Manufactured by the Nagoya arsenal in Japan c.1943~45 from the Type 99 rifle designed by Kijiro Nambu and Nariakira Arisaka in 1939. 7,7x58mm Arisaka 5-round fixed box magazine, fed with stripper clips, bolt action, take down stock for use by paratroopers. Since we’ve entered a new year it might be appropriate to very briefly explain Japanese military nomenclature. Before 1929, weapons and vehicles and whatnot received their name/number based on how far along in their reign the Japanese emperor was, as such the previous Type 38 rifle of 1905 was named after the 38th year of Emperor Meiji’s reign. After that, the system was switched to represent the Imperial Year, which itself is based on the reign of mythical Emperor Jimmu starting in 660BC, leading to the Type 99 rifle of 1939 being named after the 2599th imperial year, and the Type 2 being named after the 2602nd.
The Type 2 paratrooper rifle was based on the Type 99 short rifle, which was designed to replace its predecessor and its 6,5mm cartridge, which was considered underpowered. Due to its being introduced in 1939, the two models coexisted and both were converted for paratrooper use in the middle of the war. The conversions aimed to make the already shorter than average rifles more compact for airborne troops, with mixed results. The Type 1 paratrooper rifle, based on the earlier Type 38, attempted to use a hinged wooden stock which would have provided with a cheap and easy way to get a compact weapon that can quickly be put to bear, but unfortunately it made the stock too weak and it cracked often during testing, leading to the Type 2 model.
