Japanese Type 92 105mm Field Gun (Guadalcanal)
Artillery
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5m 28s
In 1927, the Imperial Japanese Army purchased a 105mm field gun from the French company Schneider as a potential replacement for their rather underwhelming Type 14 105mm field gun. The Schneider design was quite good, and the Japanese put it into service in 1932 as the Type 92. It was manufactured in small numbers at the Osaka Arsenal until 1945, with only a few hundred made. Fundamentally, the Japanese realized that a 150mm howitzer had about the same size and weight as a 105mm gun like this one, and the larger howitzer was significantly more useful in the sort of combat the IJA found itself in.
This example (and a second one) currently resides in the Vilu Military Museum on Guadalcanal, having been salvaged off Mount Austen after the war. Thanks to War Historian Battlefield Expeditions for including me on their tour of Guadalcanal, where I was able to film this!
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