'Hey Henry, some guy on the phone wants to know if he has a choice of colours'.
KV1s somewhere in Siberia. Big ol' paint booth on the left probably, that or a "clean room" for some special assemblies, or maybe engine testing with those rear decks leaning against it.
Notice the cast and welded turrets in the same production line.
No 360° periscope for the commander. "You vant see nemyetski? Put out head and look!"
But when you're advancing along a line drawn on a map, which is how they advanced, you don't need to look around as much maybe.
Some of the men in the photo look pretty old, but of course they could be zeks and they got old very quicly!
Type 4 70 mm rocket launcher:
In early 1943 the japanese Army was able to capture some US 60 mm Bazookas. As these weapons were extremely light and had a larger penetration ability than most japanese at-guns the decision was made to develop a similar weapon.
In late 1943 design data of the german Raketenpanzerbüchse 54 were delivered to Japan speeding up the own development. In early 1944 the 70 mm rocket launcher (exact caliber 72 mm) was tested at the Osaka Army Arsenal.
To minimize the transport size the launcher could be disassembled into two parts. The firing mechanism was copied from the US Bazooka. A bipod could be attached to the 1500 mm long barrel. Total weight was 8 kg.
The rocket propelled grenade had a total length of 359 mm and was projectile-shaped with small fins giving a rotation to stabilize the flight. Muzzle velocity was 160 m/s with a propellant weight of 260 g and a burntime of 0,4 sec.
Minimum range was 50 m to arm the fuze which was armed after few rotations. The maximum range was 800 m, maximum effective range 100m with a hit accuracy of 60%. The penetration ability of the hollow-charge warheads with an explosive weight of 700g was 80 mm. The inmpact fuze only worked in hit angles between 90° and 60°. Below 60° the warhead didn´t detonate.
The two-men-crew consists of gunner and loader. An experienced crew could reach a rof of 6 rpm. A total of 3300 type 4 rocket launchers were produced at Ogura and Osaka Army Arsenals from July, 1944. All were given to units preparing for the homeland defence, non were used outside Japan.
That's interesting. Japanese, I assume.
Sho' nuf - here's another pic:
http://2.bp.########.com/_YYMeAu4i7gA/TJ2uqeBvkCI/AAAAAAAAJU0/mVPdYubkxUA/s1600/japan-ww2-army-rare-pictures-004.jpg
Very cool - I didn't know they had anything like it. God knows they had the need. Here's some additional info from a total stranger with no bibliographical information:
Just adding this because I just bought one... 7'6" long, 110lbs.
Figured it is an interesting enough piece of history to post about. I'll throw up some photos when she arrives.
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JESUS MARY AND JOSEPH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You're going to have to source the Tree stump AA mount for it to properly display it in your room!
BASTAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Adopt me?)
NS
Where the hell are you gonna find ammo for that Lahti????
Where the hell is a range that'll let you SHOOT it???