PACOPS Type 99 Arisaka Rifle

The Type 99 rifle was meant as a replacement to the Type 38 and was based on the German Mauser design. It is considered one of the strongest military bolt action rifles ever produced, but late war models were made of lower quality materials and fabricated through rushed production resulting in weapons that were noticeably inferior to their original model.

Produced at nine different locations and in four variants, over three million rifles were built between 1939 and the end of the war. The weapon weighed 3.7kg, was 44 inches long and had a barrel length of 25.87 inches. It fired a 7.7X58mm Arisaka cartridge at a muzzle velocity of 730 m/s and had a five round internal box magazine with a stripper clip.

The first step is to replicate the ammunition in the Estab Editor. For this effort, I will be cloning the Kar98K weapon and ammunition and making some tweaks to match the Type 99 Arisaka (please note the data used in the screen shots below is not final and is subject to change with additional research and references).

The next step is to replicate the rifle, and for this I will clone the Kar98K in game. The following changes are made to the data: the weight is changed to 3.7kg, the ammunition is changed to the 7.7mm created above, the caliber is changed to 7.7, the muzzle velocity is changed to 730 m/s and no image is selected (to avoid any potential copyright concerns).

In order to test this weapon and ammunition in game, I next create a generic Japanese infantry company modeled after a Heer Gren Coy in the Germany estab tree (this is obviously subject to massive revision based on vetted research regarding total personnel, additional armaments, etc.)

Because I have not fully developed the command structure for the Imperial Japanese Army in my estab tree for Japan, the only rank option is Major (again, don’t freak out).

The Type 99 rifle created above is added to the equipment list on the Equipment/Supply tab and everything else is deleted.

The basic setup to move into the Scenario Editor:

Creation of a basic infantry unit force list:

How the unit appears in the game: this particular iteration has a combat power rating of 2 with an anti-personnel firepower rating of 42 and an infantry value of 142 (total headcount of the company). With additional weapons (mortar, anti-tank) these ratings may increase.

Up against a company of Marines from the mod, both sides fought to a draw trying to secure a single objective, and without any supply base ran out of ammunition by day two.

Update 12/10/13

I've made some changes to the color of the estab file service force, going for a red background with a white base (which actually has to be applied in the Scenario Editor). I suspect some may think this is too close to the British para's, however the intent is for the Japanese forces to be fighting Marines in the Pacific.