was a

heavy machine gun A heavy machine gun (HMG) is significantly larger than light, medium or general-purpose machine guns. HMGs are typically too heavy to be man-portable (carried by one person) and require mounting onto a weapons platform to be operably stable or ...

used by the

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...

during the later stages of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. Though seemingly intended to replace the older

Type 92 heavy machine gun was a Japanese heavy machine gun, related to the Hotchkiss machine gun series. It entered service in 1932 and was the standard Japanese heavy machine gun used during World War II. Known for its reliability, it was used after the war by various fo ...

, the weapon never underwent the same level of mass production as its predecessor due to material shortages.

Description

The Type 1 is essentially a smaller, lighter version of the Type 92 heavy machine gun. It employs the same principles of operation, simply with scaled down components. The barrel is designed to be rapidly changed in the field to prevent overheating, as a result the barrel cooling rings were reduced in size and the barrel jacket was done away with entirely. It was fed from 30-round brass feed strips.

References

* Heavy machine guns World War II infantry weapons of Japan World War II machine guns Machine guns of Japan Weapons and ammunition introduced in 1942 {{machinegun-stub

Description

See also

References