Tale of the Gun

[Tarmac]

you don't need a very good rifle to bayonet women and POWs.

[Simba]

Or capture a fair proportion of SE Asia, including kicking the Brits out of Malaya, the Dutch out of the East Indies and the Americans out of the Philippines, it would seem.

But then whoever expects a reasoned debate in this forum when a xenophobe creeps out of the woodwork?

 

[jimson]

Actually the Jap Arisaka rifles had some exceptional qualities.

A fellow by the name of P.O. Ackley did some tests that involved loading various rifles with larger than bore bullets and firing remotely.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BQY/is_5_50/ai_114283920/

The 6.5, I forget the model number, maybe type 38 Arisaka, fared the best among all the military bolt actions.

Instead of blowing up the rifle, the slugs would be forced out, elongated and stretched.

The model that fared the second best was the type 99 7.7 Arisaka.

You can still find some of these rifles.

Some have been sporterized and converted to the wildcat 6.5 by 257 Roberts cartridge.

I've fired a few of them and they make decent hunting rifles.

EDIT: I wrote the text from memory before finding the linked article, so some facts may differ, but the bottom line is the Arisaka actions were extremely well-made and strong.

[BigPlay]

Agreed, Japanese infantry rifles and sidearms weren't up to the standards set by the west. Their tanks were lightweights too, designed purely for infantry support alone.

Reckon that's even more reason to respect the Japanese soldiers and marines who achieved so much with such weapons, eh?  

Who other then the Chinese did they steam roll? Yeah they took Coregador without much resistance but early in the war the US military was rather inept as well as the British and the Dutch.