In the Pacific Theater, Japanese soldiers holding "Type 99" bolt-action rifles, when they encounter the M1 Garand semi-automatic rifle in the hands of the US army, it is almost like a "burning stick" encountering a "crossbow".
A "messy" Japanese weapon
It is well known that the traditional bolt-action rifle, although it shoots far and accurately, its firepower sustainability is too poor: after firing a shot, you have to pull the bolt to the bullet. The emergence of semi-automatic rifles has greatly compensated for the lack of fire density of traditional bolt-action rifles.
The world's first recognized modern semi-automatic rifle was a 6.5 mm semi-automatic rifle designed and invented by Mexican general "Mondragon" and equipped with the Mexican army in 1907.
"Mondragon" semi-automatic rifle
However, during the First World War, although there were already many semi-automatic rifles emerging at that time: for example, the M1910 semi-automatic rifle, the M1917 semi-automatic rifle, the Winchester 1907 semi-automatic rifle and so on.
However, due to the relatively crude technology, materials and design at that time, and the problems of products were more, the army was rarely equipped in large quantities. Therefore, on the battlefield of the First World War, it is still difficult to find the shadow of the semi-automatic rifle.
Japan dabbled in semi-automatic rifles earlier, but it was not taken seriously
Because many of the designs of early semi-automatic rifles were not mature, the armies of various countries at that time still trusted the traditional bolt-action rifle. By the time of World War II, the Garand and SVT series of semi-automatic rifles equipped by the American and Soviet armies were the first to break this "rifle" balance.
Three classic automatic rifles of World War II
Under the turmoil of the Soviet and American semi-automatic rifles, Nazi Germany later developed its own G43 semi-automatic rifle. Japan's history of semi-automatic rifle development is not too late, they began as early as 1931: the Japanese Army asked Nanbu Kijiro to design a new light machine gun for himself.
Don't look at the Japanese army, although they have always advocated single-shot bolt-action rifles, they are actually quietly paying attention to the development of semi-automatic rifles in the United States. Before the outbreak of World War II, a gun designer in the United States: John Pederson, visited Japan with his "elbow-locked rifle".
At that time, the Japanese military was also interested in this "elbow-locking rifle" (the automatic principle of the Ruger P08 pistol) and tried to make a large imitation of it after a certain degree of improvement.
Ruger P08 pistol
However, in July 1937, the Japanese army launched the "Lugou Bridge Incident", and after the war began, the japanese demand for rifles also rose rapidly. Compared with the mature Type 38 rifle, many of Pederson's "elbow-joint locking rifles" are not mature in design.
Therefore, the Japanese army temporarily cancelled this time-consuming, laborious and costly improvement work, and the arsenal continued to mass-produce the Type 38 rifle.
On the other hand, the Japanese Army's antiquated operational thinking also played a decisive role: they believed that bolt-action rifles hit accurately and far, as long as the quality of rifles and ammunition was guaranteed, there was no need to equip the kind of wasted ammunition, and the range and accuracy were not as good as the semi-automatic rifles of bolt-action rifles.
Type 38 rifle
And in the early days of the war, when the Japanese army faced the more inferior Chinese army, they really did not feel too much pressure.
After encountering the American Garand in the Pacific, the Japanese realized the importance of the semi-automatic rifle
Until the outbreak of the Pacific War, the Japanese infantry finally tasted the taste of "backward and beaten" in a series of island capture battles: the single-shot bolt-action rifle firepower in their hands was basically powerless in front of the "eight consecutive shots" of the US M1 Garand semi-automatic rifle.
It was only at this time that the Japanese military leadership realized how "naïve" they had been before. Therefore, the Japanese military, which was trying to rise again, "bit its teeth" and decided to resume the research and development project of the semi-automatic rifle and build a Japanese rapid-fire rifle that could compete with the M1 Garand.
However, at that time, the Japanese army was already caught in the quagmire of China's all-out war of resistance and the Pacific theater, coupled with the United States' resource blockade of Japan, the island country of Japan was no longer able to start from scratch to design a decent rifle.
Therefore, the Japanese army thought of directly taking the American M1 Garand captured on the battlefield as a prototype for imitation, or exactly copying. And because the two countries have already torn their faces and fought, there is no need to consider any "patent fees".
So in May 1942, after capturing several M1 Garand rifles during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, they conducted a series of tests and evaluations.
Subsequently, the Tateyama Artillery School of Japan officially took over the project of "copying" the Garand rifle. However, the leader of the project has changed from the original Japanese Army Department to the Japanese Navy Department.
For two years, the Japanese had been groping for how to improve the M1 Garand rifle and let some soldiers learn how to use the semi-automatic rifle correctly.
The Japanese Type IV semi-automatic rifle, almost completely "copied" the M1 Garand, plus some personality design
In 1944, a Japanese version of the M1 Garand "cottage goods" finally came out, and the Japanese army officially named it "four-type semi-automatic small hammer" (also known as the five-type).
Type IV semi-automatic rifle
Since it is a "replica" of the M1 Garand, the appearance and internal structure of the Type IV rifle are naturally not much different from garlander. However, in order to make the gun "Japanese", the Japanese made slight modifications to its sights, stock, bottom of the magazine, and the pneumatic ammunition supply device inside the receiver.
First of all, considering the short stature of the Japanese soldiers, the trigger and grip of the type iv rifle are thinner than those of garlander, which is more similar to the type 38 rifle. The handguard of the type four rifle did not adopt the semi-circular design of Garand, but instead used a square handguard with rounded corners, and there were grooves on it for easy shooting hands to hold.
In addition, the barrel of the Type IV semi-automatic rifle was also shortened, and the crosshairs did not copy the U.S. military's bore sight, but instead used the traditional Japanese Tangent sight.
Although the internal structure of the Type IV rifle is basically the same as that of the M1 Garand, its internal parts and overall structure are much rougher than those of garand, and the surface is coated with a black paint.
The original version of the Quad used a 10-round magazine, two more rounds than Garlander.
At first, Japanese designers tried to force a Japanese 7.7x58 mm bullet similar to the Garand.30-06 ammunition into the M1 Garand rifle. Although the M1 Garand can indeed fire 7.7 mm of ammunition, it has a serious jam problem because its ammunition supply system is one-piece.
Garand (left) and Type IV rifle (right) ammunition
Later, Japanese designers simply removed the M1 Garand's magazine design in its entirety, replacing the Type IV rifle with two 5-round bridge clamps with built-in magazines. So the most obvious difference between the two is:
The famous Garand rifle bullets will "ding" automatically pop out after hitting, while the use of two 5-round bridge clamp loading type iv rifles, bullets will not automatically pop out and make a "ding" sound after the bullets are exhausted, after all, the magazine design of the two is completely different.
This type iv semi-automatic rifle was later called "type four", because it is said that Japan also developed another type of "type B": it is an improved version of type four armor, using 20 or 30 rounds of magazine feeding, can be fully automatic shooting, in fact, and the German STG44 assault rifle is very similar.
The legendary "Four-Type B"
However, the outside world has always known little about the authenticity of the "Four-Type B Rifle", and there is no record of participation in the war for reference. Some people think that the title of "four types A, four types B" is actually just a misinformation of some people.
The legendary Japanese "Four-Type B Automatic Rifle" was actually another C-type semi-automatic rifle that the Japanese army tried to produce that year, and later improved into a light machine gun, but it was eventually abandoned because the rear seat was too large.
epilogue
Production of the Type IV semi-automatic rifle began at the Yokosuka Navy Yard in early 1945, but japan declared its unconditional surrender after producing just over 250 semi-finished rifles.
Of the more than 250 Type IV semi-automatic rifles, about 100 or so were finally assembled. The U.S. military was also interested in this rifle that copied its own Garand, so it selected 20 of the four rifles they captured for experimentation.
However, in a series of tests, the US military was shocked: this Japanese version of Garand could not be used at all, and there were serious problems such as jamming and supplying bullets.
In fact, even if the Japanese army's type IV semi-automatic rifle is really mass-produced, its equipment will certainly not be very large, and it may only be equipped for the Japanese Navy.
However, because "things are scarce and expensive", this glitched cottage semi-automatic rifle has become a very rare collection in the eyes of American gun collectors.
It is said that an original four-type semi-automatic rifle was auctioned for more than $56,000 in the European and American collection markets, and it was "priceless, one shot is hard to find."
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