NAMBU MACHINE PISTOLS
TYPE II, MODEL A
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THE TYPE II, Model A, Machine Pistol patented by Kijiro Nambu in 1935.
Rejected by the Army but used by the Imperial Naval Marines in the Sino-Japanese
War and Shanghai invasion. A 50 round cartridge magazine extended from the
pistol grip. The projection at the bottom of the magazine was a latch used to
lock the weapon in a vehicle mount.
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After World War I, new submachine gun
[machine pistol] designs were appearing in the world markets. The importance of
this new infantry weapon was being created by inventors and industrial promoters
to the ruling military establishments in many countries. Its significance in a
post world war era was being underestimated and lacking in priorities. Although
Japan was plagued with wars, the Military High Command was not aggressive in
their strategy for a rapid fire pistol even though they had been experiencing
positive results with their machine gun activities.
In the late
1920’s, both the Japanese Army and Navy increased their attention for use of
such ordnance. Through the early 1930’s there was a limited amount of
importations of foreign machine pistols for research and testing by the
services. One model, which showed favoritism, was the Schweizerischi Industrie
Gesellschaft [SIG] MODEL 1920 in 7.63mm caliber. Some were purchased for the
Army and equipped with a barrel shroud attachment for bayonets. They were
eventually used on the eastern fronts. The Navy issued some to their Marine
units.
Without any command organization for need or assignment of such
weapons the Japanese military government maintained a passive attitude toward
this type of ordnance thusly funding was of minimum concern and mostly allocated
for foreign weapon evaluation. There was very little allotment for development
of such weapons by the military arsenal systems. This passive attitude would
eventually play a major role in Japan’s military ordnance strategy. It did in
fact force civilian weapon producers to finance and develop their own machine
pistols and market them to Japan’s military, and at the same time, present them
on the world market to recover development costs.
The Navy in fact
did not have a machine pistol as a standard for use before or during World War
II, but only utilized what foreign weapons they had captured during conquests
and a small amount produced and supplied by the Army.
One of the first civilian machine
pistols was developed by Kijiro Nambu and presented through his company,
Nambu-Ju Seizosho K.K., in 1934. [This same year his company received a design
award for an automatic pistol, which later would be adopted as Type 94 pistol].
The machine pistol would be the first of three in a series of SIG/Bergman
patterns. It was offered in the Japanese standard 8mm bottleneck cartridge.
Designated Type I, [Note their use of Roman numerals], it was offered as Model A
in 300 rounds per minute cyclic rate and Model B at 600 r.p.m. Utilizing a 50
round capacity magazine, it measured 27.2 inches in length and had a weight of
7.1 pounds. The barrel was surrounded in a tubular jacket with cooling openings
while the wood stock was attached in a variety of options to accommodate fixed
and folding styles. A unique design of the weapon was the use of a high capacity
curved cartridge magazine that extended from inside the pistol grip. World
designers would not utilize this feature for nearly 2 decades when
Czechoslovakia and Israel incorporated it into their machine pistol
applications.
Tested in 1936
and 1937, the Army rejected the weapon as unreliable, but cited that they might
reconsider if further modifications and improvements were made.
The second in
the series had several redesign features and was designated Type II, Model A.
Kijiro Nambu, company president, applied for its patent on September 22 and
December 19, 1934. Patents were issued in July and October of 1935.
It was tested
initially in June 1937 but had numerous malfunctions and was rejected by the
Government. In August of 1937, the Cavalry School again tested the weapon, but
they recommended against it stating improvements were needed in both
construction and operation, even though the Army did use a small quantity in
1937/38 during the Shanghai conflict. The Navy also was furnished “samples” for
their combat maneuvers. Without the encouragement from its own government, the
company turned to world markets to sell the gun and indicating it was being used
by their military. In January 1936, the British military had shown an interest
in the weapon and solicited comments from its Armory Department. They returned
comments in a memo on 29 February 1936 and agreed to purchase one sample and
1000 rounds of ammunition for testing and evaluation. A later communication from
the Ambassador in Tokyo on 7 March 1938 however, indicated the weapon was no
longer being manufactured and samples were not available.
A major setback
for the manufacturer was offering the gun on the world market in their 8mm
bottleneck cartridge, as it was used only by the Japanese and they had no
experience with use of the test calibers.
Without any
international sales, and rejection by their military, further action was halted
in favor of a substantially new and less complex design by the Nambu firm. Based
on some of the features of the original Type I weapon, they presented the Type
III Model A Machine Pistol to the Government in 1939. After considerable testing
by various services it was modified and designated Type III model B. The
Government accepted the gun. Adopted by the Army for production and
distribution, its official designation was Type 100 Machine Pistol.
In mid 1944,
government orders were issued for an additional machine pistol of simpler design
that could be cheaply built to supplement the existing Type 100 weapon
production. The Nambu firm who had merged and was renamed as Chuo Kogyo K.K.,
received some government funding to resurrect the Type II weapon development
project in an effort to refine it into an acceptable gun in the shortest period
of time.
It continued to retain the
recoil spring, and buffer features. The bolt-retracting unit as an assembly was
maintained and the magazine protruded from the bottom of the gun. The lumber was
a stock, which extended from the shoulder rest point along the entire length of
the gun and stopped just short of the barrel muzzle. It was hollowed out to form
a guard for the trigger. A separated sectioned receiver was attached to the
stock to serve as the base for the action assembly. Using the standard 8mm
pistol cartridge, it operated at a cyclic rate of 600 r.p.m. . The selective
fire weapon was 25.25 inches in length overall and a barrel length of 9 inches.
Its weight was 7.75 pounds with a fully loaded magazine. The gun also contained
a provision for bayonet attachment with an alternate feature on the front end of
the stock, that incorporated a metal cap and lugs for fixed mounting
application.
The basic advantage of the
weapon was its shortness as noted in the overhang of the buffer section. It also
allowed use of minimum size bolt of less weight. The disadvantage was the
expense to manufacture because of the forming and machining operations required.
Its 1944 debut was too late in the war and only a small quantity were produced,
the highest serial number observed being number 9.
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TYPE II, model B in prototype as a selective fire weapon. The Allies in World
War II dubbed it BULLPUP. The stock front end is capped with a metal plate and
lugs for fixed mounting. |
AUTHOR FOOTNOTE. The original nomenclature for the automatic weapon of pistol
cartridge design was referred to by the Japanese as “rapid fire pistol”. The
earliest reference to a more distinctive change was in advertising the Nambu
Type II weapon on the world market. It was referred to as “Machine Pistol” in
conformity with European designation of the particular type of ordnance and to
distinguish it from the semi automatic pistols in title being produced by the
Nambu firm. The term: “Sub Machine Gun” which has been alternately used in the
past several decades was applied by the Allied military during and after World
War II for descriptive purposes to match the English technical language. It is
therefore appropriate to use the proper title of “Machine Pistol” in these works
as intended by the originators.
REFERENCE: Excerpted from the soon to be published book:
DRAGONS OF FIRE by William M.P. Easterly
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ARTICLE: NAMBU MACHINE PISTOLS
