page_title: Tanks in World War II
section_title: Japan
hierarchical_section_title: Tanks in World War II / Tanks of the major combatants / Japan
caption_attribution_description: Japanese Type 1 Ho-Ni II self-propelled gun
context_page_description: Tanks were an important weapons system in World War II. Even though tanks in the inter-war years were the subject of widespread research, production was limited to relatively small numbers in a few countries. However, during World War II, most armies employed tanks, and production levels reached thousands each month. Tank usage, doctrine and production varied widely among the combatant nations. By war's end, a consensus was emerging regarding tank doctrine and design.
context_section_description: Like the US Army (which utilized French and British tanks in World War I), the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) did not have tanks of its own in World War I, so it started out by purchasing foreign tanks for evaluation during World War I and right after the war ended. Like many other nations, the Japanese initially didn't embrace the tank, as it didn't have the cavalry tradition.  Cavalry was used for reconnaissance in the mountainous countryside, and initially, as with most other armies, the first designs were constrained by the tank's infantry-support role. Building tanks of their own met several problems, as Japan's priority tended to be with naval procurements so production for tank steel was on a lower level. However, they finally began designing tanks by the mid-1920s. Inspired by European designs, the Japanese tank program designed and developed the tanks which facilitated their campaigns in China and the Soviet–Japanese border conflicts, prior to World War II. They introduced many innovations as they built their designs, including bell crank suspensions, as pioneers in amphibious tanks, and the use of diesel engines that were less likely to catch fire compared with gasoline tank engines that were being used at the time. The Japanese generals had made a mistake in their assessment of the tanks used against China, a country whose army had only three tank battalions, and few anti-tank weapons.
  By 1937, Japan fielded 1,060 tanks in 8 regiments, most designed for and used in the infantry-support role. But this focus left the IJA without a tank capable of taking on other tanks, a deficiency that was brought home hard during the battle of Khalkin-Gol, a decisive defeat inflicted by the Soviet Union on the Mongolian border in 1939. This proved fatal later when they faced the new generation of Allied tanks, as the great majority of the Japanese models were lightly armored, and not heavily gunned. As in the 1920s, with the priority of steel going to the navy and air force, the Japanese Army was relegated the remaining material for its tanks. Thus the 1930s-designed vehicles went on being mass-produced, and the warning of Khalkin-Gol was too slowly recognized. By 1940 they had the fifth-largest tank force in the world behind the Soviet Union, France, Britain and Germany, but were behind in medium and heavy tanks. However, after December 1941, with the entry of the United States into the conflict, priority continued to be given to warships and aircraft, weapons that were more conducive to naval warfare; attacking across the Pacific, and defending the Empire from the advancing Americans.
  Although the Japanese Army widely employed tanks within the Pacific theater of war, the tanks that Allied forces in the Pacific faced were mostly older designs, such as the Type 95 Ha-Go light tank and Type 97 Chi-Ha medium tank. As the war progressed the Japanese built tanks and self-propelled guns to match up against the Allied tanks. These included the Type 1 Ho-Ni I tank destroyer with a 75 mm gun designed as self-propelled artillery and the Type 2 Ho-I Infantry Support Tank, for the close-fire support role; providing Type 97 equipped tank regiments with additional firepower against enemy armored fighting vehicles. However, they were only produced in limited numbers. The most modern Japanese tanks, such as the Type 3 Chi-Nu medium tank were delayed by material and production shortages. Even after they started to come out of the factories, doctrine called for them to be held for the defense of the mainland.
  Between 1931 and 1945, Japan produced 6450 tanks. Half of them (3300) were made by the Mitsubishi Company. The sub-total of tanks produced between 1940 and 1945 is 4424, i.e. a yearly average comparable to Italy. For a country as large and as industrialized as Japan, that is modest. However, before 1944/45, the naval fleet and the air force had priority of steel allocation and construction. It changed when the homeland became increasingly under direct threat, but it was too late. As with many innovative weapons projects launched by Japan in
caption: Type 1 Ho-Ni II variant with a 105 mm gun
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