Japanese rifles!
- Thread starter Nelson84
- Start date
Japan and Germany were beaten and humiliate so bad by a bunch of kids from North America that neither one of those countries ever want to act up again. They know next time around the CGNers will have them in the cross hairs. Some of you guys scare the hell out of me.
A bonzai charge would just make you look silly. Running wildly with a pot containing an artfully twisted tiny tree in one hand and a rifle in the other is not how one should face the enemy.
MauserMike
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- SW Ontario
Japan yes. Germany was beaten by the blood sacrifice of MILLIONS of Soviet boys, some 10 million.
Yes, that was a factor, but even more than that, they were beaten by industry. The combined industry of the Soviets and the western allies and the massive shipping tonnage requirements necessary to deliver a quarter of all Soviet supplies in convoys under submarine fire so that they could continue that war effort without resorting to throwing rocks at the panzers.
In my estimation, the merchant mariners are the unsng heroes of the second world war.
Anyone thinking the Japanese did not get smacked quite hard should read the USAF bombing assessment reports. Not the ten thousand pages - just the summaries.
Their 4 main islands were pulverized by conventional bombs, and sometimes incendiary. I lived in Japan for 2 years - there are very few structures (house, bridge, anything man made) built before 1945. The A-bombs were really a godsend if you ask me - continued conventional bombing was far more destructive. Just not as cost effective.
In addition unrestricted submarine warfare was fought against them since Dec. 7th 1941 with great affect on an island nation dependant on imports of rice just to feed its people. While we imprisoned Doenitz for doing so. Not to take a thing anything away from the Marines or the Air Forces but the US Navy - specifically the submarines that were a small percentage of that massive force (and something like 1% of the budget) were the ones that won the war in the Pacific. The supply lines were strangled, 90% of its merchant shipping was sunk, and given a few more months Japan would have withered away once mass starvation led to epidemics and unrest.
The Japanese did not get off easy at all. I would say some of the smaller Axis allies were the ones that got off "easy". Not that losing a war was easy for anyone. Winning it was hard enough on most nations.
Their 4 main islands were pulverized by conventional bombs, and sometimes incendiary. I lived in Japan for 2 years - there are very few structures (house, bridge, anything man made) built before 1945. The A-bombs were really a godsend if you ask me - continued conventional bombing was far more destructive. Just not as cost effective.
In addition unrestricted submarine warfare was fought against them since Dec. 7th 1941 with great affect on an island nation dependant on imports of rice just to feed its people. While we imprisoned Doenitz for doing so. Not to take a thing anything away from the Marines or the Air Forces but the US Navy - specifically the submarines that were a small percentage of that massive force (and something like 1% of the budget) were the ones that won the war in the Pacific. The supply lines were strangled, 90% of its merchant shipping was sunk, and given a few more months Japan would have withered away once mass starvation led to epidemics and unrest.
The Japanese did not get off easy at all. I would say some of the smaller Axis allies were the ones that got off "easy". Not that losing a war was easy for anyone. Winning it was hard enough on most nations.
Then add in a nasty little inferiority complex or two and you have a real stew just waiting to boil. When you kill or brutalize someone you feel inferior to, you are in effect trying to kill your sense of inferiority. If you have been brought up to believe yourself superior, and then are forced to confront your physical inferiority (or at least your self-perception of it) the internal conflict that this causes is violent and provokes an even more fierce determination to "prove" your "superiority" in other ways, in men that is.
And of course no Judeo-Christian ethical ideas; only the group-think.
Objects can apparently absorb certain "energies" or maybe attract them, or maybe both. I have heard first hand about someone whose collection of Japanese swords had to be housed in a separate building away from his residence for such reasons.
Not exclusive to the Japanese of course; I remember reading about someone who encountered a WWI German helmet that provoked a very strong negative reaction for reasons the person could not explain, as though it was an embodiment of some kind of evil.
And for all that, the USAAF didn't bomb Kyoto because it was considered Japan's cultural capital.
"Victor's justice" again!
PS: (Can we have our old smilies back please - these are pathetic!)
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I'm not sure I believe in such "energies" with these sort of items - however - this would make a very interesting topic of its own. I would be curious to know how many collectors of such items feel this sort of emotion.
-Steve
Tо smellie, RRCo, and everyone else that talks about "vibes" and "energies".
How is your thinking about an object being "evil" or giving off "evil vibe" differ from the "evil guns kill people" line of thinking that anties spew?
銃規制に好きな人の言い分は、人が人を殺すのではなく銃が人を殺すのだ、である。
(Got to show off my Japanese minor)
I understand liking or disliking a gun for functionality, accuracy, ergonomics, etc. I'd even understand you disliking it what it is a symbol of Imperial Japanese militarism (and is Arisaka a better symbol of imperial Japan then a shin–gunto or kyokujitsuki? I'd debate it), but on it's own for the evil energies a piece of wood and steel has?
In doing that you become very similar to the very people whom your despise, the neo-samurai of post-Meiji restoration, who, mimicking their predecessors, thought that their katana has a soul of their own (and were those neo-samurai the "true" samurai, and appropriate symbols of Yamato–tamashi? Again, one can compare with the like of Yamaoka Tesshu, and make a strong argument that they were not).
Last point I am making, is that you can dislike, even hate individuals, but the whole nation, from the leadership to the lowly farmers, without regard for the timeframe, and for individual views? Sounds pretty bigoted.
Just sayin'
How is your thinking about an object being "evil" or giving off "evil vibe" differ from the "evil guns kill people" line of thinking that anties spew?
銃規制に好きな人の言い分は、人が人を殺すのではなく銃が人を殺すのだ、である。
(Got to show off my Japanese minor)
I understand liking or disliking a gun for functionality, accuracy, ergonomics, etc. I'd even understand you disliking it what it is a symbol of Imperial Japanese militarism (and is Arisaka a better symbol of imperial Japan then a shin–gunto or kyokujitsuki? I'd debate it), but on it's own for the evil energies a piece of wood and steel has?
In doing that you become very similar to the very people whom your despise, the neo-samurai of post-Meiji restoration, who, mimicking their predecessors, thought that their katana has a soul of their own (and were those neo-samurai the "true" samurai, and appropriate symbols of Yamato–tamashi? Again, one can compare with the like of Yamaoka Tesshu, and make a strong argument that they were not).
Last point I am making, is that you can dislike, even hate individuals, but the whole nation, from the leadership to the lowly farmers, without regard for the timeframe, and for individual views? Sounds pretty bigoted.
Just sayin'
OTHER Arisakas I don't know about, but THAT ONE I do not enjoy handling. It is a fine design (improvemnt on the Mauser, actually; Arisaka was a genius). My original THAI Arisaka is in awful condition, even has jungle rot, but it doesn't give me that feeling.
It's not the DESIGN, it is something in the past, the way it was USED.
For the same reason, I will not own, will not touch, do not even want to be in the same building with, a Jap sword from the "good old days". I do not want to be close to something which has been used to chop a living human being into pieces, just to show off the G*d-damnd BLADE. They might have been great Smiths, but they were also stinking BUTCHERS.
A weapon which has been used in honest combat does NOT pick up the same aura.
And Paul Mauser, James Paris Lee, Charles Ross and Ferdinand von Mannlicher did not just go out in the field and pick a peasant in order to TEST their designs. Of course, they were HUMAN BEINGS.
You have so immersed yourself in the Jap MYTH of cultural superiority that you have forgotten your OWN culture.
It's not the DESIGN, it is something in the past, the way it was USED.
For the same reason, I will not own, will not touch, do not even want to be in the same building with, a Jap sword from the "good old days". I do not want to be close to something which has been used to chop a living human being into pieces, just to show off the G*d-damnd BLADE. They might have been great Smiths, but they were also stinking BUTCHERS.
A weapon which has been used in honest combat does NOT pick up the same aura.
And Paul Mauser, James Paris Lee, Charles Ross and Ferdinand von Mannlicher did not just go out in the field and pick a peasant in order to TEST their designs. Of course, they were HUMAN BEINGS.
You have so immersed yourself in the Jap MYTH of cultural superiority that you have forgotten your OWN culture.
My mother said something very similar about an Arisaka that belonged to a relative of mine. She knows her history and how awful the Japanese were during the war, but she doesn't know her rifles at all, and wasn't informed that it was a Japanese rifle before she held it. I think the "energies" thing holds some weight.
I love the Arisaka rifles - they're improved Mausers and built like absolute tanks, and I'd love to own one someday, even if ammo is silly expensive. It's unfortunate that they were used to do such awful things, but I don't blame the rifles, even if they may make me feel a bit strange when I hold them.
Historical artifacts are historical artifacts.
However, I recall a display in the Canadian War Museum that gave me the shivers. It was in the Peacekeeping section. Simple little glass cabinet with a cheap Chinese machete in it. From Rwanda.
However, I recall a display in the Canadian War Museum that gave me the shivers. It was in the Peacekeeping section. Simple little glass cabinet with a cheap Chinese machete in it. From Rwanda.
Dunno - I had a new-age pagan girlfriend once and was introduced to all sorts of oddball ideas. But back on my own and I can't say I've ever felt anything quantifiable from anything from a gun to a tree or rock.
I think we bring our own emotional baggage and notions into these sorts of things.
Although I do kind of want an Arisaka now - though mostly after hearing it associated with the word "Mauser"
"Milsurp" is a new direction for my firearms interest, and I'm learning as I go.
I think we bring our own emotional baggage and notions into these sorts of things.
Although I do kind of want an Arisaka now - though mostly after hearing it associated with the word "Mauser"
"Milsurp" is a new direction for my firearms interest, and I'm learning as I go.
The Arisaka is a fine action.
I wouldn't mind a collector piece, especially one of those 7mm mauser versions they sent to Mexico, or one of those that they gave to Imperial Russia in the Great War or maybe even one of the ones bought by the UK for training in the Great War either.
Maybe even one of those off ones that were built in Italy for the Japanese.
As far as the rest go, it is like collecting spent cannisters of Zyklon B for the machining quality of the can.
Repugnant at best.
I wouldn't mind a collector piece, especially one of those 7mm mauser versions they sent to Mexico, or one of those that they gave to Imperial Russia in the Great War or maybe even one of the ones bought by the UK for training in the Great War either.
Maybe even one of those off ones that were built in Italy for the Japanese.
As far as the rest go, it is like collecting spent cannisters of Zyklon B for the machining quality of the can.
Repugnant at best.
