Type 11 Light Machine Gun Accession Number: REL/04869

Description

Type 11 Light Machine Gun. Gas operated, fully automatic weapon, firing from an open bolt. All steel construction body with an air cooled barrel. Barrel has machine turned 'Hotchkiss-style' disc fins along its complete length. Gas piston tube is located under the barrel. Folding bipod attaches near the gas regulator. Weapon is of 6.5 mm calibre, and fires Type 38 (1905) semi-rimmed reduced charge cartridges, with the cartridges held in five round clips. A hopper feed is attached to the left side of the action. The hopper accepts six clips of catridges, with each clip inserted horizontally, one above the other. The top of the follower on the hopper is stamped with the serial number. The top of the receiver is marked with kanji script reading '11 Year Type'. The right side of the reciever is marked with manufacturing data: the Nagoya Arsenal mark, the current reign of the Showa and 10.9 (1935 September). The offset butt is half wood and half metal with knurled section on the tubular wrist. There are four knotches in the top of the butt and the weapon has overall surface rust.

Contextual Description

The Type 11 machine gun was standard equipment in the Japanese infantry section until the mid-war period, and remained in service throughout the War, despite being replaced by the type 96 machine gun. The weapon is highly unusual in that it is fed by 5-round clips of ammunition, which were loaded into a hopper on the left side of the receiver opposide the feedway. As the rounds were fed into the gun, they passed against an oiled brush. This was designed to prevent ruptured cartridges. An oil reservoir on the top of the receiver fed oil to the brush in the receiver.

The gun fired reduced charge rifle cartridges containing 2 grams of propellant and did not function properly with standard charge rifle ammunition (which contained 2.15 grams).

Details

Conflicts

• Second World War, 1939-1945

Units

• Imperial Japanese Army

Tags

• Japanese machine guns