Type 97 Chi-Ha

This Japanese medium tank was designed as a scaled-up version of the Type 95 Ha-Go light tank, with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries being lead designer and manufacturer of both. It had between 8–25 mm of armor (with 25 mm on the gun mantlet and 15–25 mm on the hull front). Its suspension was an evolution of that on the Type 95 Ha-Go. Intended as an infantry support vehicle, it carried a low-velocity, short-barreled 57 mm (L/18.5) main gun in a fully-rotating turret. The tank also carried two 7.7 mm Type 97 machine guns, one on the front left of the hull and the other in a ball mount on the rear of the turret. Its low silhouette and semicircular radio antenna on the turret distinguished the tank from its contemporaries.The tank had a four-man crew including a driver, bow machine-gunner, and two men in the turret. The type had early success in China against British Vickers export tanks, German Panzer Is, and Italian CV33 tankettes. The 1939 Battles of Khalkhin Gol against the Soviet Union, however, showed the low-velocity 57 mm main gun to be ineffective against the high-velocity 45 mm main guns of BT-5 and BT-7 tanks. In 1941 the Japanese developed an updated version (Type 97-Kai ('improved') or Shinhōtō Chi-Ha ('new turret' Chi-Ha), armed with a 47 mm tank gun within a new turret. Both types served throughout the remainder of the war, and even post-war with the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Against British and American forces in the China-Burma-India theater and various Pacific islands, the tank became increasingly ineffective as the war continued. The Type 97 Chi-Ha was most widely produced Japanese medium tank of World War II, with 1,162 built between 1938 and 1943.