Japan develops Armor instead of Invading China

Adam
Don't you mean that 'even less robust bicycle tyres......'....or is that business about running on rims sounds like tanks an Urban Myth?

 

It's called research...Try it some time.

I am.

Questions are the easy part, answers raise the doubt.

Further, questions are denoted with a "?" at the end of the sentence. Your previous post has none, therefore you are making statements. After all, you do know how to use the "?" as in this example.

So, you do know the purpose of, and how to use the "?".

You don't want "true info", you want info that only fits your implausible impossibilities. Regretfully, no such info exists.

As to "true info"
Concerning the make up and internal workings of the Japanese government in the 1930's.
The requirement for a General to be Minister of War, and an Admiral to be Minister of the Navy,was in effect from 1900-1913, and was revived again in 1936. Do some research on the Japanese Government from 1936-1945, and you will see that I am providing you with "true info."

Concerning the Japanese industry and production of assault guns, jeeps, halftracks for a supposed invasion of the Soviet Far East.
Again, do some research on Japanese AFV history and production, and you will see that I am providing you with more "true info."

The Japanese designed the Ho-Ni I in 1941, and began production in 1942, and built about 124 throughout the war. The Ho-Ni II went into low-rate production in 1942-43, but only some 54 were finished by the end of the war. The later Ho-Ni III began development in 1942, but production did not begin until 1944, of which only 41 were built, and the final SPG, the Ho-Ro, only 12 were built during the war. The Japanese were working on a vehicle similar to the German Hetzer, the Type 5 Ho-Ru, which mounted a 47mm gun, but only one prototype was produced by the end of the war.

The Japanese never produced an equivalent of the ubiquitous Jeep, the closest comparative vehicle would be the Type 95 Kurogane which began production in 1935, with 4,755 being built by the end of the war.

As to halftracks(and fully tracked APCs), the Japanese had the halftrack, Type 1 Ho-Ha, which was designed in 1941, but mass production only started in 1944. While the production record have been lost, an estimated 100-200 were produced. For fully tracked APCs, the Japanese had the Type 1 Ho-Ki, also designed in 1941, but not going into full production until 1944. It's production records have also been lost, but it has been estimated that they numbered around 200.

Now, given the low rate of production for all Japanese vehicles, how do you possibly expect them to produce the massive quantities of AFVs and wheeled vehicles to meet the demand of an expected invasion of the Soviet Far East in so short a time?

Concerning the lower technological maintenance of a tank destroyer as opposed to a tank
You still have the engine, final drives, gears, optics, steering, tracks, transmission, etc. of a tank, the only thing missing is the turret. The tank destroyer still maintains most of the high technological features of a tank. The missing turret will lessen the overall cost and man-hours to produce a tank destroyer, but in no way will it appreciably reduce the technological maintenance.

 

Consider also that steel was a rather limited resource for the Japanese as well and the scrap metal embargo started well before the oil embargo (actually the general freeze on Japanese assets).

knightdepaix some of the posters here have been studying WWII and it's various facets for a long time. After spending enough time in that endeavor there are some statement one can make with quite a bit of certainty without even having to resort to documents. Takao is one of those the list of others is fairly long and somewhat subject dependent but a bit of reading of the various threads should give you a pretty good idea who they are. I'm not at that level yet by the way.

 

AFAIK, this is purported to have happened only once, but I have not been able to find out the unit or commander. However, It does get repeated often enough to make it appear that this occurred on a far more frequent basis.