Type 3 Ho-Ni III
In service 1944 - 1945
Based onType 1 Ho-Ni I (derived from)
The final and best-protected Ho-Ni, with a fully enclosed casemate and the longer 75 mm Type 3 gun also used in the Chi-Nu medium tank.
Built byHino Motors
Development history
Combat reports from the Pacific made the weakness of the open-topped Ho-Ni obvious, and the Type 3 Ho-Ni III enclosed the fighting compartment on all sides and overhead. It also swapped in the Type 3 75 mm gun, a tank weapon with better anti-armour performance than the older field gun. The result was the closest Japan came to a German-style Sturmgeschütz. It arrived far too late and in far too small a number to matter: production figures are given variously as 31 or 41, and the vehicles were held back in the Japanese home islands as part of the Ketsu-Go plan to contest an Allied landing that never came. None are known to have fought.