Among the rifles used by the Japanese during the Second World War there was also the so-called Carcano Type I, built in Italy and derived from Italian model 1891 rifle, but with Arisaka 6.5 x50 caliber.
This commission was born with the excellent relationships, with military assistance and cooperation between Italy and Japan (and Germany), later officialized in the Tripartite Pact.
As often happens, the reasons of the foreign request for our small firearms productions, are not clear, like the exact amount of items produced and even less because of the job, given that Japan could still produce their own weapons without any external collaboration .
According to some sources it is estimated that approximately 60,000 rifles produced, but this date is “challenged” by the scholars of the serial numbers, in fact if we refer to the serial numbers found on the rifles, the series alphabetically from A to L (including the letters J and K) and the numeric field of four units, making “the account of the servant” would be corresponding to 10,000 weapons for letter and then multiplied by twelve letters, we get the number of 120,000 weapons produced.
In any case, the gun, to be allocated to the Japanese Imperial Navy, was built by a group of Italian factories: Fna, Beretta, Gardone Val Trompia, Terni.
The only thing certain was that Terni had the function of contact and reference, while that of Gardone Val Trompia of collector and storage.
Curiously, fact that doesn’t help in the search, is that these guns had no marks except for the serial production and occasionally some mark on the shutter, and some parts of the lift.
The delivery was made at the end of 30 years between 1938 and 1939 and according to some historical sources, the Type I was used in the operational areas of the Pacific, but considering that these rifles were almost always found in excellent condition, perhaps their use in combat was less spread one can imagine.
Source: il91.it
