-WW2 national service rifle grails down. Wonder when Ian will find a Type 86 and INSAS.
JGSDF went down the same blind alley with reduced-charge 7.62 x 51mm as Spain did. With the same unsatisfactory results.
As I mentioned here a longish time ago, when I was in IPMS at one National Convention I spent some time talking to a sales manager from Tamiya Corp, the single largest plastic model kit company in Japan and likely the second-largest worldwide after Revell. It turned out that he was a retired JGSDF Colonel, and had been in Ordnance when the Howa Type 64 was adopted.
He said that at the time, Howa was also manufacturing the Armalite AR-18 under license from Fairchild here in the U.S. He and most of their mid-level Ordnance officers thought the AR-18 was a lot better rifle overall than the Type 64, not least because it was a 5.56 x 45mm with a decently-designed folding stock, which made it handier to get in and out of an APC with. Note that the JGSDF used WW2-era U.S. halftracks and 1960-era fully-tracked M114s until the fully-tracked enclosed Type 73 was adopted, it being very similar to M114.
As to why the Type 64 was adopted over the AR-18, he said the U.S. Army Ordnance lot were adamant that everybody use 7.62 x 51mm, because of M14 and M60. He said that the Type 62 GPMG in 7.62 x 51mm using the full-power round was a perfectly adequate support MG, even if internally it borrowed about as much from the Lewis Gun as the M60 did.
The Type 64 rifle, however, he considered the biggest mistake Japan’s military had made since 1945.
One of the great “might have beens” could have been a scaled-down and lightened Type 64 in 5.56 x 45mm. Although with the AR-18 already available, there’s the old saying about the bird in the hand to consider, too.
clear ether
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Man in the High Castle features a bunch of these (or mock-ups) in addition to all of the laughably obsolete Arisakas and Nambus.
“(…)never sold abroad(…)”
Note that between 1967 and 2014 Japan applied Three Principles on Arms Exports https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_arms-export_ban which prevent arms export to
– Communist bloc countries
– Countries under arms-exports embargo under United Nations Security Council resolutions
– Countries involved in or likely to be involved in international conflicts
Therefore limited export was often due to political reason, rather than technical merits of Japanese designs.