[ Type 94 Japanese 37mm Anti-tank Gun ]
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I am here today on Guadalcanal
courtesy of War Historian Battlefield Expeditions.
And we have a chance to take a look at a Japanese Type 94 anti-tank gun.
This is one of those artillery pieces
that doesn't show up in a lot of places, especially not in the United States.
But these were used in pretty decent numbers here on Guadalcanal.
And so we have one that's in not really that bad a condition given its age and what it went through.
So this is a 37mm semi-automatic anti-tank gun.
And what "semi-automatic" means for a weapon like this
is that when you fire it the whole ... action is going to reciprocate backwards.
You can see there's actually a hydraulic cylinder here that's going to act as a buffer
basically to prevent it from slamming back too fast.
So that controls the recoil of the gun. The action recoils backward
and when it's fully rearward, the breech block automatically opens and ejects the now empty case.
Then the action reciprocates forward, the breech stays open,
ready to load a new ... shell and manually close the breech.
That's not how "semi-automatic" works in say a rifle or a pistol,
but that is the idea of semi-automatic in a small cannon like this.
So it's a 37mm semi-automatic gun.
This was developed in 1934, first adopted in '34, when the Japanese realised,
"You know, military technology's kind of getting a little bit ahead of us here.
We need some sort of anti-tank gun."
And the utility of these guns bounced around between a couple of different opponents
that the Japanese were concerned about. One of them of course was China.
Japan has been militarily active in China since before 1934,
but the Chinese don't really have many tanks.
Some of the warlords in China actually do have some armoured vehicles,
but it's really not a big threat to the Japanese Army.
Instead it's a potential conflict with Russia that they're more concerned about,
and having some weapon to take on Russian tanks.
But this will go back and forth, depending on what's ... considered a more significant threat.
The gun was developed with both armour piercing and high explosive ammunition.
So with the high explosive ammunition this tended to see a role as an infantry support gun.
It's relatively small and light, the whole thing weighs about 700 pounds.
It can be disassembled, it can be carried by a reasonably small crew.
The wheels come off, guys carry the wheels, someone carries the shield.
Someone carries the barrel, that's the one that sucks to get stuck with.
Anyway, it disassembles for transport by a crew,
or you could pack it onto something like a horse, or ideally if you had it, a truck.
What you'll see on here are pressed steel wheels, that was a later upgrade.
The guns were initially developed with just plain wooden spoked wheels,
but of course those don't last all that long, especially in jungle environments.
Which not so much in China, but when they see use in the Pacific, that's a lot of jungle islands.
Steel wheels are much more durable over the long term.
In use, the gunner would actually sit right over there on that trail.
He has an elevation and a traverse wheel, so this is his elevation wheel right here.
The traverse wheel (if you come in here) is kind of hidden behind the wheel of the gun.
That's the traverse, that's the elevation.
And you fire the thing by actually pulling backwards on the elevation dial.
So basic gunner's controls there, the loader is going to sit on this side.
The breech block is going to slide open when the gun reciprocates.
The loader will then throw another shell in.
You've got this shield here to prevent the gunner from getting his arm
in the way of the reciprocating action, because that'll hurt quite a lot.
That's a common feature you'll see on a lot of small anti-tank guns like this.
These were manufactured all the way through 1944.
The Japanese put some effort into developing newer and better
anti-tank guns, but nothing really went into production.
So these were originally produced at the Osaka Arsenal,
which was one of Japan's main artillery arsenals.
This was deemed important enough that it was also actually produced at the Nagoya Arsenal,
so two different production facilities.
A grand total of something like 3,500 of these were manufactured.
Now here on Guadalcanal there were actually some American tanks, there were Stuart light tanks.
And this could have had a chance to defeat a [Stuart].
... The armour-piercing rounds for this will go through something like
25mm of armour at about 250 metres.
So in the European theatre this would have been totally outclassed.
This probably isn't something that would be very effective against a Sherman,
but the American light tanks were potentially vulnerable to these guns.
And then of course with high explosive rounds, these ...
probably saw more use here on Guadalcanal as an infantry support weapon.
The US had Stuarts here, but not very many of them.
Aiming for the gun I should add, was done with a little 8x power optical scope
that ... pokes through this hole in the shield, mounts on here.
And that's how the gunner sighted the thing, and of course the optic is missing on this one.
This gun, I think, has lived its entire life for the last 80+ years out in the open.
So we're actually I think pretty lucky that it is as intact as it is.
And it's interesting to me to get a feel for just how compact this thing is.
... Most of the artillery on this island would be very difficult to navigate
through the jungle trails that you'd have had to traverse.
And this, you could actually do that with.
So, very cool to get a chance to see something like this
that we just don't see in the United States very often,
because not many of these came back as souvenirs.
Not a lot of GIs packing these things into their sea trunks.
Anyway, hopefully you guys enjoyed the video.
Thanks for watching.