Japan - Forgotten Weapons

Type 1 Japanese Paratroop Rifles at RIA

September 2, 2014 Ian McCollum 12

Before standardizing on the Type 2 paratroop rifle (a 7.7mm Arisaka that broke in half at the chamber), the Japanese military tested a variant of the Type 38 carbine with a folding stock retrofitted into […]

Vintage Saturday: Shooting Rest

August 16, 2014 Ian McCollum 20

Type 11 Nambu LMG Disassembly (Video)

August 4, 2014 Ian McCollum 25

Thanks to the hospitality of the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, we had a chance to examine and disassemble a Japanese Type 11 light machine gun. This is, of course, the very unusual hopper-fed […]

North China Type 19

July 9, 2014 Ian McCollum 44

Many years prior to the attack on the US Navy that marks the beginning of World War II for the United States, the Empire of Japan had invaded China. This war of occupation was a […]

Vintage Saturday: (not) SNLF

July 5, 2014 Ian McCollum 40

Japanese SNLF marines Chinese troops with SIG M1920 submachine guns. The SIG M1920 was a licensed copy of the German MP18/I, and SIG sold them to Japan in 7.63mm Mauser caliber. They were used by […]

Book Review: China’s Small Arms of the 2nd Sino-Japanese War

July 3, 2014 Ian McCollum 6

I picked up a copy of this book a couple years ago when Bin Shih first published it, but by the time I got around to doing a review it had sold out – so […]

British and Japanese Ammo Docs

May 23, 2014 Ian McCollum 22

We have a couple more ammunition-related documents today, both in English this time (and courtesy of reader Robert). First up is the short one, a 21-page leaflet on Japanese ammunition markings. It was written just […]

Japanese Type 1 HMG

April 16, 2014 Ian McCollum 19

I was recently contacted by a fellow looking for information on the Japanese Type 1 heavy machine gun – a replacement for the Type 92 whose name would suggest it was adopted in 1941, but […]

Japanese Type 26 Revolver (Video)

March 10, 2014 Ian McCollum 56

They Type 26 was an indigenous Japanese revolver introduced in 1893 (26th year of the Meiji era) to replace the Smith & Wesson No. 3 in Japanese military service. In many ways the Type 26 […]

Japanese Aerial Gunnery Camera

March 9, 2014 Ian McCollum 7

I got an email recently from a producer of a TV program who is looking for a vintage photo of a Japanese aerial gunnery training camera – specifically a Type 89 Rokuoh-Sha: He wants something […]