The Type 95 So-Ki was an armored railroad car 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 ...

. It was used for patrolling and guarding railway lines in both

Manchuria Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer Manc ...

and

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

. The chassis was based on the Type 95 Ha-Go light tank. The Type 95 So-Ki had light armor and no fixed weapons armament. Hand-held weapons by the crew would be the only armament available. It had a simple suspension system with

bogie A bogie ( ) (in some senses called a truck in North American English) is a chassis or framework that carries a wheelset, attached to a vehicle—a modular subassembly of wheels and axles. Bogies take various forms in various modes of transp ...

wheels suspended on bell cranks on each side of the chassis. The tracks were driven through the front sprockets. There were three small return wheels. The Type 95 So-Ki was unique as it had both a track and wheel drive system. The vehicle could be changed between railway line wheels mode and track mode for ground use within a few minutes time as it had retractable wheels. In addition, the width of the wheels could be adjusted to the various widths of the

rail gauge In rail transport, track gauge (in American English, alternatively track gage) is the distance between the two rails of a railway track. All vehicles on a rail network must have wheelsets that are compatible with the track gauge. Since many d ...

The Type 95 So-Ki was produced between 1935 and 1943, with 121 to 135 units made.

Notes

References

Taki's Imperial Japanese Army Page - Akira Takizawa
* {{WWIIJapaneseAFVs Armoured cars of Japan Armoured cars of the interwar period World War II armoured fighting vehicles of Japan Military vehicles introduced in the 1930s Military draisines Mitsubishi Rail and road vehicle