Mitrailleuse légère Type 96

The Type 96 light machine gun was a light machine gun used by the Imperial Japanese Army in the interwar period and in World War II. It was first introduced in 1936, and fires the 6.5x50mm Arisaka from 30-round top-mounted magazines. A combination of unimpressive ballistic performance and a lack of reliability caused the Imperial Japanese Army to try to replace the Type 96 with the Type 99 light machine gun, though both saw major usage until the end of the war. Combat experience in the Manchurian Incident of 1931 and subsequent actions in Manchuria and northern China reaffirmed to the Japanese army the utility of machine guns in providing covering fire for advancing infantry. The earlier Type 11 light machine gun was a lightweight machine gun, which could be easily transportable by an infantry squad into combat. However, the open hopper design of the Type 11 allowed dust and grit to enter into the gun, which was liable to jam in muddy or dirty conditions due to issues with poor dimensional tolerances. This gave the weapon a bad reputation with Japanese troops, and led to calls for its redesign. The Army's Kokura Arsenal tested the Czech ZB vz. 26 machine gun, samples of which had been captured from the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China, and (after borrowing certain elements) issued a new design, designated the Type 96 light machine gun, in 1936. The gun was produced at Kokura, Nagoya Arsenal and Mukden between 1936 and 1943, with a total production run of about 41,000. While the Japanese design was completely different internally, it did resemble the ZB vz. 26 in its basic layout using the top feed magazine and a bipod mount. The similar looking Type 97 heavy tank machine gun however was a true license built copy of the ZB design firing the heavier 7.7x58mm Arisaka cartridge; it was mounted in the tanks of the Japanese Army. The Type 96 light machine gun was almost identical in construction to the Type 11 in that it was an air-cooled, gas-operated design based on the French Hotchkiss M1909 machine gun.