The best armored personnel carrier of WWII? "Type-1" "Ho-Ha" of the Japanese army

2024 Author: Matthew Elmers | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 21:49

Japan was significantly inferior in terms of the development of its armored vehicles both to its opponents - the Americans, British and the USSR, and to its ally - Germany. With one exception.

The best armored personnel carrier of WWII?

Japanese armored personnel carriers, apparently, were the best of the production vehicles in their class, although they were produced in small quantities, and they did not really have time to go to war.

First and last sample

In 1940, the Imperial Army decided that it was necessary to sharply intensify work on the creation of armored personnel carriers for army units. It was believed that in some areas of China, an all-terrain armored transporter for infantry, from which it is also possible to fight, would be the optimal transport and combat vehicle. Generally speaking, the Japanese considered trucks, and not special vehicles, to be the optimal transport for the infantry; the latter allowed troops to maneuver much faster than any potential armored personnel carrier, and were cheaper, both in production and in operation. But the destruction of roads from prolonged battles, the activity of the Chinese in various kinds of guerrilla attacks, and the generally poor condition of the road network in some regions of China, up to its complete absence, increasingly required special vehicles.

By 1941, Hino engineers created the first and last Japanese armored personnel carrier, later adopted as the Type-1 or Ho-Ha.

The armored personnel carrier was created taking into account the German experience, and possibly the French - the "Yellow cruise" in Asia of half-track "Citroens" in 1931 thundered all over the world and the French experience was hardly completely ignored. The Japanese saw American M2 Halftrack for the first time in the Philippines, but Hino's engineers could have learned about them even earlier. However, the copies of any foreign machine "Ho-Ha" were not, representing an original design, much more successful than the German and French, and, by and large, more successful than the American armored personnel carriers.

The Japanese could not develop the success with the first armored personnel carrier - the war required more and more resources for the fleet and aviation, the ground forces remained at a minimum. But "Ho-Ha" and so was quite a successful armored personnel carrier.

The car was equipped with a 134 hp 6-cylinder air-cooled diesel engine. at 2000 rpm. The transmission did not have a long propeller shaft, because the drive axle of the tracked transmission was located almost immediately behind the gearbox and was rigidly attached to the body. The track was long enough to minimize ground pressure (plus compared to the M2), metal (again a plus compared to the M2 and "French") and did not have the terrible needle bearings, and, accordingly, hundreds of lubrication points, like German tracks at the numerous "Halbkettenfarzoig" of the Wehrmacht.

The front axle of the vehicle was non-driving - but given the length of the caterpillar track, this did not matter. But the presence of a simple independent suspension of each wheel mattered. Easier than the Germans, more profitable off-road than the Americans.

The crew of the car was 1-2 people together with the driver, and 12 people of the landing, placed along the sides on the benches. Armament - according to some American sources, three tank 7, 7 mm machine guns "Type 97", two of which were intended for firing at ground targets forward at an angle to the direction of movement (right and left), and the third was located in the rear of the troop compartment and used as anti-aircraft,without the ability to fire at ground targets. Unfortunately, it is impossible to verify this, there is no publicly available photo of the car with the weapon.

The thickness of the armor varied from 8 to 4 millimeters, but at the same time the armor had rational angles of inclination, which increased the security of the vehicle. The landing force could use as many as three doors for landing, one in each side and a swing gate in the aft armor plate. As with all analogues of those times, the top was open, and an awning was used to protect from the weather.

In 1942, the car was put into service, but production could only begin in 1944, when the war had already been clearly lost. A certain number of armored personnel carriers were still produced, but they did not have a serious impact on the course of the battles due to the small number and the very nature of the land war in the Pacific Ocean. A number of armored personnel carriers were transferred to China. Some more were sent to the Philippines, but little reached the goal, a significant part went to the bottom along with the ships on which they were delivered. A small number remained on the Japanese islands in units that were supposed to fight with the American landing. There they were caught in surrender. After the surrender of Japan, part of the armored personnel carrier was converted into civilian vehicles and used in restoration work.

It is not known exactly how many APCs were fired, but apparently not many.

Unfortunately, in English-language sources there are no more or less detailed descriptions of the car, which leaves "gaps" in the knowledge of the technical part - so there is no information about whether the armored personnel carrier was equipped with a double differential, what kind of gearbox it had or the MTBF main nodes.

We only know that a similar engine was used on the Ho-Ki armored tracked artillery tractor and showed itself quite well. We know that most often a 4-speed gearbox was used on armored vehicles of a similar class in terms of weight and power. We also know that, in principle, Japanese engineers knew how to build half-track chassis, for example, the Type 98 Ko-Hi was quite a successful machine, again in many ways more rational than its Western counterparts. After all, Japan is the only country to mass-produce civilian half-tracks for many years after the war (albeit light ones), that says something.

It is worth considering that the quality level of the car was more or less acceptable.

What, however, are the advantages of this armored personnel carrier over analogues?

Made for the fight

"Ho-Ha" as an armored personnel carrier was superior to its serial counterparts.

First, a better layout. The machine has a small distance between the front axle and the drive roller, which, to some extent, reduces the turning radius. It is safe to say that it is no more than that of the American M2 even in the absence of a double differential, but the M2 itself has a less successful transmission, it is essentially a White Indiana truck, which was once attached to a caterpillar cart with rubber-cord caterpillar, at first, very unreliable. Metal caterpillar "Ho-Ha" and "tank" rollers look much more appropriate on a combat vehicle.

The armored personnel carrier is roomy enough to accommodate an infantry squad with ammunition and food supplies, if necessary, with machine guns or other collective weapons. At the same time, it provided something that was not on any of the analogues - the ability to dismount the landing force into an impervious zone. The German Sd.kFz 251 had access for the landing only in the stern, and the doors were made inconveniently and, as a rule, the infantry jumped over the side.

The American M3s had a more convenient exit, but also only in the stern and through a narrow door for one person. The "Ho-Ha" had three exits and all were very conveniently made, while the rear gate was wide enough for the rapid dismounting of the landing in two streams, the side doors were narrower, but a single soldier with equipment passed through them quickly and without difficulty, and the layout the troop compartment did not obstruct the exit. Troopers "Ho-Ha" could be in a non-projectile zone in any scenario, except for the shelling of an armored vehicle by the enemy from three sides. In battle, all of this could make a huge difference.

Although the frontal armor of the "Ho-Ha" was thinner than that of the Americans, the angles of inclination partially compensated for this, that before the German armored personnel carrier, the angles of inclination of the hull there limited the deployment of the landing force, which was not the case for the Japanese vehicle.

The placement of machine guns on the "Ho-Ha" (if what we know is true) cannot be considered unsuccessful in any way - when attacking in battle formation, armored personnel carriers in the unit blocked the space in front of neighboring vehicles with the fire of their machine guns, in extreme cases, the landing force could fire forward at course from personal weapons or a light machine gun, if any. But the presence of an anti-aircraft machine gun on a special machine was a definite plus both when repelling an air strike and when moving in a city or mountains.

In terms of range at one refueling, the Japanese armored personnel carrier approximately corresponded to the American analogue, and significantly surpassed the German one.

As already mentioned, the Japanese armored personnel carrier possessed the most successful tracked mover among all analogues.

The front independent spring double-wishbone suspension "Ho-Ha" completely surpassed the dependent spring suspension of the American armored personnel carrier on the off-road, and significantly - the suspension on the transverse spring, which the German had. At the same time, there is no reason to believe that the front drive axle of the American armored personnel carrier would give it any advantages in cross-country ability over the Japanese armored personnel carrier - the well-thought-out Ho-Ha tracked course looks preferable to the essentially Halftrack automobile chassis, which instead of the rear axle has a compact tracked cart. The only mode when, in theory, an American could have been better is to climb a slope from loose sand. But even that is not a fact, we do not know exactly how much the lug was thought out on the Japanese caterpillar, if it was thought out well, then the American car could lose here too.

An air-cooled diesel engine is clearly less fire hazardous than competitors' gasoline engines, and is easier to maintain, albeit not fundamentally. He is also somewhat more tenacious in battle. It is also a plus for the combat vehicle.

In terms of specific power, "Ho-Ha" is quite a bit inferior to the American armored personnel carrier, and somewhat surpasses the German one.

In terms of ease of maintenance, the Japanese armored personnel carrier is apparently also a champion - at first the Americans really had problems with the caterpillar track, that before the Germans and their need to lubricate each hinge between the tracks (with needle bearings!), Then this is generally beyond the brink of good and evil.

The Ho-ha is not inferior to the Sd.kFz 251 in trenches and is guaranteed to outperform the Americans - this clearly follows from the length of the tracked carriage of each of the vehicles.

It should also be noted that the Japanese armored personnel carrier has an advantage over the German one - the nightmarish solution with a reverse tilt of the rudder on the Sd.kFz 251 is the standard of how not to do it. In the Japanese armored personnel carrier, the controls were much closer to normal automobile ones.

All of the above makes the "Ho-Ha" to be considered at least one of the best, and most likely the best serial armored personnel carrier of the Second World War. It remains only to regret that none of them survived to this day. It would be very interesting to compare him with his “classmates”.

But something is clear and true.

Bonus - the model, made very carefully and close to the original, gives an idea of the appearance of the car better than most of the surviving photos.