: oo TMs oT NS/1nb U.S. NAVAL TECHNICAL MISSION TO JAPAN O-/é CARE OF FLEET POST OFFICE SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA January 1946 RESTRICTED From: Chief, Naval Technical Mission to Japan. To 3 Chief of Naval Operations. Subject: Target Report - Japanese Heavy Armor. Reference: (a)"Intelligence Targets Japan" (DNI) of 4 Sept. 1945. 1, Subject report, covering manufacturing and testing of Japanese heavy armor plate as outlined by Target 0-16 of Fascicle Onl of reference (a), is submitted herewith. 2. The investigation of the target and the target report were accomplished by Lt. Comdr. M.M. Herman, USNR, assisted by Lt. (jg) R. Boggess, USNR, interpreter and translator, Comdr. N. Hancock, RN, and Lt. Comdr. J. J. Glancy, USNR. AER C. G. GRIMES Captain, USNRESTRICTED JAPANESE HEAVY ARMOR “INTELLIGENCE TARGETS JAPAN" (DNI) OF 4 SEPT. 1945 FASCICLE O-1, TARGET O-16 JANUARY 1946 U.S. NAVAL TECHNICAL MISSION TO JAPAN> RESTRICTED SUMMARY ORDNANCE TARGETS JAPANESE HEAVY ARMOR, Jepanese armor for large combst vessels’ was patterned originally efter German (Krupp) and leter efter Snglish (Viewers) armor. During the war the Japanese suffered from a serious shortage of jickel and short supplies of other elloying elements to a lesser degree, Cons-quently, a large part of their wartine research concerned itself with tryiig to maintein vellistic qua- Lity with low aiekel anslyses of their ovn devisiig. : Face-hardened armor of sbout 30% chill lias used for nearly all ver= ‘tical protection heavier than 11", YAMATO class jettleahips bore 25" face hardened turret pletes, or the last ten years, capanese face-herdened plate has been non-cemented. cruisers had relatively thin armor in contrest to the heavy bettle- ships, Turret-fece plates of most of the 3” cruisers were less than 2” thick. ALL Jepanese production armor steel was msde in the acid open hearth furnace, Average sulphur and phosphorous contents esch ran delow 0.02%. There wos a tendency toward fairly high carbon obntent hich was never below 0.30% and usually about 0.45 to 0.50% Tensile strengtas everaged slightly sbove those of American ermor produced during thy wer, put the ductility was lower, partioularly the reduction of area ' Ballistic tests were conducted on @ basis sonewhet similar to U. S. Navy teats. i NTT+L+0=16