Hi,
Recently I have seen some casings being offered in Japan that are (by the sellers!) associated with Japan. They have Western dates lying around 1901 and I cannot see any Japanese markings on them. I know that at least some foreign manufacture took place for Japan by at least EOC (mainly Navy, but also at least one type of Army fuze) and Berndorf (Austria), seen on a 1904 Army casing, the latter two items were provided with proper Japanese Meiji dates.
I'm trying to figure out when Japan started their own manufacture, and from which countries they used contract ammunition.
The oldest true Japanese manufacture headstamp I have (Osaka) is on a 75x104R casing that was manufactured in September 1904.
The shown casings are old enough to possibly have been manufactured for Japan, but... the dimensions of at least one of them lead me to believe they may simply be Russian all the way.
The taller of the shown two specimens is said to have a calibre of 75mm and a length of 385 mm. Sounds familiar, eh? Right, it matches the highly ubiquitous 76.2x385R Russian calibre, which was used in large volumes in the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese war...
The shorter one has a alleged calibre of 82mm and a length of 108mm... It looks like it might be a shortened version of another 76.2x385R casing...
Does anyone perhaps recognise the headstamps?
Cheers,
Olafo
Recently I have seen some casings being offered in Japan that are (by the sellers!) associated with Japan. They have Western dates lying around 1901 and I cannot see any Japanese markings on them. I know that at least some foreign manufacture took place for Japan by at least EOC (mainly Navy, but also at least one type of Army fuze) and Berndorf (Austria), seen on a 1904 Army casing, the latter two items were provided with proper Japanese Meiji dates.
I'm trying to figure out when Japan started their own manufacture, and from which countries they used contract ammunition.
The oldest true Japanese manufacture headstamp I have (Osaka) is on a 75x104R casing that was manufactured in September 1904.
The shown casings are old enough to possibly have been manufactured for Japan, but... the dimensions of at least one of them lead me to believe they may simply be Russian all the way.
The taller of the shown two specimens is said to have a calibre of 75mm and a length of 385 mm. Sounds familiar, eh? Right, it matches the highly ubiquitous 76.2x385R Russian calibre, which was used in large volumes in the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese war...
The shorter one has a alleged calibre of 82mm and a length of 108mm... It looks like it might be a shortened version of another 76.2x385R casing...
Does anyone perhaps recognise the headstamps?
Cheers,
Olafo