6.5 Arisaka Ammo

In 1897, when the 6.5 Arisaka round was adopted, the big players in the Pacific were the British, the Dutch, and a few years later, the US. I've noted the 6.5 Arisaka can be formed from the .303 British, the 6.5 Dutch, and the US Krag. I wonder if this fact might have played a part in the adoption of such a small cartridge, with the Japanese at that time looking towards the possibility of making use of captured stores of ammo. The Dutch ammo would be especially easy to modify for the type 30 or 38 rilfes. An early Type 38 that I have has a chamber long enough in the neck to accept the Dutch ammo.

I have never heard of any army adopting a cartridge based on what enemy cartridges it could be made from, although some did adopt rounds based on minimal changes to their own cartridge making machinery. The only way a Japanese army could make use of captured ammo would be to carry around equipment to break down the ammo, then resize, reshape and trim cases, etc. No army would do such a thing. If they captured stores of ammo, they would also have captured rifles, and if necessary would simply have issued both the rifles and the ammo to their own forces, as the Germans did to some extent in WWII.

Armies tend to follow fads in weapons and ammunition, with a lot of "keeping up with the Joneses" involved. At that time, smokeless powder had provided enough velocity that the use of smaller bullets was practical, and the armies discarded their old 11-13mm cartridges in favor of what was then called "small bore", roughly 6mm-8mm. A few, like the U.S. Navy, went to 6mm, and Germany and others stopped at 8mm, but quite a few nations adopted the 6.5mm as giving adequate lethality combined with light recoil, good accuracy and less ammunition cost and weight. (The same things that were said later about the U.S 5.56mm and the Russian 5.45mm, the latest cartridges in the current small bore fad.)

Jim

Japan has never had any real sort of weapons in its civilians hands. No weapons development to speak of. They, indeed, followed all of the fads. They also had a very dificult time manufacturing weapons. Numerous smaller arsenals and parts interchanability was terrible all through WWII.

I don't know that the Japanese had any real parts interchangeability problems; I have replaced parts on Japanese rifles and had no problems in fitting them. There were some problems with local weapons manufacturing in Manchukuo (Manchuria) but those weapons were made and used locally; they didn't affect the overall war effort.

They did not seem to have any major manufacturing problems; their military was well supplied with small arms throughout the war. The very crude so-called "last ditch" rifles were intended for distribuiton to the civilian populace, not to organized military forces, and not many were actually made.

Judging by the number of "ground mum" rifles brought back by Americans, there were large numbers of rifles available in Japanese homeland depots, probably more than enough to arm any military/militia forces without the "last ditch" rifles.

The Japanese did have some ammunition supply problems due to having two calibers in service, but their main problems were in getting ammunition and reinforcements to their troops in a widespread combat area. Those problems were due mainly to American submarines, which sank hundreds of Japanese supply and troop ships before they ever reached the fighting front.

Jim

The quality of Japanese weapons well into 1943 in general was very good. The type 38 and the type 99 rifles were some of the strongest actions ever made and even surpassing the 98 Mauser on which they were based. As JimK said ammo was a problem as far as the 7.7 type 99 for not only did they have the ammo for these rifles but there were two more versions that they also had to make. Rimless for the rifles and a semi-rimless and a rimmed case for machine guns. All marked as being 7.7 which must have created some huge problems down the line.

The confusion among the three 7.7 cartridges was probably less than we might think. As Bruce says, the rimless was for rifles and was issued in rifle "stripper" clips. The 7.7 semi-rimmed was made for the Hotchkiss type heavy MG and was issued only in feed strips. The 7.7 rimmed was an exact copy of the .303 British and was used only by the Navy for their license-built Lewis gun copies. I have seen pictures of the Japanese Lewis guns in action on ground mounts with the Naval Landing Forces*, but even so I think confusion would have been minimal.

Jim

*Americans sometimes called them "Jap Marines" but the Japanese did not have a separate Marine Corps as the US and Britain did. The guys with anchors on their helmets were sailors and wore Navy insignia.

JK