Other Guns

The Model 97 Tank Machine gun was a 7.7mm weapon which was modified form of the Czech ZB 26 light machine gun, and it had the same 20 round magazine capacity of the Czech gun. As with the M-91, it was fitted with a 1.5 power optical sight. About 18,000 of these guns were made from 1937 to 1944.

Both M91 and M97 had their bipod accessories and when they were out of their tanks they were used as ground guns.

This weapon was truly a heavy machine gun, being in 13.2mm, and this gun was developed by Nambu. Fewer than 100 of these guns were made; they were made during the years of 1934 to 1938 and used on the M-97 armored cars.

In the mid-1930s the Japanese Army and Navy purchased British Vickers guns in 7.7mm (.303 British service cartridge) and developed these guns to suit their own purposes. The Army used a semi-rimmed 7.7mm cartridge and the Navy used the original rimmed British cartridge.

Army aircraft guns included:
The M-89 Fixed Aircraft Machine Gun in 7.7mm Semi-rimmed (Vickers)

Navy aircraft guns included:

The M-97 Fixed Aircraft Machine Gun in 7.7mm Rimmed(.303 British ,Vickers)
The M-92 Flexible Aircraft Machine Gun in 7.7m Rimmed (Lewis gun)
The M-99 Fixed (also in Flexible form) Aircraft Machine Gun in 20mm (Oerlikon)
The M-1 Flexible Aircraft Machine Gun in 7.92mm(Navy 's version of the German MG 15 built under license in Japan).

As well, the Army used the German Mauser MG 151 in 20mm as a fixed gun, and the Navy used fixed 13.2mm Brownings and a license-built version of the German Rheinmetall MG 131 in 13mm as a flexible weapon. Both the Army and Navy adopted all most all of the machine gun technology which was developed before WW II.

During the period of 1940 to 1945 Japan made about 70,000 aircraft. Judging from this figure, perhaps there were about 400,000 aircraft machine guns made. At the beginning of the Pacific War the Navy had the advantage in aircraft weaponry, but in the later part of the War over the main islands of Japan the Army actively used larger cannons on their various fighter aircraft. The loss of Japanese aircraft to American bombing was countless, but the loss of American B-29 bombers and their crew considerable.

The Navy developed two principal kinds of anti-aircraft guns for their boats and ships: The M-93 in 13.2mm and the M-96 in 25mm. In total several tens of thousands of these guns were made at the Naval Arsenals at Yokosuka and Toyokawa. A battleship or an aircraft carrier in the later part of the War mounted about 100 guns each. Both the M-93 and the M-96 were of the Hotchkiss system.

The Army developed the single-barrel 20mm M-98 automatic cannon. About 2250 of these guns were made and later this gun appeared in twin-barrel versions as the M-2 and as the M-4. There were 1512 M-4 guns made. Most of these guns were used to equip inland bases in Japan.

The major gun in this category was the Army's M-97 Semi-Automatic Anti -tank Cannon which used a 20mm cartridge of smaller size than that used by the M-98 Anti-aircraft Gun, and which also was used against ground targets. Total production of the M-97 was about 10,000, and the gun was made at Kokura Arsenal.

The Navy paratrooper was equipped with M-96 light machine guns and with M-38 carbines; the Army paratrooper was equipped with some take-down M-99 light machine guns and of course with M-2 take-down rifles.

It was developed by Nambu in the late 1930s and fewer than 10,000 of the 1944 type were made at Nagoya Arsenal. These weapons used the blow back system of operation and they were chambered for the 8mm pistol cartridge; they had 30-round magazines.

Japanese parachute troopers completed some successful missions at the beginning of the war, even though they were not equipped with adequate weapons. By late 1944 enough parachute forces had been trained, and they were well equipped, but the outcome of their use in the battle for Leyte in Philippines was tragic. The Japanese sent one hundred thousand troops, including paratroopers, but only 2000 survived.

The Navy imported several kinds of sub machine guns from Europe during the 1920s, including the Bergmann MP- 18. The total number of these imported weapons was 6000. The folding stock M-38 carbines and the different take-down M-99 rifles probably were converted by the Navy for their parachute troopers.

In the 1930's the Navy adopted the Lewis machine gun as an aircraft flexible gun. The Japanese Navy developed many high technology weapons for the time, but they were also the last user of the Lewis, which was a gun of WW I technology.

It was almost identical to the British Lewis, but the cocking handle of the Japanese gun is on the left side rather than on the right. These Lewis guns were used for anti-aircraft fire, as ground weapons, and for boat armament. The total production of the M-92 Lewis machine gun was about 20,000, and the gun was made by Toyokawa Arsenal with Aichi-Tokei(clock), and by Yokosuka Arsenal in 1943 and 1944. With exception of the left hand side cocking handle, most Japanese-made Lewis parts are identical with the parts of other foreign-made Lewis guns and the parts are compatible. The Navy developed the tri-pod for M-92 Lewis which could change the positions from the ground to the anti-air very quickly.

Japan did not adopt officially any semi-automatic rifles but several experimental rifles were made, including a version of the U.S. Garand rifle. In the late 1920s and early 1930s records show that the Army Technical Division was keen to acquire Western semi-automatic rifles to convert to their 6.5mm service cartridge and to use their standard 5-round clip. They were interested in the designs of Garand, Pedersen, and in the Czech ZH-29 rifle. They almost acquired a gas-operated rifle like the Garand, but they could not acquire a license to build it. Presumably conditions of cost, supply, and contract restrictions prevented their acquisition.

Several experimental semi-automatic rifle models were delivered to Army schools, such as the Tank School. Just before the end of the War in 1945 all surplus weapons of this type were gathered and transferred to newly-organized troops bound for Okinawa. It is possible that many of these weapons were lost at sea enroute.

The Japanese knew the U.S. Garand rifle well because they captured several hundred of them in early 1942 in the Philippine invasion, but records about how these guns were treated cannot be found. There is a printed Japanese manual for the U.S. Garand seen so there should be records. The Navy made a very close copy of the Garand, with an improved magazine system, in 1944. This weapon used Japanese rimmed 7.7mm ammunition which was common with Lewis guns and it had a 10-round capacity magazine; five round clips were used to load this weapon. (It was probably developed by the Navy Air Forces which had a lot of stocks of this ammunition.) Several examples of this weapon exist today. All of them were roughly made.

It was thought that Japanese ignored the semi-automatic rifles but every record shows that they were very keen to develop the weapon. Probably the Model 38 rifle was so highly regarded by them and it was difficult to find something that overcame the M-38.