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Japanese Submachine Guns

Like many of the major powers at the beginning of the Second World War the Japanese had shown little interest in submachine guns.  Purchasing a limited number of Bergmann MP28/IIs and MP34s for testing and limited issue during the late 1930s. Many of the photographs of Japanese soldiers and marines armed with submachine guns show them armed with Austrian MP34s (see image #1 & #3).  By the beginning of the Second World War this was the Japanese military’s most commonly issued submachine gun.

MP34 (source)

At the beginning of the war Japan had no indigenous submachine gun designs and instead copied the European examples they had available.  The Japanese Type 100 submachine gun was a rough copy of the MP28 but chambered in 8×22mm Nambu. Unlike its European counterparts the Type 100 sported an instantly recognisable curved magazine.  The first of the Type 100′s was produced in 1942.   Another more ambitious design, the Type I had been in development before the war by Japan’s leading firearms designer Kijiro Nambu however, these never left the experimental stage.

Type 100 Submachine Gun (source)

The explanation for Japan’s apparent lack of interest in submachine gun is a relatively simple one.   The upper echelons of the Japanese army did not appreciate the need for one.  The doctrine of machine guns supported by infantry armed with bolt action rifles dominated Japanese tactical thinking. Another contributing factor was that until 1940 Japan had not fought in Jungles. It is a common misconception that the Japanese entered the war as experts in jungle warfare, and while they were hardy soldiers able to subsist on relatively nothing, this was not the case.  There are no jungles on the Japanese mainland and the campaigns in which the Japanese had been involved in during the 1930s had all taken place far away from the jungles of the Pacific.

Experimental Type I Submachine Gun (source)

By 1945, just 25,000 Type 100s had been manufactured, with initial production ordered under a low-priority contract.  A number of variants had been developed as the attempts were made to made the basic design more production friendly (see image #2).  As a result throughout the war Japan relied on a small number of pre-war imported submachine guns and a small flow of indigenously built Type 100s.

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