Type 96 Light Machine Gun

Origins

Japan's first light machine gun, the Type 11 of 1922, was fed by a hopper into which riflemen's five-round clips were dropped. It was ingenious but jammed easily in dust and mud, and it needed specially lubricated ammunition. In the early 1930s the Japanese Army captured Czech ZB vz. 26 light machine guns from Chinese troops and was impressed by their simple top-fed box magazine. The arsenal team under Kijirō Nambu, who had designed most Japanese automatic weapons, developed a new gun that used some of the same ideas, and it was adopted in 1936 (the imperial year 2596) as the Type 96.

Design & Construction

The Type 96 was gas-operated and fired from an open bolt, with a quick-change finned barrel and a folding bipod. It fed from a curved thirty-round box magazine on top of the receiver,. It fired the 6.5x50mm Arisaka cartridge used in the Type 38 rifle, at a rate of about 550 rounds a minute. It still had an oiling device, built into the magazine loader, to lubricate the cartridges, which was a weakness in dirty conditions. Many guns carried a 2.5x telescopic sight, and a bayonet could be fixed to the gas cylinder, reflecting the Japanese Army's commitment to the bayonet charge. The gun weighed about twenty pounds.

Combat Use

The Type 96 was the light machine gun of the Japanese infantry squad in China and in the first years of the Pacific war, in Malaya, the Philippines, Burma, New Guinea and the Solomons. Japanese soldiers often sited it with great skill in camouflaged positions to fire along paths and beaches. It fought against the American M1918 BAR and the British Bren, its distant relative. The larger 7.7mm Type 99 Rifle cartridge led to the Type 99 light machine gun of 1939, but the Army never had enough of the new guns to replace the Type 96, and both were used together until 1945, including in the Battle of Corregidor.

Legacy

After 1945 captured Type 96 guns were used by Chinese Communist forces, by the Indonesians against the Dutch and by both sides in the early Indochina war. It was a sound and well-made design, better than the Type 11 it replaced, though its small cartridge and the oiling system held it back. The Type 96 and Type 99 were the last of the Nambu-designed light machine guns.