Not exactly what you’re thinking but I suppose this is a good enough time as any to share these official Mitsubishi Electric patents for a dual gun/SAM turret that were considered in 1987.
It is suggested that Japan had knowledge of the Russian Tunguska when it entered service in 1986, something that didn’t make the rounds in the west until around 1989. The shock of this new combination SPAA certainly turned a few heads in the JSDF when the purely gun SPAAG Type 87AW had finished development during just that same year.
Two patents were applied for, one on the Type 87 RCV hull, and the other on what appears to be the Leopard 2. I am still not entirely sure the reason for this, as the Type 90 was well into the prototype phase by 1987, and was developed by the same Mitsubishi that created these patents.
Regardless, we can see that the weapon system is largely composed of already in-service components such as the search and tracking radars from the newly introduced Type 87AW, and what seems to be an M61A1 Vulcan 20mm. The missiles are certainly a bit of a mystery, my best guess being the FIM-92A Stinger in specially designed launch boxes, but I do not have any supporting evidence for this theory, so they could also be undetermined.
Obviously these never progressed past the drafting phase, but I think they would be neat to see in a paper-only version of the Japanese tree or something, as they are very much a sort of “replacement” for the Type 87AW that unfortunately never materialized.
Expanding on the OF-40 pictures a little bit since I haven’t seen it mentioned much else here. One visual change would be the lack of side skirts, which were removed due to the muddy terrain.
The only Guntank I recognize anything else is no Guntank:
The OG GunTank
But still what makes a real guntank is it only a tank that goes all in on the gun or something. I know the Japanese did nickname the Type 87 Guntank but that was because it looked like the Guntank from the space opera tv show M.S.G.
from what I read it was because the type 87 looked like the Guntank from mobile suit Gundam. Which was popular tv show at the time. If you squint really hard you can see why I guess. But I have seen the term Guntank used to designate tanks before with vehicles that don’t look like the SPAA in question. So it must have had a meaning like tank destroyer.
And the Guntank went where no tank has gone before.
Spoiler
SPACE!
But I find it funny a TV show is where the nickname came from its even on the Warthunder Wiki
Based on the vehicle’s posture, the camouflage net in the foreground, and the positioning of the vehicle in the background, I found a video that likely shows the same vehicle. However, it was not demonstrating suspension movement but rather a combat drill demonstration.
Perhaps he mis-captioned a photo taken during emergency braking with “attitude control,” or perhaps he simply meant to point out that the suspension, stabilizers, and FCS keep the gun stable even during hard braking.
In any case, this does not prove that the 16MCV has attitude control functionality.
During the EFV event, I grinded a lot of vehicles from the M47 all the way to the Type 90, and ended up with two of them. I was planning to go for the TKX (P) next to complete an 11.7 lineup, but then Gaijin decided to decompress the BR and bumped the TKX (P) up to 12.0, which changed my plan.
Now I’m not sure if it’s even worth getting the TKX (P), or if I should just grab the Type 16 and Type 93 instead, so I can have five vehicles in Rank VII to grind the Type 10 slightly faster. The TKX (P) would probably just end up as a backup for Type 10 lineup.
To be honest, my luck with the Type 90 hasn’t been great. I’ve been losing a lot since its shells struggle against top-tier armor, and most matches end way too fast because of one-dead leavers and CAS.
Honestly, 9.3 matches were way more fun.
If I stay at 11.7, at least I’ll get some downtier games every now and then.
In some research for this i found some documents that stated in the original plans it was going to have passive hydro suspension which i assume just uses the system as a regular suspension system without control
Interesting nonetheless but i have no idea if the production model ever kept that
I made a bug report regarding the Type 10’s movement inertia (so it stops rocking around like ham), hopefully gaijin will see and fix this issue in the upcoming update
