Type 92 Woodpecker Heavy Machine Gun Tripod Carry Rod

Type 92 Heavy Machine Gun Tripod Carry Rod. Round wooden pole with a checkered grip on one end. The other end has a locating stud 100mm from the base that locks into a key slot on the front leg of the tripod.

Two of these poles were standard equipment for carrying the gun on the tripod when set up ready for action.The Type 92 was one of the most widely used heavy machine guns in the Japanese Army during the second world war. The weapon was introduced in 1932 to take advantage of the new 7.7mm semi-rimmed cartridge which offered improved ballistic performance over long ranges. As with all Japanese heavy machine guns, the mount is built to be carried by means of pipes fitted to each of the front legs and with a single fork type pipe to be fitted to the rear leg. This allows two men to carry the gun and mount in firing position relatively rapidly over limited distances. The rate of fire was low, and because of a curious stuttering effect during firing, the gun was nicknamed the "woodpecker". There is nothing very unusual about the Type 92 system of operation. It is essentially a modified Hotchkiss 1914 machine gun design. Strangely, the 7.7mm round needed to be lubricated for reliable functioning and was of a semi-rimless design. During the early 1940s the weapon was modified to reduce weight and a rimless equivalent of the 7.7 mm round was developed which satisfactorily functioned through the gun.