Short Development History of Type 95 Gunto

[bangbangsan]

Nick
Can you post the document of "first field requisition of Type 95s appears to be 2,370 pcs ordered on 26th October 1937 for delivery to the Kwantung Army"?
Thanks

[Nick Komiya]

Here you go.

[bangbangsan]

Thanks Nick!

[Nagoya10]

Here you go.

This is a great document, things like this are most amazing to discover or see. In addition to the Type 95 sword and bayonets, can you confirm if I have the other items descriptions correct? I am going by the number designations, because I can't read Japanese words, but want to make sure I can confirm what the items are.

Type 92 MG, 1,511
Type 96 LMG, 5,511
Type 89 Knee Mortar, 1,539
Type 14 Pistol, 3,039
Type 44 Carbine, 1,036
Type 38 Carbine, 2,439
Type 38 Rifle, 40,889
Type 30 Bayonet, 100,000

I don't know what the far left column says, maybe an accessory for the Type 92 MG?

Thanks.

[Nick Komiya]

You are reading the list backwards, it goes from right to left and always starts with swords and bayonets, so I only had to show you the beginning of a 30 page list. Orders and arsenal production reports were always listed by Weapons class in this way.

The end of the page is Anti-aircraft kit for the Type 92 MG. The QTY of Type 38 rifles was 40,887.

This type of listing is the most common type of document you find in the archives, so there are 1000s more of these, if that is your interest.

[Nagoya10]

You are reading the list backwards, it goes from right to left and always starts with swords and bayonets, so I only had to show you the beginning of a 30 page list. Orders and arsenal production reports were always listed by Weapons class in this way.

The end of the page is Anti-aircraft kit for the Type 92 MG. The QTY of Type 38 rifles was 40,887.

This type of listing is the most common type of document you find in the archives, so there are 1000s more of these, if that is your interest.

Thank you for the information and correction of my innacurracies. If I was able to read any Japanese, besides some of the numbers (not always accurately), I could spend a lot of time going through those archives. Is there a site they can be accessed through the internet?

[Nick Komiya]

This is the site. Japan Center for Asian Historical Records Though I gave you the English page, I think you can only use search words in Japanese. It used to be black and white only, but early Meiji colored documents are recently being rescanned in color, so it is constantly being improved.

Only the first 300 characters per document are made searchable by having them digitally transcribed, so you need to try different but related search words. One document I had been after took me 10 years to find.

[Nagoya10]

This is the site. Japan Center for Asian Historical Records Though I gave you the English page, I think you can only use search words in Japanese. It used to be black and white only, but early Meiji colored documents are recently being rescanned in color, so it is constantly being improved.

Only the first 300 characters per document are made searchable by having them digitally transcribed, so you need to try different but related search words. One document I had been after took me 10 years to find.

Thank you Nick for this link.

[Nick Komiya]

The Black Scabbard Controversy

I was asked for my thoughts on the black scabbard controversy related to the Type 95 swords. Did they ever exist as an arsenal finish, were they field refinishes or were they all postwar mutilations, are the 3 major schools of thought, I hear.

I find it a waste of time to indulge in speculation, so I’ll only comment based on facts from contemporary documentation.


1. As an Arsenal Finish

One of the bigger themes for the Type 95 was a scabbard finish that would prevent rust development. This was because the previous chromed Type 32 scabbards were notorious for their rust problems. But despite earnest efforts since 1917, no solutions could be found during the model life of the Type 32 swords. They tried bluing, zinc-plating, various paints and the new Metallikon spray-plating process developed in 1909, but nothing worked.

Thus the Type 95 development process inherited this problem and the 3rd prototype done in 1926 tried out laminated steel scabbards with a layer of brass on the outside, but this, too, was rejected in the field tests as being too heavy.

Then around 1932, in the 7th round of prototyping, they introduced Parkerizing and Bondelite coating for the interior and exterior of the scabbard and the exterior was painted a reddish brown. This was well received in the field trial, because of better concealment offered by the paint color. However, paint-chipping and flaking remained a problem when the scabbard banged against something. It was at this stage that the project reduced speed to allow the development of the officer’s Type 94 Gunto to go into the overtake lane.

By the time the Type 95 project resumed to modify the 7th generation prototype to be in harmony with the Type 94 officer’s model, Parkerizing seemed to have solved the rust problem, but the easy-to-chip paint finish was never overcome in time for the launch in April 1935.

Thus launch specs called for a paraffin-impregnated cotton scabbard cover in the same color as the scabbard paint finish, which was now bluish khaki brown to match the color of the officer’s sword.

In view of this painfully meandering course of development history of the scabbard finish above, black paint sounds quite brainless and out of the blue to me, if you can excuse the pun.

Reddish brown was the field-proven choice until it became necessary to adopt the same coloring as the Type 94. So it would have sounded more realistic to imagine that the arsenal fell back on that previous choice. By the way, Reddish brown is called Red Bean Color 小豆色 in Japanese, so I will spill the beans below.


2. As a Field Refinish

Painting the scabbard black as a field refinish sounds equally outlandish to me. The obvious paint to use in the field for repainting a scabbard would have been the ample supply of Khaki Brown paint used on helmets or canteens and water bottles. Adding a tinge of blue to this yielded the color used on sword scabbards, but I have not seen any shipping manifests listing supplies of that paint, only the Khaki Brown paint used on EM equipment. Both gloss and matte versions were in generous supply, but not black paint, for that matter.

You really had to go out of your way to get black paint in the field. If there were tons of field repaints in helmet-color brown and a handful in black, that would lend some credibility, but black could never have been the first choice for a field refinish.


So all in all, was a black scabbard impossible? Possible, yes, but very improbable, so long as the standard khaki brown paint was available as a more reasonable alternative.

Theoretically, I can only imagine a black scabbard in a super early prototype or in a last ditch situation where you were lucky just to have any paint at all.

[stegel]

Interesting , the red bean colour is not very common at all.
Even with the copper handled first pattern, I’ve only seen 2, all are generally the drab OB.
As it took nearly 2yrs for production to begin after the official release documentation, do you think any change requests may have been made to bring them into alignment with the type 94’s earlier in this time frame?