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Description
In the mid-1930s, the Imperial Japanese Army tested the Brno ZB vz. 26 light machine gun, a Czech weapon that spawned two copies: the 6.5mm Type 96 light machine gun for infantry and the 7.7mm Type 97 heavy machine gun for vehicles. The Type 96 was introduced in 1936 (Showa Year 11 / Imperial Year 2596), the year before the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937 led to Japan marching beyond Manchuria and launching the full Second Sino-Japanese War. Combat experience in China proved the Type 96 was imperfect, so the IJA introduced the new Type 99 LMG in 1939, but troops kept using 96s, 99s, and old Type 11s, all of which remained in use around Asia well into the Cold War. A Type 96 with a long bayonet, a common fixture on Japanese machine guns probably due to the military dictatorship's samurai-mania, is displayed at the Virginia War Museum in Huntington Park, Newport News.

Description
In the mid-1930s, the Imperial Japanese Army tested the Brno ZB vz. 26 light machine gun, a Czech weapon that spawned two copies: the 6.5mm Type 96 light machine gun for infantry and the 7.7mm Type 97 heavy machine gun for vehicles. The Type 96 was introduced in 1936 (Showa Year 11 / Imperial Year 2596), the year before the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937 led to Japan marching beyond Manchuria and launching the full Second Sino-Japanese War. Combat experience in China proved the Type 96 was imperfect, so the IJA introduced the new Type 99 LMG in 1939, but troops kept using 96s, 99s, and old Type 11s, all of which remained in use around Asia well into the Cold War. A Type 96 with a long bayonet, a common fixture on Japanese machine guns probably due to the military dictatorship's samurai-mania, is displayed at the Virginia War Museum in Huntington Park, Newport News.