Japanese Arms from the Chokuto to the Howa Type 89

The chokutō is a straight, single-edged sword mainly made before the ninth century, with a basic style likely derived from similar swords in ancient China. It was used on foot for stabbing or slashing and worn hung from the waist. Until the Heian period such swords were called tachi, written with a different character from the later curved tachi, so the trail begins before the curved blade existed.

The Japanese sword, or nihonto, covers traditionally made swords from Japan. Bronze swords date back to the Yayoi period, roughly 1,000 BC to 300 AD, but the term most often means the curved blades made from the Heian period, 794 to 1185, onward. Its types, including the katana, tachi, odachi, wakizashi and tanto, differ in size, shape, field of application and method of manufacture.

The tanegashima was a snap matchlock arquebus that reached Japan in 1543, when a storm drove a Chinese junk carrying two Portuguese traders to the island of Tanegashima. The local lord, Tanegashima Tokitaka, bought two muskets and had a swordsmith copy them. It changed how war was fought in Japan within a few years, though slower fire and vulnerability to wet weather kept it from fully displacing the bow.

The daishō, meaning large and small, was the matched pair of swords worn by the samurai class in feudal Japan, a daitō and a shōtō. Typically a katana and wakizashi, or sometimes a tanto, in matching koshirae fittings, it originally meant only wearing a long and a short sword together. A pair made by one swordsmith was possible but uncommon because of the added expense.

The shuriken was a concealed weapon used by samurai and ninja, thrown or wielded as a hidden blade to distract or injure. Its origin is unclear because shurikenjutsu was traditionally kept secret, though the earliest documented school teaching it, Ganritsu Ryu, dates to the 17th century. The straight bo-shuriken and flat hira-shuriken were supplements to the sword, aimed at exposed targets such as the eyes, face, hands and feet.

The Arisaka was a family of Japanese bolt-action service rifles produced and used from about 1897, when it replaced the Murata rifle family, until the end of the Second World War in 1945. Its most common models were the Type 38 in 6.5x50mm and the Type 99 in 7.7x58mm, a round comparable in power to the modern .308 Winchester.

The Type 92 heavy machine gun entered service in 1932 as the standard Japanese heavy machine gun of the Second World War. Related to the Hotchkiss series and designed by Kijiro Nambu, it fired the improved 7.7mm round, and about 45,000 were built by Hino Motors and Hitachi. Its name refers to the Imperial year 2592, which is 1932 in the Gregorian calendar.

The Fu-Go was an incendiary weapon built around a hydrogen-filled paper balloon about 10 meters across, carrying four 11-pound incendiary bombs and one 33-pound high-explosive bomb. An altitude-control system let it ride the jet stream some 6,000 miles across the Pacific. About 9,300 were launched from coastal Honshu between November 1944 and April 1945, though the military had little confidence in its practical effect.

The Howa Type 64 is a gas-operated, selective-fire battle rifle designed by Iwashita Kenzo and Dogane Giichi and fed from a 20-round magazine, chambered in a modified 7.62x51mm NATO load. Produced from 1964 to 1988, it is used exclusively by the Japan Self-Defense Forces and the Japan Coast Guard, since strict arms-export restrictions have kept it from being sold abroad.

The Howa Type 89, informally the Hachikyu, is an assault rifle in 5.56x45mm NATO developed by the Defense Agency and made by Howa. It entered service in 1989 with the Japan Self-Defense Forces, replacing the Type 64, and is also used by the Japan Coast Guard and the Special Assault Team. Japan's arms export ban has meant it has never been exported, closing the trail on a weapon made only for home use.