Type 1 Ho-Ha
Script error: No such module "Distinguish". Script error: No such module "Infobox".Template:Template otherScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". The Script error: No such module "Nihongo". was a half-track armoured personnel carrier (APC) used in limited numbers by the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) during World War II.
Development and history
The Type 1 Ho-Ha was developed in 1941 as a result of a request from the army for a vehicle that could be used to transport a squad of infantry to the battlefield protected from enemy small arms fire. Despite experiences of the Second Sino-Japanese War, armored personnel carriers were viewed as too slow compared to wheeled trucks and there was not much effort for their development in the army.[1]Template:Sfn
Mass production began in 1944 with the Type 1 Ho-Ha being an addition to the Type 1 Ho-Ki, an unrelated, yet similarly named armored tracked personnel carrier.[1][2] The half-tracked Type 1 Ho-Ha was built by Hino Motors. An exact total number of units completed is unknown.Template:Sfn[2]
Design
The Type 1 Ho-Ha was based on the German Sd.Kfz. 251/1 (known popularly as Hanomag), the main armoured personnel carrier of the German Army, but did not use the overlapped and interleaved road wheels of the German design's suspension.[1]Template:Sfn Further, it had a "vertical rear plate with a door", akin to the American M3 half-track; however, the door itself was a copy of the German "two-leaf" design.Template:Sfn
The Type 1 Ho-Ha had a pair of road wheels in front, supported by a pair of short caterpillar tracks to the rear.[1] It was equipped with a tow coupling in the front and a towing hitch at the rear to haul artillery or a supply trailer. The maximum armor thickness was 8 mm with sloping armor plates. As with the Type 1 Ho-Ki, the hull was welded construction and it was "open-topped".Template:Sfn
The Type 1 Ho-Ha carried three Type 97 light machine guns as standard armament, one on each side, just to the rear of the driver's compartment and a third mounted to the rear as an anti-aircraft weapon.[1] All of these weapons had constricted firing arcs, which made firing directly forward or directly rearward impossible.[1]
Combat record and post-war
The Type 1 Ho-Ha was initially deployed to China for operations in the ongoing Second Sino-Japanese War, but never in any great numbers. It was later deployed with the Japanese reinforcements in the Battle of the Philippines in 1944. Post-war, some Type 1 Ho-Ha half-tracks were modified by cutting off the rear armored section and replacing it with a flat bed. They were then used for reconstruction work in areas of Japan.Template:Sfn
Footnotes
References
- Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
External links
- Pages with script errors
- Pages with broken file links
- Tracked armoured personnel carriers
- World War II armoured fighting vehicles of Japan
- Armoured personnel carriers of Japan
- World War II half-tracks
- Toyota Group
- Military vehicles introduced from 1940 to 1944
- Armoured personnel carriers of WWII
- Pages with reference errors