Type 97 navy (7.7 mm)

This page is about the Japanese machine gun Type 97 navy (7.7 mm). For other uses, see Type 97 (Disambiguation).

Description

The Type 97 aircraft machine gun was the standard fixed light machine gun on aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. This weapon was not related to the Type 97 heavy tank machine gun used by the Imperial Japanese Army.

Vehicles equipped with this weapon

Vehicles equipped with this weapon
Fighters
A6M2	A6M2 · ▃A6M2 · ␗A6M2 · A6M2 mod. 11 · A6M2-N
A6M3	A6M3 · A6M3 mod. 22 · A6M3 mod. 22Ko
A6M5	A6M5 · A6M5 Ko · A6M5 otsu
J2M	J2M2
N1K	N1K1 · N1K1-Ja
Twin-engine fighters	J1N1
Bombers
	B6N1 Model 11
	D3A1 · D4Y1 · D4Y2 · D4Y3 Ko
	E8N2 · Aichi E13A1 (Defensive)
	F1M2
	G5N1 (Defensive)

General info

The Navy Type 97 aircraft machine gun is the IJN's standard issue machine gun, similar to Army Type 89 machine gun, being a licensed copy of the Vickers E machine gun, but unlike the Army machine gun which got rechambered in Japanese .303 (7.7 mm), it kept the British .303 (7.7 mm) and are not interchangeable. These guns have a lower rate of fire than other rifle-calibre machine guns making them very suitable for synchronization, have decent ballistics, and have low jamming probability when upgraded. However, the total damage output of these guns is rather low, and you'll have to deal with poor belts and lacklustre rounds.

Available ammunition

Offensive belts:

• Default: T · AP · IAI · AP · I
• Armoured targets: T · AP · AP · AP
• Tracers: T · T · T · AP
• Stealth: I · AP · AP · AP · IAI

Stealth is a great choice because your enemy won't see you coming and have the most damage potential, and these guns are always mounted in the nose and are easy to aim. Stealth won't often light fires, but its AP rounds will get to work and sooner or later hit the pilot or snap off a wing.

Defensive belts:

• Default: T · IAI · Ball · AP · AP · I
• Universal: T · AP · IAI · AP
• AP-T: T · AP

Comparison with analogues

Not many weapons rival the poor firepower of this gun, but some reserve machine guns like the Mle 33 or MAC 1934 are worse. German rifle-calibres will always outperform it and often set fires, while British machine guns are very similar in performance. The American Browning jams very quickly, so keep that in mind, as you are still superior to other nations in terms of the rifle-calibre machine guns.

• MAC 1934: Bad firepower compared to the Type 97's, but excellent rate of fire
• Browning/Swedish Browning: Better firepower, however it is quick to jam
• MG 15/17/81: Better firepower, belts, rate of fire, and performance
• ShKAS: Jam very quickly, poor accuracy

Usage in battles

These guns suffer from stock belts, however no other belt option has too much of a difference. These guns rely less on getting shots in but rather on chipping away at the most vital parts of the plane. The opponents you will face with these guns are almost always unarmoured biplanes or early monoplanes. However, early bombers will brush off these bullets easily, you may empty your entire ammo stowage before destroying a single bomber. One excellent tactic is aiming for the wings or engines, but most importantly, pilots. You need to remember that at higher BRs, these guns do little, so don't rely on them for anything when you have cannons available to use, though they can be used to knock out ground targets while saving your precious cannon ammunition.

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Mounted in the nose, unlike British and some German counterparts
• Good turret firepower at lower BR
• Good ammo count
• Won't jam too quickly

Cons:

• Low damage output
• Bad belts
• Won't do anything to bombers
• No incendiary potential

History

Despite the fierce inter-service rivalry between the Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy, they would both look to the same gun to arm their early fighters in the inter-war and early World War II period. This gun was the Vickers E an air-cooled World War I era design based on the venerable Vickers gun. The Imperial Japanese Army Air Service used the Type 89 while the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service used the Type 97. While they were based on the same gun, they had multiple differences. The Type 89 used a special load of the 7.7x57mmSR Arisaka cartridge used for machine guns. The Type 97 had a domestically made copy of the .303 British cartridge that was widely available after the end of the Great War due to surpluses from the Entente. Despite the changes, the guns had very similar performance, though the Type 97 has a slightly lower muzzle velocity. As the name suggests, the Type 97 entered service in 1937 (2597 in the Imperial Japanese calendar). It was used in the cowling mounts of their famous A6M Zero fighters, along with B6N Tenazan torpedo bombers, Yokosuka K5Y "Willow" intermediate biplane trainers, D4Y Suisei dive bombers, D3A1 "Val" dive bombers, Aichi E16A Zuiun float planes, E7K2 "Alf" float planes, the N1K1 Kyōfū float planes and the N1K1-J Shiden fighters, J2M Raiden fighters, the F1M2 "Pete" float planes, and the Nakajima A6M2-N float plane variant of the Zero.

Media

Excellent additions to the article would be video guides, screenshots from the game, and photos.

See also

Links to the articles on the War Thunder Wiki that you think will be useful for the reader, for example:

• reference to the article about the variant of the cannon/machine gun;
• references to approximate analogues by other nations and research trees.

External links

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• topic on the official game forum;
• other literature.