Japanese World War Two Tanks

Although Japan wasn't directly involved in World War One, their army - the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) - had watched the development and use of the tank in battles with interest. So, like many countries after WWI, they purchased a number of tanks, particularly from Britain and France, then eventually developed their own versions based on them.

The tanks the IJA bought for development were the British Heavy Mk IV and Medium Mark A Whippet, along with the extremely popular French Renault FT-17, which became the main blueprint tank for future Japanese tank designs, as it was for the tanks of many other countries.

The Japanese had their first real successes with tanks during their invasion of China during the second Sino-Japanese war (July 7, 1937 – September 9, 1945), where the Chinese had almost no tanks of their own.

However, the Japanese never really used tanks in their own tank battles but rather employed them as infantry support only. Then, as the Sino-Japanese War merged with the events of WWII, the Japanese concentrated their manufacturing more towards ships and aircraft so never had any sizable tank development at this time.

(Weights are in long tons and kilograms.)