Type 99 was a magazine fed, gas operated, light machine gun with a removable barrel that began production in 1941 and continuing until the end of the war. The Type 99 cannon suffered from relatively low muzzle velocity and rate of fire compared to other 20mm cannons but the trade off was an extremely light cannon that did not hinder flight performance of the IJN's fighter aircraft.
In 1935, officers in the Imperial Japanese Navy began to investigate 20 mm automatic cannon as armament for future fighter aircraft.Following the import and evaluation of sample guns, the Imperial Japanese Navy decided in 1937 to adopt these weapons. They were adopted by the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in 1939 and served as their standard aircraft autocannon during World War II. The Type 96 light machine gun, an improvement over the previous Type 11 light machine gun was introduced into combat service in 1936, and quickly proved to be a versatile weapon to provide covering fire for advancing infantry. The Type 99 (九九式軽機関銃, Kyūkyū-shiki Kei-kikanjū) was a Japanese light machine gun designed by Kijirō Nambu.
It was used exclusively in fixed installations, i.e., either in fighters or in power-operated turrets. The Type 99 Light Machine Gun was a light machine gun used by the Japanese Imperial forces during World War II. Towards the end of the war it developed a preference for installing the Type 99 Mark 2, presumably to counter the improving performance and ruggedness of US combat aircraft. Both the Type 11 and Type 96 used the same 6.5x50mm Arisaka cartridges as the Type 38 rifle infantry rifle. But the Model 5 was formally adopted only in May 1945 and may not have seen combat.Type of 20 mm (0.787 in) autocannon (weapons were classed as machine guns by the IJN)Top:a Type 99 Mark 1 machine gun ; Below: a Type 99 Mark 2 machine gun In the first years of the war the IJN preferred the Type 99 Mark 1, and it did not operationally use the Type 99 Mark 2 until 1942.
The Type 99 Mark 1 was adopted by the Japanese for both fixed and flexible installations. However, in 1939 the Japanese army was in the process of switching to a larger and more powerful The Type 99 was basically the same design as the Type 96 light machine gun, and had a number of parts in common. The fixed installation was developed first, as a fighter gun fed by a 60-round The limited ammunition capacity was an important disadvantage. The Type 99 Mark 1 Fixed Model 3 could be equipped with a 100-round drum, but the size of the drum was itself a problem in fighter installations, although the Model 3 guns were installed on the initial production versions of the The Type 99 Mark 2 was a heavier weapon with a stronger recoil, and was not put in use by the IJN before 1942. The Type 99 Mark 1 machine gun and Type 99 Mark 2 machine gun were Japanese versions of the Oerlikon FF and Oerlikon FFL autocannons respectively. Because it fired a bigger cartridge than the Type 99 Mark 1, the Type 99 Mark 2 had a higher muzzle velocity but a lower rate of fire, and was heavier. The Type 99 Mark 2 was carried by later models of the A6M, starting with the A6M3a Reisen Model 22 Ko,The Model 4 of this weapon adopted the same belt-feed mechanism as the Type 99 Mark 1 Model 4. The Type 99 Mark 2 Model 5 resulted from attempts to increase the rate of fire.
This actual machine gun was brought back to the United States by a US Marine and registered with the US government upon return. By modifications that included the addition of strong buffer springs, the rate of fire was raised to between 670 and 750 rpm. To produce the Oerlikon guns, a group of retired Navy admirals created a new arms manufacturing company, the Dai Nihon Heiki KK.
However, it dispensed with the oiler and had better The Type 99 had a blade front sight and a leaf rear sight, with graduations from 200 to 1,500 meters, with a wind adjustment. Interestingly it probably was one of the first few light machine gun designs that saw a mass issue with an optical sight, something that small arms design wouldn’t see again until the SUSAT on the SA80’s LSW.
The close economic and political ties between the IJN and Dai Nihon Heiki KK ensured that the latter had little competition. Along with the Type 96, the Type 99 was one of the main infantry machine guns of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. In 1939 this started producing a Japanese version of the FF, initially known as the Type E (because the Japanese transliteration of Oerlikon was The Type 99 Mark 1 and Mark 2 were not models of the same gun, instead they had parallel lines of development into several different models. All three weapons remained in service until the A limited production version of the Type 99 was produced for Bishop, The Encyclopedia of Weapons of World War II A 2.5X The Type 99 came into active service in 1939, and was used side-by-side with the older Type 11 and Type 96, as these models had been produced in large quantities and many front line troops continued to use the Type 38 rifles with their 6.5 mm ammunition. The Type 99 light machine gun (九九式軽機関銃, Kyūkyū-shiki Kei-kikanjū) was a light machine gun used by the Imperial Japanese Army in World War II. History Edit Because of the close technical similarity, several modifications were adopted to both guns simultaneously.