I’ve heard that the Japanese military used some Beretta M38 submachineguns from Italy, but I don’t know any details. Does anyone know when and how many were imported, what branches of the military they were issued to (navy? army? etc.), and if there’s any evidence for which campaigns they saw action in? Also, were they kept in 9x19 Parabellum, or rechambered for a Japanese round to make logistics easier?
http://www.dragonsoffire.com/ARTICLE%3A … PISTOL.php
“In early August of 1943 the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal received the first and only shipment of 50 guns of the model MP 38/43 with the specified magazines and 50,000 rounds of ammunition. (omitted) Distribution of the weapons is unknown and survival of the single digit count is limited to specimens captured in the South Pacific Territories.”. Beretta Model 38 - Wikipedia.
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Yes, albeit in small numbers.
The IJA/IJN ordered small batches of Swiss licensed MP-28’s, Austrian MP-34’s and Italian MAB-38 submachine guns in the 1930’s, on the order of an estimated 6,000 MP-28’s and MP-34’s each, and then an order for 350 MAB-38’s. To my understanding the MP-28’s and MP-34’s were delivered in full by the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, while only 50 MAB-38’s (of the later Model 38/43 variation) were actually delivered in 1943.
All these requests and orders were made so they could be issued exclusively to Japanese paratroopers or Naval Special Landing Forces (ie the IJN equivalent of Marine forces).
This does not include the likely utilization of captured Mauser C96 “machine pistols” used in China during the Second Sino-Japanese War in the late 1930’s, since China (both Nationalist, Communist, and warlords alike) had an interesting adoration for the Mauser Broomhandle design to where they bought large quantities of German manufactured examples, Spanish manufactured copies, and even produced significant quantities of them in China, both in semi-automatic and fully automatic variants. ---------- 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). ------------------------https://www.lonesentry.com/blog/mp34-submachine-gun-steyr-solothurn.html