Friday, April 30, 2010

Aw, Heck

...The Japanese War Tuba was not an offensive weapon. In fact, it wasn't a weapon at all. Still.... I mean, War Tuba? What's not to like?

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Whats not to like? I'd suggest the fact that I don't have one on my front lawn.

Then again one would be utterly redundant.

Jim

sam said...

Where did you find that, oh, lovely one?

I wonder if they ever thought of using it as a "sonic weapon?" The Japanese did have some weird ideas during WWII.

Not that they don't now...

Joe Allen said...

I suspect though, that if one were to reverse that transducer, it would produce a bowel-loosening squonk!

Montie said...

How cool, I am impressed that you turned up this bit of pre-WWII technology. I am often accused of having "a vast amount of trivial knowledge that does me absolutely no good in daily life" but I had never heard of the "Japanese War Tuba" prior to this.

Although I had seen pictures of the British version of the acoustic detector the Japanese version is decidedly unique.

og said...

Cry havoc! And let slip the Tubas of War!

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

Those wacky Imperial Japanese.

Doesn't look at all like the tuba I played in high school.

Og wins the internets, FWIW :)

Dr.D said...

There are a whole host of similar strange devices to be seen at

http://oro.preg.org/into/?p=436

This group includes the photo that Roberta has shown, along with several other really strange acoustic locators, all just big, directional ears.

BobG said...

They do look like some sort of bizarre steam punk artillery.

Roberta X said...

They could have been producers of that most dreaded of banned war-waging modalities: the Brown Note.

Overload in Colorado said...

You also didn't mount the Japanese Knee Mortar on you knee.