The Type 4 rifle, often referred to as the Type 5 rifle, (Japanese: 四式自動小銃 ''Yon-shiki Jidōshōju'') was a Japanese experimental

semi-automatic rifle A semi-automatic rifle is an autoloading rifle that fires a single cartridge with each pull of the trigger, and uses part of the fired cartridge's energy to eject the case and load another cartridge into the chamber. For comparison, a bolt ...

. It was based on the American

M1 Garand The M1 Garand or M1 rifleOfficially designated as U.S. rifle, caliber .30, M1, later simply called Rifle, Caliber .30, M1, also called US Rifle, Cal. .30, M1 is a semi-automatic rifle that was the service rifle of the U.S Army during World W ...

with an integral 10-round

magazine A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combinatio ...

and chambered for the Japanese

7.7×58mm Arisaka The 7.7×58mm ''Arisaka'' cartridge was the standard military cartridge for the Imperial Japanese Army's and the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service during World War II. The 7.7×58mm cartridge was designed as the successor of the 6.5×50mmSR ca ...

cartridge. Where the Garand used an

en-bloc clip A clip is a device that is used to store multiple rounds of ammunition together as a unit for insertion into the magazine or cylinder of a firearm. This speeds up the process by loading the firearm with several rounds at once, rather than one at a ...

, the Type 4's integral magazine was charged with two 5-round

stripper clip A stripper clip (also known as a charger or charger clip, especially in British and in Commonwealth military vocabulary) is a speedloader that holds several cartridges (usually between 5 and 10) together in a single unit for easier and faster ...

s and the rifle also used Japanese-style tangent sights. The Type 4 had been developed alongside several other experimental semi-automatic rifles. However, none of the rifles entered into service before the end of

World War II 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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, with only 250 being made, and many others were never assembled. There were several problems with jamming and feed systems, which also delayed its testing.

History

Japan had experimented with semi-auto rifles in the 1930s when the Imperial Japanese Navy tested rifles based on the ZH-29. They were cancelled in the end due to problems encountered during tests. During 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 ...

, Japanese soldiers relied on bolt-action type rifles. However, guns were getting scarce and their main military opponent, the United States, had replaced their bolt weapons with modern semi-automatic rifles. At the same time,

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

and the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

were also developing their own semi-automatic weapons, such as the

SVT-40 The SVT-40 (Samozaryadnaya Vintovka Tokareva, Obrazets 1940 goda, "Tokarev self-loading rifle, model of 1940", Russian: Самозарядная винтовка Токарева, образец 1940 года, often nicknamed "'' Sveta''") is a S ...

and

Gewehr 43 The Gewehr 43 or Karabiner 43 (abbreviated G43, K43, Gew 43, Kar 43) is a 7.92×57mm Mauser caliber semi-automatic rifle developed by Germany during World War II. The design was based on that of the earlier G41(W), but incorporated an improved ...

which would give them a great advantage on the battlefield. This pressured Japan to find a quick way to cope with their military disadvantage. Instead of designing and investing in a new weapon from scratch, they opted to copy the American

. Initially, the Japanese experimented with re-chambering captured American M1 rifles, since the 7.7 Japanese cartridge is dimensionally similar to the .30-06. They found that while the Garand could chamber, fire, and cycle with the 7.7 ammunition, the en-bloc clip system was incompatible with the cartridge and would not feed reliably. Instead the Japanese designers reverse engineered the M1 and discarded the en-bloc clip, replacing it with a fixed internal 10-round magazine charged by two 5-round Arisaka Type 99 stripper clips. Japan had previously developed semi-automatic service rifles, but none of them had been viewed as successful or of trustworthy quality. The design work for the Type 4 began in 1944. The rifle was meant to be mass-produced in 1945. However, the Japanese defeat in the war in August halted its manufacturing. At the time, an estimate of 125 Type 4s were completed out of the 250 in the workshop. Twenty of them were taken by the

Allies An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...

at the

Yokosuka Naval Arsenal was one of four principal naval shipyards owned and operated by the Imperial Japanese Navy, and was located at Yokosuka, Kanagawa prefecture on Tokyo Bay, south of Yokohama. History In 1866, the Tokugawa shogunate government established the ...

Honshu , historically called , is the largest and most populous island of Japan. It is located south of Hokkaidō across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyūshū across the Kanmon Straits. The island s ...

after the end of the war. An example of this rifle can be found in the US

National Firearms Museum The NRA National Firearms Museum is a museum located at the NRA Headquarters Building in Fairfax County, Virginia. Approximated 2,500 guns are displayed in 15,000 square feet. The NRA National Firearms Museum is operated by the Museums Division of ...

Variants

The following Type 4s were made: * First Variant * Second Variant * Third Variant * Pre-production Model * Production Model

References

Bibliography

* *

External links

Japanese Type 4 Garand - Forgotten Weapons
{{Use dmy dates, date=June 2017 World War II semi-automatic rifles World War II infantry weapons of Japan Trial and research firearms of Japan