Anyone read Kanji?

[CharlieC]

Thank you both - your comments clear up a question I had about how the transition between emperors was handled. So the Type 38 at Vladivostok was built in 1912.

Was Osaka the only artillery manufacturing centre in Japan?

Regards,

Charlie

[Yu Gyokubun]

Charlie,
You are most welcome. This is a good opportunity for me to learn terminologies of ordnance with the help of you and Don-sama.
I learned Army Arsenal Department (陸軍造兵廠）was one of organizations belonged to Imperial Japanese Army and was under direct control of Ministry of Army.
They had four工廠 in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and Kokura, and two兵器製造所 (arm shop), which manufactured rifles and equipment for cannon, and one 火工廠 (火means fire), which manufactured gun powder and bombshell.
According to another Wikipedia Osaka 工廠 was the largest and had most advanced technologies among four工廠
工廠’s names are;
陸軍造兵廠東京(Tokyo)工廠
陸軍造兵廠名古屋(Nagoya)工廠
陸軍造兵廠大阪(Osaka)工廠
陸軍造兵廠小倉(Kokura)工廠

[Don Boose]

You did a good thing by starting this thread, Charlie! The images of the ordnance and your and Yu-sama's inputs provide some really good references. The questions and images stimulate me to exercise my rusty Japanese and to learn more about Meiji, Taisho, and Showa military equipment.

Just for fun (and because the Hokusai woodblock print of the giant wave off Kanagawa has been the subejct of another thread in the Forum) I am posting a couple of images of my Japanese military terminology notebook.

Don

[Yu Gyokubun]

Don sama,
You are a good calligrapher in writing Japanese kanji
Neat and clear. Much better than mine.
As a young girl my wife practiced calligraphy. When she saw my writing for the first time she rolled her eyes and said my writing is not only childish but illegible.

[CharlieC]

After a long delay I've finally written the article on Japanese gun markings.
It's on Landships II ( Landships II).

Comments and criticisms welcome.

Regards,

Charlie

[Don Boose]

It's a great pleasure to see this project come to fruition, Charlie!

The page looks great visually, and the information is very useful.

Congratulations on completing another excellent work of military history scholarship.

Thanks for the acknowledgement. I am honored to have made a small contribution and to be linked with you and Master Yu in this work.

By coincidence, I am just now in the process of transmitting my part of the Ashgate Research Companion to the Korean War to the publisher, finishing up my own bit of military history scholarship.

Don

[Isaac]

Yu san and I met in Hanoi today. Went to the Air force museum and the military museum. Amazingly we found the same type of mountain gun. This one had a blast shield. I took lots of pictures with my camera, but I can't download till I get home in two weeks or so.

It was great to meet Yu san in all places Vietnam.

Yu san , best of luck, build some more models and see you in Tokyo next year

Domo arigato gosaimasu for meeting me today.


Isaac

[Yu Gyokubun]

Isaac san,
You made my day.
I learned something new today thanks to your detailed explanation about aircraft, tank, artillery and so on. It will be of great help to me in building those models in the near future.
I too hope to see you in Tokyo next year.
Have a nice trip in Vietnam
Yu

[Don Boose]

Very neat that the two of you could meet. I wish I could meet both of you some day in Japan or in Vietnam.

I hope very much to see Yu-sama's model building showing up here in the Foruma again, and I look forward to the images of the artillery piece that caused Charlie to begin this thread.

(Charlie, I hope to get over to the MHI Archives by the end of the week or early next week at the latest to finally get the images from the Mark VII SPG manual that I promised months [or was it years] ago.)

Don

[Isaac]

Here are the photos of the gun taken at the Hanoi military museum.

Just got back from a long trip to Vietnam and great museum hopping day with Yu san





Yu san pointing to the Kanji tag






This vintage gun was used against the French









I will open a new thread with photos I took at that museum as well as the bigger Air Force museum.




Isaac