12.7 MM Japanese

[jvollenberg]

OK ... I don't think I have seen anything about this topic.

Does anyone have 12.7MM Projectiles / Cartridges they can show? I have been reading through the technical reports (Indian reports posted on here) on these rounds. I am also going to be doing a EOD publication on these rounds.

The technical report does a nice job of explaining the differences and showing black and white images of them, but I would like some color pictures if anyone has them they are willing to post.

Joe

 

[ogreve]

Sure, here are some APTs I have: http://www.japaneseammunition.com/start.php?main_cat=13&sub_cat=133

(make sure to scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the two links for details and pictures).

I have more types incoming, like the HE kind with two piece fuze and the fuzeless HE, but I don't have any pictures handy.

If you want, you can e-mail me at: ogreve@japaneseammunition.com and I can send you some more pictures when I come across them.

Also: Ken Elks shows a good selection in his fine work on Japanese Ammunition (listed in part 1).

Cheers,
Olafo

 

[Dronic69]

Hi Joe,

Here's a couple of pics of the 12.7mm case with a Tracer and two-part HE fuse.

(I'm not sure if it is just a "tracer" or "APT" projectile - there's is a tracer fill hole in the base, but the mouth seal has long gone -perhaps Olafo or Robert may comment here?)

The HE has both a Tokyo arsenal kanji and stamp (star) and is dated, "showa 18" (1943).


Olafo,
Top website - keep up the great work!


Cheers
Drew

 

[ogreve]

Hi Drew,

Thanks for the nice comments!
Lots of stuff is still lined up to be added, but I need to find the time to properly photograph it. I did (yesterday) post three overview pics in my gallery as an interim measure.

Regarding the APT vs. Tracer: this issue was at hand by mail between me and a US collector. Ken Elks' great book shows a big steel core in the APT one; I tried using a magnet on my APTs and it attracts very strongly to it. No guarantee here, but from a tracer I would expect no presence of such a core, or certainly not such a big one...

Cheers,
Olafo

 

[BOUGAINVILLE]

Hi all,

Here is a photo of my link of 12.7mm x 81mm SR ammunition. This was taken from a downed Zero near Darwn during WWII.

I have included diagrams of the projectiles and the colour codes. Both of these diagrams originated from the website www.ammunitionpages.com .

Cheers,
BOUGAINVILLE

 

[ogreve]

Hey Robert,

Nice pictures!
You're doing very well to have 6 links; it has cost me quite some effort to obtain only two. It's actually a BIG mystery to me why there are so few links around; one would think that every now and then a downed aircraft still emerges, and that with some luck (i.e. preservation conditions!) it could be source of hundreds of belt links, yet one rarely sees them...
If anyone has some belt links available for any Japanese calibre, I'd be very interested (particularly the 20x124 and 40x158R calibres, of which I don't have a single link yet).

As for the alleged tracer rounds: Ken writes that they are very rare. Also, he lists green mouth seal for the Tracer and green-white for the APT one with white trace. Both allegedly have a weight of 546 grains. Don S. from the USA sent me pictures of a round he believed to possibly be the tracer, as it seemed to only have green mouth seal. Yet, it was very strongly attracted to a magnet. If one looks closely it seemed that the projectile had at one point in time been taken out of the casing. It seems that the white lacquer had crumbled off, and that it really is an APT one.

The above has led me to suspect that perhaps there isn't a true tracer in existence, but I'd love to be proven wrong on that one. Does anyone actually own a confirmed pure tracer round, or does anyone have definite proof of the existence of a pure tracer (from official Japanese documents or so)?
Ken must have gotten his data from somewhere; I hope it wasn't from Don's specimen!
Jeff, perhaps???

Cheers!
Olafo

 

[Dronic69]

As for the alleged tracer rounds: Ken writes that they are very rare. Also, he lists green mouth seal for the Tracer and green-white for the APT one with white trace. Both allegedly have a weight of 546 grains. Don S. from the USA sent me pictures of a round he believed to possibly be the tracer, as it seemed to only have green mouth seal. Yet, it was very strongly attracted to a magnet. If one looks closely it seemed that the projectile had at one point in time been taken out of the casing. It seems that the white lacquer had crumbled off, and that it really is an APT one.
Cheers!
Olafo

Hi Olafo,

I weighed my Tracer projectile - comes up at 534 grains (533.9).
Although empty, I would not have thought it would have had ~12 grains of tracer element in it? Do you have any filling statistics?
[***Or perhaps it is just a Tracer and hence lighter than the APT, which would have more steel core and heavier???]

The 2-part empty HE projectile weighs in at 530 grains (529.7).

Both the Tracer(?) and the HE have the same weak magnetic attraction.

Robert,
Superb 12.7mm belt your putting together there!


Cheers
Drew

BTW - So is the alleged "Tracer" round scarcer that the APT? Or both are rare rounds???

 

[Slick]

Sorry I took so long to post these. I've been "predisposed". Anyway, here are some that are heading to a well known collection. I'll let the pros jump in on the details. I did notice there was an arsenal stamp on the bottom of the fuzed projectile.

Rick

PS for B'ville: the prop for the projectile nose and base shots is a removed fuze. Nice, huh?

 

[Dronic69]

Hi Rick,

Nice rounds! I'm sure the "receiver" will be happy with them!

Just checked and both of my fused HEs also have stamps.

Cheers
Drew

 

[ogreve]

Hi Drew,

Roger that; the 'receiver' is very happy with them.

Regarding your last question in the other post: the APT ones seem to be the most common ones; Ken lists the tracer kind as being 'very rare'. I wonder what the very base of your projo looks like; perhaps the size of the tracer hole differs from that of the APT ones. Can you take a picture of that?

Cheers,
Olafo

 

[Dronic69]

Hi Olafo,

As requested, here are the base shots of both the "Tracer" and the HE base acceptance stamp (from memory?)

The first shot of the Tracer you can see the top of the core base inside the tracer hole - the tracer hole diameter is 3mm.

Cheers
Drew