Somewhat unrelated, but does anyone have info on the construction progress of the Ka-To? Ja-wikipedia only said it was “in progress”.
“Two main guns for the Ka-To were completed in 1945” - en-wikipedia
Witnessed that live lol
I can’t read any of what it says, but that’d make it eligible for addition if true. It’d be nice to have more vehicles with that excellent 105mm gun.
Sub-trees are not added instead of anything else, they’re added alongside other things.
T33 would be 5.3 at most [If no guns.]
The Vampire suggestion is from December 2024 and was passed in May, so that’s not something that could’ve been added faster than the Thai sub tree. That can be another jet to augment F-84G.
T-1 would be 8.7 with missiles, or 7.0 without.
The false equivalence fallacy of comparing Kikka, Ho-229, J7W, etc to R2Y2 is easily interpreted as bad-faith. Incomplete prototypes are not blueprint vehicles.
Hmmm… Play more tech tree vehicles please.
@Xermaz Glad you love Xeno, shlee, PlayedStatue, etc. Yes, PlayedStatue is doing exactly what I do. Glad you acknowledge his great posts. :)
It’s good to see so many like-minded people.
PercussionCap is especially someone I agree with a lot.
@PlayedStatue626-live You and I are apparently alike, which makes sense since all of your takes are my takes in this topic.
I’d like more of your posts, but I don’t want to reach daily maximum too soon.
I don’t think they’re ever putting a jet with otherwise identical performance to F-80C below 6.0, even if its limited to two .50s. From a CAS perspective alone it’d be very overpowering, Ar 234 B is already a very fast and almost uncatchable jet bomber in the right circumstances and that is a SLOW plane compared to F-80C.
But that’s a topic for the JASDF and RTAF thread.
I didn’t see a .50 cal option, but if that is one then 6.0.
It is an okay CAS option for mid-BR Japan ground, which is why I did address it.
Ah yes, Japan, famously known for producing armored vehicles and ships purely out of structural steel…
Japan was more than capable of producing the 75mm thick plates that would’ve been the thickest part of the O-I’s armor. These would then be bolted together in two layers.
Nobody said they were. O-I was scrapped before the turret was built, after the incomplete tank got stuck in wet ground during testing while the Ho-Ri only reached a reported 50% completion, a state where it wouldn’t have mounted the cannon yet.
Which makes both of these not fictional, but incomplete prototypes. Same as the J7W1 you brought up for some reason, which is something that’s perfectly acceptable and common in-game.
you do you man… you do you…
but man the similarity is… amazing…
you never make these forum quite the same…
How’s that the “best they could produce?” The O-I was supposed to be made out of 75 mm plates. Japan could produce 75 mm plates, as evident by the Chi-To and the Chi-Ri being composed of 75 mm plates on their front.
The J7W1 is also far from the only aircraft like that. The XP-50 and the Sea Meteor are two other examples; Gaijin already let the ship sail of only allowing aircraft with completed armaments a decade ago.
I did a quick translation. What’s interesting is that, compared to the design from February 1944 when the Ka-To’s drawings were being made, the combat weight was reduced by five tons and the ammunition capacity increased by 15 rounds. It seems that some detailed design changes were made.
I’m a bit skeptical about the claim that the gun was completed. That information usually comes from Japanese tank researcher Kunimoto Yasufumi, based on what he wrote in 『帝国陸軍戦車と砲戦車 (Imperial Japanese Army Tanks and Gun Tanks)』, but there is a high possibility that the information is incorrect. He claimed that two Ka-To guns were completed in May 1945. However, there’s a surviving document dated August 7, 1945, in which Colonel Numaguchi from the 1st Army Technical Research Institute asked the Osaka Army Arsenal to quickly set a completion date for the Ka-To gun. That means it hadn’t actually been completed by that point.
Even so, another Japanese tank researcher, Sayama Jiro, who reported on this document, estimated that the Ka-To gun was built in July 1945. He only referred to it as his “estimate” and did not explain the basis for his claim. However, since the 『未完成兵器等一覧表 (List of Unfinished Weapons)』 compiled after the war doesn’t mention the Ka-To gun, it’s likely that the gun was moved out of the Osaka Arsenal in some form. Still, it probably wasn’t fully finished.
In addition, there’s very little information about the design of the Ka-To gun. Although it was researched alongside the Ho-Ri, it likely used different ammunition, so it’s assumed that the design was also different. Beyond that, however, nothing else is known. The known design drawings of the Ka-To don’t include any drawings of the chamber structure—only the barrel and the ammunition are shown. This is probably because the chamber design hadn’t been conceived yet at the time the drawings were made.
Ka-To Gun Barrel Blueprint
Experimental 10cm HE Shell / Experimental Type 4 AP Shell
My comment on the Ka-To disappeared again for the third time… I feel that someone probably abused the comment flagging feature, but I’m not really sure what’s happening.
That’s very interesting. I never really questioned the statement that Ka-To Gun was completed, but I found it odd that there were no obvious records of its existence.
The status of the Ho-Ri Gun in this document is also oddly incorrect, and I wonder if they mistakenly wrote the status of the Ka-To Gun there. (‘Design complete, prototype in construction’.)
The Osaka Arsenal was almost completely destroyed by bombing on August 14, although I’m not aware of the exact details; it seems possible that the incomplete Ka-To Gun was destroyed.
I tried to read the entire thing, but there are some erased parts, so I’m not quite sure what the sentence means. Could it be “車台ヲ除キ研究(?)ミ完了”?
I have no idea what the (?) character is, and I’m not even sure if characters like 除 or ミ are correct.
If I just ignore that part and interpret the sentence as-is, it seems to mean that the research was completed except for the chassis.
But I’m not sure whether “completion of the research” refers to the actual production of the gun being finished, or if it just means the design was completed.
Is it possible to fully interpret the sentence?
It’s hard to read, but I believe that it says this:
「車台ヲ除キ研究略々完了」
“Research nearly complete except for the chassis.”
The kanji form of the colloquial word “ほぼほぼ”, like an imminent expression of “almost”.
What exactly “research was nearly complete” means is a bit open to interpretation I’d say; I don’t have total confidence in the accuracy of this document regardless, as it has some errors.
Is there any difference betwen the JSW L52 on the Type99 and the Rheinmetall L52 on the Pzh2000?
One has 5m/s more shell velocity so im curious if the one on the Pzh2000 is longer or something
Ah, seeing it that way, it does seem to make sense.
That vertical line on the right side of the character still bothers me a little, but this does seem to be the most reasonable interpretation.
Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that we’ll be able to draw any definitive clues from this document.
Thank you for helping with the interpretation.
Now that I think about it, in the context of this document I would say that “completing research” definitely refers to completing the entire project from design to prototyping to testing.
It’s impossible to say for certain, but I have a feeling that these status summaries were mistakenly swapped. They are much more accurate to reality if so.
I see. Although the Ho-Ri gun was never given an official designation, there’s a record stating that both guns were completed on May 27, 1945, so the phrase “prototype in construction” does seem unnatural.
As for the Ka-To gun, to be honest, I’m not really sure. It does seem a bit odd, but it’s not something I find entirely implausible—especially since I don’t know much about the state of its development.
Honestly, if the two were swapped, it would certainly make things feel more consistent, but I’m not sure if it’s appropriate to interpret it that way.
I think the mitsu 104 might have existed there are some things still getting discovered in random background photos. For example:
the Ishi 2598


And whatever this is


And this, some type of experiential type 95 heavy

Look at the small and big turret.
That “Ishi-2598” in the parade image is the first prototype of the Ha-Go. You can see how the tracks and suspension matches up, albeit the latter is hard to see due to how granular the image is; and you can spot the distinctive angle, albeit, again, obscured by both the Type 92 car and how granular the image is, of the housing of the hull machine gun.
The second image of the “Ishi-2598” is literally just the Ha-Go, you only need to compare the image I’ve linked to that one to recognize it.
The distinctive hull bulges and the commander’s cupola of the Ha-Go weren’t introduced until the second batch of prototypes, and the rear turret machine gun wasn’t introduced until the third and final batch of prototypes.
Pretty much all of the [Company Name]-[Number] tanks are misguided espionage, at best. It isn’t like Japan wasn’t the only victim of this, faulty espionage creating “phantom” designs was just an inevitability.
Now what about the other 2 tanks?