Shortfinals – aviation and more!

By: shortfinals

Mar 03 2011

Tags: 'South Dakota' class battleship, 2400 ft/sec, 30 rounds, 5-round clips, 550 rounds per minute, 6.5 mm, 6.5 mm infantry cartridge, 600 yards effective range, 7.7 mm, 7.92 mm Mauser calibre, Arisaka cartridge, artifacts, barrel, Battleship Cove, bayonet, BB-59, better extraction mechanism, bolt, box magazine, breech, Bren, British, captured examples, China, Czech-designed, Czech-designed ZB-26, derived from the Czech ZB-26, design 'quirks', effective range, excellent exhibits of WW2 artifacts and weapons, exhibitions, extraction mechanism, Fall River, feed mechanism, finned barrel, flash hider, French, French Hotchkiss machine gun designs, grit and dirt, heavily finned barrel, hopper, Hotchkiss, Imperial Japan, Imperial Japanese forces, improve cooling, infantry bayonet, initial muzzle velocity, interwar period, Japan, Japanese, Japanese Type 96 Light Machine Gun, Kijiro Nambu, Kokura Arsenal, Korean War, lacked penetrating power, light machine gun, LMG, locally produced in China, low-power telescopic sight, machine gun, machine gun's action, magazine loader, Massachusetts, Mauser, museum, Museums, Nambu, North Korea, oil pump, oiling mechanism, open feed hopper, open-topped hopper, operating handle, People's Republic of China, quick-change barrel, reduced charge, Republic of China, reputation for jamming, Second World War, seriously flawed weapon, single-shot, single-shot capability, slow firing rate, standard infantry bayonet, standard infantry cartridge, stoppages, telescopic sight, Tye 11, Type 11 Taisho LMG, Type 96, undeclared war, unenviable reputation for jamming, USA, USS Massachutts, weaponry, WW2, ZB-26

Category: military, Museums, Second World War, ships, United States

2 Comments

The Imperial Japanese forces had, during the interwar period, borrowed from many sources when it came to designing their weaponry. The Japanese Type 96 Light Machine Gun came about because the earlier Type 11 Taisho LMG – an odd design which stripped the standard Arisaka 6.5 mm infantry cartridge from 5-round clips inserted into an open-topped hopper – had run into major problems in the field (mostly China, where Japan had been fighting an episodic, undeclared war since 1931). The Type 11 had an unenviable reputation for jamming, due to a too-tight tolerance between bolt and barrel. The designer, Kijiro Nambu, tried to get around this problem by having a small oil-pump incorporated into the feed mechanism on the Type 11 to ensure rounds were lubricated as they were fed into the breech. This only made all the grit and dirt, carried into the machine gun’s action from the open feed hopper, into a gritty paste which caused even more stoppages!

An example of the new design, the Type 96, is shown here on board the USS Massachusetts (BB-59), moored at Battleship Cove, Fall River, Massachusetts; this impressive ‘South Dakota’ class battleship contains many excellent exhibits of WW2 artifacts and weapons.

Nambu and the staff of the Kokura Arsenal had access to captured examples of the excellent Czech-designed ZB-26 (in 7.92 mm Mauser calibre) which had been exported in large quantities to China, as well as being locally produced. When mixed with elements of the French Hotchkiss machine gun designs (including the heavily finned barrel, to improve cooling) and a quick-change barrel, the Type 96 was adopted. The hopper was dispensed with (reducing the amount of dirt admitted) and a 30 round curved top-mounted box magazine was utilized. The same reduced-power version of the standard 6.5 mm Arisaka cartridge lacked penetrating power, and its effective range was only about 600 yards, despite an initial muzzle velocity of 2,400 ft/sec. Some design ‘quirks’ were noted. No single-shot capability was available (unusual in a light machine gun of the period), a low-power telescopic sight was sometimes used, and the standard infantry bayonet could be fitted! Coupled with a slow firing rate of around 550 rounds per minute, this meant that the Type 96 was only slightly faster that the British Bren LMG (also derived from the Czech ZB-26).

Kijiro Nambu tried to ease the cartridge extraction problems by incorporating an oiling mechanism in the magazine loader (the curved magazine was inserted on the right of the loader, and cartridges fed into an open hopper, with the operating handle to the left of that). Unfortunately, the thin film of oil only carried more dirt into the breech, via the sticky cartridges, and maintenance in the field under dusty conditions could be a nightmare. A new cartridge (the 7.7 mm) and a new gun (the Type 99 with a better extraction mechanism) came too late to alter the outcome of the war. Post-war this weapon was used by the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of China and North Korea and was encountered in the Korean War.

The weapon shown here is minus the box magazine but is fitted with a prominent flash-hider, something that is not seen on every gun. All in all, an interesting LMG, but a seriously flawed weapon.

http://peoplesmosquito.org.uk