Type 1 Ho-Ha

Not to be confused with Type 1 Ho-Ki.

The Type 1 Ho-Ha (一式半装軌装甲兵車 ホハ, Ichi-shiki han-sōki sōkō-heisha hoha) was a half-track armoured personnel carrier (APC) used in limited numbers by the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) during World War II.

Front and side view of Type 1 Ho-Ha

Type 1 Ho-Ha
Type 1 Ho-Ha
Type	half-track armoured personnel carrier
Place of origin	Empire of Japan
Service history
Wars	World War II
Production history
Designed	1941[1][2]
Manufacturer	Hino Motors
Produced	1944–?
No. built	150-300 (estimated)[3]
Specifications (Type 1 Ho-Ha[4])
Mass	6.5 tonnes (7.2 tons)[4]
Length	6.1 m (20 ft 0 in)[5]
Width	2.1 m (6 ft 11 in)[5]
Height	2.51 m (8 ft 3 in)[4]
Crew	2 + 13 passengers[6]
Armor	max 8 mm[5]
Main armament	3 × 7.7 mm Type 97 light machine guns[4]
Engine	diesel 134 PS (99 kW) at 2,000 rpm[5]
Operational range	300 km (190 mi)[5]
Maximum speed	50 km/h (31 mph)[5]

Development and history

The Type 1 Ho-Ha was developed in 1941 as a result of a request from the army for a vehicle that could be used to transport a squad of infantry to the battlefield protected from enemy small arms fire. Despite experiences of the Second Sino-Japanese War, armored personnel carriers were viewed as too slow compared to wheeled trucks and there was not much effort for their development in the army.^[1][2]

Mass production began in 1944 with the Type 1 Ho-Ha being an addition to the Type 1 Ho-Ki, an unrelated, yet similarly named armored tracked personnel carrier.^[1][4] The half-tracked Type 1 Ho-Ha was built by Hino Motors. An exact total number of units completed is unknown.^[2][4]

Design

The Type 1 Ho-Ha was based on the German Sd.Kfz. 251/1 (known popularly as Hanomag), the main armoured personnel carrier of the German Army, but did not use the overlapped and interleaved road wheels of the German design's suspension.^[1][2] Further, it had a "vertical rear plate with a door", akin to the American M3 half-track; however, the door itself was a copy of the German "two-leaf" design.^[2]

The Type 1 Ho-Ha had a pair of road wheels in front, supported by a pair of short caterpillar tracks to the rear.^[1] It was equipped with a tow coupling in the front and a towing hitch at the rear to haul artillery or a supply trailer. The maximum armor thickness was 8 mm with sloping armor plates. As with the Type 1 Ho-Ki, the hull was welded construction and it was "open-topped".^[7]

The Type 1 Ho-Ha carried three Type 97 light machine guns as standard armament, one on each side, just to the rear of the driver's compartment and a third mounted to the rear as an anti-aircraft weapon.^[1] All of these weapons had constricted firing arcs, which made firing directly forward or directly rearward impossible.^[1]

Combat record and post-war

The Type 1 Ho-Ha was initially deployed to China for operations in the ongoing Second Sino-Japanese War, but never in any great numbers. It was later deployed with the Japanese reinforcements in the Battle of the Philippines in 1944. Post-war, some Type 1 Ho-Ha half-tracks were modified by cutting off the rear armored section and replacing it with a flat bed. They were then used for reconstruction work in areas of Japan.^[8]