Japanese rifles of the second world war. World War II rifles

If you were even a little interested in the history of the Russian army, then you can certainly recall at least a couple of examples of foreign weapons. The first machine gun that comes to mind is "Maxim", someone may remember the "Lewis", this also includes the English "Vickers". But the Arisaka, a Japanese-made rifle, is not known to everyone. Nevertheless, this weapon played an important role in the formation of modern Russian statehood.

The Arisaka rifle is one of the notable examples. Using her example, the excess power of cartridges of classic rifles was indirectly proved, and under her patron Vladimir Fedorov created the world's first machine gun. Arisaka was not only used by the Japanese. It was used by the Finns, Albanians, and even the Russians - with the purchase of Arisaki in the First World War, our government compensated for the lack of three lines.

Arisaks, in particular, were armed with famous Latvian riflemen, who played a significant role in the history of the revolution and the civil war.
Arisaka rifle stocks were used in the Moscow battle to arm the militia. But not only Russia bought Arisaka - the British fleet used it until 1921. The Chinese had it in service even during the Sino-Vietnamese War. Due to the high accuracy of the battle, it was used as a sniper.

However, let's start in order. The history of Japanese rifled small arms began in 1877, when the Japanese major Tsuniyoshi Murata arrived in France with the aim of purchasing a batch of Gra rifles to suppress the Satsuma uprising of Japanese samurai that broke out in Japan.
The choice of France was not accidental - in those years, European countries tried to conserve Japan's backwardness caused by prolonged self-isolation, so that it remained only a market for colonial goods. Therefore, they refused to supply the Japanese with modern weapons. The only exception was France, which, even during the Japanese Civil War, Boshin Senseo (戊辰戦争, literally "War of the Year of the Dragon") supplied the shogun's army, the latest Shaspo rifles at that time. Returning to Tokyo, Murata proposed setting up the production of Namban rifles in Japan itself. Nambans, that is, southern barbarians, in Japan were called for centuries from Europeans who sailed to Japan in the 16th-17th centuries from a southern direction.
As a result of Murata's efforts, already in 1880, the Japanese imperial army received a Type 13 rifle, designated so for the 13th year of the reign of the then emperor.
The rifle was a synthesis of the design ideas embodied in the French Gras rifle and the Dutch Beaumont rifle.

Murat rifle Type 13

Murata Type 13, created for an 11-mm metal cartridge with a sleeve length of 60 mm, had a 127.6-centimeter length with an 813-millimeter barrel length and weighed 4.09 kg. A 5.28-gram charge of smokeless powder ejected a 27.2-gram bullet at a speed of 437 m / s. Another modification of the cartridge with a 26-gram bullet provided a 455-meter muzzle velocity. There was also a carbine, the barrel of which was 459 millimeters long. A special cartridge with a lightweight 24-gram bullet fired at a speed of 400.2 m / s was used for it.
Murata Type 13 suffered from many childhood illnesses and, having experienced two improvements, eventually turned into a Murata Type 18 rifle by 1885.

The Japanese closely followed military innovations in civilized countries, and in 1889 they adopted the Murat Type 22 rifle.

The rifle had a caliber of 8 mm and was equipped with an under-barrel magazine of the Kropachek system for eight rounds.

The barrel length of the new rifle was 750 mm. From this barrel, a 15.9-gram bullet ejected by a 2.4-gram charge of smokeless powder flew out at a speed of 612 m / s. The carbine, which had a barrel of 500 mm in length, had a muzzle velocity of 590 m / s.

Carbine based on the Murat Type 22 rifle

The test for Murata was the Japan-China War, and although Japan emerged victorious from it, the joy of victory did not overshadow the identified shortcomings.
Murata Type 22 possessed all the shortcomings inherent in rifles with underbarrel magazines. Firstly, filling such a magazine took time and, having quickly shot the entire magazine, the shooter was forced to manually insert each cartridge separately, turning the rifle into a single shot. Secondly, as the cartridges were consumed, the rifle's center of gravity shifted, which negatively affected accuracy. But a third problem also emerged, which turned out to be characteristic of Japan. The fact is that the growth of the average Japanese conscript was only 157 centimeters, and the weight, as a rule, did not exceed 48 kilograms. The years of great changes and the associated civil wars, which were the birth and childhood of soldiers of the 1890s, did their job - almost all of them suffered from dystrophy before the army, and Murata, created by European standards, turned out to be too heavy for many soldiers, and her the return is irresistible.
That is why, when switching to a rifle with a middle magazine, the new head of the rifle department of the Tokyo Arsenal, Colonel Naryakira Arisaka (有坂成章), who replaced Major General Murata in 1890, decided to abandon the 8-mm cartridge.
The weakest cartridge at that time was the Italian 6.5 mm cartridge from the Carcano rifle. It contained 2.28 g of Solemite brand smokeless powder. Such a charge made it possible to push a 10.45-gram bullet out of a 780-mm barrel at a speed of 710 m / s. True, there is evidence that sometimes this cartridge was equipped with 1.95 grams of ballistic nitroglycerin powder, which made it possible to bring the muzzle velocity to 745 m / s.

Japanese soldier with rifle Murata Type 22

Arisaka decided that the cartridge could be made even weaker, and put only 2.04 g of nitrocellulose flaky powder into it. At the same time, so that the gunpowder during manipulations with the cartridge does not fall into its lower part, without contacting with the primer, a cardboard wad was placed in the cartridge, which was subsequently discarded. The sleeve had a 50.7 mm length, which made it possible to designate its parameters as both 6.5 × 50 and 6.5 × 51 mm.
In those years, there was a serious dispute between gunsmiths about which sleeve is better, with a flange or with a groove. Without waiting for the end of this dispute, Arisaka supplied the sleeve with a groove and a flange. At the same time, the flange protruded beyond the dimensions of the cartridge by only 0.315 mm, while for our rifle this figure was 1.055 mm.
The capsule socket of the sleeve had a central anvil and two seed holes. The Berdan-type brass capsule usually had a convex surface. Occasionally he poked with two radial strokes.
A blunt-headed bullet weighing 10.4 g with a spherical tip consisted of a lead core and cupronickel shell and developed a speed of 725 m / s in a barrel of 800 mm length.
The long barrel length in combination with a small powder charge led to an almost complete absence of muzzle flash and a significant decrease in the sound of a shot

Arisaki's partron with blunt bullet

The rifle, put into service in 1897, received the designation Type 30 Infantry Rifle (三八式歩兵銃) - in the courtyard was the 30th year of the reign of Emperor Mutsuhito, who ruled under the motto Meiji (明治) - enlightened rule (mei 明 \u003d light, knowledge; ji 治 \u003d government).

In the barrel of Arisaki there were six right-hand cuts, and along the outer surface the barrel had a variable cylindrical section, decreasing towards the muzzle. In its rear part, a thread was cut into which the receiver was screwed with an interference fit. The latter was of the same type as the receiver of the Mauser rifle, but had one notable feature - the cover, which moved with the bolt.
On the rear jumper of the receiver there was a cranked cutout for placing the handle of the bolt stem, and on the left there was a tide with windows for a bolt delay with a reflector.
The bolt stem had three lugs, two of which were symmetrically located in the front, and the third, additional, was the base of the handle. To lock the barrel, move the bolt forward and turn the stem handle to the right. Inside the stem of the bolt is a channel for placing a striker with a mainspring, passing in the front part into a hole for the striker to exit. In the rear part of the stem, a screw cut is formed, interacting with the combat platoon of the striker, and a socket for placing the combat platoon with the bolt open.

The magazine box of a vertical type rifle with a staggered arrangement of cartridges was filled with cartridges from a clip. when squeezing the cartridges out of the clip, the lower cartridge lay on the plane of the feeder and, compressing its spring, jumped over the right edge of the lower receiver window. The second cartridge pressed on the first and, squeezing the feeder inside the magazine box, jumped over the left edge.
The fifth cartridge, entering under the right edge of the receiver window, could not fall out, since it was pressed against the edge by the fourth cartridge.

When the bolt moved forward, the bolt stem sent the cartridge into the chamber with its lower part. The cartridge was guided by the slope of the sleeve along the oval bevels of the receiver. When locking the barrel, the ejector hook jumped over the edge of the sleeve. The next cartridge, under the action of the feeder spring, rose up to the stop in the lower plane of the bolt stem, pressing against the left wall of the lower receiver window.

Arisaki's frame sight consisted of an aiming block, which is integral with a tubular base, fitted on the barrel with an interference fit and, in addition, a reinforced screw: an aiming frame; springs of sighting frame and clamp with a latch.
The aiming frame, connected to the aiming block by means of a hairpin, had three aiming slots, of which two were on the aiming frame itself, and the third on a movable clamp. Sighting range divisions are marked on the front side of the sighting frame in hundreds of meters.

The transition of some armies to cartridges with a pointed bullet did not go unnoticed for Arisaki, and in 1905, at the height of the Russo-Japanese War, a new cartridge of the 38th Meiji era was adopted.

Arisaki's partron with a pointed bullet. A green border means the bullet is a tracer.

The rifle was redesigned for a pointed bullet cartridge that had an 8.9 gamma mass. The charge of smokeless powder, increased to 2.15 g, developed a pressure in the bore of up to 3200 kg / m2 and accelerated the bullet to 760 m / s. Improvements have also been made to the shutter and fuse. Now, to turn on the fuse, it was necessary to press on the back of the coupling, slightly turn it to the right, and to turn it off, press and turn it to the left.
In addition to the infantry rifle, a carbine was also created, which was used in cavalry, artillery and sapper units. Its barrel length was reduced to 480 mm.

Arisaka Type 38 has faithfully served the Japanese militarists for three decades. With its help, they held our Far East in 1918-22. With its help, they occupied Manchuria and started a war with China with it.
Its last improvement was the introduction of a sniper modification, which received the designation Type 38 - by that time two emperors had changed and a new chronology was introduced from the founding of Japan. Its starting point was 660 BC, when, according to legend, Emperor Jimmu founded the Japanese state. According to this calculation, 1938 was 2598 or just 98. In this year, the sniper rifle was introduced.

However, the next year, Arisaku Type 38 was waiting for a replacement. The fact is that in China, the Japanese encountered Chinese tankettes (more precisely, English ones supplied to China), which had bulletproof armor. The bullet from Arisaki did not penetrate it, but when the Japanese tried to shoot at them from our three lines, the armor of the wedges began to split like eggshells.

Japanese army weapons bulk Arisaka type 99

Not wanting to spend armor-piercing shells on Chinese-type tanks, the Japanese decided to equip their infantry with rifles chambered for a stronger cartridge. The result was the development of a 7.7 × 58 mm wafer cartridge. During development, the British cartridge .303 British was taken as a basis, but, firstly, it was deprived of the flange, and secondly, it was equipped with a 3.1-gram powder charge instead of a 2.58-gram one. The barrel length was shortened to 650 mm, and an 11.3-gram bullet flew out of it at a speed of 741 m / s. The rifle chambered for this cartridge was designated Type 99, and in memory of the late Arisaka, who died in 1915, it was finally officially named after him.
The shortening of the barrel made it possible to replace both long infantry rifles and carbines with one modification. In this form, Type 99 rifles were produced until 1945, their total production amounted to over three and a half million pieces. By the end of the war, Japan's resources were seriously depleted, and the quality of the Arisaka rifles, initially quite high, had fallen sharply. In the design of late-release rifles, low-grade steel was used, parts without heat treatment, so that such rifles were often dangerous not only for the enemy, but also for the shooters themselves.

In 1942, on the basis of the Arisaki Type 99, the Arisaka Type 02 collapsible rifle was created, intended for arming paratroopers. In it, the barrel was attached to the receiver using a massive transverse wedge inserted from the side through the forend, below the bore. Often, these rifles were also equipped with a folding wire one-legged bipod under the forearm. All Arisaki were equipped with a detachable blade-type bayonet worn in a scabbard. Arisaka was shooting without a bayonet.

Colonel Nariake Arisaka

Arisaki's grave at Yanaki cemetery

Russian soldiers with foreign rifles: on the left a Japanese "Arisaka", on the right an old Italian Vetterli rifle.

Red Army parade in Kharkov, 1920.

This time I would like to tell you about one of the most beautiful patrons of his time. Proportional, as if drawn, it really was quite good and left a big mark in our history. It will be about a 6.5x50 cartridge for Arisaka rifles.

The Japanese, like many "hastened" with rearmament, did not avoid re-equipment with replacement of the cartridge. Moreover, the rifle of the Murata system type 20 (model 1887), which had a caliber of 8mm, was at least no worse than the same Lebel, who fought in the First World War and had not undergone any changes before.

But .. what is good for a European is not very good for a Japanese.
During the Meiji period, Japan made a breakthrough from a semi-colonial country, including in military affairs. The army, created according to Western standards (but also taking into account national characteristics), was armed with fairly modern weapons, did not lag behind the armies of Europe and America. However, the anthropological characteristics of the Japanese still had to be taken into account ... Back in the early 1880s, the Japanese began to intensively feed the recruits with meat, the share of which in the traditional daily diet was relatively small. Of course, the protein diet contributed to the growth of the soldier's stamina, but nevertheless, the "European" weapons systems were too heavy for the average soldier, and their recoil was difficult to bear.
This was one of the reasons for the quick replacement of the quite successful and relatively modern Murat rifle with a new weapon of "small" caliber - 6.5 mm.

Experiments with a small caliber were carried out not only by the Japanese, so the Italians and Austrians (who sold licenses to the Romanians and the Dutch) came to the same caliber. But the Japanese went their own way, keeping up with the advanced "weapon" countries.
As a result, already in 1897, the Arisaka type 30 rifle was adopted (ie, the model adopted in the 30th year of the Meiji era).

The design of the rifle was very advanced for its time: it structurally resembled a German rifle arr. 1898 (Mauser).

The design of the store practically repeated the German weapons, the bolt was also very close to it. The rifle also received a clip-on loading similar to the same "Mauser" - the plate clip, with the bolt open, was installed in the grooves of the receiver, from where the cartridges were fed into the magazine with a finger movement.

One of the "tricks" of that time was the use of segmental rifling in rifles, which somewhat reduced the friction of the bullet in the barrel and ensured better entry of the bullet into the rifling.
But the most interesting feature of the rifle was the new 6.5 mm cartridge. ammunition with a sleeve length of 50 mm. A sleeve with a small welt and a groove, which made it possible to combine the advantages of welded sleeves (large tolerances when processing the chamber due to fixing not with the slope of the sleeve, but with a welt) and weldless (compact design of the store and no risk of entanglement of cartridges with welts when feeding).
The described cartridges had a blunt-pointed bullet weighing 10.4 g and a charge of smokeless powder weighing 2 g and an initial bullet velocity of 730 m / s.

This was more than 100 m / s higher than the initial velocity of all cartridges of 7-8 mm caliber before the adoption of sharp-pointed bullets. Together with a solid lateral load, this gave a huge gain in flatness, increasing the range of a direct shot by at least a third. In fact, such ballistics in “normal” caliber cartridges was achieved only ten years later ...
During the Russo-Japanese War, when analyzing the nature of the wounds, it was found that wounds from 6.5-mm bullets of Japanese rifle cartridges heal faster than wounds from 10.67-mm bullets from Berdan rifle No. 2, however, in general, they practically do not differ from wounds caused by a 7.62-mm bullet of a Russian rifle cartridge.
Japanese rifles excelled Russian weapons in shooting accuracy, but the difficult conditions of Manchuria revealed the shortcomings of the weapon itself - the rifle suffered from dust, however, like other weapons. In the future, already on the fronts of the First World War, in the Russian trenches, this rifle did not cause any particular complaints.
However, even then it was discovered that the Japanese bullets lag behind the Russian in penetration and at long ranges they have insufficient energy due to its faster loss.
However, the pedantic Japanese, already 8 years after the adoption of the Type 30 rifle, adopted its modification - Type 38.

Arisaka carbine type 38. The bolt cover and the trigger in the form of a cylindrical cover are visible.

This weapon, basically repeating the prototype, received a dust cover of the bolt that moved along with the reloading handle, a new-shaped hammer and a slightly improved bolt.
Soon, a new cartridge was adopted - with a pointed bullet.

The case is quite rare, since the excellent ballistics of 6.5 mm cartridges was considered sufficient even against the background of new cartridges with a pointed bullet, and most states did not accept new small-caliber bullets for service.
These cartridges had a pointed bullet weighing 9 g with a powder weight of 2.5 g and a muzzle velocity of 770 m / s. It is easy to understand that the increase in the speed of the new bullet had a very positive effect on the fighting qualities of the cartridge, allowing it to provide excellent flatness with moderate recoil. It is noteworthy that the mass of the bullet was equal to the Russian bullet Model 1908, that is, it had a large lateral load.

Long bullets of the old and new "Arisaki" in terms of terminal ballistics were in no way inferior to their large-caliber counterparts, and meeting dense bones they often simply collapsed or went somersault, causing severe wounds.

The Japanese rifle was quite good, so much so that Japan in 1910 received the first foreign order for 40,000 rifles from Mexico. True, the Mexicans preferred to order the rifles the cartridge already in their arsenal, the 7-mm "Spanish Mauser". The difficult political situation in Mexico, however, did not allow the order to be fulfilled: after the delivery of 5,000 rifles, the contract was canceled. These rifles were acquired by Great Britain in 1914, because with the outbreak of the First World War, the need for weapons forced the naval rifles to be transferred to the army, and the fleet that rarely fired rifles was armed with what they managed to get.
This same war became the "finest hour" of Arisaka rifles. Experiencing a severe "rifle hunger", the Russian army demanded rifles already, literally "for yesterday", and therefore, along with placing orders for the production of new rifles, an opportunity was sought to purchase existing ones.
Already in 1914 V.G. Fedorov conducted a full cycle of tests of the Arisaka rifle and made sure of the safety, rationality and thoughtfulness of the design of this weapon. He carried out strength tests of the weapon and determined the pressure developed by the cartridge at the time of the shot (less than 3500 atm.) Fedorov noted that, despite the excessive accuracy rates, the rifle is cheaper than the Mosin rifle.
The commission chaired by the same V.G. Fedorov, an agreement was reached on the purchase for the army of old Type 30 rifles and, later, newer Type 38 rifles, as well as carbines based on them. Nearly 600,000 rifles ended up in Russia, where, along with the Mosin rifle and captured Mannlichers, they became the top three in terms of quantity. Rifles were used at the front almost everywhere, especially on the Northern Front, where the Arisaki had entire divisions. Yes, and at the South-Western Front, these rifles were notably blowing ...
Naturally, such a number of rifles with front-line ammunition consumption rates required a huge amount of ammunition. Some of the ammunition was supplied along with the rifles, but this was not enough, and Russia placed orders for cartridges both in Japan and in the UK. Credits were attracted, generously paid in gold, but at first the British from the "Kainok" company were forced to make cartridges with an old-style bullet and even without clips, the stamping of which had not yet been established. The Russians agreed to this, despite the obvious decrease in the combat capabilities of the rifles ... In particular, the orders for the supply of Arisaka cartridges were literally huge: 660 million Japanese 6.5-mm rifle cartridges were ordered with the funds of the British loan, and 124 more with the funds of the Japanese loan. million rounds.
British cartridges were marked with the letter "K" on the bottom, so it is impossible to confuse them with Japanese cartridges. Japanese cartridges did not carry markings on the sleeve at all, and the bottom had only two deep punch marks, which attached the capsule of a slightly old-fashioned "convex" shape.

The data on the cartridge was contained only on the capping of the cartridges, the cartridges were supplied loaded in clips of 5 pieces, 2 clips in a cardboard box. The only exception is the Kainok cartridges produced in 1915, which were initially supplied without clips.
Rifles and cartridges fought not only in WWI, but also in the Civil War, and, dispersed through the fragments of the former Empire, served in various armies after the war. Some of the rifles have become cut-offs, they are still being found ... And the ones that got to the warehouses of "Arisaki" were used for training, for example, by OSOAVIAKHIM. Instructions were even republished for them in the 1920s and 1930s.
Rumor has it that part of the "Russian" Arisak "was transferred to Spain, where it fought against the Francoists: by 1941, there were not enough of them in the warehouses of RAO, because if there were more of them, there would be something to arm the militia with. One way or another, some of the rifles still fired at the Germans already in the second war of this century ...

However, the cartridge not only fought on the fronts of the First World War as a rifle. He, due to its excellent ballistics and successful design, became the cartridge for the first serial self-loading rifle of the Russian Empire - the Fedorov assault rifle.
The automation system used by Fedorov was based on the use of a short stroke of the barrel with locking with a vertically moving wedge (or rather, a pair of wedges).

V.G. Fedorov, having studied the situation, realized that the future of the infantryman's personal weapons was in reduced caliber cartridges. The use of such cartridges made it possible to lighten the weapon, and increase the ammunition, and reduce the fatigue of the shooter: the strong recoil of the rifle cartridge made frequent shooting uncomfortable and inaccurate, and the increase in the mass of the weapon, solving the recoil problem, fell on the shooter.
Before PMV, Fedorov developed a very promising cartridge - 6.5x57.

This cartridge made it possible to disperse a pointed bullet weighing 9 grams up to 660 m / s and obtain a muzzle energy at the level of 1960 J. This is only slightly less than the muzzle energy of the 7.62x39 cartridge, and the ballistics of both cartridges are quite close, which gave reason for many researchers to name the Fedorov cartridge the first intermediate cartridge in history.
Nevertheless, structurally, the cartridge was closer to rifle cartridges, both in size and design, however, against the background of the cartridge for the Mosin rifle, the Fedorov cartridge indeed looked weakened.
The machines went through almost a full cycle of tests, but the outbreak of the war put an end to Fedorov's cartridge: the restructuring of industry for the production of new ammunition was impossible due to the fact that the main task was to provide the army with the main rifle cartridge.
It would seem that the cross was put on the machine: no cartridges, no weapons. But the massive purchase of Arisaka rifles and cartridges for them prompted Fedorov to think about altering the machine under the Japanese cartridge, which is very close in design to the original Fedorov one.

The assault rifle was produced in small series, in fact, military tests took place on the Romanian front, and although it received a lot of flattering reviews, the industry did not have the resources for the mass production of these weapons. The problem should have been solved by a new plant in Kovrov, but by the 1917 revolution, the plant had not been brought up to design capacity.
Nevertheless, the production of the Fedorov assault rifle under the Japanese cartridge began after the October coup, and in the 1920s the assault rifle entered the troops. Moreover, light and tank machine guns were produced on its basis, which to some extent predetermined the appearance of light machine guns based on the design of assault rifles / machine guns.
However, with a general revision and modernization of weapons in the 30s, it was decided to abandon the second cartridge for economic and logistical reasons. In addition, Simonov and Tokarev were actively working on rifles of "conventional" caliber, and this work was considered promising. As a result, Fedorov's machine guns and machine guns ended up in warehouses, and were removed from there only in the days of the Soviet-Finnish war, when a catastrophic shortage of light automatic weapons was discovered. The assault rifles were received by specially formed squads of skiers and scouts, and they used them quite effectively.
Nevertheless, the machine gun did not survive the renaissance, since during 1936-40, Simonov's automatic rifles and Tokarev's free-loading rifles began to enter service. However, the same problem of excessive recoil of the rifle cartridge made automatic firing from the ABC-36 practically useless. And, nevertheless, in the first year of the Second World War, when the shortage of light machine guns became critical, the SVT-40 was already "forced" to fire in bursts, however, with the same success. But everything was under pressure from the economy: they came to the need for a "second cartridge" on the basis of war experience, and returned to a reduced caliber already in the 60s ...

At the same time, the Arisaka patron lived an equally interesting life in his homeland, having fought almost until the end of World War II - the Japanese did not finally switch to the new 7.7x58 cartridge, although they began this process back in the 30s.
The reason for the transition to a normal caliber cartridge was the same as in other countries: the use of 6.5mm cartridges with conventional bullets covered almost all the tasks of a rifle shooter. However, the main consumer of cartridges were machine guns, which fired at a range of up to 3,000 meters, and often - cartridges with special bullets.
At long ranges, prohibitive for rifles but quite workable for a heavy machine gun, bullets of 6.5 mm cartridges lost in kinetic energy to bullets of 7-8 mm caliber. The penetration power of the bullets was also insufficient, and an attempt to create special bullets (tracer, armor-piercing) ran into the impossibility of "packing" an effective filling into a small bullet. For example, if a sufficiently heavy armor-piercing core of 6 mm diameter was placed in a 7-8 mm bullet, then the core diameter of a 6.5 mm bullet rarely exceeded 4.5 mm. Naturally, due to its low weight and caliber, it was practically ineffective. It was this that pedagogically determined the departure from the arena of small caliber rifle cartridges.
However, despite the fact that in 1939 the production of Type 99 rifles for the new 7.7 mm cartridge began, a huge number of turns and machine guns under the 6.5 mm cartridge did not go anywhere. The cartridge continued to be produced until 1945, and then the Arisaki fought in new wars on the territory of Southeast Asia.

Modifications of the cartridge of the 1920-30s are interesting, because the Japanese were original here too. However, what could be more original than machine guns, which were loaded with rifle clips, literally put in a pile ?! But not only that, the seeming versatility was sacrificed - the cartridges had to be weakened. A unique case!
The characteristics of the pointed cartridge remained unchanged until 1922, when the Type 11 light machine gun was adopted. This machine gun originally used the standard five-round magazine from an infantry rifle with blunt bullets. Accordingly, when using new cartridges, it turned out that they lead to rapid wear of parts and breakdowns of the machine gun, since new cartridges develop a higher pressure in the barrel bore, which, ultimately, affects the operation of the automation. This problem was solved by the release of a special series of cartridges with a reduced weight of gunpowder. On the packaging of these cartridges was a special stamp with the Latin letter "G" (Genso (Japanese 減少) - reduced, depleted). Such cartridges were also issued to soldiers with a Type 96 light machine gun and snipers with a Type 97 rifle. The advantage of using these cartridges by snipers was a lower recoil (which made the shooter less tired) and a weak muzzle flash when fired (which made it difficult to detect the sniper when fired).
There were also cartridges with wooden or paper bullets, training cartridges (brass or wooden with a red lacquer coating and a metal bottom) were produced. The cartridges used when fired from a rifle grenade launcher had paper bullets and can be identified by the reinforced attachment of the primers (so as not to fly out of the sleeve at increased pressure in the barrel).

One way or another, "Arisaka" and its patron have become a kind of weapon legend in Asia and on the territory of the former Russian Empire. By the will of fate, the patron fought both in the North and in the humid Asian jungle, invariably doing his job well. And to this day, the "sharp" and "dull" cartridges of Arisaka are a frequent find in the former positions of the First World War.

photo: Christopher Caisor, CollectibleFirearms.com

photo: Christopher Caisor, CollectibleFirearms.com

The 7.7mm Arisaka Type 02 rifle is a collapsible rifle for parachutists.

	infantry rifle Type 38	rifle Type 99	rifle Type 02
Caliber	6.5x50SR	7.7 × 58	7.7 × 58
Automation type	1275 mm	1150 mm	1150 mm
Length	800 mm	656 mm	620 mm
Barrel length	4.12 kg	3.8 kg	4.05 kg
Magazine capacity	5 rounds	5 rounds	5 rounds

In the 27th year of the reign of Emperor Meiji, or in 1894 in European chronology, the Japanese army began work on replacing the outdated Murata rifles. Colonel Narioke Arisaka was put in charge of the commission responsible for the development of the new rifle. In the 30th year of the reign of Emperor Meiji (1897), a new Type 30 rifle and a 6.5mm cartridge for it (6.5x52SR) were adopted by the Imperial Japanese Army. Based on the experience of the Russian - Japanese War of 1905, the Japanese decided to improve the rifle while retaining the cartridge. Since 1906, the Arisaka Type 38 infantry rifle began to enter service with the Japanese, and then carbines at its base. In total, over three million Type 38 rifles and carbines had been produced before the end of production. Based on the experience of the campaign in Manchuria, the Japanese came to the conclusion that the 6.5x52SR cartridge had insufficient destructive effect, as well as its low applicability in machine guns. Therefore, in the late 1930s, the Japanese developed a new cartridge 7.7x58, which was actually an English cartridge .303, but with a sleeve without a rim. A slightly modified version of the Type 38 rifle was created under the new cartridge, which received the designation Type 99. Such a jump in the name is explained by a change in the nomenclature - if earlier the Japanese called weapons according to the years of the reign of the current emperor, now they counted the date from the creation of the world, that is, Type 99 meant in fact Type 2099 from the creation of the world according to the Shinto calendar, or 1939 from the birth of Christ. A year later (1940) Type 99 rifles were shortened to obtain a single rifle type suitable to replace both long infantry rifles and carbines. In this form, Type 99 rifles were produced until 1945, their total production amounted to over three and a half million pieces. By the end of the war, Japan's resources were seriously depleted, and the quality of the Arisaka rifles, initially quite high, had fallen sharply. In the design of late-release rifles, low-grade steel was used, parts without heat treatment, so that such rifles were often dangerous not only for the enemy, but also for the shooters themselves.

On the basis of Type 99 rifles, several sniper rifles were created, which had optical sights of 2.5X or 4X magnification, as well as a number of collapsible rifles for paratroopers - paratroopers. The first Type 00 amphibious assault rifles had a detachable barrel with a forend attached to the receiver with an interrupted thread. About 500 Type 99 rifles were converted into Type 00 collapsible rifles when it became clear that such a system was not strong enough. In 1942, the production of Type 02 amphibious assault rifles was launched, in which the barrel was attached to the receiver using a massive transverse wedge inserted from the side through the forend, below the barrel. Often, these rifles were also equipped with a folding wire one-legged bipod under the forearm.

Rifles of the Arisaka Type 38 and Type 99 have a longitudinally sliding butterfly valve of the Mauser type with two front lugs and a non-rotating massive extractor. An integral box magazine, also of the Mauser type, held 5 rounds in a checkerboard pattern, and was loaded from plate clips or individual cartridges. A distinctive feature of the Arisaka rifles was a movable bolt cover, bent from sheet steel, which moved back and forth with the bolt. The purpose of this cover was to protect the bolt from dirt and moisture in the harsh climates of South and Southeast Asia, but it also made unnecessary sounds when reloading, and soldiers often removed it. The fuse was in the form of a round rotatable corrugated cover located at the rear end of the bolt and having an indicator groove for determining the state of the fuse visually and by touch. Another distinctive feature of Type 38 rifles is a very long barrel, which, in combination with a low-power cartridge, led to the fact that there was practically no muzzle flash when fired. This gave rise to a number of legends about the "flameless" Japanese gunpowder, but the same gunpowder in short-barreled carbines gave quite a common muzzle flash. The sight of Arisaka rifles is open, adjustable in range. On the Type 99 rifles, from the sides on the sight there were special folding bars for entering corrections when firing at low-flying aircraft. The usefulness of these rails when firing a magazine rifle at aircraft such as the F6F Hellcat or F4U Corsair was more than questionable, so their usefulness was more mental than real. The rifles were equipped with a detachable blade-type bayonet worn in a scabbard.

Japanese small arms of the Second World War are little known outside the country of the rising sun itself, although many of these samples are extremely interesting, since they are an original mixture of peculiar national traditions, formed under the influence of foreign models.

By the beginning of the war, Japan approached the most industrially developed country in Asia. In those years, the Japanese arms industry, formed in the years 1870-1890, included both state arsenals and private arms companies. But the beginning of active hostilities in 1941 revealed a sharp lag in production volumes from the needs of the army and navy. It was decided to expand the production of weapons by involving a number of civil engineering and metalworking firms in the military program. Speaking about arms production in Japan of that period, it is necessary to mention: the backlog of the technical base led to the fact that when in all industrialized countries they switched to new technologies in the manufacture of small arms (stamping parts from sheet steel, welding, etc.), the Japanese continued to use traditional methods of processing on metal-cutting machines, which restrained the growth of production and influenced its cost.

The experience of waging the war in China and the battles at Lake Hassan forced the Japanese command to bring their concept of battle in line with the requirements of modern warfare. In October 1939, a new field manual for the Japanese army was adopted, which became the guide for the ground forces until the end of the war in 1945. It noted that the main type of hostilities was an offensive, which had the goal of "encircling and destroying the enemy on the battlefield." The charter gave priority to the infantry over other types of troops. For a more effective solution of tasks on the battlefield, it was assumed to be maximally saturated with automatic weapons.

In 1941, the Japanese rifle division was armed with: rifles - 10369, bayonets - 16724 (some of the infantry were armed only with bayonets), light machine guns - 110, PTR-72. Cavalry brigades were armed with: carbines - 2134, sabers - 1857, light machine guns - 32, heavy machine guns - 16, large-caliber machine guns - 8. This, perhaps, was enough for the war in China, but for the conduct of active hostilities against the Allied troops, many times superior to the Japanese in the degree of saturation with automatic small arms, it was clear by that time not enough.

One of the main miscalculations made during the war by the Japanese military command is that, having made the main bet on machine guns as the most important means of infantry weapons, it failed in time to appreciate the full significance of new types of small arms for modern warfare - submachine guns and self-loading rifles. The lost time, as well as the large losses of personnel in the infantry units, suffered by the Japanese in the battles for the islands in the Pacific theater of operations in 1942-1944, are caused precisely by the lack of much-needed infantry support weapons.

Speaking about Japanese weapons, it is necessary to dwell in more detail on its complicated designation. It, as a rule, consists of a two-digit number - according to the last years of the adoption of this model into service. The chronology in Japan began from 660 BC and was conducted according to the periods of the reign of the emperors. Emperor Meiji ruled from 1868 to 1911, so the designation of the rifle "Type 38" corresponds to the model of 1905. From 1912 to 1925, Emperor Taisse ruled, in accordance with this the "Type 3" heavy machine gun is the model adopted by the Japanese army in 1914. Since 1926, the throne of the Land of the Rising Sun has been occupied by Emperor Hirohito. Under him, the name of the models of small arms received a double interpretation. So, the weapon adopted in 1926-1940 was designated according to the last years of the common Japanese calendar, i.e. started in 2588 (1926). In 1940, in the 16th year of the Showa era (the reign of Hirohito), the 2600th anniversary of the Japanese calendar was celebrated, therefore, in order not to associate itself with a multi-digit complex designation, it was decided to consider 2600 as 100, and when identifying weapons, to simplify, omit the figure "10", leaving "0". Thus, the 1940 model submachine gun was called the Type 100, and the Type 5 rifle became the 1944 model.

In Japan of those years, the development of small arms was directed by the army's armaments department, to which all scientific research institutes and institutions working on the creation of weapons were subordinate. The designers sought to make the most of the achievements of Western countries in weapons, combined with the features of the national identity inherent in the Japanese. Developing new types of weapons, they sought to minimize their mass and dimensional characteristics, first of all, the specific conditions of future theaters of military operations were taken into account. As confirmation of this, we can cite the fact that all Japanese machine guns, developed in the 1920s and 1930s, had air cooling of the barrel, enhanced by the use of multi-tiered transverse cooling ribs, since it was supposed to fight in the waterless semi-desert areas of China.

By the beginning of World War II, the armament of the Japanese army consisted of both outdated small arms, which were used mainly to arm the territorial units of the occupation forces on the continent and in the metropolis, and the latest models, which were mainly in service with linear units.

The Arisaka rifle is one of the notable examples. On her example, the excess power of cartridges of classic rifles was indirectly proved, and under her patron Vladimir Fedorov created the world's first machine gun. Arisaka was not only used by the Japanese. It was used by the Finns, Albanians, and even the Russians - with the purchase of Arisaki in the First World War, our government compensated for the lack of three lines.

Arisaks, in particular, were armed with famous Latvian riflemen, who played a significant role in the history of the revolution and the civil war.

Arisaka rifle stocks were used in the Moscow battle to arm the militia.

But not only Russia bought Arisaka - the British fleet used it until 1921. The Chinese had it in service even during the Sino-Vietnamese War. Due to the high accuracy of the battle, it was used as a sniper.

The choice of France was not accidental - in those years, European countries tried to conserve Japan's backwardness caused by prolonged self-isolation, so that it remained only a market for colonial goods. Therefore, they refused to supply the Japanese with modern weapons. The only exception was France, which, even during the Japanese Civil War, Boshin Senso (戊辰戦争, literally "War of the Year of the Dragon") supplied the shogun's army, the latest Shaspo rifles at that time. Returning to Tokyo, Murata proposed setting up the production of Namban rifles in Japan itself. Nambans, that is, southern barbarians, in Japan were called for centuries from Europeans who sailed to Japan in the 16th-17th centuries from a southern direction.

As a result of Murata's efforts, already in 1880, the Japanese imperial army received a Type 13 rifle, designated so for the 13th year of the reign of the then emperor.

The rifle was a synthesis of the design ideas embodied in the French Gras rifle and the Dutch Beaumont rifle.

Murata Type 13 suffered from many childhood illnesses and, having experienced two improvements, eventually turned into a Murata Type 18 rifle by 1885.

Murata Type 18

The Japanese closely followed military innovations in civilized countries, and in 1889 they adopted the Murat Type 22 rifle.

Murata Type 22

The rifle had a caliber of 8 mm and was equipped with an under-barrel magazine of the Kropachek system for eight rounds.

Murata Type 22 carbine

Carbine based on the Murat Type 22 rifle

The test for Murata was the Japan-China War, and although Japan emerged victorious from it, the joy of victory did not overshadow the identified shortcomings.

Murata Type 22 possessed all the shortcomings inherent in rifles with underbarrel magazines. Firstly, filling such a magazine took time and, having quickly shot the entire magazine, the shooter was forced to manually insert each cartridge separately, turning the rifle into a single shot. Secondly, as the cartridges were consumed, the rifle's center of gravity shifted, which negatively affected accuracy. But a third problem also emerged, which turned out to be characteristic of Japan. The fact is that the height of the average Japanese conscript was only 157 centimeters, and the weight, as a rule, did not exceed 48 kilograms. The years of great changes and the civil wars associated with them, which were the birth and childhood of soldiers of the 1890s, did their job - almost all of them suffered from dystrophy before the army, and Murata, created by European standards, turned out to be too heavy for many soldiers, and her the return is irresistible.

That is why, when switching to a rifle with a middle magazine, the new head of the rifle department of the Tokyo Arsenal, Colonel Naryakira Arisaka (有坂成章), who replaced Major General Murata in 1890, decided to abandon the 8-mm cartridge.

The weakest cartridge at that time was the Italian 6.5 mm cartridge from the Carcano rifle. It contained 2.28 g of Solemite brand smokeless powder. Such a charge made it possible to push a 10.45-gram bullet out of a 780-mm barrel at a speed of 710 m / s. True, there is evidence that sometimes this cartridge was equipped with 1.95 grams of ballistic nitroglycerin powder, which made it possible to bring the muzzle velocity to 745 m / s.

Arisaki's partron with blunt bullet

In those years, there was a serious dispute between gunsmiths about which sleeve is better, with a flange or with a groove. Without waiting for the end of this dispute, Arisaka provided the sleeve with a groove and a flange. At the same time, the flange protruded beyond the dimensions of the cartridge by only 0.315 mm, while for our rifle this figure was 1.055 mm.

The capsule socket of the sleeve had a central anvil and two seed holes. The Berdan-type brass capsule usually had a convex surface. Occasionally, he poked with two radial strokes.

A blunt-headed bullet weighing 10.4 g with a spherical tip consisted of a lead core and cupronickel shell and developed a speed of 725 m / s in a barrel of 800 mm length.

The long barrel length in combination with a small powder charge led to an almost complete absence of muzzle flash and a significant decrease in the sound of a shot.

Arisaka type 30

Breech shutter disassembled: 1 - bolt stem, 2 - coupling, 3 - ejector, 4 - drummer, 5 - mainspring, 6 - receiver cover.

On the rear jumper of the receiver there was a cranked cutout for placing the handle of the bolt stem, and on the left there was a tide with windows for a slide delay with a reflector.

The bolt stem had three lugs, two of which were symmetrically located in the front, and the third, additional, was the base of the handle. To lock the barrel, move the bolt forward and turn the stem handle to the right. Inside the stem of the bolt is a channel for placing a striker with a mainspring, passing in the front part into a hole for the striker to exit. In the rear part of the stem, a screw cut is formed, interacting with the combat platoon of the striker, and a socket for placing the combat platoon with the bolt open.

The fifth cartridge, entering under the right edge of the receiver window, could not fall out, since it was pressed against the edge by the fourth cartridge.

Arisaki's sight: 1 - aiming block, 2 - aiming frame, 3 - aiming frame spring, 4 - clamp, 5 - clamp latch.

The aiming frame, connected to the aiming block by means of a hairpin, had three aiming slots, of which two were on the aiming frame itself, and the third on a movable clamp. Sighting range divisions are marked on the front side of the sighting frame in hundreds of meters.

In addition to the infantry rifle, a carbine was also created, which was used in cavalry, artillery and sapper units. Its barrel length was reduced to 480 mm.

Its last improvement was the introduction of a sniper modification, which received the designation Type 38 - by that time two emperors had changed and a new chronology was introduced from the founding of Japan. Its starting point was 660 BC, when, according to legend, Emperor Jimmu founded the Japanese state. According to this calculation, 1938 was 2598 or just 98. In this year, the sniper rifle was introduced.

Arisaka Type 99

Arisaki's grave at Yanaki cemetery

The shortening of the barrel made it possible to replace both long infantry rifles and carbines with one modification. In this form, Type 99 rifles were produced until 1945, their total production amounted to over three and a half million pieces. By the end of the war, Japan's resources were seriously depleted, and the quality of the Arisaka rifles, initially quite high, had fallen sharply. In the design of late-release rifles, low-grade steel was used, parts without heat treatment, so that such rifles were often dangerous not only for the enemy, but also for the shooters themselves.

Article. Arisaka rifle type 30. 三十年式歩兵銃
Author Tsvershits A
The Arisaka rifle type 30 (model 1897) was an attempt to create a design superior to European samples based on the developments of the Mauser 1891-96 company. And it is a vivid example of how you can overdo it in achieving overestimated parameters and overcomplicating the details of the shutter and trigger.
Along with the high quality of manufacturing and metalworking, the presence of small tolerances, the complexity of disassembling the bolt group (the number of main parts is 8 and the mainspring) and the trigger (consisted of 5 parts) were noted. There were also breakdowns of the wire feeder spring (due to overheating), the ease of accidentally releasing the magazine cover latch with subsequent loss, a weak ejector (if the shutter was not energetic, the sleeve simply fell out).
The frame sight, when very neatly made, tended to bend when spontaneously folded back into a vertical position. A hook-shaped fuse designed to facilitate setting and shooting in a position for shooting or carrying a rifle was a constant hindrance (clinging to clothing and ammunition).
Valve parts exposed to dust or dirt provoked not only misfires, but also jamming of the valve (too precise manufacturing and small tolerances affected), excessive lubrication or unseasonal lubrication (too thick) also caused malfunctions.
So, according to the reviews of Siberian shooters, sometimes Arisaka jammed after two or three shots with thick grease, in winter, when riding for a long time, a rifle or a carbine was covered with sweat and froze (despite the shoulder tarpaulin cover) and it could be fired from it, at best, only once ... In the future, the shutter could only be opened by hitting the handle with the edge of the palm or with a boot.
At the same time, it was noted that the rifle, when carefully lubricated and wiped dry, in a winter fur cover had a minimum number of malfunctions and misfires, mainly due to the quality of the cartridges. The arrows indicated low recoil, low sound and excellent accuracy, at 400 steps, eight out of ten bullets in the target were covered with a palm (about 5 by 10 cm) when shooting while prone or sitting, some vertical scatter is characteristic of errors in aiming (distances in steps are taken and aiming rifle scale in meters), good lethality and penetration of winter clothing.
TTX rifle Arisaka type 30 (sample 1897): caliber 6.5 mm, five-shot, total length 1270 mm, barrel length 789 mm, length with a bayonet 1660 mm, rate of fire 30-35 rounds per minute, weight 3900 g. The sight is graduated up to 2000 meters.

TTX carbine Arisaka type 30 (sample 1897): 6.5mm caliber, five-shot, total length 965 mm, barrel length 480 mm, without bayonet, rate of fire 30-35 rounds per minute, weight 3280 g. The sight is graduated up to 1500 meters.
In the photographs, a rifle or a carbine can be distinguished by a characteristic vertically protruding fuse hook (a weapon on a fuse), and a round ball-shaped bolt handle (subsequent models of type 38, type 99 had an oval cross-section), as well as minor differences in the metal set of the box (unfortunately often indistinguishable in pictures).

With the adoption of the Arisaka Type 30 rifle and carbine, changes were made to the equipment.
The bayonet type 30 was adopted, which became one of the most recognizable elements of the equipment of the Japanese infantryman, with a characteristic blade shape and a length of 350 mm and weighing 500 grams.
With a decrease in the weight of the cartridge (21 grams) used for a standard rifle, it was possible to increase the number of wearable cartridges to 120 pieces. To carry ammunition in clips, a set of German-type pouches was adopted (instead of the French "wallet" for loose cartridges or in 2 paper packs) type 30, consisting of two side (right and left) 30 rounds (6 clips), and rear "reserve" for 60 rounds (12 clips). For cavalry, a shoulder pouch for 30 rounds was adopted (instead of 10 rounds for a type 22 carbine).
Bayonet type 30.

Ammunition type 30.

In total, Type 30 rifles were produced 553 thousand units and 45 thousand carbines, in addition to the Tokyo arsenal, the power of the Koishikawa arsenal was used in the manufacture. The main type of small arms of the Japanese army in the Russo-Japanese 1904-1905.
After decommissioning, the Type 30 was widely sold in Siam (Thailand) as a military model, to Europe (contracts between England and France (the contract was bought by England)) as a training and training, to Russia as an infantry weapon (during the "rifle famine" of 1914 -1917, the civil war of the Semenovites, Kolchakites, the Siberian army, etc.), to China for arming the pro-Japanese warlords, in Manchuku-Di-Guo, the troops of Wang Jinwei, the army of Menjiang (Prince De Wang Demchigdonrov).
Type 30 rifles and carbines remained in service with the second line and rear units of the Japanese army throughout the entire period of the Second World War.
Author Tsvershits A