Thanks for watching. If you enjoyed this one consider checking out this video on another Japanese tank project: ua-cam.com/video/iw8dRBZMX_c/v-deo.html
Shame the Japanese burned and destroyed so many of their records at the end of WW2. I can't imagine what interesting and crazy designs were lost to the fires.
That's not the full truth. While some was burned by the Japanese, you also gotta remember the US was burning half of Japan with fire bombing raids. And then after the war a lot of Japanese prototypes and the like was thrown in the scrap because of a mix of racism and not knowing the importance.
Not sure how racism has anything to do with it. Sure there was racism towards the Japanese during and after WW2 but the reason for scrapping their vehicles would be due to them not being seen as important, which at the time they weren't. Plenty of German, Italian, and even American vehicles were scrapped as well following the war.
@@ConeOfArc and alot of extremely important and interesting American prototypes were scrapped before or during the Korean War. I'm still hoping one or two of those like the T55 maybe turn up in an abandoned warehouse somewhere.
@@zendell37 likely the US fire bombing did some damage yes but we know the Japanese purposely destroyed almost records, photos and models of the Yamato class. I can imagine quite a few projects that we can only speculate on ended up in the fire regardless.
Honestly when it comes to World of Tanks and Japanese tanks. The game takes alot of liberties on what the vehicle could have been if it were actually built and what it would become as both tech and doctrines advanced, which i think is neat
problem is they claim to be 100% historically accurate and a lot of people take their word for it and think every tank in the game is an actual vehicle. Same with Warthunder.
Had it not been for Army/Navy Infighting, Japan's tank industry could've been quite formidable. It was the right move to allocate more budget and resources to the Navy and Airforce given the war they'd be fighting, but underfunding the tank force is never a good idea.
Maybe even the Chi-To and Chi-Ri could have seen full scale production that would be amazing. If they built a few of them I'm sure one of each would be around today for us to admire and learn from
@@dont259 Its better to have a lot of tanks made of crap steel that has a good gun and good optics, than very few tanks made of crap steel with crap guns and no optics. T-34 saved Russia from losing the war, and its one of the worst tanks ever made.
Too bad the Navy blew that budget on to massive battleships that this same navy had thoroughly demonstrated were just floating targets for carrier aircraft.
@@dont259 yeah, sure. Japanese steel sure is crap, that's why it killed a whole lot of Allied servicemen during the war, not to count the millions of civilians killed. Smh
Leaving aside the relative qualities of the Japanese tanks (or lack thereof) I find it astonishing that a nation that a mere 60 years earlier was more or less stuck in temporal stasis managed to not only come up with modern designs like these (as well as ships and planes and various other things), but also cobbled together the industry, educational system and economy to produce said designs in numbers.
Because Japan had already established everything that a major state needed. It had access to outside information and inventions, it had stable institutions, and it was already modernizing in the 1840s. What happened afterwards is pretty similar to what happened to European and American states after they industrialized.
How is it astonishing? The western powers had done all of the heavy lifting. The Japanese just took the best information from around the world and stole it for their own use. The Japanese even attempted to copy the M-1 Garand, rather unsuccessfully. I think the myth of Japanese technical prowess during WW2 if pretty funny. EVERYTHING they built was crap in 1941, and utterly useless by 1944. Just look at the Zero, the only advantage it had was weight, and that was because they offered Zero protection for the pilot. Horribly flawed thinking. An island nation with a limited population, especially skilled pilots, should probably place a high priority on survivability. But the Japanese place no value on human life, not even their own.
Fun fact, they did the same millennia earlier with agriculture. While China and India were becoming agrarian nations, Japan maintained a hunter-gatherers model for thousands of years. Archeological proof shows they did grow the likes of pickles and some spices, but had otherwise enough to just fish/hunt/gather not to bother with agriculture. Agriculture got pretty much imported, and once they learned about it Japan adopted it very quickly, then it soon became the dominant method of food production, at least in the dominant kingdoms.
I love that Japan's ONLY heavy tank in War Thunder is a multi-turreted, paper-thin armored, WW1 esk WW2 relic that feels like its bolts will rattle off with every slight turn. & yet it is my favorite Japanese low-tier tank. Sure it's a premium, but it's pretty cheap. I just wish that War Thunder would stop modernization, and focus instead on late war, WW2, or even Post - WW1 designs, from all nations. There is more to Ground RB than Leopard variants...
Honestly, the better move would've been to split everything up between WW1 to Post WW2 and Cold War to Modern era, but that's too much effort for Gaijin.
You don't even know how had that made it to find info on the vehicle, didn't help that there's ANOTHER Mark C made by Britain and Vickers also made the Mark III which, from what I can tell, is a further development of the Mark C. Not looking forward to researching that one in the future...
The Vickers catching afire because of a carburetor issue was an incredibly common issue in pre-war gasoline engines. The gasket technology had not caught up and all carburators leaked horribly. This is the reason almost all early carbs were side or up drafting designs. A downdraft carburetor leaked fuel into the manifold, and then past the valves, to hydrolock the engine. That was best case scenario. Worst case is a bad leak while running, which results in a fire.
Resource logistics with the IJA fighting the IJN for steel and other scarce materials meant the IJA was always doomed to be the last puppy getting fed.
Japanese military politics can best be described as a clusterfuck, but during the 1930s the Army held as much influence as the Navy and Tojo's government (he being an Army general) balanced the IJA and IJN carefully. The problem was that while the IJA was reasonably well funded, the war against China in 1937 it became a sort of money sink and most of its own funding went to keeping the war machine in China going with precious little for tank research. The last genuinely good Japanese designs dated from before the war.
The problem with researching Japanese tank projects is that a lot of data was lost during the end of the war. I have seen a photograph of a Japanese superheavy tank at an exhibition in the 30's that has a silhouette that matches no known tank, but there is no surviving data on the vehicle other than this. Likewise, Cone mentions the O-I, which we know did exist (there is a transcript of the tests the Japanese did with the prototype out there), but so little data survives that even Cone made the mistake of thinking it might not have existed. It is one of the sad facts of life, that we may never truly know the extent of the Japanese armour projects prior to the end of WW2.
I remember playing an old WW2 strategy game back on the Xbox 360 called R.U.S.E. and they had a Japan as DLC. Well there super heavy tank Type 105 O-I had a flamethrower, rockets, and a 105mm gun and I always thought how ridiculously OP it was.
The Canadian Ram I and early production RAM II Cruiser tanks had its "hull" MG in a turret of sorts beside the driver, and the RAM IIs had a 6 pounder gun which is effectively a 57mm gun, so maybe this also inspired Japan. As it happens, those Rams which had the MG turret and also had hull side doors, which were converted to Kangaroos (which in many ways were the first fully tracked APCs), had a much greater field of fire to support the infantry squad with than a ball mount like M4s and late production Ram IIs used. The turret had around a 150 degree arc of traverse from about 30 degrees to the front right (the hull casting of the driver's compartment and hatch being raised and in the way to prevent going completely to the right) to about 30 degrees to the rear left (before bumping the barrel into the hull casting again) with around -15 degrees and +30 degrees of elevation. Some of the Command/OP conversions also retained this MG turret which was pretty much their only weapon given the dummy gun barrel replacing the 6 pounder so as to carry two extra radio sets in the turret.
If the RAM hadn't entered production about 15 years after the Type 87 was built that could have been the case. Unless the Japanese had some sort of time travel though it was just British influence. The inclusion of the MG turret on the RAM itself was influenced by British design.
The Japanese 57mm. L.18.5 type 90 tank gun only fired a 2 pound shell. The Allied range test results, for both types of ammunition issued for the gun, were: APHE shell = Up to 34mm. @ 0 degrees @ 100 yards. AP solid shot = Up to 40mm. @ 0 degrees @ 100 yards.
Look at Italian tanks, their P26 weighed the same as a Sherman was equipped with a 75mm gun but was classified as a heavy tank by them. The Tiger tank that the Japanese bought never left port because of the fighting in France and was used by the Germans.
Dont forget that the sherman is 8 years younger and involves 3 years of war experience in its development. For example the panzer 4, a fairly good paralell to the sherman, also started life as the heavy tank of the germans in the interwar period.
So interesting. You're the only one I know that makes detailed videos about Japanese tanks. I really apprechiate your hard work you put into researching accurate information. I had no idea the Vickers C was sold to Japan I knew about a Vickers 6 ton which catched fire during trials as well. I mean, the O-I story would be very interesting, but seeing how difficult the research is these two tanks are already very impressive. Thumbs up from me 👍👍🎌
Even if slightly underpowered, Type 95 is still a statement that back then japanese could produce a tank chassis with suspension, transmission and engine capable of supporting the 26 ton vehicle. Something not every other major country of the time could do cementing place of japanese military industry as one of the leading in the world. After all, japanese tanks are seen as almost afterthought to their navy and aircraft, but they were still able to pull out cards like this from their sleeve;)
@5:00 Having the hatch in the front is great incentive for the crew to not try to abandon the vehicle when the going got rough. Since the Japanese aren't going to dishonor themselves in any such fashion, they at least get a comfortably and dignified way of boarding the machine that was going to take them to their doom... I mean glory!
@@bobmcbob49 Wargaming got access and made it according to the official records that the company so Gaijin can do some homework copying and we'd have a great O-I at about 5.7 since you know..gaijin Brs any higher and it's pointless
I believe the Type 89 appeared in "Flowers of War". The Chinese threw everything and the kitchen sink at those tanks cause most Chinese small arms could do nothing.
It sounds crazy to have a crew hatch on the front of the vehicle, but remember one of the most successful tanks of WW2 had just such a feature -- the T-34 (well for the driver, anyway).
A drivers hatch is one thing but having the entire crew enter/exit from one hatch in the front is not a great design option. I'd have to do more research to know for certain but I would guess this was done because WW1 tanks tended to have a door on them and with smaller designs this couldn't really be placed on the sides or rear so they just stuck it on the front.
@@ConeOfArc Yes, I'm just saying having a door on the front of this tank looks crazy on this vehicle, but designs that allowed crewmembers an exit from the front of the tank arent that odd of an idea during WW2. It's just that in the accepted popular designs (like the T34 & M3 Stuart) the hatch doubles as a driver's visor which makes it appear normal.
@@calessel3139 driver hatch's are very normal. It's far better to have the driver have their own escape in case of a needed escape from the vehicle. They are still used today, on every tank that's worth a dime. So yes, driver hatches are very normal
@@ethanedwards422 You're missing the point completely. My argument isn't about driver's hatches, it's about driver's hatches located directly on the front of the vehicle. During WW2, and the inter-war years, designer's deemed it acceptable to locate crew hatches directly on the front of the tank. The T34, T70, T80, H38/39 and R35 all this configuration. Furthermore, the US M2 & M3 light tank series had their entire front superstructure plate double as escape hatches for both the driver and bow gunner. Yes, nearly all modern tank designs have driver's escape hatches but they're effectively located on the roof on the vehicle, not the front of the glacis. That said, the Type-89's door on the front plate, in which the entire crew enters and exits the tank, is a bad idea.
Speaking of Japanese tanks, what are your thoughts on the submarine-deployed vehicles, like the Type 3 Ka-Chi and Type 4 Ka-Tsu? They've got a cylindrical pressure hull to be tied to the deck of a sub for stealthy deployment. Seems like one of the worst ways to deploy a tank. The crew inside is screwed if things go wrong, and whats even the point of the stealthy deployment? I don't think you can invade much with only a few tanks.
Would the tank need to crewed during transport? Seems like there would be no real time save if the tank is already tied to a submarine. But it does sound like an application with really small niche.
Japan had an idea of submarine coastal raiding. They even had submersible aircraft carriers. In the end Italies idea of submarine born spec ops teams would prove to be the viable execution of this strategy.
@@ConeOfArc It honestly amazes me how we've now made tanks that weigh as much as those old WW1 and 2 Heavy tanks, but they are soooooooooooooooo much more capable. THings like the Char 2C with its like 47mm main gun and being the size of a friggin railroad locomotive weighed like 68 tons, but now we have the likes of the T-90, which is only like 46 tons and has composite armor thats a few hundred mm, a 125mm gun and so on..... Or you take the Abrams, 68-72 some odd tons and compare it to the weight of the Char 2C or even the King Tiger....... Advances in technology are amusing.
Thank you for the generally excellent videos, also for the info on Scottish titles; one on my ancestors was a minor Laird, and I just used your code when buying titles for my wife and I.
Japan didn’t have a weak industrial capacity,they still had a larger industry than 90% of other nations.Their industry was weak only compared to Big Three of Allies and Germany.
I find this all interesting, so thanks for taking the time and effort . I really appreciate it. I have to kinda laugh at the water cooled MGs on the rear of the turrets... They were prepared to do a lot of shooting...lol. So did they think they would be surrounded because of break through or just not worried about shooting their own supporting infantry. ?? lol ..I get if ones penetration of the enemy was so successful... the enemy might climb on the tank.. but wouldn't a submachine gun be enough to take care of that rare problem? lol. I understand the idea of the O1 was to transport in pieces and assemble at the battlefield.. Novel I think. Did anyone else think of that Idea? Regardless.. I love the oversized tanks. lol Not practical but really cool. I was thinking.. The Japanese used a yellow star on their vehicles but also white .. I think.. Maybe a future subject.. National Emblems on Tanks.
A lot of the thinking in the 20's and 30's revolved around breaking WWI trench warfare. The tank could overrun a trench, and fire back into it with the rear turret. It could also park on top of a machine gun nest, and fire all 3 turrets into the trenches on either side of the vehicle, in a way that there's no cover for the troops in the trenches. (the troops would be stuck in a trench they have to climb out of in a hurry, into the waiting guns of the tanks supporting infantry, or stay in the trench and get machine gunned to death by the tank itself.) Works best when the troops you're attacking have no way of actually killing a tank, which pretty much sums up a lot of fighting in China. As far as how the guns were cooled, there's 2 possibilities for why they look like that. Water cooled machine guns were the standard infantry MG at the time, and they were built using the same guns for commonality. The other possibility is the Japanese did put aluminum cooling sleeves on WWII tank machine guns, and I don't know when they started that, so those could be early cooling sleeves.
Idea for when a tank lacks images like with the vickers: apart from the full picture shots maybe zoom in to focus on specific details if the resolution allows for it?
Really great presentation. Really enjoyed it. Very informative. Waiting with baited breath for your presentation on the OI ! 😃Be as skeptical as possible is my advice.
Wouldn’t it have been smarter for them to make stugg like tanks? The would have made a light simple tank they could easily transport, make, and use. It would make sense as far as setting them up on an island and providing covering fire to troops in the front.
You mentioned that World of Tanks introduced many of the tanks featured in the video but in the case of the O-I there was a game that had it YEARS before World of Tanks did. I'm talking about R.U.S.E. a WWII RTS Game from Eugen Games published by Ubisoft. They released the game in 2010 where back then they already featured many prototype tanks such as the FCM F1, the King Tiger and the Super Pershing. In 2011 they released a DLC which added Japan into the game which featured the O-I but also the Chi-Ri as well as the Ho-Ri. In the game the O-I was given 60mm of armor, the main turret being 105mm AP and the 2 secondary turrets were made into a flamethrower and rocket launcher respectively. It is probably the strongest tank in the whole game.
Finally people who talk about japanese tank and not bias about it, to me the japanese 1920-30s tank is a decent tank for sure, i am like soviet T-54/T-55/T-62/T-64 tank but i know they weaknesses and performance in the war from documentaries but many people just stupid bias and overrate them (before ukraine war)
9:04 everytime I see those way to loose tracks in WoT I start shaking my head... The tracks would fall of every few meters, it bother me so hard that they don't model it correctly
Glad you’re getting to the Japanese heavy’s hard saying if there’s any true blueprints for the wot tanks though little info is available from what I have looked for
0:24 O-I prototype existed, but was never finished. Onther tanks from WoT tech tree (tiers VII - X) are completely fake and their designs are based on misinterpreted photos of coastal btteries
Not even coastal battery's, at least in regards to the inspiration of the Type4/5 Heavy. The turret that inspired those fakes are fortress turrets from Koto Fortress in Manchuria.
I saw a movie once an old japanese 70's or 60's movie which sported an OI tank charging towards a chinese DP. maybe that was the basis of world of tanks to put it in their game. :D
I mean, how important was the safety of the crew REALLY to the Japanese army? Something tells me concern for soldier survivability is not top on the fascist empire's to do list.
You’re talking safety to the same country who strapped bombs to planes and ordered men to crash them into enemy ships while having soldiers charge at machine guns with bayonets and swords…I don’t think they cared too much
It's pretty ironic how the actual nazis values the lives of their "suicide pilots" more than imperial japan by engineering ejection systems or just by giving them the chance to bail out.
@Allesnur Nochkrank Yeah, but Japanese military culture has an unhealthy obsession with death. Sometimes it works out, like with the kamikaze, which the US Navy figured had a higher success rate for lower casualties than a conventional attack. Other times, it led to the loss of men that didn't need to die. The latter was far more common
It's better to show the only available images of the subject in question for the entire video rather than show images of unrelated material just to fill the time. (As far too many other military UA-cam channels do. as an example talking about a specific variant of the Mig 23 and continuously showing videos of an F18)
Quick question, do you have any insight on that one photograph that claims to show a turret of what WoT calls the Type 4 Heavy? I'm sure you know which one I mean, but I am not sure if I can post links here. It seems to show a large tank turret (and maybe hull) in the background, with 2 Soviet soldiers posing in front of it. Do you know if this picture is real, and if so, what it might depict?
4:34 white star on front? You put the exit door on the front of export model...cause you might have to fight them later...ha Interesting small road wheels.
Shouldn't the correct pronounciation of the letter "i" in O-I be with "i" sounding like the english letter "e"? I mean, I could be wrong since I've never heard anyone say it phonetically but I've always felt that's way more likely to be the correct way to say it.
I wasn't aware of the recent discovery of new O-I documents noted at 13:48. If you end up unfortunately unable to get your hands on the documents themselves, could you at least inform us in the community tab or such about what details have supposedly been revealed? I don't want to be left hanging like that!
Echt sehr Informative ich finde es sehr schade das es kaum, bestätigte Entwicklungs Dokumente der Japanischen neueren Panzer Typen gibt. Die nicht in hoher Stückzahl gebaut worden sind.
idk what it is about these two tanks, but to me they just seem eerily unnatural. they look so old and out of date that it seems like some ancient relics were awakened and decided to start shooting things.
Hey, just a psa, the sponsor is based in Hong Kong, 1 Square foot is too small to even be sold in Scotland, and lords/ladies- aren't actually recognized by literally anyone other than this company, also, we don't know how much they donated to the charity
Thanks for watching. If you enjoyed this one consider checking out this video on another Japanese tank project: ua-cam.com/video/iw8dRBZMX_c/v-deo.html
Shame the Japanese burned and destroyed so many of their records at the end of WW2. I can't imagine what interesting and crazy designs were lost to the fires.
That's not the full truth.
While some was burned by the Japanese, you also gotta remember the US was burning half of Japan with fire bombing raids.
And then after the war a lot of Japanese prototypes and the like was thrown in the scrap because of a mix of racism and not knowing the importance.
Not sure how racism has anything to do with it. Sure there was racism towards the Japanese during and after WW2 but the reason for scrapping their vehicles would be due to them not being seen as important, which at the time they weren't. Plenty of German, Italian, and even American vehicles were scrapped as well following the war.
@@ConeOfArc and alot of extremely important and interesting American prototypes were scrapped before or during the Korean War. I'm still hoping one or two of those like the T55 maybe turn up in an abandoned warehouse somewhere.
How much was self immolation versus the US fire bombing everything?
@@zendell37 likely the US fire bombing did some damage yes but we know the Japanese purposely destroyed almost records, photos and models of the Yamato class. I can imagine quite a few projects that we can only speculate on ended up in the fire regardless.
Honestly when it comes to World of Tanks and Japanese tanks. The game takes alot of liberties on what the vehicle could have been if it were actually built and what it would become as both tech and doctrines advanced, which i think is neat
problem is they claim to be 100% historically accurate and a lot of people take their word for it and think every tank in the game is an actual vehicle.
Same with Warthunder.
War thunder is a lot better when it comes to that stuff than WoT still not perfect but definitely not nearly as bad
Not as people, no, but as trained operators, yes.
@@jwenting um no they don't they literally had a campaign of sealion world of tanks has the war end at a different year as well
I wish you could used multiple guns like on Wot console, pc should have a multiple gun function we already have double barreled tanks
Had it not been for Army/Navy Infighting, Japan's tank industry could've been quite formidable.
It was the right move to allocate more budget and resources to the Navy and Airforce given the war they'd be fighting, but underfunding the tank force is never a good idea.
Maybe even the Chi-To and Chi-Ri could have seen full scale production that would be amazing. If they built a few of them I'm sure one of each would be around today for us to admire and learn from
With how notoriously shit Japanese steel is? Lmao. Sure, whatever.
@@dont259 Its better to have a lot of tanks made of crap steel that has a good gun and good optics, than very few tanks made of crap steel with crap guns and no optics.
T-34 saved Russia from losing the war, and its one of the worst tanks ever made.
Too bad the Navy blew that budget on to massive battleships that this same navy had thoroughly demonstrated were just floating targets for carrier aircraft.
@@dont259 yeah, sure. Japanese steel sure is crap, that's why it killed a whole lot of Allied servicemen during the war, not to count the millions of civilians killed. Smh
2:06 I just noticed that poor driver left the anti-shrapnel mask on his face. And it looks like that the photo was made on a very sunny day.
Leaving aside the relative qualities of the Japanese tanks (or lack thereof) I find it astonishing that a nation that a mere 60 years earlier was more or less stuck in temporal stasis managed to not only come up with modern designs like these (as well as ships and planes and various other things), but also cobbled together the industry, educational system and economy to produce said designs in numbers.
Because Japan had already established everything that a major state needed. It had access to outside information and inventions, it had stable institutions, and it was already modernizing in the 1840s. What happened afterwards is pretty similar to what happened to European and American states after they industrialized.
How is it astonishing? The western powers had done all of the heavy lifting. The Japanese just took the best information from around the world and stole it for their own use. The Japanese even attempted to copy the M-1 Garand, rather unsuccessfully.
I think the myth of Japanese technical prowess during WW2 if pretty funny. EVERYTHING they built was crap in 1941, and utterly useless by 1944. Just look at the Zero, the only advantage it had was weight, and that was because they offered Zero protection for the pilot. Horribly flawed thinking. An island nation with a limited population, especially skilled pilots, should probably place a high priority on survivability. But the Japanese place no value on human life, not even their own.
Fun fact, they did the same millennia earlier with agriculture. While China and India were becoming agrarian nations, Japan maintained a hunter-gatherers model for thousands of years. Archeological proof shows they did grow the likes of pickles and some spices, but had otherwise enough to just fish/hunt/gather not to bother with agriculture. Agriculture got pretty much imported, and once they learned about it Japan adopted it very quickly, then it soon became the dominant method of food production, at least in the dominant kingdoms.
I really think the O-I super heavy should get a video of him
I love that Japan's ONLY heavy tank in War Thunder is a multi-turreted, paper-thin armored, WW1 esk WW2 relic that feels like its bolts will rattle off with every slight turn. & yet it is my favorite Japanese low-tier tank. Sure it's a premium, but it's pretty cheap. I just wish that War Thunder would stop modernization, and focus instead on late war, WW2, or even Post - WW1 designs, from all nations. There is more to Ground RB than Leopard variants...
It is a lot of fun for sure.
Honestly, the better move would've been to split everything up between WW1 to Post WW2 and Cold War to Modern era, but that's too much effort for Gaijin.
I’ve always wanted like Mark IV’s but I’m told it’s a bad idea and I agree but I think they are cool
@@grease4810 It is a bad idea, which is why it's a *GREAT* idea! All the WWI tanks shooting at each other. Amazing.
Just for the sake of erudition; it's spelled "esque" despite "esk" making more sense phonetically.
No one:
Vickers:
Type 1
Type 2
Type C
Type D
You don't even know how had that made it to find info on the vehicle, didn't help that there's ANOTHER Mark C made by Britain and Vickers also made the Mark III which, from what I can tell, is a further development of the Mark C. Not looking forward to researching that one in the future...
@@ConeOfArc oof, non stamdardized naming conventions, at least on the companies end, really does make it hard to research
The Vickers catching afire because of a carburetor issue was an incredibly common issue in pre-war gasoline engines. The gasket technology had not caught up and all carburators leaked horribly. This is the reason almost all early carbs were side or up drafting designs. A downdraft carburetor leaked fuel into the manifold, and then past the valves, to hydrolock the engine. That was best case scenario. Worst case is a bad leak while running, which results in a fire.
Resource logistics with the IJA fighting the IJN for steel and other scarce materials meant the IJA was always doomed to be the last puppy getting fed.
Japanese military politics can best be described as a clusterfuck, but during the 1930s the Army held as much influence as the Navy and Tojo's government (he being an Army general) balanced the IJA and IJN carefully.
The problem was that while the IJA was reasonably well funded, the war against China in 1937 it became a sort of money sink and most of its own funding went to keeping the war machine in China going with precious little for tank research. The last genuinely good Japanese designs dated from before the war.
The problem with researching Japanese tank projects is that a lot of data was lost during the end of the war. I have seen a photograph of a Japanese superheavy tank at an exhibition in the 30's that has a silhouette that matches no known tank, but there is no surviving data on the vehicle other than this. Likewise, Cone mentions the O-I, which we know did exist (there is a transcript of the tests the Japanese did with the prototype out there), but so little data survives that even Cone made the mistake of thinking it might not have existed. It is one of the sad facts of life, that we may never truly know the extent of the Japanese armour projects prior to the end of WW2.
- 100 ton tank casually rolls down hill, off road, and sinks a meter into mud-
I remember playing an old WW2 strategy game back on the Xbox 360 called R.U.S.E. and they had a Japan as DLC. Well there super heavy tank Type 105 O-I had a flamethrower, rockets, and a 105mm gun and I always thought how ridiculously OP it was.
O-I and the FCM F1 were some of the strongest tanks in that game, it's sad the game never got a sequel.
The Canadian Ram I and early production RAM II Cruiser tanks had its "hull" MG in a turret of sorts beside the driver, and the RAM IIs had a 6 pounder gun which is effectively a 57mm gun, so maybe this also inspired Japan. As it happens, those Rams which had the MG turret and also had hull side doors, which were converted to Kangaroos (which in many ways were the first fully tracked APCs), had a much greater field of fire to support the infantry squad with than a ball mount like M4s and late production Ram IIs used. The turret had around a 150 degree arc of traverse from about 30 degrees to the front right (the hull casting of the driver's compartment and hatch being raised and in the way to prevent going completely to the right) to about 30 degrees to the rear left (before bumping the barrel into the hull casting again) with around -15 degrees and +30 degrees of elevation. Some of the Command/OP conversions also retained this MG turret which was pretty much their only weapon given the dummy gun barrel replacing the 6 pounder so as to carry two extra radio sets in the turret.
If the RAM hadn't entered production about 15 years after the Type 87 was built that could have been the case. Unless the Japanese had some sort of time travel though it was just British influence. The inclusion of the MG turret on the RAM itself was influenced by British design.
The Japanese 57mm. L.18.5 type 90 tank gun only fired a 2 pound shell.
The Allied range test results, for both types of ammunition issued for the gun, were:
APHE shell = Up to 34mm. @ 0 degrees @ 100 yards.
AP solid shot = Up to 40mm. @ 0 degrees @ 100 yards.
I mean of course. Everyone knows that the shape of horse shoes was inspired by Tiger I turrets with their mantlet missing.
@@ConeOfArc Awefully polite way to write"Mate,do you even read and backcheck what you post"
It still amuses me that the Type 95 Heavy tank weighs less than an M4 Sherman medium tank.
Look at Italian tanks, their P26 weighed the same as a Sherman was equipped with a 75mm gun but was classified as a heavy tank by them.
The Tiger tank that the Japanese bought never left port because of the fighting in France and was used by the Germans.
Dont forget that the sherman is 8 years younger and involves 3 years of war experience in its development.
For example the panzer 4, a fairly good paralell to the sherman, also started life as the heavy tank of the germans in the interwar period.
So interesting. You're the only one I know that makes detailed videos about Japanese tanks. I really apprechiate your hard work you put into researching accurate information. I had no idea the Vickers C was sold to Japan I knew about a Vickers 6 ton which catched fire during trials as well. I mean, the O-I story would be very interesting, but seeing how difficult the research is these two tanks are already very impressive. Thumbs up from me 👍👍🎌
established titles🤡🤡🤡
Even if slightly underpowered, Type 95 is still a statement that back then japanese could produce a tank chassis with suspension, transmission and engine capable of supporting the 26 ton vehicle. Something not every other major country of the time could do cementing place of japanese military industry as one of the leading in the world. After all, japanese tanks are seen as almost afterthought to their navy and aircraft, but they were still able to pull out cards like this from their sleeve;)
Informative as always. I respect how thorough your research is.
@5:00 Having the hatch in the front is great incentive for the crew to not try to abandon the vehicle when the going got rough. Since the Japanese aren't going to dishonor themselves in any such fashion, they at least get a comfortably and dignified way of boarding the machine that was going to take them to their doom... I mean glory!
Outstanding video. I wonder if enough technical data exists for the major model companies to create a few kits of these obscure Japanese heavies.
I do hope more info for the O-I is gone over, I would love to see it in War Thunder at some point
A Japanese model company owns the surviving known O-I blueprint. Honestly I'm surprised Gaijin hasn't purchased access to them.
@@bobmcbob49 Wargaming got access and made it according to the official records that the company so Gaijin can do some homework copying and we'd have a great O-I at about 5.7 since you know..gaijin Brs any higher and it's pointless
I believe the Type 89 appeared in "Flowers of War". The Chinese threw everything and the kitchen sink at those tanks cause most Chinese small arms could do nothing.
Reject Modernity, RETURN TO R I V E T
It sounds crazy to have a crew hatch on the front of the vehicle, but remember one of the most successful tanks of WW2 had just such a feature -- the T-34
(well for the driver, anyway).
A drivers hatch is one thing but having the entire crew enter/exit from one hatch in the front is not a great design option. I'd have to do more research to know for certain but I would guess this was done because WW1 tanks tended to have a door on them and with smaller designs this couldn't really be placed on the sides or rear so they just stuck it on the front.
@@ConeOfArc Yes, I'm just saying having a door on the front of this tank looks crazy on this vehicle, but designs that allowed crewmembers an exit from the front of the tank arent that odd of an idea during WW2. It's just that in the accepted popular designs (like the T34 & M3 Stuart) the hatch doubles as a driver's visor which makes it appear normal.
@@calessel3139 driver hatch's are very normal. It's far better to have the driver have their own escape in case of a needed escape from the vehicle. They are still used today, on every tank that's worth a dime. So yes, driver hatches are very normal
Is it a crew door or a sally-port? (from whence to charge the enemy and engage in close combat) 😜
@@ethanedwards422 You're missing the point completely. My argument isn't about driver's hatches, it's about driver's hatches located directly on the front of the vehicle. During WW2, and the inter-war years, designer's deemed it acceptable to locate crew hatches directly on the front of the tank. The T34, T70, T80, H38/39 and R35 all this configuration. Furthermore, the US M2 & M3 light tank series had their entire front superstructure plate double as escape hatches for both the driver and bow gunner. Yes, nearly all modern tank designs have driver's escape hatches but they're effectively located on the roof on the vehicle, not the front of the glacis. That said, the Type-89's door on the front plate, in which the entire crew enters and exits the tank, is a bad idea.
For a future fake tank friday, wot blitz added a czech tank that is a porch tiger early prototype with an IS turret. It looks cursed.
Speaking of Japanese tanks, what are your thoughts on the submarine-deployed vehicles, like the Type 3 Ka-Chi and Type 4 Ka-Tsu?
They've got a cylindrical pressure hull to be tied to the deck of a sub for stealthy deployment.
Seems like one of the worst ways to deploy a tank. The crew inside is screwed if things go wrong, and whats even the point of the stealthy deployment? I don't think you can invade much with only a few tanks.
Would the tank need to crewed during transport? Seems like there would be no real time save if the tank is already tied to a submarine. But it does sound like an application with really small niche.
Japan had an idea of submarine coastal raiding. They even had submersible aircraft carriers.
In the end Italies idea of submarine born spec ops teams would prove to be the viable execution of this strategy.
@@egoalter1276 the problem is even the I-400 class could only carry 3-4 light floatplanes…🙂
8:00 perhaps the version including the dedicated turret housing was a command version of the vehicle. Only unsupported conjecture though.
Btw that sponsorship is a scam company, do not give them money
I find it hilarious how tank designers considered "heavy tanks" a tank that has *all the guns*.
It more had to do with weight as well as firepower I believe. It varies from nation to nation.
@@ConeOfArc It honestly amazes me how we've now made tanks that weigh as much as those old WW1 and 2 Heavy tanks, but they are soooooooooooooooo much more capable. THings like the Char 2C with its like 47mm main gun and being the size of a friggin railroad locomotive weighed like 68 tons, but now we have the likes of the T-90, which is only like 46 tons and has composite armor thats a few hundred mm, a 125mm gun and so on.....
Or you take the Abrams, 68-72 some odd tons and compare it to the weight of the Char 2C or even the King Tiger.......
Advances in technology are amusing.
Thank you for the generally excellent videos, also for the info on Scottish titles; one on my ancestors was a minor Laird, and I just used your code when buying titles for my wife and I.
Another amazing video as always 👍
I am still amazed how nations with weak industrial capacity did not start with the SPG concepts right out of the gate.
Japan didn’t have a weak industrial capacity,they still had a larger industry than 90% of other nations.Their industry was weak only compared to Big Three of Allies and Germany.
I love the O-I it's so silly
It looks like a prop from Takeshi's Castle
Always appreciate your research and work 👍
I find this all interesting, so thanks for taking the time and effort . I really appreciate it. I have to kinda laugh at the water cooled MGs on the rear of the turrets... They were prepared to do a lot of shooting...lol. So did they think they would be surrounded because of break through or just not worried about shooting their own supporting infantry. ?? lol ..I get if ones penetration of the enemy was so successful... the enemy might climb on the tank.. but wouldn't a submachine gun be enough to take care of that rare problem? lol.
I understand the idea of the O1 was to transport in pieces and assemble at the battlefield.. Novel I think. Did anyone else think of that Idea?
Regardless.. I love the oversized tanks. lol Not practical but really cool.
I was thinking.. The Japanese used a yellow star on their vehicles but also white .. I think.. Maybe a future subject.. National Emblems on Tanks.
Not really the water cooled mgs were most likely maxim guns that they had from ww1
@@geekmechanic1473 I know maxims were water cooled. I don't know about these guns but they looked like water cooling jackets to me.
A lot of the thinking in the 20's and 30's revolved around breaking WWI trench warfare. The tank could overrun a trench, and fire back into it with the rear turret. It could also park on top of a machine gun nest, and fire all 3 turrets into the trenches on either side of the vehicle, in a way that there's no cover for the troops in the trenches. (the troops would be stuck in a trench they have to climb out of in a hurry, into the waiting guns of the tanks supporting infantry, or stay in the trench and get machine gunned to death by the tank itself.)
Works best when the troops you're attacking have no way of actually killing a tank, which pretty much sums up a lot of fighting in China.
As far as how the guns were cooled, there's 2 possibilities for why they look like that. Water cooled machine guns were the standard infantry MG at the time, and they were built using the same guns for commonality. The other possibility is the Japanese did put aluminum cooling sleeves on WWII tank machine guns, and I don't know when they started that, so those could be early cooling sleeves.
2 episodes in the span of a week, nice
7:43 it’s a new product for the first heavy tank requirements
Idea for when a tank lacks images like with the vickers: apart from the full picture shots maybe zoom in to focus on specific details if the resolution allows for it?
Really great presentation. Really enjoyed it. Very informative.
Waiting with baited breath for your presentation on the OI ! 😃Be as skeptical as possible is my advice.
Wouldn’t it have been smarter for them to make stugg like tanks? The would have made a light simple tank they could easily transport, make, and use. It would make sense as far as setting them up on an island and providing covering fire to troops in the front.
Good Lord those rivets 😵
You mentioned that World of Tanks introduced many of the tanks featured in the video but in the case of the O-I there was a game that had it YEARS before World of Tanks did.
I'm talking about R.U.S.E. a WWII RTS Game from Eugen Games published by Ubisoft. They released the game in 2010 where back then they already featured many prototype tanks such as the FCM F1, the King Tiger and the Super Pershing. In 2011 they released a DLC which added Japan into the game which featured the O-I but also the Chi-Ri as well as the Ho-Ri.
In the game the O-I was given 60mm of armor, the main turret being 105mm AP and the 2 secondary turrets were made into a flamethrower and rocket launcher respectively. It is probably the strongest tank in the whole game.
RUSE is such a gem
Good research considering the difficulty.
Finally people who talk about japanese tank and not bias about it, to me the japanese 1920-30s tank is a decent tank for sure, i am like soviet T-54/T-55/T-62/T-64 tank but i know they weaknesses and performance in the war from documentaries but many people just stupid bias and overrate them (before ukraine war)
9:04 everytime I see those way to loose tracks in WoT I start shaking my head... The tracks would fall of every few meters, it bother me so hard that they don't model it correctly
Glad you’re getting to the Japanese heavy’s hard saying if there’s any true blueprints for the wot tanks though little info is available from what I have looked for
Love the videos man!
0:24 O-I prototype existed, but was never finished. Onther tanks from WoT tech tree (tiers VII - X) are completely fake and their designs are based on misinterpreted photos of coastal btteries
Not even coastal battery's, at least in regards to the inspiration of the Type4/5 Heavy. The turret that inspired those fakes are fortress turrets from Koto Fortress in Manchuria.
@@hammergon587 Exactly, sorry for my mistake.
I saw a movie once an old japanese 70's or 60's movie which sported an OI tank charging towards a chinese DP. maybe that was the basis of world of tanks to put it in their game. :D
Indo love listening to youe videos whole I drift off and this couldn't have been timed any better.
I mean, how important was the safety of the crew REALLY to the Japanese army? Something tells me concern for soldier survivability is not top on the fascist empire's to do list.
You’re talking safety to the same country who strapped bombs to planes and ordered men to crash them into enemy ships while having soldiers charge at machine guns with bayonets and swords…I don’t think they cared too much
It's pretty ironic how the actual nazis values the lives of their "suicide pilots" more than imperial japan by engineering ejection systems or just by giving them the chance to bail out.
@Allesnur Nochkrank Yeah, but Japanese military culture has an unhealthy obsession with death. Sometimes it works out, like with the kamikaze, which the US Navy figured had a higher success rate for lower casualties than a conventional attack. Other times, it led to the loss of men that didn't need to die. The latter was far more common
Part and parcel of Bushido.
Not really important but wasn’t Japan a Imperial (Empirical?) system? Not Fascist? Or was it technically both?
Yes, more Japanese Land Navy videos!
Japanese heavy tanks make as much sense as Slovakian dreadnoughts
I didn’t know you had a bunch of 1/72 scale tanks ( i think it’s that scale due to Lego space ship in comparison to the tanks), cool. 1:25
It's better to show the only available images of the subject in question for the entire video rather than show images of unrelated material just to fill the time. (As far too many other military UA-cam channels do.
as an example talking about a specific variant of the Mig 23
and continuously showing videos of an F18)
I love how fast the tiger P collapses in the intro
Quick question, do you have any insight on that one photograph that claims to show a turret of what WoT calls the Type 4 Heavy? I'm sure you know which one I mean, but I am not sure if I can post links here. It seems to show a large tank turret (and maybe hull) in the background, with 2 Soviet soldiers posing in front of it. Do you know if this picture is real, and if so, what it might depict?
that was most probably a naval defense turret
A 57 mm or even 70 mm gun in a turret would make it one of the most heavily armed tanks in the world at the time!
Established titles DOES NOT make you the owner of land. It is not recognised by any governmental entity in Scotland or the UK.
There was 100% an OI prototype since there's a track link left
ConeOfArc + The Armchair Historian collab = heaven on Earth.
4:34 white star on front?
You put the exit door on the front of export model...cause you might have to fight them later...ha
Interesting small road wheels.
You should really look into the Krupp Raumer S. A really really overlooked vehicle for this serie :D
Shouldn't the correct pronounciation of the letter "i" in O-I be with "i" sounding like the english letter "e"? I mean, I could be wrong since I've never heard anyone say it phonetically but I've always felt that's way more likely to be the correct way to say it.
Good research sir
Big boy intro so much better!
I wasn't aware of the recent discovery of new O-I documents noted at 13:48. If you end up unfortunately unable to get your hands on the documents themselves, could you at least inform us in the community tab or such about what details have supposedly been revealed? I don't want to be left hanging like that!
Established Titles is a scam (as are all Buy a Title schemes), and I won’t watch any video that includes an ad read for them.
I see japanese tanks, I like.
The soviet teletanks look like an interesting topic for a video.
Ay, suggestion for the next video, the A 38 valiant. It is considered one of the worst tanks ever built!
If you see this can you do a video on taffy 3
6:25 Duck Team, assemble!
The I-O tank would be a cool video, not sure how much info exists on it
Echt sehr Informative ich finde es sehr schade das es kaum, bestätigte Entwicklungs Dokumente der Japanischen neueren Panzer Typen gibt. Die nicht in hoher Stückzahl gebaut worden sind.
Yes another video!!!!
idk what it is about these two tanks, but to me they just seem eerily unnatural. they look so old and out of date that it seems like some ancient relics were awakened and decided to start shooting things.
Good report.
Hey, just a psa, the sponsor is based in Hong Kong, 1 Square foot is too small to even be sold in Scotland, and lords/ladies- aren't actually recognized by literally anyone other than this company, also, we don't know how much they donated to the charity
WAR THUNDER SHOULD AND MUST MAKE THESE JAPANESE TANKS
THEY ALL LOOK GORGEOUS ❤❤❤❤
I'd like to thank the 1930s and 40s Japanese for making tanks that actually make the Sherman look good.
This tank is literally the best tank of japanese tier 1
I appreciate the correct pronunciation of Bri'ain.
Japanese army while looking at this: "It may not be much, but its an honest crap. We are not gonna use it!"
Wasn’t there a turret of the OI used as coastal artillery ? I saw pic a few years ago looked very real but could be fake
No, there's none
It was not an O-I turret, but a pure coastal defence artillery turret
Omg, did coneofarc say bri’ain at 2:09
Japan got the idea for attacking Pearl Harbor from watching AAF practicing over the Harbor.
Great video
Damn that's a lot of road wheels
Danke!
what about the mitsu 108
What about the Type 4?
Well, the moment I'm good enough to read the Japanese sources, I'll let you know. Guess I'm in a pretty good position to access any of em now
Man if I was in charge I would have named it the Sumorai
The vk4501p of the intro. What is your cursed by design ?
If “三109” stand for “Mitsubishi(三菱) 109”， than i guess “石108” stand for “Ishikawajima Shipyard（石川岛造船所）108”
What is the story of the type 5?
I think you'll find Arc that these are actually just pictures of the British Independent.
I enjoy your videos.👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻