Why didnt the japs put cannons on their ships?

Why didnt the japs put cannons on their ships?

Other urls found in this thread:

reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5g3e55/how_was_cavalry_used_in_japan_during_the_sengoku/
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/04/breech-loading-cannons-of-ming-dynasty.html
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/07/da-jiang-jun-pao.html
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/06/hu-dun-pao.html
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/04/ye-meng-xiongs-cannons.html
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/04/rocket-cart-of-ming-dynasty-p1.html
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/03/da-bang-and-jia-dao-gun.html
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/03/teng-pai-yao-dao-and-biao-qiang.html
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/06/swords-and-sabres-of-ming-dynasty.html
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/04/xian-qiang.html
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/04/gou-qiang.html
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/03/chang-qiang.html
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2014/08/unique-weapon-of-ming-dynasty-lang-xian.html
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/03/tang-ba.html
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/04/ai-pai.html
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2016/06/bi-fu.html
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/03/cotton-and-brigandine-armour-of-ming.html
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/03/mail-armour-of-ming-dynasty.html
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2016/06/scale-and-lamellar-armours-of-ming.html
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/10/kuai-qiang.html
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/08/san-yan-chong-three-eyed-gun.html
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/08/bian-chong.html
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2014/11/matchlock-of-ming-dynasty.html
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

the entire war was a ploy to kill off troublesome samurai

>As virtually all Japanese ships in the first phase of the war lacked cannon artillery,[96] Korean ships outranged and bombarded Japanese ships with impunity outside the range of the Japanese muskets, arrows, and catapults.[96] When the Japanese attempted to outfit cannon to their ships,[124] their lightweight ship design prohibited using more than a few per vessel, and vessels usually lacked the firepower or range of their Korean counterparts.[125] In order to bolster their fleet, the Japanese considered employing two Portuguese galleons in the invasion.[126]

>In addition to a lack of effective naval armament, most Japanese ships were modified merchant vessels more suited for transportation of troops and equipment than fielding artillery weapons.

They were designed for setting enemy vessels on fire and boarding them.
Korean turtle ships were designed to completely counter these sorts of ships, which is why Japan got rekt hard.

>Why didnt the japs put cannons on their ships?
Japanese lacked artillery for the most part,they didn't even have pack animals.

What? They had no horses?

Pretty sure they had those steppe ponies mostly meant for horseback archery, not too many draft horses.

>Among us there are mules, zebras, donkeys and pack animals; there are none of these in Japan.

Their horses were of less than stellar quality. reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5g3e55/how_was_cavalry_used_in_japan_during_the_sengoku/

Kudos for this topic OP. The military technology surrounding this war is exactly what I'm doing for a research final for uni. Anyone know some books or articles on this stuff?

>these excellent posts were written between 10 and 5 days ago
What a timely thread.

I request more sources on the Japanese not using naval artillery, because I don't believe it.

Forget the cannons, they put freaking houses on them!

their sieges involved cannons shooting arrows n shot. Nothing suited for naval warfare.

>at the battle of Hansando Admiral Wakizaka Yasuharu had 36 atakebune ships each with 'numerous guns'

source: Fighting Techniques of the Oriental World: Equiptment, Combat Skills, and ...
By Michael E. Haskew, Christer Joregensen

The Japanese were a peculiar bunch when it came to warfare. Compared to European powers of the medieval period, they often did thing opposite. For example, they had gunpowder and produced arquebuses, but didn't make cannons. That way, castles stayed relevant. Also, close quarter melee stayed relevant throughout the sengoku period. They also never used personal shields (bruh, just, use something to block that katana wtf) but they made portable cover (propped shields) for arquebusiers.

the author goes on to compare the guns of the korean and japanese navy saying the koreans were
>probably of larger caliber

Japanese improved on the arquebus they got but not on the cannons. The Japanese copies at the time were not very good, so all their best cannons had to be obtained either by trade or as trophies.

The glorious Samurai had matchlock hand cannon type things

Well by the 1380s the shield was increasingly discarded by Europeans too.

But I believe you cannot really blast the base of a Japanese castle as efficient with a cannon.

part of me questioned why it took so long for turtle ships to come about

shit would've been really useful in the ancient world

And they look fucking swag too.

Why can't we bring back old military tech and use it today? We can keep the cruisers and aircraft carriers and stuff for serious international conflicts, but if, like, Cleveland gets pissy at Detroit, they can recruit a couple dozen pikemen, sail some turtleships across Lake Eerie and blockade the Detroit harbor.

...

After thinking for five minutes, I have determined that this is a practical plan grounded in the realities of the modern world and there is literally nothing wrong with it.

armies tend to already use knives as melee weapons, Bayonets as pike weapons, and submarines as turtleships

there are a lot of modern weapons used for the same purpose as ancient ones

Close-range boarding was still the dominant tactic among the portuguese and spanish. At the same time the Japanese navy was getting btfo by long range korean artillery, the same thing was happening to the Spanish against the English.

Japan later put cannons on their boats, but they did so in breathtakingly retarded ways.
>DUDE, LET US DEDICATE THIS ONE TINY BOAT TO CARRY A SINGLE CANNON HUNG ON ROPES SO THAT THE RECOIL WONT TIP OUR GLORIFIED SHOREBOAT OVER.

To be fair: none of the Japanese ships were designed to carry a full broadside of such things, compared to their Chinese & Korean adversaries.

This is the first time I've heard of turtle ships..this shit looks awesome.

Because without cannon, the Turtle Ship is pointless.

The reality is the Turtleship is NOT an ironclad. Its whole point was to prevent boarding by superior soldiers from happening. Now if it didn't have any cannons, it would just be one big heavy ship with the top covered. Ballistas arent cannonballs.

In addition it only works when your foes have no cannons.

early navel warfare simply used ramming techniques

it probably would be very useful for Carthage in the Punic wars where the Romans main strategy was boarding (dunno if the Carthaginian ships would be able to support the weight though, probably wouldn't).

Because Feudal Japan did not have the following:
>Extensive experience in naval combat.
>A place near China.
The Latter was super fucking important. China was pretty much a mecca for cannon creation & experiments ever since the late 1300s. Made a whole lot intense when a Portuguese navy was defeated there and its breech-loaders were captured. Add Jesuit canoneers working for Chinese employ to the mix. Korea happens to be a close Ming ally and benefitted of of that initially, but then they went Hermit Kingdom and missed out on post 1560s developments in Chink artillery such as multibarreled breach loaders and the first field guns in the region.

>Japan later put cannons on their boats, but they did so in breathtakingly retarded ways.
That image isn't contemporary at all,it was made in the 1941.

Which begs the question why didn't the japs just copy Chinese/Korean ships? I mean assuming the actual design eluded them, hiring some Chinese guy with lax scruples to go down to chinaland and buy a couple of junks and a pirate crew to sail the ships up to Edo to be taken apart and copied must have occurred to someone, right?

Fun fact: they already did. The tall Japanese boarding boat initially is based off a Chinese mainstay in naval (and mostly coastal/riverine) warfare for centuries since Red Cliffs actually. Because the Chinese too fought boarding based battles like erryone else. It was only when the 1400s rolled by and the Portuguese arrival in 1500s that they started with the Broadside-firing sailing ships. The Japs DID use sailing seagoing junks but to them it has always struck them as a sailing ship for those longass voyages instead of a warship.

Also as far as everyone was concerned in Ming China, all Japs were pirates who love civil wars. Its like asking someone to live in Iraq for them. There WERE Chinese pirates who worked with Japaneses- Koxinga's daddy for example who married into a Samurai family- but these entities seemingly werent keen on teaching them shit.

In addition, China does indeed guard some of its secrets closely. Consider Japanese use of gunpowder. The Chinese - under the Mongols- lobbed gunpowder weapons to Japs in the 1200s. But 1200s style Chink Gunpowder weapons only showed up in Japan in the late 1400s. Clearly some things arent exactly easy to get from China.

There was that one time, in Date-held Northern Japan, where Masamune Date allowed a shipbuilding firm to hire both experts of Chinese and Western shipbuilding to make him a trade ship for dosh. These were the "Red Seal Ships" bearing the Red Seal, which are sanctions for foreign trade by the Hideyoshi government. But the Sakoku edict of Tokugawa put a stop to foreign trade and with it, Japanese ship designing.

Posting the old Chinese warship. See the resemblance?

I mean, hell, even the Koreans were a bit backward since they still used ships like this (See the main Korean warship of the Imjin war: the Panokseon). However they put cannons on these things and that made the difference between a Japanese and a Korean tall warships.

The most comprehensive source I found on the Ming military is from a amateur blog not an academic source.

Ming artillery
>greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/04/breech-loading-cannons-of-ming-dynasty.html
>greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/07/da-jiang-jun-pao.html
>greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/06/hu-dun-pao.html
>greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/04/ye-meng-xiongs-cannons.html
>greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/04/rocket-cart-of-ming-dynasty-p1.html
>greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/03/da-bang-and-jia-dao-gun.html

Ming firearms

Ming weapons
>greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/03/teng-pai-yao-dao-and-biao-qiang.html
>greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/06/swords-and-sabres-of-ming-dynasty.html
>greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/04/xian-qiang.html
>greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/04/gou-qiang.html
>greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/03/chang-qiang.html
>greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2014/08/unique-weapon-of-ming-dynasty-lang-xian.html
>greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/03/tang-ba.html
>greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/03/da-bang-and-jia-dao-gun.html

Ming armor
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/03/teng-pai-yao-dao-and-biao-qiang.html
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/04/ai-pai.html
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2016/06/bi-fu.html
>greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/03/cotton-and-brigandine-armour-of-ming.html
>greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/03/mail-armour-of-ming-dynasty.html
>greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2016/06/scale-and-lamellar-armours-of-ming.html

Ming Firearms
>greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/10/kuai-qiang.html
>greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/08/san-yan-chong-three-eyed-gun.html
>greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/08/bian-chong.html
>greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2014/11/matchlock-of-ming-dynasty.html

To be fair that cunt reads Chinese and bases his shit on primary sources.

>To be fair that cunt reads Chinese and bases his shit on primary sources.
Exactly,his expertise puts published English sources to shame.(Osprey etc.)

To be fair, Osprey isnt an academic source. Its mainly for Military Hobbyist Pandering.

Love the pictures tho.

Even most modern Chinese sources are shit.

These are cute as fuck

Thanks a bunch

Wasn't exactly answering me, but nevertheless pointed me to an handy book