The was a derivative of the

Type 97 Chi-Ha The was a medium tank used by the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Battles of Khalkhin Gol against the Soviet Union, and the Second World War. It was the most widely produced Japanese medium tank of World War II. T ...

medium tank A medium tank is a classification of tanks, particularly prevalent during World War II which represented a compromise between the mobility oriented light tanks and the armour and armament oriented heavy tanks. A medium tank's classification is ...

s of the

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Similar in concept to the early variants of the German

Panzer IV The ''Panzerkampfwagen'' IV (Pz.Kpfw. IV), commonly known as the ''Panzer'' IV, was a German medium tank developed in the late 1930s and used extensively during the Second World War. Its ordnance inventory designation was Sd.Kfz. 161. The Panze ...

, it was designed as a

self-propelled howitzer Self-propelled artillery (also called locomotive artillery) is artillery equipped with its own propulsion system to move toward its firing position. Within the terminology are the self-propelled gun, self-propelled howitzer, self-propelled mo ...

to provide the close-in fire support for standard Japanese medium tanks with additional firepower against enemy anti-tank fortifications.History of War: Type 2 Ho-I Gun Tank
/ref>

History and development

Design work on the Type 2 Ho-I began in 1937, after experience in

Manchukuo Manchukuo, officially the State of Manchuria prior to 1934 and the Empire of (Great) Manchuria after 1934, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Northeast China, Manchuria from 1932 until 1945. It was founded as a republic in 1932 afte ...

taught Japanese war planners that an armored vehicle with a larger weapon would be useful against fortified enemy positions such as pillboxes, against which the standard low-velocity 57mm and high-velocity 47mm tank guns were ineffective. Since this vehicle was to be able to keep up with the rest of an armored formation, the Japanese began work on mounting a Type 41 75 mm Mountain Gun onto the chassis of the Chi-Ha medium tank. The adapted mountain gun, known as the Type 99 75 mm tank gun, was completed in 1940. The gun could fire an assortment of ammunition, including a 6.6kg (14.5lb) armor-piercing shell and had a muzzle velocity of 445mps. By 1942 the Type 99 75 mm gun was fitted into a Type 97-Kai Shinhoto Chi-Ha turret, which resulted in the designated Type 2 Ho-I gun tank. The Type 2 Ho-I gun tank was intended to be part of a fire support company in each of the tank regiments.

Design

Side view of experimental Type 1 gun tank Ho-I

The 1941 prototype model, known as the Experimental Type 1 Ho-I, used the Type 97 Chi-Ha chassis.Taki’s Imperial Japanese Army: Type 2 "Ho-I"
/ref> The production model utilized the chassis of the

Type 1 Chi-He medium tank The was an improved version of the Type 97 Chi-Ha medium tanks of the Imperial Japanese Army in World War II. It had a more powerful main gun, engine and thicker armor. It was the first Japanese tank to have a communication radio as standard equi ...

, which was itself a modified Type 97 Chi-Ha hull. The main armament of the Type 2 Ho-I was a Type 99 75 mm tank gun, and secondary armament was a single 7.7 mm

Type 97 Light Machine Gun The was the standard machine gun used in tanks and armored vehicles of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II, a heavy machine gun by infantry forces, This weapon was not related to the Type 97 aircraft machine gun used in several Japanes ...

in the hull. The short barreled 75 mm Type 99 Gun was mounted in a

gun turret A gun turret (or simply turret) is a mounting platform from which weapons can be fired that affords protection, visibility and ability to turn and aim. A modern gun turret is generally a rotatable weapon mount that houses the crew or mechani ...

of the type used for the Type 97 Shinhoto Chi-Ha tank with modifications to accommodate the gun used and the addition of a large rear hatch.

Service history

As with other tanks and self-propelled guns, production was hampered by material shortages, and by the bombing of Japan in World War II. All 31 Type 2 Ho-I tanks produced were conversions from existing Type 1 Chi-He medium tanks. There is no record of a Type 2 Ho-I being used in combat prior to the end of the war.

History and development

Design

Service history

Notes

References

External links

Further reading