(I wasn’t sure were to post this,) This is my first post so I’m not that familiar with this, anyway, I noticed this a while ago, for some reason the Japanese cap with the flaps is oversized compared to the one without the flaps when in reality they should be exactly the same size is just that one has flaps.
[current oversized cap above]
[current model without flaps]
This is nothing game breaking but is something to improve the appearance of cosmetics, also while we are at it, why not reduce the size of the visor/bill to match the real counterpart, the one as seen on the images above is like twice the size of the actual size, here are a couple of examples of the correct size:
As far as I can find online the black helmets should not have the painted red star, as it was added by Chinese forces that captured the helmets. But black helmets were used by the Japanese in night raids it seems, so they just need to remove the red star.
I am not familiar with the helmets of the Japanese Army during World War II, but I have just come across a reference to the clothing of the Japanese Army in an encyclopedia I borrowed from the library.
According to the Japanese army’s dress code of 1870, hats were to be marked after the French army. The star motif seems to be an imitation of a shape used since ancient times in Japan as a charm against evil.
The color of the star changes according to rank: gold for officers, silver for officers’ ranks, and colorless for all other ranks.
However, the color red is sometimes used for civilian officers employed by the military. It seems that those appointed by the emperor wore gold, those officially employed wore white, and all others (part-timers, etc.) wore a red star on their uniform.
In other words, these men are not actually soldiers in combat positions, but clerks, and they are also part-timers.
while this is not a black helmet, it got sold at an auction and had the red star on the front and a kanji on the bottom, in all honesty is hard to find information about this type of stuff and makes you believe there was some sort of liberty about drawing characters on helmets or painting them during the war.
So probably some units did had the black helmet with the red star is just that there’s not a lot of information about them or even images or captured and surviving helmets of such units.
[another example of a painted star on a Type 90 Helmet]
On the bright side this leaves a lot of options to add cosmetics based on photos and captured helmets of the IJA and the IJN
