The is a Japanese
anti-tank rifle
An anti-tank rifle is an anti-materiel rifle designed to penetrate the vehicle armor, armor of armored fighting vehicles, most commonly tanks, armored personnel carriers, and infantry fighting vehicles. The term is usually used for weapons that c ...
that began development in the 1930s. It was used by the
Imperial Japanese Army
The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...
(IJA) during the
Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...
, the
Soviet–Japanese border conflicts
The Soviet–Japanese border conflicts, also known as the Soviet-Japanese Border War or the First Soviet-Japanese War,was a series of minor and major conflicts fought between the Soviet Union (led by Joseph Stalin), Mongolia (led by Khorloog ...
and the
Pacific War
The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the vast ...
. Ever-greater thicknesses of armour on
tank
A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engin ...
s rendered the Type 97 obsolete by about 1942.
Development and description
Concerned by reports of Chinese purchases of
Vickers six-ton tanks
[Zaloga, p. 29] and rising tensions with the Soviet
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...
along the
Manchuria
Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer Manc ...
n border,
[Ness, p. 92] the IJA issued a requirement for an anti-tank rifle in 1935. The
Nagoya Arsenal submitted a weapon derived from their copy of the
Hotchkiss M1929 machine gun
The 13.2 mm Hotchkiss machine gun model 1929, often simplified to Hotchkiss M1929 machine gun, and the like, was a heavy machine gun designed and manufactured by Hotchkiss et Cie from the late 1920s until World War II which saw service with v ...
while the
Kokura Arsenal
is an ancient castle town and the center of Kitakyushu, Japan, guarding the Straits of Shimonoseki between Honshu and Kyushu with its suburb Moji. Kokura is also the name of the penultimate station on the southbound San'yō Shinkansen lin ...
submitted a new design using a
20×125 mm cartridge. The first round of testing in March 1936 was not satisfactory and both guns were returned to their designers to rectify problems encountered during the trials. The
Kokura Arsenal
is an ancient castle town and the center of Kitakyushu, Japan, guarding the Straits of Shimonoseki between Honshu and Kyushu with its suburb Moji. Kokura is also the name of the penultimate station on the southbound San'yō Shinkansen lin ...
built eight
prototype
A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototyp ...
s for the second round of trials held at the Army Infantry School in 1937, after which the IJA rejected the Nagoya weapon. It identified several problems that required remediation, and a batch of fifty guns was built for operational trials in 1938. After another round of trials in December at the infantry and cavalry schools, the weapon was accepted as the Type 97 Automatic Cannon.
[
The gun has a ]gas-operated
Gas-operation is a system of operation used to provide energy to operate locked breech, autoloading firearms. In gas-operation, a portion of high-pressure gas from the cartridge being fired is used to power a mechanism to dispose of the spent ...
delayed-blowback
Blowback is a system of operation for self-loading firearms that obtains energy from the motion of the cartridge case as it is pushed to the rear by expanding gas created by the ignition of the propellant charge.
Several blowback systems exist wit ...
mechanism in which the barrel
A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container with a bulging center, longer than it is wide. They are traditionally made of wooden staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. The word vat is often used for large containers for liquids, ...
and receiver also recoil
Recoil (often called knockback, kickback or simply kick) is the rearward thrust generated when a gun is being discharged. In technical terms, the recoil is a result of conservation of momentum, as according to Newton's third law the force requ ...
ed to help steady the weapon.[Williams, p. 220] Despite reports that it can fire in full-automatic mode,[Handbook, p. 216] the weapon is semi-automatic only as it lacks a selector to disable the semi-auto disconnector.[Operations manual for the Type 97 automatic cannon, p. 61] The Type 97 was the heaviest anti-tank rifle of World War II and weighs ready to fire, minus the gun shield
A U.S. Marine manning an M240 machine gun equipped with a gun shield
A gun shield is a flat (or sometimes curved) piece of armor designed to be mounted on a crew-served weapon such as a machine gun, automatic grenade launcher, or artillery piece ...
, and including the shield and four carrying handles, handily exceeding its design weight of . It uses a seven-round
Round or rounds may refer to:
Mathematics and science
* The contour of a closed curve or surface with no sharp corners, such as an ellipse, circle, rounded rectangle, cant, or sphere
* Rounding, the shortening of a number to reduce the number ...
removable box magazine
A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combinatio ...
mounted above the receiver.[ The gun can fire a dozen rounds per minute.][ It has an overall length of and the removable barrel, including the ]muzzle brake
A muzzle brake or recoil compensator is a device connected to, or a feature integral to the construction of, the muzzle or barrel of a firearm or cannon that is intended to redirect a portion of propellant gases to counter recoil and unwanted ...
, was (53-calibers
In guns, particularly firearms, caliber (or calibre; sometimes abbreviated as "cal") is the specified nominal internal diameter of the gun barrel bore – regardless of how or where the bore is measured and whether the finished bore match ...
) long.[Zaloga, p. 70]
The Type 97 fired solid-steel armour-piercing
Armour-piercing ammunition (AP) is a type of projectile designed to penetrate either body armour or vehicle armour.
From the 1860s to 1950s, a major application of armour-piercing projectiles was to defeat the thick armour carried on many warsh ...
- tracer (AP-T), high-explosive
An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An expl ...
-tracer and high-explosive incendiary
In warfare, high-explosive incendiary (HEI) is a type of ammunition specially designed to impart energy and therefore damage to its target in one or both of two ways: via a high-explosive charge and/or via its incendiary (fire-causing) effects. ...
-tracer shells. The initial AP-T round was the Type 97 and it had a softer grade of steel than the later Type 100.[Ness, p. 93] The AP-T projectiles had a muzzle velocity
Muzzle velocity is the speed of a projectile (bullet, pellet, slug, ball/shots or shell) with respect to the muzzle at the moment it leaves the end of a gun's barrel (i.e. the muzzle). Firearm muzzle velocities range from approximately to i ...
of . Based on a captured Japanese ammunition table, the Type 97 round was credited with the ability to penetrate of armour at 90° at a range of . The same table credited it with the ability to penetrate of armour at .
Production and service
Production of the Type 97 began in 1939 at the Kokura Arsenal with the first of 950 that were made through 1941. Production ceased that year, although a further 100 rifles were built by the ''Nihon Seikosho Company'' in the first half of 1943. Including prototypes, a total of 1,108 rifles were manufactured. The anti-tank rifle cost ¥6,400 at a time when a normal rifle cost ¥77.[Zaloga, pp. 30–31] Beginning in 1940, the barrels were chrome-plated
Chrome plating (less commonly chromium plating) is a technique of electroplating a thin layer of chromium onto a metal object. A chrome-plated item is called ''chrome''. The chromed layer can be decorative, provide corrosion resistance, ease o ...
to extend their lives.[
The Type 97 was assigned to IJA ]infantry
Infantry is a military specialization which engages in ground combat on foot. Infantry generally consists of light infantry, mountain infantry, motorized infantry & mechanized infantry, airborne infantry, air assault infantry, and marine i ...
battalion
A battalion is a military unit, typically consisting of 300 to 1,200 soldiers commanded by a lieutenant colonel, and subdivided into a number of companies (usually each commanded by a major or a captain). In some countries, battalions are ...
s, normally on the basis of a single anti-tank platoon
A platoon is a military unit typically composed of two or more squads, sections, or patrols. Platoon organization varies depending on the country and the branch, but a platoon can be composed of 50 people, although specific platoons may range ...
allocated to each infantry company
A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of people, whether Natural person, natural, Legal person, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common p ...
. Each platoon had two 11-man section
Section, Sectioning or Sectioned may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media
* Section (music), a complete, but not independent, musical idea
* Section (typography), a subdivision, especially of a chapter, in books and documents
** Section sign ...
s each with a single Type 97. In addition to the section leader, there were four men assigned to carry the gun, four ammunition bearers and two horse-holders for the nine horses nominally assigned to the section. Over long distances, the Type 97 was broken down into three parts to be carried by the horses.[Zaloga, p. 66]
The weapon first saw combat during the Battles of Khalkhin Gol
The Battles of Khalkhin Gol (russian: Бои на Халхин-Голе; mn, Халхын голын байлдаан) were the decisive engagements of the undeclared Soviet–Japanese border conflicts involving the Soviet Union, Mongolia, Jap ...
in 1939, where it reportedly disabled a number of the lightly armoured vehicles used by the Soviets at that time. The Type 97 was not extensively deployed in China until the following year, by which time they were mostly used as infantry support weapons. Reflecting this change, most of the ammunition produced in 1941–1942 was high-explosive, not armour-piercing. The rifle was not widely deployed in the Southwest Pacific during World War II, although it was used by the Teishin Shudan
was a Japanese special forces/airborne unit during World War II. The unit was a division-level force, and was part of the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force (IJAAF). The ''Teishin'' units were therefore distinct from the marine parachute units of ...
paratrooper
A paratrooper is a military parachutist—someone trained to parachute into a military operation, and usually functioning as part of an airborne force. Military parachutists (troops) and parachutes were first used on a large scale during World ...
s of the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force
The Imperial Japanese Army Air Service (IJAAS) or Imperial Japanese Army Air Force (IJAAF; ja, 大日本帝國陸軍航空部隊, Dainippon Teikoku Rikugun Kōkūbutai, lit=Greater Japan Empire Army Air Corps) was the aviation force of the Im ...
. The Type 97's 20 mm round was no longer effective against modern tanks after 1942.[ The Ho-1 and Ho-3 ]autocannon
An autocannon, automatic cannon or machine cannon is a fully automatic gun that is capable of rapid-firing large-caliber ( or more) armour-piercing, explosive or incendiary shells, as opposed to the smaller-caliber kinetic projectiles (bull ...
were developed from the Type 97 for use on aircraft.[
]
See also
*Lahti L-39
The Lahti L-39 is a Finnish 20 mm anti-tank rifle used during the Second World War. It had excellent accuracy, penetration and range, but its size made transportation difficult. It was nicknamed "Norsupyssy" ("Elephant Gun"), and as tanks d ...
*Mauser 1918 T-Gewehr
The Mauser 13 mm anti-tank rifle ( ger, Tankgewehr M1918, usually abbreviated ''T-Gewehr'') is the world's first anti-tank rifle—the first rifle designed for the sole purpose of destroying armored targets—and the only anti-tank rifle to s ...
*Panzerbüchse 39
The ''Panzerbüchse'' 39, abbreviated PzB 39, (German: "tank hunting rifle model 39") was a German anti-tank rifle used in World War II. It was an improvement of the ''Panzerbüchse'' 38 (PzB 38) rifle.
Development PzB 38
German anti-tank rifles ...
*PTRD-41
The PTRD-41 (Shortened from Russian, ''ProtivoTankovoye Ruzhyo Degtyaryova''; ''Противотанковое однозарядное ружьё системы Дегтярёва образца 1941 года''; "Degtyaryov Single Shot Anti-Tank W ...
*PTRS-41
The PTRS-41 or Simonov anti-tank rifle (russian: ПротивоТанковое Ружьё Симонова) is a World War II-era semi-automatic anti-tank rifle firing the 14.5×114mm cartridge.
Design
The PTRS-41 was produced and used by the ...
*Solothurn S-18/100
The Solothurn S-18/100 20 mm anti-tank cannon was a German and Swiss anti-tank rifle used during the Second World War. It had a semi-automatic action in a bullpup configuration. As a result of its large, powerful ammunition, the gun had a tr ...
*Wz. 35 anti-tank rifle
The Model 35 antitank rifle (''Karabin przeciwpancerny wzór 35'', abbreviated "''kb ppanc wz. 35''") was a Polish 7.9 mm anti-tank rifle used by the Polish Army during the 1939 Invasion of Poland. It was designated model 35 for its desi ...
*MG 18 TuF
The ''Maschinengewehr 18 Tank und Flieger'' or MG 18 TuF, is a German dual-purpose heavy machine gun that was designed to fill both anti-tank and anti-aircraft roles. Developed at the end of the First World War, it fired the same 13.25 × 92mm S ...
Notes
Citations
References
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Further reading
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External links
Type 97 on Forgotten Weapons
{{Good article
Anti-tank rifles
World War II infantry weapons of Japan
20 mm artillery
Military equipment introduced in the 1930s