The Type 89 15 cm cannon was the main gun of the

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...

's heavy artillery units. The ''Type 89'' designation was given to this gun as it was accepted in the year 2589 of the Japanese calendar (1929).War Department Special Series No 25 ''Japanese Field Artillery'' October 1944 It was widely used from the

Manchurian Incident The Mukden Incident, or Manchurian Incident, known in Chinese as the 9.18 Incident (九・一八), was a false flag event staged by Japanese military personnel as a pretext for the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria. On September 18, 1931, L ...

to the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, for example,

Nomonhan Nomonhan is a small village in Inner Mongolia, China, south of the city of Manzhouli and near the China–Mongolia border. In the summer of 1939, it was the location of the Nomonhan Incident, as it is known in Japan, or the Battle of Khalkhin G ...

Bataan Bataan (), officially the Province of Bataan ( fil, Lalawigan ng Bataan ), is a province in the Central Luzon region of the Philippines. Its capital is the city of Balanga while Mariveles is the largest town in the province. Occupying the enti ...

and

Corregidor Island Corregidor ( tl, Pulo ng Corregidor, ) is an island located at the entrance of Manila Bay in the southwestern part of Luzon in the Philippines, and is considered part of the Province of Cavite. Due to this location, Corregidor has historically b ...

Okinawa is a prefecture of Japan. Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan, has a population of 1,457,162 (as of 2 February 2020) and a geographic area of 2,281 km2 (880 sq mi). Naha is the capital and largest city ...

. The Type 89 15 cm gun was comparable to the U.S. M1918 155 mm GPF cannon, but the Type 89 had shorter range. The Type 89 was less efficient than similar heavy-caliber guns of other nations in World War II.

Design

The trail was the split-box type trail with detachable spades and a split-trail gun cariage. The traversing hand wheel and the scale were located on the left side of the carriage. The elevation scale, the range drum, and the sight were on the right side of the carriage. When being moved, the cannon barrel and cariage are each drawn by a 8-ton tractor. It fired a shell considerably heavier than that used in the 150 mm howitzer. The Japanese were sufficiently satisfied with this gun to provide it with a fixed mount for siege use in 1930, but as a heavy field piece it had certain definite limitations. Traveling in two loads, it took longer to emplace than weapons of corresponding caliber in other modern armies and yet it was outranged by all of them. The Type 89 had a variable hydro-pneumatic recoil system and an interrupted thread breech block; the latter had a mushroom head and stepped-up buttress-type screws. Two carriages have been recovered. The only apparent difference is in the two equilibrators: one has spring type and the other

hydro-spring This article explains terms used for the British Armed Forces' ordnance (i.e.: weapons) and also ammunition. The terms may have slightly different meanings in the military of other countries. BD Between decks: applies to a naval gun mounting in w ...

type. The trail is the split box type with detachable trail spades. The traversing handwheel and scale are located on the left side of the carriage; the scale is graduated up to 350 mils in ten-mil increments. The elevation scale, range drum, and sight are on the right side of the carriage; the range scale is graduated up to 42 degrees. An eight-ton prime mover was used to tow the piece. For traveling, the gun was broken down in two loads, tube and carriage.

Combat record

The Type 89 saw service during the

Nomonhan Incident The Battles of Khalkhin Gol (russian: Бои на Халхин-Голе; mn, Халхын голын байлдаан) were the decisive engagements of the undeclared Soviet–Japanese border conflicts involving the Soviet Union, Mongolia, Jap ...

. No example of this weapon was captured before 1944, although it was probably used in the Malay and Philippine campaigns.

References

Notes

Bibliography

* War Department Special Series No 25 ''Japanese Field Artillery'' October 1944

External links

*
150 mm Gun Type 89
''Japanese Artillery Weapons'', CINCPAC Bulletin 152, July 1945. {{Imperial Japanese Army artillery 8 Artillery of Japan 150 mm artillery Military equipment introduced in the 1920s