Japanese Type 1 Rheinmetall 37mm ammo

[genkideskan]

I have an article about Rheinmetal AA guns delivered and tested in Japan.
Might be the normal 37mm Flak 18 ammo. To that some 20mm could be seen at the photo.
Is there any japanese headstamped or marked 37mm or 20mm ammo known in collections?
Any idea what the shorter 20mm are?




.

 

[ogreve]

Hi,

I've never seen Japanese versions of the German 37x263B cases, and none of my sources makes any mention of it. I'm assuming these one are German, or else they'd be about the rarest Japanese items in existence.
The Japanese did copy the 37x250R PaK 36 calibre, and they called it the "Ra type" (stemming from the word 'rainmetaru', their phonetic pronunciation of the word 'Rheinmetall'). This is a rather uncommon calibre, but I do know of at least two collectors who have them in their collections.

As for the 2cm FlaK ones: alledgedly these were once manufactured in Japan too; rare as hell, the only two samples of it that I'm aware of are located in the Woodin collection. Two types are in that collection, both of them sectioned, and both came from Japan after WW2. These types are an HE one and an AP one. They have no projectile nor case markings. It is not 100% certain that these were indeed manufactured in Japan...

The above mentioned "Ra type" ammo as well as the two sectioned 2cm FlaK rounds can be seen in Ken Elks' excellent 2nd part on Japanese ammo.

As for the smaller 2cm rounds that are shown in the picture: these look kinda 20x110 HS-404 like, but that wouldn't make sense if they're German.... Any chance of seeing a bigger picture?

Cheers,
Olafo

 

[TonyE]

Japanese ammo

Could the shorter 20mm be Short Solothurn, either the normal 20x105B or the more unusual 20x 105?

Regards
TonyE

 

[Slick]

Hi,

I've never seen Japanese versions of the German 37x263B cases, and none of my sources makes any mention of it. I'm assuming these one are German, or else they'd be about the rarest Japanese items in existence.
The Japanese did copy the 37x250R PaK 36 calibre, and they called it the "Ra type" (stemming from the word 'rainmetaru', their phonetic pronunciation of the word 'Rheinmetall'). This is a rather uncommon calibre, but I do know of at least two collectors who have them in their collections.

As for the 2cm FlaK ones: alledgedly these were once manufactured in Japan too; rare as hell, the only two samples of it that I'm aware of are located in the Woodin collection. Two types are in that collection, both of them sectioned, and both came from Japan after WW2. These types are an HE one and an AP one. They have no projectile nor case markings. It is not 100% certain that these were indeed manufactured in Japan...

The above mentioned "Ra type" ammo as well as the two sectioned 2cm FlaK rounds can be seen in Ken Elks' excellent 2nd part on Japanese ammo.

As for the smaller 2cm rounds that are shown in the picture: these look kinda 20x110 HS-404 like, but that wouldn't make sense if they're German.... Any chance of seeing a bigger picture?

Cheers,
Olafo

Somebody here needs to consider writing(or co-writing: B'ville, Ozzie, hint hint) a book.:deal: These type clarifications are priceless.

Rick

 

[genkideskan]

Thanks a lot for the reply.
Iam sorry its an article about the gun - only this small pic about the ammo.
Ive seen the 37 x 250R in the old Carlisle collection, but wonder about these Flak rounds.

 

[EOD]

These here were delivered by Rheinmetall to Japan in small quantities - this is German ammunition. Late in 1944 the production blue prints also went to Japan but way too late to start local production.

 

[Hoeksel]

I was recently lucky enough to find a Japanese 37 mm Ra case and a FLAK18 Chinese export case!! I knew the Chinese export case existed, I never heard of the Japanese "PAK36" untill I had it ;-).

It seems that as long as you don't live in Australia or the USA Japanese ammo is hard to find, at least here in The Netherlands.

 

[genkideskan]

But the dutch has had some fights with the japanese army. There must be still a lot of stuff in the Indies or bringbacks from KNIL soldiers?

 

[ogreve]

Hi,

A further addition I forgot to mention yesterday, and which is of importance to correct the erroneous title of this thread:
The Japanese had actually TWO types of 37x250R ammunition; often the lengths of these are misquoted as being 251mm, 252mm or 254mm. In fact, they are both 250mm.

The cases are highly similar, yet there are small differences:
-The type 1 37x250R is for a tank gun and for an AT gun. The case has a more pronounced neck as the Ra type 37x250R. This case features a large primer. I have one incoming from the USA.
-The Ra type 37x250R is (as mentioned previously) the one based on the Rheinmetall design. This one has a much smaller primer, and much less of a neck.

Both type cases have pure IJA headstamps. Those seen by me were manufactured at Osaka. Also, both types of cases used a standard 37mm HE projectile, or a non-standard (slightly shorter than normal) APHE projectile.

Both types are well documented in Ken Elks' book, however, for some reason Ken omitted headstamp pictures of the primers.

Attached to this post are pictures of my 37x250R Type 1 casing (first two pictures) and Hoeksel's 37x250R Ra type casing (pictured along with the 'Chinese' 37x263B casing he mentioned). Note the differences in the necks and primers.

Regarding the assumption that there'd be many KNIL bring backs of Jap ammo: you'd be dissappointed. Japanese ammo is seen very little over here; so little, in fact, that I acquire about 90% of my stuff from Australia and the USA. The few items that can be had over here are typically repeated items of two of the major Dutch sellers. Surely you guys know who they are.

Cheers,
Olafo

 

[SG500]

Nice cases Olaf, must be difficult to find.

Dave.

 

[saintlo990]

This is a really good job on explaining the 37mm Type 1 vs the RA ammunition. The Japanese did not issue type numbers to foreign made weapons unless they had made major modifications and produced it. The RA (PAk 35/36) was originally the Rheinmetal TAK L/50 sold to China. and the Germans made contract ammo for China. The guns and ammo were captured by the Japanese. The Japanese loaded a large quantity of German fired cases with their type 94 AP projectiles for testing . They made an intelligence report on it. There was probably more reloaded German cases than Japanese cases so it is very rare. The Chinese communist PLA took over the guns in 1949 and issued them. They also made up a 4 group arsenal wall poster showing all the parts and the ammuniiton. The AP looks the same as the Japanese or German, but the HE is definately a different shape and fuse. I have not been able to find out how long the gun was in PLA use but hope to have more info from China soon. Anyone who relys on the wartime U.S. intell .reports had better check it very carefully. The CBI reports have much less guesses and conjecture.

 

[US-Subs]

What are you referring to by the CBI reports?

While you are correct that many/most of the WWII reports are notoriously inaccurate, there was some good work done. The Navy MEIU Reports were very good, resulting in the progression of the MEIU manual on Japanese Explosive Ordnance and its Supplement, which eventually evolved into OPNAV 30-3M. Much of their accuracy comes from the use of photos instead of line drawings, and sending EOD teams into the areas specifically in search of data. The EOD "Black Books" of the time were also reasonably good, and the TM E9-1901, Identification Japanese Shells and Shell Fragments is pretty good, if limited in scope. Likewise the British Ammunition Leaflets were also very good, but limited to what was seen at Kirkee, India, primarily items coming from Burma. The problem was that nobody was in China but the Russians (then at the very end), and with minor exceptions little information was available on what was used in the theater until we started capturing it in Korea in the early 1950s. Ordnance is still being uncovered in the north of China that we still are not sure whether it is Japanese, Chinese or Russian.

Much of the Chinese info is doubtful as well, they did little to preserve the history of much of the ordnance and its use. It was not a priority at the time and with the difficulties immediately after WWII and through Korea they had other things to concentrate on. I've spoken on the ground with recovery teams, national experts and museum personnel, none were confident with the historical data, it was just too poorly recorded and not consistent with what was found in recoveries at the sites.