Type 11 Light Machine Gun

Type 11 light machine gun
Type 11 Light machine gun
Type	Light machine gun
Place of origin	Empire of Japan
Service history
In service	1922–1945
Used by	Imperial Japan Manchukuo National Revolutionary Army Chinese Red Army
Wars	Second Sino-Japanese War, Soviet-Japanese Border Wars, World War II, Chinese Civil War
Production history
Designer	Kijiro Nambu
Designed	1922
Produced	1922–1941
Number built	29,000
Specifications
Weight	10.2 kg (22.49 lb)
Length	1,100 mm (43.3 in)
Barrel length	443 mm (17.4 in)
Cartridge	6.5×50mm Arisaka
Action	Gas-operated
Rate of fire	400–450 rounds/min
Muzzle velocity	730 m/s (2,395 ft/s)
Feed system	30-round, hopper system

The Type 11 light machine gun (十一年式軽機関銃, Jyūichinen-shiki Kei-kikanjū^?) was a light machine gun used by the Imperial Japanese Army in the interwar period and during World War II.

Combat experience in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 had convinced the Japanese of the utility of machine guns to provide covering fire for advancing infantry. This was reinforced by the first-hand observations of European combat tactics by Japanese military attachés during the First World War, and the Army Technical Bureau was tasked with the development of a lightweight machine gun, which could be easily transportable by an infantry squad. The resultant “Type 11 light machine gun” (named after the 11th year of the reign of Emperor Taishō, or 1922) was the first light machine gun to be mass-produced in Japan and the oldest Japanese light machine gun design to see service in the Pacific War. It was superseded by the Type 96 light machine gun in 1936.

The Type 11 light machine gun was a design by famed arms designer Kijirō Nambu, based on a modification of the French Hotchkiss machine gun. It was an air-cooled, gas-operated design, using the same 6.5×50mm Arisaka cartridges as the Type 38 infantry rifle.