Short Development History of Type 95 Gunto

[Nick Komiya]

Prototypes 5 to 8 (1929-1935)
In the 5th round of prototyping, the cavalry made a complete about-face and insisted on a proper handguard, which sent things back to square one, a different version for the two services. So separate designs were again presented in a 6th round in March 1931. And in February 1932, the 7th generation prototype was presented for final approval within the army.

By this 7th prototype design, combat experience in the Manchurian Incident made it clear that the Type 32 sword was totally ineffective against an enemy clad in heavy winter uniforms, which just caused blades to bounce back. So a sharper sword that allowed a two-handed grip for a heavier blow quickly became the practical choice in combat. This was the main cause for the revival of the Samurai sword design for Guntos.

But by this time, the redesign of the officer’s sword was already in progress, so the NCO version was put on hold to await the outcome of the revamping of the officer’s version, which took over the Samurai sword theme.

The new officer’s sword was introduced in February of 1934 and work on the NCO version was resumed with an eye to ensure harmony with the new Samurai style swords for the officers.

The 8th prototype thus sought to bring in elements from the officer’s design, but yet another practical problem arose at this time. They had huge inventories of the type 32 sword that was about to become obsolete. Therefore, along with the new prototype, the designers made a modified version of the type 32, which made use of old parts. Surprisingly, the Toyama School even favored the modified type 32 over the "done from scratch" prototype.

In the end, the modified type 32 went through another round of minor changes and was presented for final type approval in September 1935 as the Provisional Type 95.

I have omitted all the detailed requests for changes and implemented changes in between each prototype, but the story above shows you there is a lot more than meets the eye in the type 95 sword.

The sword captioned "improved version" in the photo below is the modified Type 32.

[Alan M]

Brilliant work , thank you Nick .

[Nick Komiya]

The Type Approval Application document also explained that it was clearly impossible to improve the sharpness of the blade through the old filing method used on the Type 32. So since 1929, they had been testing machine polishing.

And the reverse outcome of dulling the blade as well as rust-proofing was hoped to be achieved by chrome-plating the sharpened blade and thus sheathing the edge in a layer of chrome, which they had been trying since 1932.

This dulling by chrome-plating was meant to be a reversible process, in which the blade was supposed to be returned to a sharp state by removing the plating at the edge at times of war. However, this plan of killing two birds with one stone (rust-proofing and dulling/sharpening) was not successful in the end.

Thus the final decision taken was to switch to hand-polishing for sharpening and stock up these hand-polished "wartime spec" swords to keep them exchangeable with the dulled "peacetime swords" issued.

That was the concept, but there were probably only a maximum of about 2 years between 1935 and 1937 of peacetime spec issues and otherwise it must have ended up constantly being produced in war specs only from that time.

[Nick Komiya]

Here are the Type 95 pages from a 1944 manual on how to conduct serviceability inspections on various army weapons.

[Nick Komiya]

Some more freebies for Type 95 fans. Knot fixing method changes.

[Nick Komiya]

Some spec changes discussed in Stu W's thread on Type 95 Spec Variations can be dated as follows based on documentation of those changea.

1.The Type 95 first appeared with copper tsuka (handle) and thick (11 mm) brass tsuba (hand guard).

2. On 5th July 1938, the grip was changed to aluminum and at the same time the thickness of the hand guard was reduced to 9 mm for weight reduction. From this change a Mekugi screw was also added through the grip to better fuse the blade into the grip. The Sarute (ring at end of grip) was changed to steel from a leather strap.

Since the outbreak of the China Incident in July 1937, copper and brass needed to be saved wherever possible, but luckily Japan had a comparatively generous supply of aluminum, so copper was replaced with aluminum throughout industrial production at this time. All copper coins were exchanged with aluminum ones and even the China Incident War Medal was considered for production in aluminum before settling on recycling old bronze coins.

Stu W's article describes the second model as having an aluminum grip and continuing to have a 11 mm thick Tsuba, but the Tsuba design was definitely switched to 9 mm thickness at the same time as gaining aluminum grips.

The only possible and likely reconciliation is that mixing of old and new specs occurred to use up remaining stock of old Tsubas and Seppas.

3. On 24th June 1939, the tape wrap pattern for the grip was changed, so both sides had identical patterns and was easier to ensure a tight fit of the fuchi to the lower end of the grip.

4. On 30th November 1939, material changes were introduced to internal wooden parts, etc , but they were changes that did not affect the appearance.

5. On 23rd April 1941, the Tsuba was changed to omit the slot for attachment of the leather knot

Stu W's thread on the Type 95 further mentions iron tsuba adoption in mid 1941 and wooden grips in late war, but I have not been able to find any documents discussing these changes, so exact timing of those changes remains unknown to me.

[Larry C]

I have no other descriptive word but to say " Exhaustive "

Well done Nick

Regards Larry

[Bruce Pennington]

This information is very important to us WWII gunto collectors! Thank you Nick!

[Nick Komiya]

For those interested in the correlation of production date and introduction of spec switchovers, here is the spreadsheet for the 15 items changed on the Type 95 Sword from 5th July 1938. The changes are rated by urgency. The only item with urgency level A is that the blades are no longer to be subjected to peacetime dulling down to increase the life of the blade. All other changes seem to allow using up of old stock allowing for a transition period.

Slight correction, in checking the handwritten draft preceding this chart, it appears the urgency rating was rather addressing how to deal with retroactive updating of existing product in the field. "A" was for immediate action, and the other items were slated for parts updates to be applied when brought in for repairs.

[Nick Komiya]

Further on details of interest to collectors, I understood from Stu W's article that there were unknown markings. Production statistics information often help in clarifying such points, so I show you an excerpt of production capacity projections for March and September 1942. You will see a supplier called Mizuno , who is not included in Stu W's thread. They only produced for a few months in 1942 before getting sacked. They had a logo consisting of the character 水 in a hexagon.

Also of note is the switching in arsenal jurisdictions that occurred in Sept. 1942, which would have changed markings, too.