





🌟 Special thanks to our amazing supporters:
✨ $10 Tier: [Geeks Love Detail]
🌈 $5 Tier: [Arch Toasty][Benedikt][David Martínez Martí]
The Type 2 Ho-I is a fire-support tank created with the aim of providing proficient reinforcement to armored divisions. This zippy and maneuverable medium tank is equipped with a 75 mm gun with semi-armor-piercing shells chock full of explosives. How did it turn out in the end?
The Type 2 Ho-I is a medium fire-support tank. Its development began back in 1937. Based on experience obtained during military operations in Manchuria, the Japanese military command decided that it would be nice to have a tank with a powerful cannon capable of destroying well reinforced enemy firing positions. Since a support tank must move in tandem with regular tank divisions and with the other vehicles, the highly maneuverable Chi-Ha medium tank was selected as a basis for the Ho-I. In 1942, the Chi-Ha was equipped with the short-barreled 75 mm Type 99 cannon, which was a recast of a German mountain gun produced under license in Japan. And so the Type 2 Ho-I was born.
The Ho-I medium tank was intended for providing proficient support to Japanese armored divisions in which the majority of tanks carried 47 or 57 mm cannons and hence could not effectively take down enemy fortifications. For Japan’s armored forces, the Ho-I was supposed to become the equivalent of the early versions of the Wehrmacht’s Pz.Kpfw. IV. All 33 Ho-I tanks, not counting the first prototype, were eventually built on Chi-He medium tank chassis (the modernized version of the Chi-Ha). Having stood guard over the islands of the Japanese archipelago until the end of the war in the expectation of an American invasion, the Ho-I never managed to take part in the Second World War. We’ve decided to correct this omission, and soon, the Type 2 Ho-I will appear on the battlefields of War Thunder.
[quote]Read the full Dev Blog here![/quote]
[ 5950 ]
[ 1934 ]
[ 1837 ]