The was developed for aerial use for the
Imperial Japanese Navy
The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender ...
in 1932. The Type 92 is a light machine gun and not to be confused with the similarly named
Type 92 heavy machine gun.
Description
It was the standard hand-held machine gun in multi-place IJN aircraft during the most part of the
Pacific War
The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the vas ...
. It proved to be seriously inadequate. Aircraft produced in the later part of the conflict often were equipped with weapons such as
Type 1 and
Type 2 machine guns or
Type 99 cannon.
Essentially a copy of the shroudless post-World War I aircraft-mounted version of the British
Lewis gun, the Type 92 was fed with a 97-round drum magazine and used on a flexible mount. It was chambered in a
Japanese copy of the .303 British cartridge. The main external difference between the two models was the trigger guard, and cooling fins around the barrel and gas piston tube. Neither the post-World War I British aircraft Lewis nor the Japanese copy featured the distinctive thick barrel shroud of the original gun (although ground-based versions generally retained it). It was removed as it was found that the airflow past the aircraft was sufficient for cooling the barrel and eliminating the shroud reduced the mass.
Installations
*
Aichi D1A
The Aichi D1A or Navy Type 94/96 Carrier Bomber ( Allied reporting name "Susie") was a Japanese carrier-based dive bomber of the 1930s. A single-engine, two-seat biplane based on the Heinkel He 50, the D1A was produced by Aichi for the Imperial J ...
*
Aichi D3A
The Aichi D3A Type 99 Carrier Bomber ( Allied reporting name "Val") is a World War II carrier-borne dive bomber. It was the primary dive bomber of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and was involved in almost all IJN actions, including the a ...
*
Kawanishi E7K2[Collier, Basil ''Japanese Aircraft of World War II'' Mayflower Books (1979) pp.62-63]
*
Kawanishi H6K
*
Kawanishi H8K
*
Kyūshū Q1W
*
Mitsubishi F1M2
[Collier, Basil ''Japanese Aircraft of World War II'' Mayflower Books (1979) p.101]
*
Mitsubishi G3M
*
Mitsubishi G4M
*
Nakajima B5N
*
Nakajima B6N
*
Yokosuka B4Y
*
Yokosuka K5Y
The was a two-seat unequal- span biplane trainer that served in the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. Due to its bright orange paint scheme (applied to all Japanese military trainers for visibility), it earned the nickname ''"aka-tom ...
* Various others
See also
*
Type 89 machine gun
Type 89 refers to two unrelated Imperial Japanese Army aircraft machine guns. Its Imperial Japanese Navy counterparts are the Type 97 machine gun (fixed), and Type 92 machine gun (a Lewis gun copy).
Type 89 fixed
The first machine gun is a ...
(the Imperial Japanese Army equivalent to the Type 92))
*
MG 15 machine gun
*
MG 81 machine gun
*
Vickers VGO
Notes
References
*
* McNab, Chris. ''Twentieth-century Small Arms''
{{Japanese WWII infantry weapons
Aircraft guns
Machine guns of Japan
World War II machine guns
Military equipment introduced in the 1930s