- Yes!
- No…
An abbreviation of the word Chekosurobakia - Japanese for “Czechoslovakia,” the Katakana character “Chi” was used as short-hand to reference the ZB vz. 26 LMG employed by Chinese Forces. The Japanese liked the gun so much, not only did they send back examples captured in Manchuria to the Home Islands for reverse-engineering, but also bought some 2,200 examples of the gun from the Brno arms factory in the year of 1938-39.
The real shot-in-the-arm for production of the gun however, was when the Japanese captured the Taiyuan Arsenal in northern China, in November 1937, where the Japanese restarted production of the machine gun shortly thereafter.
I don’t have figures for what peak production was, but for what it’s worth, Wikipedia says by “late war” (also ambiguous, as that could mean anything from American entry into the Pacific War in late 1941, to the Japanese Ichi-Go offensive in 1944), only about 300 LMGs were being produced a month. If we presume that “late war” means just post-ABCD Encirclement (July 1941) however, then that’s still a ~50-month period of time manufacturing 300 LMGs per month, for a nice round total of 15,000 (to say nothing of how many were manufactured in the 4 years, beforehand.)
Used on every frontline of the Pacific, from mainland Asia in China and Burma, to some of the farthest reaches of the Dutch East Indies and even the defense of Iwo Jima, this superb Type Chi light machine gun makes for an excellent inclusion to the Japanese Low-BR Tech Tree, in the folder of the Type 97 LMG.
Be sure to vote, and let me know what you think in the comments!
P.S. Please change the name of the German ZB vz. 26 to the MG 26(t) please!
