The Type 98 Machine gun, or 九八式旋回機関銃 (Type 98 swivel machine gun), was a licensed copy of the German MG15 aircraft machine gun that was installed in various Japanese planes used by both the IJA and IJN (which is why it is either called the type 98 or type 1, the name is based off of). In the late 30’s, some MG15s and MG17s were imported to Japan to be evaluated, and these were decided to be better than contemporary Japanese designed aircraft machine guns, so manufacturing machinery was produced from Germany to make these in Japan starting 1940. Initial examples were in 7mm Mauser, known as the model 1, but eventually they were made in 7.7mm Arisaka with no visual difference, known as the model 2. These were also made for the navy, designated as the Type 1 machine gun. By the time that these were able to enter mass production however, 7.7mm machine guns were being phased out for 12.7mm machine guns due to their low power, leaving many examples of this gun to be unused. As these were just sitting around, many examples were converted to be used by ground forces by adding a bipod to the gun, and potentially the MG15’s stock since they were identical copies. I also think that this gun should get the more simplified AA sights that the MG15 has rather than the one in game to make the 2 guns more unique. I think this could either be a good TT weapon, since it did see pretty decent use, and the Type 100 MG isn’t a normal type of LMG, but I’ll keep the options open in the poll for other forms of introduction.
In game examples of the sight types
These sights (which are the kind used on German planes with MG15s);
Rather than the more complicated web like ones on the infantry MG15;
(The EN wiki page dosn’t have too much about this gun, but if you change the language to Japanese then translate the page you’ll have much more info)
- Tech tree
- Event
- Premium
- Shouldn’t be added
- BR 4
- BR 5