The Sumitomo NTK-62[6] (62式7.62mm機関銃, Rokuni-shiki Nana-ten-rokuni-miri Kikanjū) is the standard issue general-purpose machine gun of the Japan Self-Defense Forces.

Though the Sumitomo Heavy Industries' M249 firing the smaller 5.56×45mm NATO cartridge has largely replaced it in the light machine gun role at the squad level in the JGSDF,[8][9] the Type 62 still plays the support role at platoon and company level for the infantry as a medium machine gun firing the more powerful 7.62×51mm NATO cartridge.

[2] It was specifically adopted on February 15, 1962, effectively replacing the M1919 Browning machine gun in JGSDF service.

[1] In 2013, SHI was involved in a scandal where NTK-62 test data was falsified on purpose for 5,350 machine guns produced from 1974.

[11] After the war, the decision to develop a new machine gun to replace the M1919A4/A6 and M1918A2 automatic rifles provided by the US Army was made by the Land Staff Equipment Committee in 1954.

The developer was Dr Masaya Kawamura (also Masaya) (1906-1994),[13][14] a doctor of engineering at Nittoku who was involved in the pre-war prototypes of the Trial Automatic Rifle Hei and Trial Ultra Light Machine Gun, which challenged military adoption with their original structures but were never adopted, and in the development of the Type 5 30 mm fixed machine gun during the war, and after the war also made achievements in the development of the bulldozer.

The Sumitomo NTK-62 is a gas operated machine gun chambered in the 7.62×51mm NATO cartridge, belt fed with the use of M13 disintegrating links.

[3] Pressed metal was used in parts of the machine gun during manufacturing in order to reduce overall weight.

[citation needed] The design was done based on physique of the Japanese person who would be expected to handle the machine gun.

[12]: 108  Difficult maintenance due to the high number of parts (a trait shared with the Type 64 7.62mm rifle), components falling off due to loose tolerances, barrels pulling out of receivers when lifted by the carrying handle at an angle, poor accuracy in sustained fire, malfunctions, negligent discharges, and runaways have led to derogatory nicknames including ‘the gun that does not listen’ (62式（ろくに）言うこと聞かん銃), ‘Type 62 single-shot machine gun’ (62式単発機関銃), ‘King of Stupid Guns’ (キング・オブ・バカ銃), ‘The Better Without machine gun’ (無い方がマシンガン), and ‘Squad suicide firearm’ (分隊自滅火器) being given to it by the troops who operated it.

4)’ in the above document, Ito does not directly express a negative view of the Type 62 machine gun, but points out that ‘the Lebel and Nagant (7.0 mm wall thickness) have thin chambers, but the casings taper strongly and the lumen pressure is low’ and that the advantage of a thick chamber is the ‘lower temperature rise when firing a large number of rounds in rapid succession and low risk of self-destruction of the actual shells’, ‘the shells do not stick to the chamber, so the spent shell can be extracted lightly’ and ‘greater strength and safety against rupture’.

In the development process of the Type 62 machine gun, in order to solve the problem of casings sticking to the chamber due to overheating caused by the slender barrel, an attempt was made to increase the extraction force of the casings by moving a large loose bottom back and forth at high speed under strong gas pressure, but this resulted in a decline in accuracy, and this time the casings could not withstand the strong extraction force and shredded.

However, NITTOKU, which was adamant about its own design and weight reduction, did not adopt the findings in the Type 62 machine gun.

In the end, these essential shortcomings were not corrected until the derivative Type 74 vehicle-mounted 7.62 mm machine gun, which was designed to ensure a thicker barrel at the expense of portability by being dedicated to vehicle use.