Japan Defense Industry

Category Highlights
ShinMaywa, the Japanese Firm Keeping the Flying Boat Alive

ShinMaywa, the Japanese Firm Keeping the Flying Boat Alive

ShinMaywa Industries is the only company in the world still building a large open-ocean amphibious aircraft, the US-2, a four-engine flying boat that can put...

Category Highlights
IHI Corporation, the Engine Maker Behind Japan’s Air Power

IHI Corporation, the Engine Maker Behind Japan’s Air Power

IHI Corporation builds the engines inside virtually every Japanese military aircraft, from the P-1’s four F7 turbofans to the XF9 demonstrator that fed Japan’s sixth-generation...

Category Highlights
Kawasaki Heavy Industries, the Quiet Pillar of Japanese Defense

Kawasaki Heavy Industries, the Quiet Pillar of Japanese Defense

Kawasaki Heavy Industries builds Japan’s P-1 patrol aircraft, C-2 transports and roughly half of its submarines, making the 19th-century shipbuilder one of the two industrial...

Category Highlights
Japan to Transfer Five Abukuma-Class Destroyers to the Philippines

Japan to Transfer Five Abukuma-Class Destroyers to the Philippines

Japan and the Philippines have finalized the terms of a transfer that Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. has called "a done deal": five of...

Category Highlights
The Type 12 SSM: Japan’s Standoff Strike Revolution

The Type 12 SSM: Japan’s Standoff Strike Revolution

Produced by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the Type 12 Surface-to-Ship Missile (SSM) has served as a reliable subsonic asset in Japan's coastal defense arsenal since its...

Category Highlights
What is GCAP? The Japan-UK-Italy Sixth-Generation Fighter Program Explained

What is GCAP? The Japan-UK-Italy Sixth-Generation Fighter Program Explained

The Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) is a trilateral sixth-generation fighter project between Japan, the United Kingdom, and Italy, announced in December 2022. It merges...