Tank Design

Small highly armores and light tanks without turrets and with guns atleast capable of penetrating the front of a Sherman, so basically Hetzers.

Their issue was not so much being retarded as it was only being given what little didn't go to their navy or air force. The fact that they were only able to start making stuff with a 75mm gun comparable to the Sherman's in 1944 is sad enough.

>>34826434
Ditch tanks and develop better AT/field guns.

Two bombs weren't enough

China isn't a good example to go by when you want to fight the Allies' armor. They should have continually upgraded their tank arsenal until the type 97 ShinHoto was the standard by 1941. The IJA also shouldn't have used their armor as pillboxes on the beach or in suicidal charges against Shermans and AT guns.

when did they even get a chance to use the tanks
most of the fighting was in the sea or on tiny islands

Make the turrets round so they can't be disabled with a bayonet.

Don't even try, just make armored cars and light amphibious vehicles. Your entire area of operations is jungle, mountain and river.

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Stop placing your turret machine gun at the rear or side.

>>34826434
Your men are more effective alive than dead

>don't try it

>>34827561
This really. If you're going to invade the tropical jungles of the Pacific Islands, you might as well not bother making tanks.

Was there anything they could've realistically done considering the resources they had and how much of those they put into navy and air force? Strikes me that Japs didn't stagnate with Army out of lack of innovation as much as lack for any possibility of modernization.

>>34827409
I think they tried using them 'properly' (ie not just as prepositioned glorified pillboxes) a handful of times in China, where they sucked massively due to both the terrain even at it's best not being very suitable for their use, and them simply being pretty crap tanks.

If they simply had to develop some form of tank-like vehicle I'd probably go for something armored purely against small arms fire and kept as light as possible. Pretty much everywhere the Japanese fought was unsuited to bringing heavy vehicles along, heavily forested areas and/or steep hillsides mean you're stuck on the few roads that might exist, and those can't take the weight of heavy vehicles, and when you have to offroad it being lighter is going to help again. Yes you're going to lose vehicles any time you run into proper anti tank guns, but think of it more as an infantry supporting light tank than anything to take on enemy armor or gun explacements directly and you'd have something able to assist in most of the fighting it would be likely to encounter, and have a far greater chance of actually being able to get there at all than anything heavier designed with tank-on-tank battles in mind.

Using as little steel as possible also means you can either build more of them with your allocated budget, or let slightly more resources go towards overall more important areas of the war economy. Ultimately it makes zero difference because Japans situation was a long way from being finely balanced enough that a marginal improvement in any single system would make a notable change to the outcome, much less a change to something that's only ever going to play a peripheral role in the conflict.

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But if America is able to roll it's steel and thunder onto every island and use it effectively, then why can't Japan?

>>34827561
>>34829071
Are you guys forgetting that the majority of Japan's campaign was fought in china? Tanks were integral in their conquest of mainland china and their obsolescence vs modern designs ended up being a significant part of why they got absolutely BTFO by the soviets in Manchuria.

>>34829114
They wasted a shit load of resources building tank designs that were under-gunned, under-armored, under-powered and designed with 1920s doctrine in mind (e.g. rear facing mgs, hull mounted secondary cannons).
They had the resources and industry to produce modern medium tanks on par with the Panzer IV or t34, but they had a catastrophic strategic failure that lead them to build large numbers of obsolete light tanks, even though they were aware that their enemies were fielding much more effective medium tanks.

>>34829347
Provided they managed to mass produce a contemporary tank on par with Panzer IV (they did get/buy a few from Germany for design study purposes), could they effectively field them in the Pacific/Manchuria considering US steadily gained more and more control over the theater? They did hoard all the somewhat appropriate armored vehicles (at least in terms of fire power, armor and engines still left a lot to be desired) late war tanks back on the home islands (and in smaller numbers, Okinawa). I have a feeling that even with a Panzer IV equivalent, IJA would still suffer catastrophic doctrinal problems.

>>34829029
now i need to start making "american" names for these tanks

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I like the gun depressions they had in mind for their designs.

Honestly, I'd give them the advice to build ATGM TD's, like the Raketenjagdpanzer. The tech would've been there (i.e. Hs 293 or X-4), and they could've developed it further. They could've attached stuff like that to basically any platform and using non-hydrocarbons as fuel might have been beneficial, with all their fuel shortages.

Of course since we're talking about Japs, they would've left out the radio/wire guidance and just put a little nip manlet inside the missile as a kamikaze guidance system

>>34827382
They don't have the industrial capacity.

Japan couldn't even make rifles once Pacific kicks into high gear let alone tanks.

>>34829698
see

>>34829714


Japan had improved aircraft, guns, tanks, and ships designs. But they can't make any of them because they have the economy of a sick chicken.

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>>34829698
So you're simply describing the Ohka?

>>34829720
I guess? Maybe just strapped onto a tank, but I was actually serious in the first part of the post, I think, with advanced knowledge of the usefulness of ATGM's they could've inflicted high-ish casualties on murica/vatnikistan (would obviously still lose)

>>34829719
>>34829714
Yes. And that is why the whole question is hypothetical. This is a thought experiment, OP's scenerio doesn't specifiy the economical situation or time period. So don't just be a party pooper, I thinke evryone knows, that bar of making nukes before the US, Nipshit will never win the war. Use your imagination for the specified scenario

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>>34829788

They already had Rocket artillery late in the war and experimented with radio guided torpedoes and wire guided demolition vehicles early on. It could have been a possibility.