Feel lucky to own a mint condition and matching one of these! I have no idea how people can say this gun is ugly. In person I feel they are beautiful and very interesting.
Americans will always Trash talk the axis-allied weapons. 07:44 this guy is honest tho. Looks are not important. you can see it is Minimalistic and light weight. "grip looks funny" the grip is comfortable that's what's truly important. you can see it is designed for a good grip and comfortable wrist position...gun stock ends up looking "weird" but who cares. these days gun makers are getting it ...and you see all kinds of grips to accessorize AK's and M4's the AK designs invented front grips earlier then the US ( especially during the Vietnam war with the slippery plastic m16's of that time ) I even saw an american gun channel calling the AK ugly. they just don't like that the enemy made a good weapon. they want to be superior in everything.
Every gun has an idea behind it. Even if it's just adding a fixed bayonet, fixed magazine, a bipod, or even just some cut out on the stock, that means there were some intentions behind it, for its role. Even if you use out of service weapon, that doesn't mean you are obsolete. SKS, RPD, M1911, M3, M1 carbine, Nagant revolver, Mosin Nagant, M1919, Maxim, DP,... There are a lot of them
I view the feed system similarly in “concept” to the Italian Breda 30. Where the assumption is that immediate squad members help maintain the rate of fire by siphoning off ammunition to keep the rate of fire up and alleviate the strain on the gunners. Obviously this was a bit of flawed thinking. Since it’s hindered with the fixed attached system and the chaos of combat. However the idea did have merit. It’s just when the war came about it made it obvious the machine gunners needed to be more independently self sufficient then not. Since they ideally were more support the infantry then the infantry support it.
When I was a kid this gun was in MoH: Rising Sun and I loved using it so much because its such a wild looking thing. As an adult and knowing how it works its even easier to appreciate
i think this is one of the best early looking machine guns of any size, innovative idea for loading and even if they say it looks horrible, i still think it look great
For such an early and oddball light machinegun, the Type 11 honestly is not bad. The hopper is perhaps not the most graceful setup imaginable, but it does actually preclude needing special box magazines or belts of ammunition, instead using the same ammunition already issued on the standard clips for 6.5mm rifles. As long as you have the gun, you can feed it and provide automatic fire just by having the same ammunition as the riflemen do, and in a real pinch the other guys can provide a couple of spare clips each. With the practical rate of fire this thing exhibits, together with the heavily finned barrels, it probably takes a while to heat up too. You can do quite a lot worse than the Type 11 by 1922, such as the Chauchat in 8mm Lebel, or the Chauchat in .30-06 Springfield. This gun is some _way_ outside the box thinking which actually worked pretty decently.
The magazine concept is very ingenious and way ahead of its time. Now we have some General Purpose Machine guns that can use rifle magazine - but even that is only in emergency situations！
I recently discovered the Type 11 light machine gun, and if you look at what the U.S. military did with the M249 light machine gun there aren't many differences aside from how the infantry magazine is fed. Both the M249 and the Type 11 were made to use standard issue infantry magazines/clips. Commonly the M249 uses belts but the greater point is that a modern military identified the very real logistical & practical applications of standard infantry keeping a LMG in the fight via their own ammunition.
They look goofy, but I have handled and fired a couple, and they are actually fairly ergonomic. The hopper, while not reliable in adverse conditions, makes sense as it eliminates the need for a separate mag and uses the same feed as anyone with a rifle.
It wasn't. It was unreliable due to needing to oil the cartridges with caused tons of issues because of dust and debris. It was unbalanced because all the ammo was on one side. Plus reloading on the move was pretty much a no-go, and because ammunition was in an open hopper it could fall out when you were on the move.
@@AirLancer compare to what? gun was invented in 1922, does all world had much better guns at that time? especially in biggest economic countries such as France or Belgium or Germany? no need to compare gun which made hundred years ago to modern weapons that's nonsense
@@AirLancer Doesn't the hopper retain the clips? It's not as graceful as a detachable magazine, but there's certain logistical advantages in being able to keep a light machinegun running with just ammunition on normal clips, rather than having to make sure the gunners have belts or magazines, the latter which can be pretty expensive.
@@nonnon1649 I think the British Lewis machinegun and the Danish Madsen machinegun would be the strongest competitors at the time (and they are good), but that's pretty much it. The Madsen (1902, it was very ahead of its time) is pretty heavy and clunky, and very expensive, but it was basically indestructible and it used an odd, but functional detachable magazine, which could be 20, 35, even 40 rounds long, depending on caliber and setup. The Lewis (1914) has a high capacity magazine which is appealing, it's a bulky and expensive one, which is open at the bottom, but it does give you 47rds, and the gun is good at staying cool. Japan would basically copy the Lewis machinegun in the 1930s. The American BAR (1918) has potential, but it just isn't properly set up as a light machinegun, the 1918A2 model adds a bipod, a crap one, as well as a number of features which are of dubious merit. You can work with this gun if you put in the effort, but the 1918A2 doesn't come around until 1938, so it's out. The remaining big name light machineguns of the period are the Chauchat guns, the 8mm Lebel ones are workable, but it's really just Better Than Nothing, they're awkward to shoot and the magazines are as robust as a single use aluminum baking pan. The .30-06 variant of the Chauchat machinegun outright did not work at all. I don't personally consider the German Maxim 08-15 a _light_ machinegun. You see some very good and promising designs like the Czech Zb.26 and Russian DP-27, but those are still a number of years off So by 1922, you could arguably do better than the Type 11 for a light machinegun, but you could also do a LOT worse, and the oddball design has some logistical advantages.
The Japs spent decades prior to WW2 on research and development of naval and air weapons. But they were very lacking with regard artillery, armor, and infantry light weapons. Their ruck sacks, shoes, cartridge belts were similar to those used in the American Civil War.
Ah, a cartridge oiler, this was the bane of the Italian Breda 30 light machine gun which required oil to be squirted on each cartridge as it was fed into the chamber to prevent ripping the head off the cartridge upon extraction. This system worked just great in the various North African campaigns with all that talc like sand and dust.
My grandfather was an machine gunner during the second sino Japanese war he said that the start he said it was good but after a while he hated it. I actually got to shoot the gun with him because he was able to keep the gun it was in good mint condition since he used to clean it and used it carefully and caring about the gun.
8:12 Like you mentioned, in that specific time and context, the simple fact that any infantrymen could just feed the guy with the light machine gun, I could see that been a huge boost to the morale as well. Brilliant gun, in it's own, weird, sense 😂 Edit: Just noticed, but... I would have used the same grip. Not the one shown in the historical photos.
We never carried special equipment to load any machine gun, it's a matter of opening up the feed tray putting the next belt in close the feed tray and fire, what special equipment are you talking about???
Thanks heaps. I found this film to be both entertaining and informative. Some of my Great Uncles served in the Pacific Theatre with the 2nd A.I.F., and I have a casual interest in the "typical" Infantry weapons used by both sides during World War 2. I didn't know about the "real story" behind the supposedly "underpowered" Japanese cartridge until now.
Bend buttstock! so true! in Mandarin, we call it "歪把子“, my grandfather actually fired this gun couple of times after his unit captured a Type 11 LMG during the second sino japanese war at the time
~4:35 I don't think it's as simple as just saying that guns, especially MGs, just become obsolete over time like that. The M2 Browning was developed at the end of WW1 and is still in service to this day with very few alterations... The FN MAG is still in use like 60 years after its initial development too. The MG42 lives on in the MG3. The Madsen was used for almost 100 years. Hell, even the Maxim (first issued in the late 1800's) was used well after WW2 by several different nations. The SMLE is still in service after almost 120 years. To my knowledge: the SMLE was still the standard sniper rifle of the UK until the development of the L96. The Mauser action is still in use in countless bolt actions in military service today as well. The 1911 is still being used by special forces to this day, so is the Browning HP... The same goes for cartridges ever since the development of smokeless powder. Russia STILL uses the same 7.62X54r cartridge from the 1890s in DMRs, sniper rifles, as well as machine guns. On that note: the PK and AK are other long-enduring designs. So many cases of the exact opposite of what this man is saying. Really should rethink that statement.
Brazilian armed police units STILL use the Madsen today! The "Enfield" Cal. .30 is still in Danish service in Greenland. Maxims are in current use in the Ukraine, as are the Mosin-Nagant, PPSh-41 (and even the infamous Sturmgewehr!)
In the video game Battlefield 1, I believe there is a gun that takes this one step further. I think it’s called the Perino where it uses a feed hopper but it uses strips like the hotchkiss
Find it interesting that they aren't pointing out the concept of squad support weapons sharing magazines is exactly what major powers are trying to do today. Example is the RPK. Truly ahead of its time.
The buttstock looks awkward but I've shot one and it's actually very comfortable to shoot. Recoil and muzzle rise is mild as it shoots at a fairly slow rate.
歪把子 is the nick name given by the Chinese during the Japanese invasion war in 1938. It is an awkward looking gun / butt stock tho :/ thx for the cool history of this weapon
Reminds me of how the M249 SAW had a spot for M16 magazines. If you are that desperate for ammo, it’s more efficient to have a rifleman have his ammo shooting semi auto instead of a machine gun that now needs to be rezeroed for which ever variant of the 5.56 M16 ammo it’s using.
That guy that called the type11 ugly would be the type of guy to claim the m1919 is a masterpiece of engineering. It’s literally a box with a tube sticking out of it
The hopper design might seem like lunacy, but if you think about it, is does have some merit to it. Japanese logistics were never very good, so an LMG that uses same ammo as the regular riflemen makes sense. Also you can't lose a magazine that's attached to the gun permanently. The problems with loading speed, reliability and the fact that if the hopper was damaged, the gun was useless, probably are pretty good counterpoints though
A few years ago we found a pile of empty 6.5 mm Arisaka striper clips with not one spent casing to be seen in Hong Kong Island near a place called the Wong Nei Chung Gap that saw some heavy fighting during the Japanese invasion of 1941. We couldn't understand why there were so many in one hole but no spent shells.....? The only logical explanation was a Type 11 with a small sac on the side to collect all the brass. From the place where we found them (at the base of a small rock cliff) the gunner must have been firing right into the Royal Hong Kong Cricket Club entrance.....
Degtyarev built a DP-28 prototype with a hopper copied from the Taisho 11, feeding from Mosin-Nagant clips. I couldn't find a lot of information on the project, other than one grainy black and white photo and the footnote that it was canceled relatively quickly.
1. Japanese army wanted a machine gun but didn't want to pay loyalty for the belt feeding mechanism. They were used to Hotchikiss style metal slabs but they wanted something lighter and actually went on asking for something that is cheap and not heavy. Nambu Kijiro came up with the design, matching the requirements of the army. 2. But this gun was a piece of shit when it came out really. Using stripper clips meant a more sophiscated feeding system and the design and shitty industrial capacity of the Imperal Japan created a great combo of having to put a device that drop some lube for the ammo to feed smoothly from an open hopper with 99% chance of letting dust sit on cartridges. This caused a lot of jams and malfunctions when the gun was put into an actual combat use in China. Also just normal infantry cartridges caused a lot of malfunctions with the case extraction not only in type 11 but also type 96. As a result, many Japanese soldiers loved to use captured ZB-26 from the KMT soldiers, calling them "a machine gun that never fucks up". This led to the development of similar machine guns type 96/99 which were quite decent.
The Japanese fought the Russo/Japanese war BEFORE WWI and used machine guns and trench warfare so your line about them not having experience is pure BS
Interesting concept. When I went through basic, our SAWs (or LMGs as you will) can take our M4 mags in emergencies, kind of like this. I wonder, perhaps we got the idea from Japan?
The M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle "BAR". Chambered for the .30-06 Springfield cartridge, though the limited capacity of its standard 20-round magazine.
why does everyone say the stock was ofset to the right to ballance the weight of the hopper? :( this would make it just more unwieldy. "This entire assembly is offset to the right. Since the cartridge oiler is located along the top of the receiver along the centerline axis, the sights have to be offset to the right. The idea being that the stock was also offset to the right to align with the offset sights."
Yes it’s awkward today but no weapons are made to fight in future’s warfare. Weapon technology is just about developing something that effectively destroys what enemy has at that moment. Some weapons may still be effective in the future too but if a weapon is succeeded when its made, its a successful weapon.
To be honest Japan had some good or very capable weapons, everyone has the misconception they are shit at production cause they use them well beyond after being outdated
