The Germans finally gained the long-awaited technological lead in 1912. The Mauser M1906/08 semi-automatic rifle was ordered by the German Navy to be equipped with the crew of the Zeppelin-type reconnaissance airship as a self-defense weapon. Its short-barrel recoil principle and locking mechanism are almost identical to those of the Mauser Model 1906 pistol, so they are just as sophisticated and just as prone to failure. Paul? Mauser continued to refine his semi-automatic design, and subsequent products fired the same 7.92mm round, but replaced the short recoil with a delayed recoil principle. It was officially installed by the German Army in 1916 and quickly put into mass production for the Storm Commando that was being formed. Visually, the most striking feature of the Mauser Type 1916 semi-automatic rifle is the curved magazine stamped and welded from steel plates, which holds 25 Mauser rounds in a double row, which is of great significance to the assault force because it provides continuous suppressive firepower

Just as German soldiers in the World War were keen to use Chinese-made 1905 submachine guns captured from Allied forces, the Imperial Chinese Army attached great importance to captured Mauser 1916 semi-automatic rifles, repairing them and handing them over to specialized assault units. The Imperial Army Ordnance Bureau also prepared a manual for the use and maintenance of Mauser semi-automatic rifles in Chinese and distributed them to the front. Commanders of some front-line units also tried to get themselves a Mauser semi-automatic rifle, because both sides were armed with the same type of rifle cartridge, which was quite convenient to use.

Under the influence of the Germans, there was a boom in semi-automatic rifles in the Imperial Army. A front-line infantry commander bluntly declared that a soldier armed with a semi-automatic rifle was enough to match an infantry squad armed with a manual rifle. The Army Ordnance Bureau has begun to immerse itself in a number of semi-automatic rifle schemes by domestic and foreign designers: including the Browning-designed long-barreled recoil semi-automatic rifle, which has previously gained great popularity in the European and American civilian markets; and Liu Qing'en, best known for his 1905-style submachine gun, whose design used the air-conductive principle and a wedge-block bolt bolt similar to that of the early Manlisa rifle. However, the most popular in the army was the French RSC1917 rifle. The Army changed part of its design. The 20-round magazine on the Browning light machine gun replaced the RSC's huge fan-shaped magazine. The final version was the Type 1918 rifle. Unfortunately, the war ended soon after. As well as the economic depression and a series of political upheavals in the early post-war period, the Type 1918 semi-automatic rifle was not finally put into mass production.

World War I brought about a seismic change in infantry tactics and doctrine. After the war, the Imperial Army set up a Technical and Tactical Development Committee to study the issue of equipping infantry with semi-automatic rifles, and concluded that the number of ammunition that riflemen should carry with them should be doubled to at least 120 rounds to meet the needs of the contemporary battlefield, where firepower is rapidly increasing. Therefore, it is imperative to reduce the weight and volume of the bullet without excessively weakening the power and shooting accuracy. From the 1920s to the 30s, the ordnance department repeatedly studied new bullets of various calibers from 6.5 to 8 mm. The Savage Company's development of the .300 cartridge for the American Deer Hunter in the 1920s caught the attention of the Imperial Army, and it was actually made from a shortened cartridge case for the U.S. .30-06 Springfield rifle cartridge. Eventually, the Imperial Army developed its own 300mm rifle cartridge based on the .7.62×51mm Savage round. In the shortened and reduced shells, the spherical bistatic propellant, which began to be produced in 1936, gave the warhead excellent ballistic properties. The most widely used ordinary bullet for rifles and machine guns weighs 150 grains. The lead core composite structure is enough to inflict massive tumbling damage on the body after a hit. It even made the enemy mistakenly believe that the Imperial Army used dum shells.

As a result of interfering in the Russian Revolution and intervening in its ongoing civil war, the backlog of 7.92mm ammunition in the ammunition depot of the Chinese Empire after World War I was largely consumed. The War Department was so desperate for ammunition that at the end of 1936 it was preparing a production line for the Type 1937 rifle cartridge at the state-owned arsenal. In response to the increasingly tense world situation, the army authorities also issued orders to the American Western Ammunition Company and the Remington Company for the manufacture of 60 million rounds of Type 1937 rifle cartridges for delivery within one year. In October 1938, the Army contracted the production of 100 million rounds of rifle ammunition from the two companies, plus Winchester. Except for the use of a Boxe-type primer, there is no significant difference between the 7.62×51mm ammunition produced in the United States and the Chinese product. Orders for guns and ammunition from China have also been received by enterprises of a number of friendly countries, such as Israel Military Industries, located in the north of the Japanese archipelago. By doing so, the Reich was spared from running out of ammunition at least when World War II broke out in September 1939.

Meanwhile. Tests to select semi-automatic rifles equipped with new ammunition are also in full swing. Some Army officials who lived through the last World War were fans of the Mauser-Style 1916 semi-automatic rifle and demanded that the new rifle adopt the semi-free bolt principle similar to that of the Mauser. Avoid the problem of gunpowder carbon deposition or mud seepage and blockage of air conduction weapons in harsh environments. Coincidentally, in 1928, the Reich Ministry of the Interior, the Army and the Navy jointly launched a tender for the purchase of new submachine guns. The Hungarian designer Parr, who was working for the small arms department of the Swiss Industrial Company (SIG) at the time, was working for the Swiss Industries (SIG) at the time. Killari designed a submachine gun that fired 9mm Luger pistol rounds for bidding. It adopts the semi-free bolt principle of delayed locking, and the structure is very unique. Kirari's prototype gun showed extremely high accuracy in the test, but it was not selected. Only the Shenyang Arsenal produced a small amount for the police and internal affairs forces.

However, the unique lever-delayed recoil system of the Kirari submachine gun aroused the interest of Chinese engineers. They have made fruitful improvements to make this more reliable and simplify the structure. The basic principle of this automatic action is that the bolt is divided into two parts, the nose is much smaller than the body, and the two are connected by an inertial lever. The lever is driven by the nose, the short arm end snaps into the latching groove in the receiver wall, and the long arm end rests against the heavier body. After the bullet is fired, the pressure of gunpowder gas through the cartridge case prompts the bolt to recoil, but at this time, the two ends of the locking lever are respectively stuck into the locking groove and against the body, and the nose cannot move backwards, but first makes the locking lever rotate. This accelerates the rear seat of the airframe. Wait until the latching lever leaves the latching slot. The force that stops the backseat of the bolt disappears. At this time, the warhead has flown out of the muzzle. The chamber pressure is also reduced to the safe limit. The remaining pressure began to push the entire bolt recoil, pulling out the cartridge case and throwing the receiver. When the bolt in the rear seat is reset under the action of the recoiling spring, and a standby bullet is pushed into the chamber, the hammer returns to the standby state, completing a firing cycle.

In order to prevent the bullet case from being tightly attached to the chamber after pressure expansion, causing difficulties in shelling, engineers from the Shenyang Arsenal fabricated 12 longitudinal grooves on the inner wall of the chamber. When the gunpowder gas enters the tank, the cartridge case will be in a state of "floating". The pressure on the inner and outer sides of the cartridge case is approximately equal, and it can be freely pulled out of the chamber by the case hook. Such an ingenious design made the sample gun of the Shenyang factory outmaneuver over the American John? Pedersen's scheme. Pedersen rifles solve the problem of shelling by coating the shell case with a layer of paraffin wax for lubrication, but over time, the wax chips scraped by the bullet and the dirt adhered to it will accumulate in the action mechanism, leading to various failures. In addition, the toggle delay mechanism of the Pedersen rifle is completely exposed to the receiver and can be easily damaged in a real combat environment. Pedersen's rifle can only be fed into the magazine with 10 clips, which is not as convenient as the 20-round detachable magazine of the Shenyang factory prototype gun.

The original sample gun from the Shenyang factory fired 7.92mm Mauser rounds. Upon learning that the Army was preparing to adopt the new 7.62mm rifle cartridge, engineers quickly revised the design and created a 7.62mm prototype. Taking into account that the soldier will fight in a motor vehicle. The barrel of the new prototype gun was shortened to about 22 inches, and it was fitted with a bore door and a front sight with wings. It retains good shooting accuracy within a range of 1000 meters. In 1937, the new sample gun was jointly adopted by the army and navy and was finalized as a 1937 semi-automatic rifle. The War Department put its priority position in the equipment sequence in the first level, and the state-owned arsenals in Shenyang, Tianjin, and Jinan were the first to be put into production. In that year, army units began to replace them with new semi-automatic rifles. Many of the Type 1897 hand rifles in stock were also modified to fire Type 1937 rounds. It is mainly used for the training of recruits and the second-line armed forces.

Although the bolt assembly of the Type 1937 semi-automatic rifle requires high machining accuracy, its overall structure is relatively simple. It is very conducive to cooperative production between enterprises under the wartime system. During the war, many private enterprises received orders for the production or subcontracting of the 1937 rifle, such as the Ming Kuai Stationery Company founded by Mr. Lin Yutang. The company, known for making Chinese typewriters, had no experience in small arms manufacturing, but it still produced 160,000 semi-automatic rifles in World War II. The subcontractor who supplied them with the barrels was the Nippon Fortune Company, which manufactured water pipes before the war. This is how the "weapons of victory", which were produced in the Great War with a total production of more than 4 million.

The early prototypes at the Shenyang plant were not wasted either – Britain bought nearly 200,000 semi-automatic rifles from its Chinese allies during the war, all of which were 7.92mm calibres. The Mauser rifle cartridge was the only non-fringe rifle cartridge ever produced in Britain at the time, and was heavily used by the British Army on the BESA machine gun. For the United States, the forced involvement in the war at the end of 1942 was a complete disaster, with less than a fifth of the Army's units before the war being reequipped with Garand semi-automatic rifles, and a large number of infantry weapons were lost in the rout of 1942-43. In desperation, the U.S. government ordered 70,000 semi-automatic rifles from China, most of which were equipped with marines. The Type 1937 rifles manufactured for the United States were modified with chambers to accommodate the longer .30-06 cartridges of the US military's cartridges, produced by the Oriental Automobile Company. U.S. Navy members inevitably compare their two semi-automatic rifles, and Marine Corps Major Carlson offered his opinion: "Compared to the Chinese rifle, Melvin? Mr. Johnson's toy (referring to the Johnson Model 1941 semi-automatic rifle) is not worth mentioning at all. "William? General Slim put it more bluntly: the Type 1937 semi-automatic rifle was "the most brilliantly designed combat tool ever built." ”

In 1925, the Chinese Empire, while intervening in the Russian Civil War, experimentally parachuted infantry detachments in Siberia. Gained the first experience of paratrooper combat. After numerous exercises and many skirmishes, the Airborne Forces, which was officially established in 1930, came to the conclusion that the effective range of submachine guns was insufficient for paratroopers who were often lone behind enemy lines, the rifle rate of fire was too slow, and the machine guns were too heavy to carry during parachute jumping. Paratroopers need individual equipment that combines the strengths of these three weapons. Captain Li Hanping of the Airborne Forces made a bold suggestion: remove the tripod of the Browning Type 1908 light machine gun, truncate the barrel to reduce weight, and use it as an automatic rifle. 1934 year. The 1st Parachute Regiment landed in Tokyo with such a modified "automatic rifle". The barrels were all truncated to close to the gas hoop. As a result, after witnessing the fighting, the German military attache in Japan sent back a report to China claiming that all Chinese paratroopers used shotguns. As a test of the weapon, the results of this modification were disappointing, with too much recoil when firing fully automatic against the shoulder, and the muzzle was barely controllable. The paratroopers complained that they had to aim at the enemy's shoes, hoping that the bullet would happen to hit the head when the muzzle jumped. And even if the barrel has been truncated, the Type 1908 light machine gun is too heavy as a single weapon. The best way to solve the problem is to design a carbine cartridge with a power and recoil between a pistol bullet and a rifle cartridge, and create an automatic gun that fires it.

Coincidentally. The Imperial Marines were also clamoring for similar demands. The Marines have been adamantly opposed to the Ordnance Bureau's decision to replace their handy Type 1905 submachine gun with a 9mm submachine gun. The 9mm Luger pistol cartridge had a reduced penetration and stopping ability compared to the .44-40 rounds that had been removed, and the Marines felt that it was far from meeting the needs of the broadside combat that mostly took place at distances of about 300 yards.

Annoyed by the noise of the Airborne Corps and the Marine Corps, the bureaucrats of the Army Ordnance Bureau united the various services to form a committee for the study of automatic rifles and ammunition. Bureaucrats may simply use it as a tool to shirk responsibility and prevaricate public opinion. Unexpectedly, the committee soon came up with the first result, that is, the Type 1938 short rifle cartridge, also known as the 6.5×47mm cartridge.

Some young Japanese military historians claim that this great invention, which ushered in the era of "intermediate-power guns", was the result of plagiarizing Japan's 6.5mm Ariazaka rifle cartridge. In fact, its actual prototype was the .250-3000 hunting cartridge developed by Savage during World War I, with a muzzle velocity of 3,000 feet per second when equipped with an 87-grain warhead. Chinese engineers have redesigned a more streamlined warhead, which weighs 117 grains and can reach a muzzle velocity of 2,652 feet per second, propelled by a bi-base spherical propellant. Compared with the 7.92×33mm bomb developed by Germany later. The Type 1937 short rifle cartridge weighed slightly more, but had superior ballistic performance and shooting accuracy. The recoil is much softer than that of a full-power rifle. It is the most suitable bullet for fighting within 500 yards.

The Type 1939 automatic rifle, which fires 6.5mm short rounds, was designed by the prestigious Liu Qingen. The designer replicated the tried-and-true automaton of the Type 1905 submachine gun and the Liu light machine gun: a long-stroke gas-guided piston rotates the bolt through a half-spiral groove in the bolt body, enabling locking and unlocking. However, the air vents and pistons of the Type 1939 automatic rifle were moved above the barrel, leaving room under the barrel for a double-row double-feed magazine with a capacity of 30 rounds, and a firing mechanism containing a fast and slow machine. The shooter can choose between automatic or semi-automatic fire by simply flipping the fast and slow lever near the grip. A gas regulator is added to the gas guide system, and the air guide hole can be adjusted to balance shooting accuracy and reliability.

In July 1939, Liu Qingen's automatic rifle passed the review of the committee and was officially finalized by the Ordnance Bureau. However, the first production orders were handed over to the privately owned Yangtze River Machinery Company. In addition to private enterprises, only the Nanjing branch of the Shanghai Arsenal, a state-owned arsenal, manufactured the Type 1939 automatic rifle during the war. As for the 6.5mm short rifle cartridge, the first order before the outbreak of the war was actually made by the Israel Military Industries Corporation. The state-owned arsenal is already running at full speed for orders for Type 1937 rifle cartridges and semi-automatic rifles, which is the Army's primary priority.

There are two main production models of the Type 1939 automatic rifle, the Airborne Forces are equipped with duralumin folding stocks, and the Navy and Marine Corps are equipped with wooden fixed stocks. The Marine version of the automatic rifle also has a collapsible three-edged spur fixed under the 17.7-inch barrel. In 1943, an improved version was introduced, with a porous flame suppressor shaped like a birdcage attached to the muzzle. Beginning in 1941, all newly produced Type 1939 automatic rifles used a stamped-welded receiver with chrome plating inside the chamber.

With the exception of the Airborne Forces and the Marine Corps, most of the other users of the Type 1939 automatic rifle were special operations forces developed in World War II. These include the Imperial Army's Long-Range Reconnaissance Special Service, the Navy's Underwater Demolition Brigade, the Marine Corps' Boat Special Service, and the Military Police Special Service formed after the war. The Army's regular units were also influenced by the elite servicemen, and the armored cavalry units fighting in Europe at the end of the war replaced their submachine guns with Type 1939 automatic rifles. Intensive urban battles on the Western Front proved that automatic rifles showed themselves very valuable, and the German anti-tank fighters, often before they could fire their "iron fists", were overwhelmed by a rain of 600 rounds per minute. (To be continued......)