If you are at least a little interested in the history of the Russian army, then you can probably remember at least a couple of examples of foreign weapons. The first machine gun that comes to mind is the Maxim machine gun, someone may remember the Lewis, this also includes the English Vickers tanks. But the Arisaka, a Japanese-made rifle, is not known to everyone. Nevertheless, these weapons played an important role in the formation of modern Russian statehood.

How it all began

In 1914, the Imperial Army quickly realized that it… simply did not have enough shells, cannons, cartridges and… rifles. The industry in those years could not arrange the production of the proper amount of individual small arms. The soldiers also played their role: history subtly “hinted” that the time of huge, but completely untrained armies, had finally passed.

A fact is known when one of the Russian generals, circling the positions left by the soldiers (they were afraid of the German offensive) found ... several hundred thousand abandoned rifles and tens of millions of cartridges. And this despite the fact that by the end of 1914 weapons were becoming scarce, the factories simply could not cope with the sharply increased output.

Economic vicissitudes

In a word, weapons were definitely not enough. And then the Tsarist government decided to turn to its yesterday's enemy, Japan. The Japanese Arisaka rifle proved to be excellent during the years of that war. Even the brilliant Fedorov for the first time created his first machine gun in the world under her cartridge. In addition, oddly enough, it was the Japanese who turned out to be much more “generous”, not wringing exorbitant prices for weapons.

However, the Japanese should not be considered altruists: the fact is that initially more than 35 thousand rifles were intended for Mexican soldiers, but the US government gently hinted that the “Mexican order” should by no means be fulfilled. So the Land of the Rising Sun decided to get at least some benefit. One Arisaka rifle, sold under the original contract to Russia, initially cost ... 29 rubles. And this despite the fact that domestic factories offered "three-line" at a price of 41 rubles per unit. So at first the idea looked tempting.

First procurement problems

In total, almost four million rifles were purchased during the trading period with Japan. Only the first 35,000 units were delivered just in time. Problems soon began: Mikado did not want to sacrifice the mobilization reserves of his own army. With great difficulty, it was possible to agree on the supply of only 200 thousand units, and the conditions were mocking.

The Japanese used only 100 rounds of ammunition for each rifle. After numerous petitions, it was possible to increase this number ... up to 125 charges. A ridiculous stock, especially since all the cartridges were old, with an expired warranty period for storage. They were taken from the mobilization warehouses located at that time in Korea.

In the future, there were often deliveries of frankly worn out, old trunks of "very dubious dignity", as they were characterized in the army. But they were also a good help against the background of an extremely sluggish increase in production by the domestic industry. As the sources of that time indicate, the Arisaka rifle, the description of which is in the article, was in service with every tenth division. It is not surprising that the army team themselves jokingly called them "Japanese".

"China or rifles"

Soon, “diplomatic bargaining” broke out around the supplies: Japan at that time put forward the famous “21 demands” to China, practically offering the country complete surrender and recognition of the Japanese occupation government. Initially, Russian diplomats were against such arrogant demands ... but the offensive of the German troops in Galicia dictated its own conditions. With the tacit approval of the Tsarist government, China was forced to sign an enslaving treaty.

And after that, Japan took over our country. Inspired by the uncomplaining obedience of the tsar, Japanese diplomats began to put forward "mind-bogglingly arrogant demands", expressed, in particular, in "requests" ... to give up the entire Far East in exchange for an unfortunate million rifles. To the credit of the domestic diplomats, who could not stand such impudence, they did not even start negotiations on this. Moreover, a real scolding was arranged for the Japanese attache, after which the trading partner did not put forward such "projects".

Moreover, Japan agreed to a request for the sale of another million weapons. True, by that time each Arisaka rifle was already worth 32-35 rubles. But it was still cheaper than domestic models. In addition, the Japanese began to supply normal modern-style cartridges.

Interestingly, the Japanese Model 30 bayonet for the Arisaka rifle was, in fact, a slightly shortened dagger. Since domestic "Mosinok" traditionally had needle bayonets, soldiers armed with "foreign" weapons can be easily recognized in any photo of that period.

Overseas intermediaries

Also curious is the fate of 60,000 Arisaks, originally sold by the Japanese to England. The "Mistress of the Seas" by that time also found herself in a difficult situation, despite the full power of her metallurgical plants. But every "English" Arisaka rifle ended up in Russian arsenals anyway. The fact is that by the end of 1915, the Germans again stepped up their offensive, as a result of which the British government, extremely frightened by this fact, decided to "plug the Teutonic breakthrough with a Russian avalanche." Rifles went to our country.

Thus, by February 1917, a huge number of weapons and even more cartridges for them were purchased. But it should be understood that the “Japanese Arisaka rifle” is not at all a single model. Seven (!) of its various modifications were delivered to our country in succession, which created countless problems for the already overwhelmed suppliers. Interestingly, the last 150,000 Arisaks were purchased literally on the eve of the October Revolution.

But after V. I. Lenin's speech about "Peace and Land", the history of "Japanese women" in the service of the Russian army was far from over. It can be said that in the future both Red and White Guard units fought with them. And feedback on practical application this weapon very different, regardless of who they came from. But still, most of its "users" agreed that the Arisaka rifle (the photo of which is in the article) is a high-quality and reliable weapon. Note that the Japanese "kept the mark" until 1944, when, due to serious economic problems, the quality of weapons produced fell sharply.

By the way, what is the proportion of rifles used in parts of the warring parties during the Civil War? Here the information varies greatly. It is known that some units subordinate directly to Kolchak were armed with them almost without exception. But the number of "Arisak" from the Red Army in some periods reached 1/3 of the total number of individual small arms they used.

Gunsmiths also say that the notorious Latvian shooters were mostly armed with Arisaks. So the role of these rifles in the history of our country is very large.

What did the soldiers think about the Arisaki?

Miscellaneous. And it depended, as a rule, on the technical level of the fighter himself, the level of his education, the type of rifle. If the “Japanese Arisaka rifle” was new, then there were practically no complaints in her direction. At the same time, it is known that the old carbines had an unpleasant property, expressed in the “sticking” of the shutter. Again, this is hardly the fault of the rifles themselves: most likely, the fighters themselves are to blame, who have not cleaned their personal weapons for months.

Recent use cases

After the Civil War, the Arisaka type 30 rifle was in service with many countries. Especially a lot of these weapons were in the newly-minted Finland and Estonia, where the "Japanese" almost without exception were armed with border services.

In 1941, "Arisaki" in the execution of the mobilization plan was sometimes issued to the militias and rear units, but they were not widely used. In the USSR, the production of weapons was put on stream, and therefore its shortage was not so acutely felt. It is possible that somewhere in the domestic arsenals there are still remnants of these rarities. It is known that the last batch of mothballed Arisak was sent for remelting by the Ukrainian Armed Forces back in 1993.

General technical information

Both in Japan itself and in our country, the most common were two types of these rifles: "Type 30" (the very first variety) and "Type 99". They differed in caliber. If the old “thirty” used a 6.5x50 cartridge of various modifications for firing, then for the “Type 99” a separate ammunition of increased power was developed - 7.7x58. Most likely, the caliber, unusual for the Japanese, was borrowed from the British with their Lee-Enfield.

In addition, in our country, until the very end of the use of this weapon, the Arisaka type 38 rifle was encountered. This is the second modification, the time of its development dates back to the beginning of the 1900s of the last century.

What's up specifications, then these rifles are quite typical examples of weapons of their time, which had some distinctive features. The bore is locked by a sliding rotary bolt. The latter had two combat ledges. Initially, Colonel Arisaka, who was the chief designer of this weapon, wanted a design with three lugs, but production realities and the need to reduce the cost of the rifle led to some simplification of its design.

Other characteristics

There was a spring-loaded ejector on the front of the bolt stem. Since all the cartridges used by Arisakami had rims (like the domestic 7.62x54), a reflector (cut-off) was attached inside the receiver, on its left side.

The stock, stock for the receiver and lining on the barrel were made of wood. As a rule, they initially tried to use walnut for this, but in 1944-1945, when the economic situation of Japan at war was greatly shaken, manufacturers had to switch to the cheapest types of wood, and in some cases the stock was made from low-grade plywood.

The shutter knob is interesting: it is very large, in its cross section it resembles egg. The choice of this form was due to the fact that in the tests it proved to be the most convenient. Interestingly, the mainspring was located inside the tubular part of the drummer, as a result of which it is perfectly protected from dust, moisture and dirt. This is the reason for the high reliability of weapons, which was repeatedly discussed by both domestic and foreign soldiers.

Again, because of this feature, the spring was more sensitive to contamination with its powder deposits (the very “sticking” that we already mentioned above). But still, to bring the weapon into such a state, it was necessary to “try” without cleaning for a very long time.

By the way, Arisaki had a special cover-casing to protect the shutter from contamination. But its practical significance was extremely small: the lid constantly rattled, created a lot of problems when carrying it (there was a risk of losing it), and therefore many soldiers preferred to remove this part and put it in their pouches before the battle.

Protection against accidental shots

What else characterizes "Arisaka" (rifle)? "Button"-fuse - a very characteristic feature of this weapon. The mechanism of its action is interesting. To activate the safety when the bolt was cocked, it was necessary to press the "button" with a corrugated texture located on the back of the bolt, and then turn it clockwise. At the same time, the protrusions cut out on the coupling reliably blocked the firing pin, preventing it from hitting the primer.

The striker was put into combat position automatically, when the bolt was cocked. Charging was carried out with the shutter open. This could be done both by one cartridge and by five, using special clips for this purpose.

It is also interesting that this weapon had that is, when the ammunition was used up, the shutter automatically became in its rearmost position, which greatly simplified the process of loading the rifle.

bayonet fight

As we have already said, the bayonet for the Arisaka rifle was made in the form of an almost full-fledged dagger. There are cases when such bayonets were used by our soldiers throughout the Great Patriotic War. The choice of the Japanese was not accidental: the concept of needle bayonets and baguettes, which guided domestic weapon designers, was already very outdated by that time.

On the contrary, it was very important for the soldiers to have a full-fledged knife with them, which could be used not only in battle, but in the daily arrangement of the camp. Due to the fact that the bayonet for the Arisaka rifle was made of high quality steel, it was very popular with soldiers on both sides of the front. In particular, many American veterans have in their “repositories” a knife from Arisaki, which was much more convenient and better than the American model.

And what are the Japanese soldiers armed with today? The individual firearm is the Arisaka assault rifle. She, like her many predecessors, is distinguished by high reliability and original technical solutions used in the design.

It so happened that the weapons made in the factories and plants of Japan, with which the Russian Empire fought shortly before, served a significant role in military operations against Kaiser Germany, and then in the formation of Soviet power.

photo: Christopher Caisor, CollectibleFirearms.com

photo: Christopher Caisor, CollectibleFirearms.com

photo: Christopher Caisor, CollectibleFirearms.com

7.7mm rifle Arisaka Type 02 - collapsible rifle for paratroopers.

	Type 38 infantry rifle	Type 99 rifle	Type 02 rifle
Caliber	6.5x50SR	7.7×58	7.7×58
Automation type	1275 mm	1150 mm	1150 mm
Length	800 mm	656 mm	620 mm
barrel length	4.12 kg	3.8 kg	4.05 kg
Magazine capacity	5 rounds	5 rounds	5 rounds

In the 27th year of the reign of Emperor Meiji, or in 1894 according to the European calendar, the Japanese army began work on replacing obsolete rifles of the Murata system. Colonel Narioke Arisaka was placed at the head of the commission responsible for the development of the new rifle. In the 30th year of the reign of Emperor Meiji (1897), a new Type 30 rifle and a 6.5mm cartridge for it (6.5x52SR) were adopted by the Imperial Japanese Army. Based on the experience of the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, the Japanese decided to improve the rifle while maintaining the cartridge. Since 1906, the Arisaka Type 38 infantry rifle began to enter service with the Japanese, and then carbines based on it. In total, more than three million Type 38 rifles and carbines were produced before the end of production. Based on the experience of the campaign in Manchuria, the Japanese came to the conclusion that the lethal effect of the 6.5x52SR cartridge was insufficient, as well as its low applicability in machine guns. Therefore, at the end of the 1930s, the Japanese developed a new 7.7x58 cartridge, which was actually an English cartridge. 303, but with a sleeve without a rim. Under the new cartridge, a slightly modified version of the Type 38 rifle was created, which received the designation Type 99. Such a jump in the name is explained by a change in the nomenclature - if the Japanese used to name weapons according to the years of the reign of the current emperor, now they considered the date from the creation of the world, that is, Type 99 denoted in fact Type 2099 from the creation of the world according to the Shinto calendar, or 1939 from the birth of Christ. A year later (1940), the Type 99 rifles were shortened to provide a single type of rifle suitable for replacing both long infantry rifles and carbines. In this form, Type 99 rifles were produced until 1945, their total production amounted to over three and a half million pieces. By the end of the war, Japan's resources had become seriously depleted, and the quality of Arisaka rifles, initially very high, had fallen sharply. The design of late-release rifles used low-grade steels, parts without heat treatment, so such rifles were often dangerous not only for the enemy, but also for the shooters themselves.

On the basis of Type 99 rifles, several sniper rifles, which had optical sights of magnification 2.5X or 4X, as well as a number of collapsible rifles for paratroopers - paratroopers. The first Type 00 assault rifles had a detachable barrel with a forearm attached to the receiver with an intermittent thread. About 500 Type 99 rifles were converted to Type 00 collapsible rifles when it turned out that such a system was not strong enough. In 1942, the production of Type 02 landing rifles was launched, in which the barrel was attached to the receiver using a massive transverse wedge inserted from the side through the forearm, below the bore. Often, these rifles were also equipped with a folding wire one-legged bipod under the forearm.

The Type 38 and Type 99 Arisaka rifles have a Mauser-type bolt action with two front lugs and a non-rotating massive extractor. A box-shaped integral magazine, also of the Mauser type, held 5 rounds in a checkerboard pattern, and was loaded from lamellar clips or individual cartridges. A distinctive feature of Arisaka rifles was a movable bolt cover, bent from sheet steel, which moved forward and backward along with the bolt. The purpose of this cover was to protect the bolt from dirt and moisture in the harsh climate of South and Southeast Asia, but it also created unnecessary sounds during reloading, and the soldiers often removed it. The fuse had the form of a round swivel corrugated cover located at the rear end of the shutter, and having an indicator groove for determining the state of the fuse visually and by touch. Another one distinguishing feature rifles Type 38 - a very long barrel, which, in combination with a cartridge of low power, led to the fact that there was practically no muzzle flash when fired. This gave rise to a number of legends about the "flameless" Japanese gunpowder, but the same gunpowder in short-barreled carbines gave a completely ordinary muzzle flash. The sight of Arisaka rifles is open, adjustable in range. On rifles type 99 from the sides on the sight there were special folding straps for entering amendments when firing at low-flying aircraft. The usefulness of these rails when firing a repeating rifle at aircraft such as the F6F Hellcat or F4U Corsair was more than doubtful, so their usefulness was more mental than real. The rifles were completed with a detachable blade-type bayonet, worn in a sheath.

Article. Arisaka type 30 rifle. 三十年式歩兵銃
Avt.Tsvershits A
The Arisaka type 30 rifle (model 1897) was an attempt to create a design superior to European designs based on the developments of the Mauser company in 1891-96. And it is a vivid example of how you can overdo it in achieving overestimated parameters and overcomplicating the details of the shutter and trigger mechanism.
As well as high quality manufacturing and metalworking, the presence of small tolerances, the difficulty of disassembling the bolt group (the number of main parts is 8 and the mainspring) and the trigger (consisted of 5 parts) were noted. Breakdowns of the wire feeder spring (due to overheating), the ease of accidentally depressing the magazine cover latch with subsequent loss, and a weak ejector (when the shutter was not energetically operated, the sleeve simply fell out) were also noted.
The frame sight, with very careful manufacture, was prone to bending when spontaneously tilted to a vertical position. A hook-shaped fuse designed to facilitate setting and shooting in a position for shooting or carrying a rifle was a constant hindrance (cling to clothes and ammunition).
Shutter parts subjected to dust or contamination provoked not only misfires, but also jamming of the shutter (too precise manufacturing and small tolerances affected), excessive lubrication or unseasonal greasing (too thick) also caused malfunctions.
So, according to the reviews of Siberian shooters, sometimes Arisaka jammed after two or three shots with thick grease, in winter, when riding for a long time, being behind a rifle or carbine, covered with sweat, it froze (despite the shoulder canvas cover) and it was possible to shoot from it at best only once . In the future, the shutter could only be opened by hitting the handle with the edge of the palm or with a boot.
At the same time, it was noted that the rifle, when carefully lubricated and wiped dry, in a winter fur case, had a minimum number of malfunctions and misfires, mainly due to the quality of the cartridges. The arrows indicated low recoil, a quiet sound and excellent accuracy, at 400 steps eight out of ten bullets in the target were covered with a palm (about 5 by 10 cm) when shooting lying down or sitting, some vertical spread is typical for errors in aiming (distances are taken in steps and aiming rifle scale in meters), good slaughter and penetration of winter clothes.
TTX rifle Arisaka type 30 (sample 1897): caliber 6.5 mm, five-shot, total length 1270 mm, barrel length 789 mm, length with bayonet 1660 mm, rate of fire 30-35 rounds per minute, weight 3900 gr. The sight is graduated up to 2000 meters.

TTX carbine Arisaka type 30 (sample 1897): caliber 6.5 mm, five-shot, total length 965 mm, barrel length 480 mm, without bayonet, rate of fire 30-35 rounds per minute, weight 3280 gr. The sight is graduated up to 1500 meters.
In the photographs, a rifle or carbine can be distinguished by the characteristic vertically protruding safety hook (weapon on the fuse), and the round spherical bolt handle (subsequent models type 38, type 99 had an oval section), as well as small differences in the metal stock set (unfortunately often indistinguishable in photographs).





With the adoption of the Arisaka type 30 rifle and carbine, changes were made to the equipment.
The bayonet type 30 was adopted, which became one of the most recognizable elements of the equipment of the Japanese infantryman, the characteristic shape of the blade and a length of 350mm and a weight of 500 grams.
With a decrease in the weight of the cartridge (21 grams) used for a regular rifle, it was possible to increase the number of carried cartridges to 120 pieces. For carrying ammunition in clips, a set of German-type pouches was adopted for supply (instead of the French "purse" for loose cartridges or in 2 paper packs) type 30 consisting of two side (right and left) 30 rounds (6 clips each), and rear "reserve" for 60 rounds (12 clips). For cavalry, a shoulder pouch for 30 rounds was adopted (instead of 10 rounds for a type 22 carbine).
Bayonet type 30.

Ammunition type 30.




In total, 553 thousand units and 45 thousand carbines were produced type 30 rifles, in addition to the Tokyo arsenal, the capacities of the Koishikawa arsenal were used in the manufacture. The main type of small arms of the Japanese army in the Russian-Japanese 1904-1905.
After being withdrawn from service, type 30 was widely sold to Siam (Thailand) as a military model, to Europe (contracts from England and France (the contract was bought by England)) as training and training equipment, to Russia as infantry weapons (during the "rifle famine" of 1914 -1917, the civil war to the Semenovites, Kolchakites, the Siberian army, etc.), to China to arm the pro-Japanese warlords, in Manchukuo-Di-Guo, the troops of Wang Jinwei, the army of Menjiang (Prince De Wang Demchigdonr).
Type 30 rifles and carbines remained in service with the second line and rear units of the Japanese army throughout the entire period of the Second World War.
Avt.Tsvershits A

How Japanese gunsmiths helped stop the German offensive and secure Lenin

Latvian riflemen with Arisaka rifles. Northern front, 1916.

During the First World War, one of the main allies of Russia, after England and France, was yesterday's enemy - the island empire of the Rising Sun. From 1905 to 1914, the Russian military command in the Far East was actively preparing for revenge for the failures of the Russo-Japanese War. The two empires - the Russian Tsar and the Japanese Mikado - still remained rivals in the subjugation of northern China. But the beginning of the world conflict forced the Russian monarchy to forget past grievances and turn to a recent enemy and competitor for help. The reason for this was simple - 1914 showed that the multi-million Russian army simply did not have enough rifles.

“In order not to clutter up uselessly already burdened warehouses”
In the wake of a patriotic upsurge, Russia successfully carried out a general mobilization, as a result of which the size of the army exceeded 5 million 300 thousand people. And then the General Staff suddenly realized that such an army lacked at least 300,000 rifles for armament.

It is curious that on the eve of the war the stock of rifles was even in excess. But in 1912-1914, 180,000 new "three-rulers" - Mosin rifles, which were in service with the Russian army - were sold abroad, and in order to save money, the mobilization stock plan was reduced by 330,000 barrels. On the initial stage war, the situation could have been corrected by old weapons - until the end of 1910, a solid stock of almost a million rifles of the Berdan system was stored in warehouses. However, as stated in the order of the Minister of War, "in order not to clutter up the useless and already burdened warehouses," half of their stock was sold, converted into hunting or corny handed over to the scrap.

An initial shortage of only 7% of the required number of trunks might not seem fatal. However, war tends to destroy weapons even faster than people. If in August 1914 the shortage of rifles was 300 thousand, then by November it had increased to 870 thousand. That is, every month the troops at the front lost an average of 200 thousand rifles
The problem was compounded by the fact that this deficit could not be covered by the growth of industrial production. On the eve of the war, the Russian General Staff calculated that the monthly need for new rifles during a major war would not exceed 60,000. And in August 1914, all three factories that produced rifles in Russia (Tula, Izhevsk and Sestroretsk) together produced no more than 44 thousand Mosin rifles. Thus, Russian gunsmiths needed to increase their production by almost five times. But with all their desire, Russian state-owned factories could not do this - in two years of the war they could only triple the production of rifles.

In principle, a similar situation has developed in all other warring countries. For example, Germany until September 1914 produced only 25,000 rifles per month. But its industry, unlike the Russian one, had a much greater mobilization potential, and already six months later German factories were producing 250,000 rifles monthly - five times more than in Russia. In the same way, other countries came out of the situation - England, France, Austria-Hungary, which had much more developed machine-building and metalworking industries.
The fact that the shortage of small arms could not be overcome on their own was understood in the Russian General Staff already in August 1914. Naturally, the question arose of buying weapons abroad. But outside of Russia, no one produced "mosinok", and the establishment of their production at foreign factories took time. At the same time, it was also difficult to immediately decide to buy foreign rifles - a different system required a different cartridge, and tens of thousands of rifles required tens of millions of them. In August 1914, the Russian generals did not dare to go to such monstrous expenses. Therefore, in the General Staff, someone who remained unknown to history came up with an almost brilliant, as it seemed at first, idea: to buy back Russian rifles from Japan, which she got as trophies of the war of 1904-1905.

Manchuria instead of Mexico
It was assumed that for a year and a half of the Russo-Japanese War, up to 100 thousand “three-rulers” could become trophies of the Land of the Rising Sun. Therefore, already on August 25, a “special military-technical commission” headed by 50-year-old Major General Hermonius set off from St. Petersburg to Japan.

Eduard Karlovich Hermonius was an ethnic Swede and an experienced military engineer. It is curious that after 1917, at the height of the Civil War, he would actively help Yudenich's white army advance on red Petrograd. And defend against whites former capital The Russian monarchy will be, among others, his son - the commander of the Red Guard battalion, the former lieutenant of the tsarist army, Vadim Germonius. General Hermonius would die in exile in Beirut in 1938, having learned that his son, who had become a Red general, had been shot in Moscow a year earlier as a Trotskyist.

But all these family and political dramas will happen much later, while another drama flared up in the history of Russia - the weapons one. In September 1914, the Japanese authorities replied to General Hermonius that all captured Russian rifles had long since been scrapped, but they still found rifles that Japan did not need for the Russians.
The Mitsui Corporation offered General Hermonius to buy inexpensively 35,000 rifles and carbines, which were made at the factories of Tokyo by order of Mexico. The fact is that while this order was being carried out, a civil war and US military intervention began in Mexico. The Japanese did not want to irritate Washington, and the rifles produced were never shipped and lay in warehouses. Therefore, the Japanese offered rifles they did not need very cheaply - 30 yen apiece. At the rate of 1914, it was about 29 rubles, despite the fact that the “three-ruler” made at Russian factories that year cost from 37 to 45 rubles. Together with the "Mexican order" rifles, the Japanese offered 23 million rounds of ammunition for them.

It is curious that neither Russian, nor Japanese, nor German cartridges were suitable for the "Mexican" rifles of the "Mauser" system, but the cartridge adopted in Serbia was suitable. In August 1914, Russia provided assistance to Belgrade, including the supply of its scarce rifles and cartridges. The 35 thousand barrels proposed by the Japanese for Russia were a drop in the ocean, but for Serbia they could become a noticeable help, moreover, suitable for a Serbian patron.

On October 13, 1914, General Hermonius signed a contract for "Mexican guns". For 35,000 rifles and carbines and 23 million rounds of ammunition, Russia paid with the then most stable currency, transferring 200,000 British pounds sterling (about 2 million rubles at the exchange rate of 1914) through London banks to Mitsui accounts. This was the first purchase of foreign weapons by the Russian Empire during the First World War, and in the next three years it will buy more than a hundred times more imported rifles - 3 million 700 thousand.

The first purchase of imported weapons was swift - the Russian steamer "Erivan" with a cargo of "Mexican rifles" left the port of Yokohama on October 17th. By this time, the Russian General Staff considered that the situation at the front no longer allowed even such a small and exotic batch of barrels to be abandoned in favor of Serbia. And the ship "Erivan" was deployed to the port of Dairen on the Kwantung Peninsula of China, the former Russian port of Dalniy, inherited by the Japanese after the war of 1904-1905. From there, the “Mexican” rifles arrived in nearby Harbin to rearm the regiments of the Russian border guards in Manchuria, and the “three-rulers” they handed over were sent to the active army.

35,000 “three-rulers” that arrived from the Far East made it possible to arm only two divisions and did not solve the problem of shortages, and the Russian command decided on mass purchases abroad. Hundreds of thousands of rifles were required, and therefore they could not be ordered from small countries. England and France themselves had not yet increased the production of rifles for their armies, the United States was far overseas, and Japan was the closest to Russia from countries with a developed industry that was not engaged in hasty military production.

Rifles in exchange for China
Formally, since August 23, 1914, Tokyo has been at war with Germany, but in reality, Japan was opposed by no more than 4,000 Germans in the German colony of Qingdao on the coast of China. In St. Petersburg, they hoped that the Japanese would quickly agree to sell some of their rifles from army stocks to Russia.

Major General Hermonius, who remained in Tokyo, received an order to buy "up to a million rifles, which are in service with the Japanese army of the model, with cartridges of a thousand each." The Japanese generals accepted this request without enthusiasm. After difficult negotiations, they agreed to sell Russia 200,000 obsolete rifles and only 100 rounds of ammunition each. At the same time, the Russians were warned that the cartridges would be old, expired from warehouses in the garrisons of Korea.
It was a Japanese rifle, created at the end of the 19th century by Colonel Nariake Arisaka, who headed the Tokyo arsenal. It was with this rifle, adopted by the Russo-Japanese War, that the same Arisaka, already a general, improved his rifle. A new model of the "Arisaki rifle" from 1910 began to enter service with the Japanese army, and the previous samples of 1897 went to warehouses. Now some of them were to go to Russia on the German front.

The main problem for the Russians was cartridges. A hundred rounds per barrel is a ridiculous reserve for a world war. But the Japanese, considering it profitable to sell old rifles, at the same time frankly did not want to reduce their mobilization stocks of cartridges for the sake of Russia. In the end, they made a mocking concession, agreeing to increase the number of cartridges sold by 25 pieces for each rifle.

The contract for the purchase of 200,000 rifles and 25 million rounds of ammunition was signed on October 21, 1914. The purchase cost Russia 4.5 million rubles in gold, which was not at all expensive in wartime - one old Japanese rifle without cartridges delivered to the port of Vladivostok cost the treasury only 16 rubles. However, by the end of the year, less than half arrived from Japan, only 80,790 rifles. True, even such a quantity somehow improved the situation at the front, since it was equal to the entire production of rifles in Russia in a month and a half.

The rest of the weapons under this contract arrived in Russia only at the beginning of 1915. By this time, St. Petersburg had already turned to Tokyo with new requests for the sale of rifles.

As early as December 23, 1914, Minister of War Sukhomlinov sent a letter to Foreign Minister Sazonov, which stated: “At present, the military department is faced with the difficult task of acquiring the shortest time a significant number of rifles. The measures taken in this regard, including the purchase of 200,000 rifles from Japan, have proven insufficient, and at present, the urgent need for the acquisition of at least 150,000 more rifles is urgently needed. In view of the foregoing, I have the honor to humbly request Your Excellency to instruct our Ambassador in Japan to enter into relations with the Japanese government on the sale to us of another 150,000 rifles with as many cartridges as possible.
While there was bureaucratic correspondence between the Military Department and the Russian Foreign Ministry, while the request was sent to Japan, more and more persistent requests for weapons came from the front, and as a result, in January 1915, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Russia to His Majesty the Emperor of Japan (that was the name of this position ) Nikolai Malevsky-Malevich officially asked Tokyo to sell 300,000 rifles.

The Japanese agreed to sell only 100,000 of the most worn-out old-style rifles of “highly dubious value,” as General Hermonius described them after inspection. However, warring Russia could not be too picky, and on January 28, 1915, Hermonius signed a new contract for the supply of 85,000 rifles and 15,000 carbines of the 1897 model of the year, as well as 22.6 million various cartridges for a total of 2,612,000 yen (about 2.5 million rubles). In addition, the Japanese agreed to sell an additional 10 million new-style pointed cartridges to the Russians, a contract for the supply of which was signed on February 3. The Russian side took into account the previous delays in the transfer of the purchased weapons, and mid-April 1915 was determined as the delivery date.

The Japanese refused to sell more rifles. At a meeting with Russian diplomats, Japanese Foreign Minister Kato Takaaki deliberately stated that Minister of War Oka Ichinosuke allegedly does not allow the sale of rifles. In reality, diplomatic bargaining began around the supply of large quantities of Japanese weapons.
Just in January 1915, the Japanese government, taking advantage of the fact that all the forces of the great powers were busy with the war in Europe, put forward an ultimatum to the government of China - the so-called "21 demands". The Japanese demanded that the Chinese provide them with additional military bases and zones of influence in China, various political and economic advantages, including the appointment of Japanese advisers to the Chinese army. In fact, if these conditions were accepted, China, then already backward and weak, would become a Japanese semi-colony.

Naturally, such a strengthening of Japan was not at all in the interests of Russia. But the Russian army, fighting in the west, was desperate for rifles, and the Japanese transparently hinted to Russian diplomats that they would continue to sell weapons only after Russia somehow supported their demands on China.

The tsarist government hesitated for three months, choosing which was worse - to be left without weapons or to be in the East a neighbor of a strengthened Japan. As a result, the choice was made in favor of pressing problems - in May 1915, the Germans and Austrians launched a general offensive against Russian troops in Galicia. The Russian army, which in those days was sorely lacking in rifles and artillery shells, retreated.

Attacking Germany seemed in Petrograd more terrifying than rising Japan. And Russian diplomacy in May 1915 tacitly supported Tokyo's demands on Beijing. It is curious that England, Russia's ally in the "Entente", having its own colonial interests in China, actively objected to the strengthening of the influence of the Japanese there. But the British army, unlike the Russian, had enough of their own rifles.

In May 1915, under pressure from Tokyo and with the tacit consent of Russia, China accepted Japan's demands. On the same days, Japanese Major General Nakajima Masataka arrived in the city of Baranovichi in the west of Belarus, at the Headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army. He directly told the Russian generals that "Now Japan is entirely at the service of Russia."
On May 25, 1915, in Beijing, Chinese President Yuan Shikai signed an unequal treaty with Japan, and on the same day in Tokyo Russian ambassador Malevsky was visited by a Japanese representative with the news of his readiness to supply 100,000 rifles and 20 million rounds of ammunition within a month. But this time, the Japanese were selling their rifles for two and a half times higher than before - for 40 yen apiece.

This batch of weapons came to the front in August 1915, when the Russian army, under the onslaught of the Germans, during the "great retreat" left Warsaw and Brest to the enemy. On the same days in Tokyo, five Japanese generals were awarded Russian orders - as a token of gratitude from the tsarist government for the supply of Japanese weapons to Russia.

And Sakhalin to boot
In the summer of 1915, the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief telegraphed to Petrograd: “The situation with rifles is becoming critical, it is absolutely impossible to equip units due to the complete absence of rifles in the army reserve and the arrival of marching companies unarmed.” On the Northwestern Front, which repelled the German offensive in Poland and the Baltic states, there were 57 infantry divisions, with a shortage of 320 thousand rifles. In fact, 21 out of 57 divisions were unarmed.

In the hope that after concessions in China, the Japanese will not refuse new requests, Tokyo is followed by a request for the sale of another 200,000 rifles and 300 million rounds of ammunition. But the Japanese side refuses - a lucrative agreement with China has been signed and the Russians are no longer needed. At the request of Petrograd, the Japanese authorities agree to begin deliveries of rifles no earlier than six months later, and then only after the materials necessary for weapons production come from Russia - zinc, nickel, tin, spring and tool steel. Deliveries of raw materials to Japanese military factories began in July 1915.

On August 11, 1915, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Sazonov, summoned the Japanese ambassador, Ichiro Motono. The conversation proceeded without the usual diplomatic conventions - the Minister of Foreign Affairs frankly told the Japanese about the extremely plight Northwestern Front, emphasizing that under the current conditions, no one but Japan can help Russia. The Russian minister asked the ambassador for one million rifles. At the same time, Sazonov said that the day before the tsarist government had made a decision in principle to make new concessions to Japan's interests in the Far East if she agreed.
When the Japanese ambassador asked what kind of concessions he was talking about, the minister hinted at the readiness of the Russian government to give Japan the southern part of the Chinese Eastern Railway for one million rifles. railway, which crossed the entire north of China and then belonged to Russia. Individual Russian generals, frightened by the German offensive, were ready to go even further in those August days.
Thus, General Mikhail Belyaev, Acting Chief of the General Staff, in a conversation with the Japanese military attaché Odagiri, said that Russia was supposedly ready to “reward” Japan for the sale of 300,000 rifles by transferring to the Japanese the northern half of Sakhalin Island, which since 1905 was divided in half between Russia and Japan.

The Japanese, after such hints, tried to go even further - Japanese Prime Minister Okuma Shigenobu (by the way, one of the founders of the Mitsubishi concern) directly told the Russian ambassador in Tokyo, Malevsky-Malevich, that Japan was "ready to take over the protection of Russian Far Eastern possessions in order to send Liberated Russian Far Eastern Troops to the European Front. In fact, it was a direct offer to give the Japanese the entire Far East in exchange for military assistance. To Malevich's credit, he did not even consult with Petrograd, and immediately, in diplomatic terms, gave the Japanese prime minister a real scandal, explaining that such a proposal was "inappropriate." More such impudent projects were not voiced by the Japanese side.

Nevertheless, the Japanese agreed to sell Russia a new batch of weapons. At the beginning of September 1915, a contract was signed for the supply of 150,000 new-style Japanese rifles and 84 million rounds of ammunition. Russia paid 10 million gold rubles for them, and thanks to this money, the Japanese army bought new machines for their arsenals.

Russian soldiers with foreign rifles: on the left is a Japanese Arisaka, on the right is an old Italian Vetterli rifle.

Practically all Russian payments for military orders in Japan first went through the London branches of Japanese banks. But in October 1915, the Japanese military department conveyed to the Russian ambassador in Tokyo a wish, and in fact a demand, to continue to make payments directly in Japan, and not by bank transfers, but in gold, by transferring it to the mint in Osaka. From now on, payment for military supplies went to the Japanese Islands directly from Vladivostok - gold coins and ingots were transported by a special detachment of Japanese military ships under the command of Rear Admiral Ide Kenji.

The total number of rifles purchased by Russia from Japan by October 1915 was 672,400. Of course, this did not satisfy all the needs of the Russian army, but, as the proverb says, "a spoon for dinner is expensive." Rifles then at the front were a terrible shortage, which turned into a lot of blood. All military factories in Russia in the fall of 1915 produced no more than 120 thousand rifles per month, with a need of at least 200 thousand. And there were no other deliveries of guns from abroad, except for Japanese ones, until the autumn of 1915.

"Japanese divisions" of the Russian army
Military historians have calculated that by the end of the first year of the war, every tenth rifle on the Russian front was Japanese. One of the leading military theorists, General Nikolai Golovin, later recalled: “In October 1915, out of 122 infantry divisions, those that had numbers over 100 were armed with Japanese rifles. The soldiers call them Japanese divisions.".
Initially, Japanese rifles were sent to the rear, reserve battalions and brigades of the state militia. So, in the fall of 1915, in heavy fighting the 23rd militia brigade, armed with Japanese rifles, bravely fought against the advancing Germans near the Ivangorod (Demblin) fortress, not far from Warsaw. True, the firing tables for the Arisaks (with data on sight corrections depending on the distance) were first translated from Japanese incorrectly, and the units armed with them did not differ in accuracy until after a few months the headquarters corrected the error.

At the end of 1915, the command decided to concentrate the Arisaki on the Northern Front, which fought in Poland and the Baltic states, covering the most important direction to Petrograd from the Germans. The concentration of Japanese rifles made it easier to supply them with cartridges and organize repairs faster. The sailors of the Baltic Fleet were also re-equipped with Japanese rifles in order to transfer their “mosquitoes” to the front-line units.

Japanese guns were supplied with Japanese bayonets, which differed from Russian ones. It was actually a dagger with a 40 cm blade, only 3 cm shorter than the needle-shaped Russian bayonet. Thanks to these bayonets and a different shape of the shutter, Japanese guns are easy to distinguish from Russian ones in old photos.

At the end of 1915, Japanese rifles came to Russia from the other side, from the west of Europe. The fact is that in 1914, fearing a shortage of rifles, England bought 128,000 Japanese Arisaks and 68 million rounds of ammunition for them. But the British industry increased production, they did not have a shortage of rifles, and the Entente allies, frightened by the retreat of the Russian army, agreed to transfer japanese weapons Russia. The first 60 thousand Arisaka rifles arrived in Russia from England in December 1915, the rest in February 1916. In addition, British factories agreed to accept a Russian order for the production of cartridges for Japanese rifles.
Thanks to these measures, by the spring of 1916, two Russian armies on the Northern Front - the 6th and 12th - were completely transferred to the Japanese rifle. The 6th Army provided the defense of the coast of the Baltic Sea and the approaches to the capital, and the 12th Army fought in the Baltic, covering Riga. It was here, as part of the 12th Army, that a separate division of “Latvian Riflemen” was formed from local volunteers, which became famous during the Civil War. But few people know that the Latvian riflemen, who in November 1917 guarded Lenin in Smolny, were armed with Japanese rifles. With their “arisaks”, the Latvian riflemen would later successfully fight the entire civil war.

Throughout 1916, negotiations were underway in Petrograd and Tokyo on a new Russo-Japanese treaty. The Japanese offered the Russians to sell part of the CER railway (in fact, to cede part of their zone of influence in Manchuria) for 150,000 rifles. But by that time the most acute weapons crisis at the front had passed, the Russian government was able to buy rifles not only in Japan but also in other countries, including the USA and Italy. Therefore, the Russian Empire refused to give up its zone of influence in northern China.

However, our country continued to generously pay Japan for the supply of weapons. In 1916, payments in Russian gold for military orders approached 300 million rubles and amounted to more than half of all budget revenues of the Empire of Japan that year. In the Land of the Rising Sun, the tsarist authorities bought not only rifles, but also artillery pieces, shells and a host of other military equipment. For example, only at the end of 1915, Russia bought one million shovels and 200 thousand hand axes from the Japanese - in Russia even they were in short supply and were urgently needed to equip sappers at the front.

Purchases of Japanese rifles continued into 1916 and even after the February Revolution of 1917. Immediately before the revolution, Russia bought 93,000 rifles from Japan and ordered another 180,000 new Arisakas from factories in Tokyo. Cartridges for them were bought not only in Japan, but also in England, which from the spring of 1916 to October 1917 supplied Russia with almost half a billion of them.
As a result, by February 1917, Russia had purchased almost 820 thousand Japanese rifles and almost 800 million cartridges for them, which was enough to arm 50 divisions. By that time, Arisaki made up a quarter of all guns purchased abroad. The weakness of Russian industry led to the fact that during the First World War, our army was armed with nine different systems of rifles with seven types of cartridges. During the years 1914-1917, Russian factories produced 3.3 million rifles, and 3.7 million had to be bought abroad. For comparison, over the same period, Germany and Austria produced 10 million rifles at their factories.

The last major Russian contract for the purchase of guns in Japan was signed just two months before the October Revolution - on September 5, 1917, 150,000 Arisaks were bought for 7 million gold rubles. History sometimes loves deliberate symbolism - the Russian steamer Simbirsk sailed from Japan with the last batch of 20,000 Japanese rifles on November 7, 1917.

“The shutter seemed to stick, and it was necessary to beat it off with a foot”
The October Revolution and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, however, did not complete the history of Japanese rifles in Russia. These weapons were used by all sides of the civil conflict on all fronts. So, in September 1919, the Kolchak government signed a loan agreement with Japanese banks for the purchase of 50,000 Arisaka rifles and 20 million cartridges for them every month. The “Supreme Ruler of Russia” planned to pay with gold and the provision of concessions to Japanese firms in Sakhalin and Primorye.

Significant stocks of Japanese rifles and cartridges in warehouses in central Russia went to the Soviet government, which armed units of the Red Army with them. Therefore, in the same 1919, when Kolchak was buying Arisaki from the Japanese, the Bolshevik Southern Front, repelling the offensive of Denikin’s armies on Moscow, spent 25 million Russian cartridges for Mosinki and 8 million cartridges for Arisaki in a month of fighting. That is, almost a third of the Red Army was armed with Japanese rifles.
World War I scattered Arisaki throughout the former Russian Empire. Finland got Japanese rifles from the arsenals of the Baltic Fleet, the Finns handed over some of them to the Estonians, and until the 1930s they were armed with the border guards of independent Estonia.

Japanese rifles even got into the army of Ukrainian nationalists Petliura. The future poet of the Ukrainian SSR, Vladimir Sosyura, who fought in its ranks, later recalled the use of the old “arisaks”: “We started to shoot back, but the Japanese-style rifle after the second shot became almost unsuitable for shooting. The shutter seemed to stick, and it was necessary to beat it off with a foot ".

Mentions Japanese rifles and Alexei Tolstoy in the novel "Walking through the torment", dedicated to the Civil War: “He ordered to give the soldiers trophy corned beef with beans, sweet canned milk, and take brand new Japanese carbines to replace, as far as possible, old rifles slapped in battles”.

After the civil war, the Bolsheviks took into account the mistakes of the tsarist command - after 1921, all foreign rifles, even the oldest and worn ones, including Arisaki, were carefully collected and laid in long-term storage warehouses. In the mid-twenties, several thousand Japanese rifles from these warehouses were transferred to China through the connections of the Comintern.

AT last Stand Japanese rifles of Russian soldiers went in 1941 - in July they armed the people's militia of Kyiv and the militias in the Smolensk region. In September 1941, the Arisaki were transferred to the arsenal of some parts of the Moscow militia and to the partisan detachments of the Crimea.
However, in the USSR, things were much better with the production of small arms than in the Russian Empire, and the Moscow militias were quickly re-equipped with Soviet weapons. Therefore, part of the stock of old "arisaks" even survived the Second World War, and, being newly laid down in warehouses, they were even taken into account in the mobilization plans of the hypothetical Third World War.

Before the collapse of the USSR, a number of Japanese rifles were stored in the warehouse of the Carpathian military district in the Shepetovka region. In 1993, already in Ukraine, these rarities of the First World War were sent for remelting.

Arisaka system rifle is one of the notable specimens. On her example, the excess power of the cartridges of classic rifles was indirectly proven, and under her cartridge, Vladimir Fedorov created The world's first machine . arisaka used not only by the Japanese. Finns, and Albanians, and even Russians used it - purchase Arisaki during the first world war, our government compensated for the shortage trilinear.

Arisakami, in particular, they armed the famous Latvian riflemen, who played a prominent role in the history of the revolution and the civil war.

Stocks of rifles arisaka used in Moscow battle to arm the militias. But I bought Arisaku not only Russia - it was used until 1921 by the British fleet. The Chinese had it in service even during Sino-Vietnamese War . Due to the high accuracy of the battle, it was used as a sniper.

However, let's start in order. The history of Japanese rifled small arms began in 1877, when the Japanese major Tsuniyoshi Murata arrived in France in order to purchase a batch of rifles of the system gra to suppress the outbreak in Japan Satsuma uprising Japanese samurai.
The choice of France was not accidental - in those years, European countries tried to preserve the backwardness of Japan, caused by long-term self-isolation, so that it remained only a market for colonial goods. Therefore, they refused to supply the Japanese with modern weapons. The only exception was France, which even during the Japanese Civil War Bosin senso (戊辰戦争, literally "War of the Year of the Dragon") supplied the shogun's army with the latest Shaspo rifles at the time. Returning to Tokyo, Murata offered to establish the production of namban guns in Japan itself. Namban, that is, southern barbarians, in Japan were called centuries from Europeans who sailed to Japan in the 16th-17th centuries from the south.
As a result of Murata's efforts, already in 1880, the Japanese imperial army received a Type 13 rifle, designated as such for the 13th year of the reign of the then emperor.
The rifle was a synthesis of constructive ideas embedded in the French rifle gra and a Dutch Beaumont rifle.

Murata rifle Type 13

Murata Type 13, created for an 11 mm metal cartridge with a sleeve length of 60 mm, had a 127.6 cm length with an 813 mm barrel length and weighed 4.09 kg. A 5.28 gram charge of smokeless powder propelled a 27.2 gram bullet at 437 m/s. Another modification of the cartridge with a 26-gram bullet provided a 455-meter initial speed. There was also a carbine, the barrel of which had a 459 mm length. For him, a special cartridge was used with a lightweight 24-gram bullet fired at a speed of 400.2 m / s.

Murata Type 13 suffered from many childhood illnesses and, having experienced two improvements, eventually turned into a rifle by 1885 Murata Type 18.

Murata Type 18
The Japanese closely followed military innovations in civilized countries, and in 1889 they adopted a rifle Murata Type 22.

Murata Type 22

The rifle had a caliber of 8 mm and was equipped with an eight-round Kropachek underbarrel magazine.

The barrel length of the new rifle was 750 mm. From this barrel, a 15.9-gram bullet, ejected by a 2.4-gram charge of smokeless powder, flew out at a speed of 612 m / s. The carbine, which had a 500 mm barrel, had an muzzle velocity of 590 m/s.

A carbine based on the Murata Type 22 rifle

Test for Murata the Sino-Japanese War became, and although Japan emerged victorious from it, the joy of victory did not overshadow the identified shortcomings.
Murata Type 22 had all the shortcomings inherent in rifles with underbarrel magazines. Firstly, filling such a magazine took time and, having quickly shot the entire magazine, the shooter was forced to manually insert each cartridge individually, turning the rifle into a single-shot one. Secondly, as the cartridges were consumed, the center of gravity of the rifle shifted, which negatively affected accuracy. But a third problem emerged, which turned out to be characteristic of Japan. The fact is that the growth of the average Japanese conscript was only 157 centimeters, and the weight, as a rule, did not exceed 48 kilograms. The years of great change and the civil wars associated with them, which accounted for the birth and childhood of the soldiers of the 1890s, did their job - almost all of them suffered from dystrophy before the army, and Murata, created by European standards, turned out to be unbearable for many soldiers, and its return was irresistible.
That is why, when switching to a rifle with a middle magazine, the new head of the rifle department of the Tokyo Arsenal, Colonel Naryakira Arisaka(有坂成章), who replaced Major General in 1890 Muratu, decided to abandon the 8mm cartridge.
The weakest cartridge at that time was the Italian 6.5 mm cartridge from the Carcano rifle. It contained 2.28 g of Solemit grade smokeless powder. Such a charge made it possible to push a 10.45-gram bullet out of a 780-mm barrel at a speed of 710 m/s. True, there is evidence that sometimes this cartridge was equipped with 1.95 grams of ballistic nitroglycerin gunpowder, which made it possible to bring the initial speed to 745 m / s.

Arisaki cartridge with a blunt bullet

arisaka decided that the cartridge could be made even weaker, and poured only 2.04 g of nitrocellulose lamellar powder into it. At the same time, so that the gunpowder, when manipulating the cartridge, did not fall into its lower part, without contacting the primer, a cardboard wad was placed in the cartridge, which was subsequently abandoned. The sleeve had a length of 50.7 mm, which made it possible to designate its parameters as both 6.5 × 50 and 6.5 × 51 mm.
In those years, there was a serious dispute between gunsmiths about which case is better, with a flange or with a groove. Waiting for the end of this dispute, arisaka supplied the sleeve with both a groove and a flange. At the same time, the flange protruded beyond the dimensions of the cartridge by only 0.315 mm, while in our rifle this figure was 1.055 mm.
The primer nest of the sleeve had a central anvil and two seed holes. The brass primer of the Berdan type was usually with a convex surface. Occasionally, it was kerned with two radial strokes.
A blunt-headed bullet weighing 10.4 g with a spherical tip consisted of a lead core and cupronickel shell developed a speed equal to 725 m / s in a barrel of 800 mm length.
The long barrel length, combined with a small powder charge, led to an almost complete absence of a muzzle flash and a significant reduction in the sound of a shot.

The rifle, adopted in 1897, received the designation Infantry rifle Type 30(三八式歩兵銃) - the 30th year of the emperor's reign was in the courtyard Mutsuhito who ruled under the motto Meiji(明治) - enlightened government (mei 明 = light, knowledge; ji 治 = government).

Arisaka Type 30

in the trunk Arisaki there were six right-hand rifling, and along the outer surface of the barrel had a variable cylindrical section, decreasing towards the muzzle. A thread was cut in its rear part, onto which the receiver was screwed with an interference fit. The latter belonged to the same type as the receiver of the Mauser rifle, but had one notable feature - a cover that moved along with the bolt.
On the rear jumper of the receiver there was a cranked cutout for placing the bolt handle, and on the left was a tide with windows for a slide delay with a reflector.
The bolt stem had three lugs, two of which were symmetrically located in front, and the third, additional, was the base of the handle. To lock the barrel bore, move the bolt forward and turn the stem handle to the right. Inside the stem of the bolt, there is a channel for placing a striker with a mainspring, passing in the front part into an opening for the exit of the striker. In the rear part of the stem, a helical cut is formed, which interacts with the cocking of the striker, and a nest for placing the cocking when the shutter is open.
The magazine box of a vertical-type rifle with a staggered arrangement of cartridges was filled with cartridges from a clip. when squeezing the cartridges out of the clip, the lower cartridge lay down on the plane of the feeder and, compressing its spring, jumped over the right edge of the lower receiver window. The second cartridge pressed on the first and, squeezing the feeder inside the magazine box, jumped over the left edge.
The fifth cartridge, having entered under the right edge of the receiver window, could not fall out, as it was pressed against the edge by the fourth cartridge.

When the shutter moves forward, the shutter stem of its bottom sent a cartridge into the chamber. The cartridge was guided by the slope of the sleeve along the oval bevels of the receiver. When locking the bore, the ejector hook jumped over the rim of the sleeve. The next cartridge, under the action of the feeder spring, rose up to the stop in the lower plane of the bolt stem, pressing against the left wall of the lower receiver window.

frame sight Arisaki consisted of an aiming block, which is integral with a tubular base, put on the barrel with an interference fit and, in addition, reinforced with a screw: an aiming frame; aiming frame springs and a clamp with a latch.
The aiming frame, connected to the sighting block with a pin, had three sighting slots, two of which were on the aiming frame itself, and the third on the movable collar. The divisions of the sighting ranges are marked on the front side of the aiming frame in hundreds of meters.

Arisaka Type 38

The transition of some armies to cartridges with a pointed bullet did not go unnoticed by Arisaki, and in 1905, at the height of the Russo-Japanese War, a new cartridge of the 38th year of the Meiji era was adopted.

Arisaki cartridge with a pointed bullet. The green border means that the bullet is tracer.

External differences: Arisaka Type 30 on the left, Type 38 on the right

The rifle was converted to a cartridge with a pointed bullet, which had an 8.9 g mass. A charge of smokeless powder, increased to 2.15 g, developed a pressure in the bore of up to 3200 kg / m 2 and accelerated the bullet to 760 m / s. Improvements also touched the shutter and fuse. Now, to turn on the fuse, it was necessary to press the coupling from behind, turn it slightly to the right, and to turn it off, press and turn it to the left.

In addition to the infantry rifle, a carbine was also created, which was used in cavalry, artillery and sapper units. The length of its barrel was reduced to 480 mm.

Arisaka type 38 for three decades faithfully served the Japanese militarists. With its help they held our Far East in 1918-22. With its help, they occupied Manchuria and started a war with China with it.

Its last improvement was the introduction of a sniper modification, which received the designation Type 38 - by that time two emperors had changed and a new chronology was introduced from the founding of Japan. Its starting point was 660 BC, when, according to legend, Emperor Jimmu founded the Japanese state. According to this calculation, 1938 was 2598, or simply 98. It was in this year that the sniper rifle was introduced.

However, next year Arisaku Type 38 waiting for a replacement. The fact is that in China, the Japanese encountered Chinese wedges (more precisely, English ones delivered to China), which had bulletproof armor. Bullet out Arisaki 7.7×58 mm. During development, the British cartridge .303 British was taken as a basis, but, firstly, it was deprived of a flange, and secondly, it was equipped with a 3.1-gram powder charge instead of a 2.58-gram one. The barrel length was shortened to 650 mm, and the 11.3-gram bullet flew out of it at a speed of 741 m / s. The rifle chambered for this cartridge was designated Type 99, and in memory of the deceased Arisaka, who died in 1915, she was finally officially named after him.
The shortening of the barrel made it possible to replace both long infantry rifles and carbines with one modification. In this form, Type 99 rifles were produced until 1945, their total production amounted to over three and a half million pieces. By the end of the war, Japan's resources had become seriously depleted, and the quality of Arisaka rifles, initially very high, had fallen sharply. The design of late-release rifles used low-grade steels, parts without heat treatment, so such rifles were often dangerous not only for the enemy, but also for the shooters themselves.

Arisaka Type 02

In 1942 at the base Arisaki Type 99 collapsible rifle was created Arisaka Type 02 designed to arm paratroopers. In it, the barrel was attached to the receiver with the help of a massive transverse wedge, which was inserted from the side through the forearm, below the bore. Often, these rifles were also equipped with a folding wire one-legged bipod under the forearm. All Arisaki equipped with a detachable blade-type bayonet, worn in a sheath. shot arisaka without a bayonet.