1/600 25mm/60 Type 96 Enclosed Triple Mount (20x)

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Product Description

The Hotchkiss 25mm/60 Type 96 anti-aircraft gun was a French-designed weapon widely used by the Imperial Japanese Navy from the mid-1930s, with around 33,000 units built. The Japanese considered it an excellent weapon, except by the time they started producing it they changed the design to allegedly make it simpler to produce, ending up being quite a bad gun by any other navy's standard. The magazines held only 15 rounds, which is quite poor for such a low-calibre weapon, so the theoretical rate of fire of 220-260 rpm was never achieved in reality, the effective one being around 110-120 rpm. The mountings, either powered or unpowered ones, were very slow in training and elevation, which is quite a problem when tracking a moving aircraft. The Type 95 sights used on naval mounts was not capable of keeping track with fast-moving targets such as airplanes by the time WW2 started, so they had subsequently be modified. When it came time to change the barrel after a long period of firing, such as during an attack, it proved to be a bit of a headache, as to change a single barrel one would need at least two people and a number of specialist tools, meaning if a gun overheated it was probably out of the fight until the attack was over. In addition, the flash suppressors didn't work very well, and the firing tended to blind the gunners aiming the weapon. On top of all this, the changes in the design meant the gun vibrated excessively, and that was only with the single mount, meaning that the crew of twin and triple ones felt something like a brick in a tumble-dryer more than anything else when firing.

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