Type 89 refers to two unrelated

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 Emper ...

aircraft

machine gun A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles ...

s. Its

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 ...

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 recoil-operated, licensed copy of the Vickers Class E machine gun re-chambered to 7.7x58mmSR Type 89 cartridge, it is referred to as the "fixed type". It was used in synchronized applications in fighter cowls and in wing gun applications. It was belt-fed, using a steel link disintegrating belt. The fixed Type 89 was used in the Nakajima Ki-27,

Ki-43 The Nakajima Ki-43 ''Hayabusa'' (, "Peregrine falcon", "Army Type 1 Fighter" ) is a single-engine land-based tactical fighter used by the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service in World War II. The Allied reporting name was "Oscar", but it was ...

, early Ki-44 fighters, the

Mitsubishi Ki-30 The was a Japanese light bomber of World War II. It was a single-engine, mid-wing, cantilever monoplane of stressed-skin construction with a fixed tailwheel undercarriage and a long transparent cockpit canopy. The type had significance in being ...

and Ki-51 light bombers, the Kawasaki Ki-32 light bomber and various others. Communist forces used some ex-Japanese Type 89s during the

Korean War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Korean War , partof = the Cold War and the Korean conflict , image = Korean War Montage 2.png , image_size = 300px , caption = Clockwise from top:{ ...

Type 89 flexible type

The second machine gun is gas-operated, it consists of two modified Type 11 machine guns paired into a single unit, similar to the German MG 81Z. It is commonly referred to as the "flexible type". It was derived from ''otsu-gou'' - an experimental machine gun (1922-1929) which was a Type 11 turned on its side and fed from a pan magazine. The machine gun was chambered in the 7.7x58mmSR Type 89 cartridge, it used a "Y"-shaped metallic stock, spade grips, the barrels had no cooling fins (contrary to Type 11), it was fed from two quadrant-shaped 45-round pan magazines (each magazine has a place for nine 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). The machine gun was used as a rear gun on aircraft and some were pressed into ground and anti-aircraft use. Single or doubled Type 89s were used in most Imperial Japanese Army aircraft that had flexible defensive weapons, including the Mitsubishi Ki-21, Ki-67 and

Nakajima Ki-49 The Nakajima Ki-49 ''Donryu'' (呑龍, "Storm Dragon")Francillon, 1970, p.223 was a twin-engine Japanese World War II heavy bomber. It was designed to carry out daylight bombing missions, without the protection of escort fighters. Consequently, ...

heavy bombers, the

, Ki-51 and Kawasaki Ki-32 light bombers, the

Tachikawa Ki-9 The was an intermediate training aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force built by Tachikawa Aircraft Company Ltd in the 1930s. It was known to the Allies under the nickname of "Spruce" during World War II. Design and development T ...

(for training purposes only), and various other aircraft in the Army Air Force inventory. Additionally, there was also the Te-4 machine gun (the ''Te'' designation was given to firearms under 11mm, and ''Ho'' to larger weapons such as the 12.7mm Ho-103 heavy machine gun and 20mm Ho-5

autocannon An autocannon, automatic cannon or machine cannon is a fully automatic gun that is capable of rapid-firing large-caliber ( or more) armour-piercing, explosive or incendiary shells, as opposed to the smaller-caliber kinetic projectiles (bul ...

), the machine gun bore a strong resemblance to ''otsu-gou'' (of which the Type 89 "flexible" was a derivative), due to that fact it was assumed to be a further modification of the double-barrelled machine gun, as such it was referred to as Type 89 "modified single".

References

Bibliography

External links

{{commons category, Type 89 aircraft machine gun
pwencycl.kgbudge.com Japanese_7p7mm_Type_89_gun.htmalternathistory.org.ua
Aircraft guns World War II weapons of Japan Machine guns of Japan

Type 89 fixed

Type 89 flexible type

See also

References

Bibliography

External links