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, Potsdam Declaration, when it was dissolved followin ...
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 or the Pacific Theatre, was the Theater (warfare), theatre of World War II fought between the Empire of Japan and the Allies of World War II, Allies in East Asia, East and Southeast As ...
. 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
*
Aichi D3A
The Aichi D3A (Navy designation "Type 99 Carrier Bomber"; World War II Allied names for Japanese aircraft, Allied reporting name "Val") is a World War II carrier-borne dive bomber. It was the primary dive bomber of the Imperial Japanese Na ...
*
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
The Nakajima B5N (, World War II Allied names for Japanese aircraft, Allied reporting name "Kate") was the standard Carrier-based aircraft, carrier-based torpedo bomber of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) for much of World War II. It also served ...
*
Nakajima B6N
The was the Imperial Japanese Navy's standard carrier-borne torpedo bomber during the final years of World War II and the successor to the B5N "Kate". Due to its protracted development, a shortage of experienced pilots and the United States N ...
*
Yokosuka B4Y
*
Yokosuka K5Y
* Various others
See also
*
Type 89 machine gun (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