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Post by Svadilfari on Feb 14, 2011 2:13:36 GMT
I'm very much a newbie as far as japanese blades are concerned, so please excuse any miss-spelling or misnaming. I've got a couple of questions regarding 20th Cent Japanese military blades. I know the "govt-issue", factory-made blades have a poor reputation as regards comparing them with "real"samurai-era blades made by master swordsmiths, but thats not what my questions are about. Given that WW2 in the Pacific theatre was the probably the last war where swords were used in a serious manner, I've not seen much *serious* discussion on the swords use in combat. I suspect, as sword enthusiasts, we'd be interested in knowing, from pretty well first hand folks just *how* swords were *really used* in a combat situation. I know we've all probably heard the "japanese sword cutting through macine gun barrel" urban myth, but what other well documented instances of sword use are around? By documented I mean written down in official action reports, not anecdotal tales that can't be proved ?
I've a couple of further questions
Did WW2 era officers and nco's recieve any formal sword training as part of their military training ?
Does anyone know how early 20th C-WW2 era factory made blades stack up against today's factory made blades?
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Post by Student of Sword on Feb 14, 2011 4:16:19 GMT
I am too interested in the comparison between gunto and today's low-end swords. My bet is that today sub-$300 sword can easily out-performed mass produced gunto. The following is taken from Kenshinkan website concerning Nakamura Sensei's experience during World War II: Reference: www.webdiva4hire.com/kenshinkan/ ... irs01.html Now, I have seen some terrible cuts on Youtube by backyard cutters using Hanwei Raptor and DF Musha, and none of them ever took a set. Concerning actual use of sword during World War II, we know the outcomes of Bonzai Charge (edid: corrected spelling Banzai); they all died. Swords versus machine guns, machine guns won every time.
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Post by MEversbergII on Feb 14, 2011 4:33:10 GMT
Use? Well, in Nanking (and other places) they used it to cut up civilians...and it was also a disciplinary tool (heard its not uncommon for the NCO to strike "FNG's" with the flat). It also features in Banzai charges and to execute prisoners. Also, I'm sure it got used as a machete by more pragmatic NCO's. In combat, it is a weapon of last resort, after your (crappy) pistol has been discharged. On the offensive, it might have its use once the assault has been committed. As for training, officers and NCOs were given to instructors, where they learned iaijutsu. In particular, it was iai in the form of the Toyama military academy, also called "Toyama-Ryu". It was a simplified system of iai that dispensed with anything but the most basic cuts and parries from a standing position. Traditional iai includes a lot of stuff that doesn't have any combat bearing, so they nixed that to make it faster to teach. I know they emphasized actual cutting of straw targets (not always tatami), probably to train aggression in their officers and NCOs in the same vein of the modern bayonet assault course. You can find out more on here: Toyama Ryu website and Toyama Ryu on Wikipedia. Its not a full on system, and I liken it to the simple sabre systems taught to the 19th and early 20th century military officers. I'm pretty sure a bulk of the practical training is counter-bayonet, but I have no proof to back this. As for quality, pre war and early war blades were good steel, probably on par with most production sword models. There was likely some variance, however, depending on where a given factory sourced their stock. As the war progressed and resources ran low, the quality of the blades sank until they were pretty shoddy. I've heard from collectors that late war blades are frequently either brittle or tend to bend - two ends of the spectrum typically best avoided in a weapon. Hope this helps! M. EDIT: Student got to you while I was typing; if I repeat anything I apologize.
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Post by Vincent Dolan on Feb 14, 2011 4:37:10 GMT
I'd say that's a pretty interesting indication at the quality of the Type 98 of the day, Student. But could a Hanwei Raptor or DF Musha really be called "low-end?" I don't know about the Mushas, but everything I've read about the Raptors is that they're designed not to take a set. Wouldn't it be more accurate to compare them instead to the 50$ Musashi offerings (which I believe are drop forged, much like what I imagine a mass-produced factory made gunto would have been)?
Regarding banzai charges, weren't they suicidal rushes, anyways? I thought the idea was to get killed so as to die in combat rather than being taken prisoner, or am I just reading too much into things? However, you are correct: swords vs. machine guns, machine gun wins almost every time.
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Post by Student of Sword on Feb 14, 2011 4:49:19 GMT
Vincent, you are correct. I misspelled. Anyway, gunto varied greatly. But we are talking about mass produced gunto, primarily the NCO types as well as gunto for lower ranking officer. Field grade officers generally had good swords, many family heirloom blades with gunto mounts.
The except I cited above refers specifically to officers. I believe (and I maybe wrong) that the officer swords were forged using munition steel in billet. They were oil quenched. Drop forging were NCO's gunto. If the officers' swords bent so easily, my guess is that the NCO types are even of worse quality.
I think the officer gunto can be compared to Hanwei Raptor and the NCO can be compared to Musha/Musashi.
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Post by masahiro560 on Feb 14, 2011 4:53:26 GMT
From what I've heard from my uncle
The swords are effective at beheading He had watched alot of beheadings by japanese with their gunto on the beach near where my grandparent's house used to be
At least... as far as I know, Gunto are effective at cutting off limbs
^^
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Post by Vincent Dolan on Feb 14, 2011 5:17:45 GMT
That's true. Another thing we also have to consider is the metallurgical advances we've made in the last 70 years. By all accounts I've read, 5160 steel (which the Raptors are made out of) is like a tank, whereas the excerpt speaks of 6 swords taking a set. I think that, in addition to poor form (as it mentions, the difference between a shinai and a shinken is vast; the weight, balance, and grip are all vastly different), the steel was very poor.
Historically, Japan has had poor quality steel, so perhaps the mass produced gunto had poor steel, poor heat treatments, and other such imperfections that would cause it to bend against a medium target when added to the poor form of what seems to be a first time holding a real sword, let alone cutting. It's also possible that they were only made to the bare minimum, which wouldn't result in a very strong sword. It'd probably increase the factory's productivity several fold if they could just stamp out the blades, give 'em a quick heat treat, and toss 'em in the barrel to ship out. That's just my two cents, though.
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Post by Student of Sword on Feb 14, 2011 5:29:26 GMT
My bet is that if you take those gunto and perform a metallurgical analysis, you will find high impurities. You will probably find that carbon distribution was poor and uneven. I seriously doubt the steel in Japan back then meet today ISO 9000 standard. Beside, the steel for swords were probably of lesser quality to other steel they had. They probably reserve high quality steel for airplanes, torpedoes, and other more important war machinery.
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Post by Vincent Dolan on Feb 14, 2011 5:44:18 GMT
More than likely. I think the Type 98 would have been the Japanese equivalent to the US combat knife: an important tool, but second string compared to everything else and not worth the extra time and effort. Plus, one of the main benefits of folding was that it distributed the carbon evenly along the entire blade, so how well could the carbon distribution really be on a drop forged blade from the '40s? My guess is they were a step above SLOs today, but only a moderate step, so, yeah, Musha/Musashi would probably be one of the best analogies we have.
In short, the metallurgy was probably very inferior to even modern day low-end swords, so they would have performed their job, just not as well as the higher end blades of the day.
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Post by Student of Sword on Feb 14, 2011 6:00:02 GMT
With the focus on swords in this forum, people forgot that Japanese infantry doctrine (i.e. squad tactic) focused on the light machine gun. All the soldiers on the squad are there to protect and assist the machine gunner. A factory manager wouldn't get in trouble if he produce poor quality swords, he would get in trouble if he produced poor quality machine gun.
There is only one rare instance where Japanese official doctrine called for blade weapons. Said blade weapons were not swords but bayonet. The only instance when it was used was "night infiltration" against an up hill position. The Japanese would tapped white fabric onto the back of their hats or helmets for identification. They would smear mud all over their attached bayonet. They would then craw uphill using the elevation as the guide toward their objective. Even if they were discovered and fired upon, they would not return fire. This is because due the elevation of the hill, the firing usually went over their heads. Furthermore restraining from returning fire meaning that they would not reveal their location. They would then charge with bayonets at the last stretch. It worked real well.
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Post by Vincent Dolan on Feb 14, 2011 6:16:45 GMT
True, true. I imagine it would have been the same for cavalry sabers in Britain or France. After all, the sword by then was almost entirely obsolete, so there wasn't as great a need to ensure that they were up to par like they used to, whereas, if the guns were poor quality, the manufacturer would be in a lot of trouble since that would have been the difference between life and death just about every time.
Those are some impressive tactics and it would take a lot of courage not to return fire when you're being fired upon, even if you know it's going to miss. I expect the mud was used for a similar reason to the black coating on "tactical" knives today? To reduce the gleam of steel?
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Post by MEversbergII on Feb 14, 2011 7:49:58 GMT
That and the black coating guards against rust.
Somewhat surprised that the steel was bad enough to cause them to bend on the officer grade ones; I read they were traditionally made, so I assumed it tried to keep quality high. I've certainly learned something today.
As for the bayonet bit, jukenjutsu was an important drill. From what I've read though, not returning fire was probably less about courage than about fear of one's officers. Their punishments were brutal to say the least. Also willing to bet they were required to surrender their ammo before said mission...
M.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2011 20:28:57 GMT
From my limited understanding, swords/katana were really the last resort and for close quarter combat. I believe the spears were much more effective weapon when charging, and bow/arrows were effective for long range.
As far as Guntos go, unfortunately, their use in Pacific Theatre were not so "honorable" compared to the philosophies in Hagakure (although the hagakure was really a romantacized notion of how a Samurai should behave).
The Guntos were often used to cut the heads, limbs, and other body parts off of live civilian targets of China and Korea. Many of the Japanese Imperial officers tested it on civilians in China and Korea during Japan's occupation of those countries...
Rape of Nanking really comes to mind regarding their use. There are quite a few photos of Chinese people beheaded with those weapons and their heads stacked in a mound... Really attrocious, but should serve to educate the future generation that such acts are and should be deemed as cruel and inhumane...
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