Japanese Anti Tank Spear

The soldier rammed it forward into the tank or other target which broke a shear wire that allowed a strike pin to impact a primer and detonate the large heat warhead destroying both.

Japanese anti tank spear. 37mm anti tank guns were found to be useless against allied medium tanks and due to this ap ammunition was developed for all gun types. Japan made a modified copy of the german at rocket launcher which they called the type 4 anti tank rocket launcher. I found this very interesting because the japanese had no other anti tank weapons other than their under gunned type 1 and type 94 37 mm and their type 1 47 mm anti tanks guns anti tank mines like the type 99 magnet mine and their type 97 20 mm anti tank rifle. The shitotsubakurai lunge mine was a suicidal anti tank weapon developed and used by the empire of japan during the second world war.

The firing mechanism was a direct copy and the rocket and warhead were very similar albeit scaled down to 75mm. The second japanese anti tank grenade a suicide weapon was nicknamed the lunge mine. The japanese were so desperate to take out enemy tanks they used suicide bombers waiting in holes in the ground with an artillery shell so they could ram in into the bottom of the tank when it drove over them. This weapon was a very large heat warhead on a five foot stick.

The weapon was officially adopted by the japanese army in 1945. The tube was a meter and a half long 1525mm or 61. The weapon itself was a conical hollow charge anti tank mine placed inside a metallic container and attached to the end of a wooden stick. In that year it caused its first victims in the pacific theater.

Japanese artillery japanese artillery regiments were equipped with 75mm field guns 105mm field howitzers and 150mm heavy howitzers.