World War II Database

Country of Origin	Japan
Type	Aircraft Autocannon
Caliber	20.000 mm
Length	1.890 m
Weight	34.000 kg
Ammunition Weight	0.13 kg
Rate of Fire	400 rounds/min
Muzzle Velocity	750 m/s

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbase

In 1935, the Japanese Navy began searching for 20-millimeter autocannons/machine guns to arm future fighter aircraft. It settled on the designs by the Swiss firm Oerlikon in 1937. A newly formed company, Dai Nihon Heiki KK, established by retired Navy officers, purchased two licenses from Oerlikon, one for Oerlikon FF and another for Oerlikon FFL, to produce Type 99 Mark 1 Machine Guns (Kyukyu Shiki Ichigo Kizyu) and Type 99 Mark 2 Machine Guns (Kyukyu Shiki Nigo Kizyu), respectively.

Type 99 Mark 2 machine guns were heavier than the Mark 1 weapons, fired a larger cartridge, had a slower rate of fire, and had a higher higher muzzle velocity. There were only fixed applications for Mark 2 machine guns (meanwhile, Mark 1 were also installed on flexible mounts). Mark 2 machine guns were introduced in 1942, 3 years after the Mark 1 design, and quickly gained favor over their Mark 1 counterparts. They were mounted aboard later variants of A6M Zero fighters, among many other models. These weapons were initially fed from drums, but later variants introduced belt-feeding capability.

Source: Wikipedia ww2dbase

Last Major Revision: Nov 2017

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