Several times I have published here materials based on articles from the Japanese magazine for armored vehicle modelers "Armor Modeling". Since I myself published a similar magazine at one time, I am especially interested in everything that relates to this kind of publications in the West, well, in this case, in the East. What can you say? In terms of the content of the total "nizzy" in relation to the Soviet era, we approached them. But in form … well, perhaps the magazines "Maxim", or "Cosmopolitan", or "Popular Mechanics" can be compared with him in the quality of printing and the ability to present the text. "Model-constructor" - "cave level", "Technique-youth" - the same thing. Slightly higher, even much higher, is the journal Nauka i Tekhnika, published in Ukraine and distributed in our country, but it is still far from the “Japanese”, although the text in “our publications” is traditionally good. However, the Japanese also have it. Interestingly, each issue usually publishes two spreads with very interesting graphics, and these spreads are dedicated to different topics, and here is one of them, which I once mentioned, is the notorious ninja fighting vehicles - secret spies and assassins from Japanese history …
Ninja destiny is truly an enviable destiny. Because, due to some completely ridiculous circumstances, they were surrounded by such an incredible number of frank inventions, myths and all kinds of legends that it is simply amazing. In addition, they are constantly shown in almost all Japanese films, and there are even children's plastic "ninja swords". At the same time, few people know that 80 percent of information about them is of a secondary nature! Even the English historian Stephen Turnbull, who himself wrote many books about the military affairs of Japan, drew attention to this. He noted that the name "ninja" appeared relatively recently - at the beginning of the twentieth century. Up to this point in Japan, they were called differently: ukami, dakko, kurohabaki, kyodan, nokizaru. By the 19th century, the most commonly used name was shinobi-no-mono, which can be translated as "the one who sneaks." It is believed that they committed a lot of political murders, but whether this is really so, cannot be verified.
A still from the movie "Nanja's Revenge" … Oh, and cool, off-scale coolness!
And so everything turned out the way the theory of communication tells us. There is a demand for information, but the information itself is not. So what replaces it? Gossip! And so it happened that books on ninjutsu or the art of ninja appeared as substitutes for rumors, where you can read about the impressive achievements of these "men in black" in terms of inventing all kinds of devices that they allegedly used. Here you have lanterns, secret portable lamps, and "fire candles", arrows in the sleeve, torches, tubes to breathe under water and eavesdrop through walls, collapsible boats (and even with guns!), So have them all if it really is, then a real caravan full of all this equipment would follow them on the march. But this was not enough.
In 1977, a certain Hatsumi Masaaki published a book dedicated to ninja, in which he described many extremely original types of weapons, which are not mentioned in any old text, nor are they mentioned by other researchers. If we assume that this book was written for children, then it is possible that he simply allowed himself to dream up in it. However, many outside Japan took his "work" very seriously. Even Donn Draeger is a well-known researcher of Japanese martial arts in the USA, and he gave descriptions of some of these "devices" already in his book, although they are clearly all the invention of Mr. Hatsumi.
And now the magazine "Armor Modeling" decided to tell about these invented combat vehicles on its pages, and moreover, he carefully painted them all. So we will consider all of them thoroughly and … maybe we will even pay tribute to the unrestrained imagination of their author!
So, page one is a picture on the top left. The picture shows a ship that was actually built in Japan and took part in the siege of the Osaka fortress. It is known that a vessel covered with a shell ("ko") cruised along the river that flowed near the castle and fired at it from guns. And so, below - it was not! The ninja did not have a ship powered by four paddle wheels that would be turned by members of its crew. Of course, the drawing itself is impressive: inside each head of the dragon sits a shooter with a gun, a cannon barrel protrudes through the embrasure, and even a ram to everything, as well as a steering wheel in front, a steering wheel in the back … Armor plates on the sides, but … alas, all this is not more than fiction.
A variation of this vessel was a submarine, in which only the nose protruded above the water, again shaped as a huge dragon's head. She moved with the help of oars and had ballast from bags of ordinary sand. The task of the submarine is to approach the enemy ship and carry out an attack on it: at the same time, the ninja themselves left it through a special lock and had to drill holes in the bottom.
On page 2 there is a certain prototype of the tank. Everything is here - both tate ashigaru shields, knocked down in a row, with spears inserted through the holes in them, as you can see, and a "hut" on wheels with a cannon inside, and all this is being rolled onto the enemy by the warriors behind this structure. Where, when and how would they have collected all this and found a well-groomed road to roll this weight on the enemy, and at the same time fire from a cannon ?! Apparently, realizing that there would not be enough human strength, the author proposed to activate this "armored hut" with horses harnessed to it. The question is … where is the driver sitting, and how does he drive these horses? So how do horses feel about cannon shots overhead?
But perhaps the most original is the kagyu - "fiery bull". It was the carcass of a wooden bull, set on wheels, from the mouth of which, under the pressure of air compressed by the bellows inside, burning oil erupted. The bull was powered by a crew of two ninjas on the inside, and two on the outside, which pushed him from behind. But where and when would a ninja have the opportunity: firstly, to build this "fire-breathing miracle", and secondly - to use it? How could they lead him along the roads of such a police state as Japan has been practically throughout its history? After all, in order to engage the masses of samurai and not let them get lazy, daimyo constantly attracted them to the police service. They were on duty at roadblocks and checked everyone in a row: where are you going, why, what are you carrying, if there are any weapons (and if they found someone who was not supposed to have one, then they immediately chopped their heads off by the side of the road). And here the ninja in black with this cow appear!
And Hatsumi also described a huge stone suspended on supports, which was supposed to be pulled back with a rope, and then, like a pendulum, would rush forward. Even very strong walls could not withstand his crushing blows. But for the action of such a ram to have really destructive consequences, it would have to move in an arc of a large radius and fall from a great height. That is, this "infernal machine" would have to have, well, simply unrealistically huge dimensions. Hatsumi Masaaki says that the ninja had lightweight gliders that were launched with flexible bamboo poles and counterweights. The glider, together with the pilot and passenger, took off into the air and easily flew over the castle wall. Moreover, in flight, the ninja could also throw bombs on the heads of enemies.
Finally, that it was the ninja who came up with the prototype of the tank, about which Draeger, based on the books of Hatsumi, wrote that the ninja also used the "big wheel" Daisarin - a cart on large wooden wheels. A gondola with loopholes was suspended between them, sitting in which ninja fired guns or threw grenades. The cart itself was simply rolled down the slope, and not one, but more than a dozen, and even the most staunch fighters lost their heads looking at them rushing down the mountain. They simply swept away everyone in their path, but how so many carts were delivered up there? And how they did not fight, going down the mountain slope, which is not at all an asphalt highway.
However, all this pales before the last two machines on page 3. One, as you can see, moves on tracks and looks like Leonardo da Vinci's tank. But where was he to the genius of unknown ninja. The carriage is driven by horses running in a circle inside. On the perimeter there are loopholes for shooters, and on the second floor there is also a cannon that shoots forward. How this colossus changes direction is unclear. It is also unclear at what plant the ninja was assembled and on what it was delivered to the place of attack. But surely … on a flat packed field, it would be a machine of deadly power! If only we could get her moving, of course.
Finally, knowing that the Japanese knew about the missiles, they also came up with this - the last drawing. Alternatively, this is a wheel, inside which there is a person who moves his legs, stepping over the bars located inside. Windows in the rim for observation, four windows on the sides - shoot! However, this is not enough. Rockets are also fixed on the axles of the wheel! They set fire to these missiles, a fierce flame struck in all directions, and … this wheel rolled towards the enemy.
At this point, whatever you say, but more and neither subtract nor, of course, add, and this, most likely, is no longer a fantasy at all, but … a clinic! The ninja themselves would have found out about this, probably, they would have simply died laughing, not otherwise! But the tale is a lie, but there is a hint in it. What if one of the readers of VO decides to write a novel about an alternative history of Japan, and that's where all this will work?
