Chiyoda armored car

The Chiyoda armored car was the first domestic Japanese armored car which was officially introduced by the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) and used in large numbers.

History and development

Design started in 1930 at the Chiyoda Motor Car Factory of Tokyo Gasu Denki K. K. (Tokyo Gas and Electric Industries, today Hino Motors Ltd.) based on their Type Q 6-wheeled truck under the development designation "Type QSW". The basic armor scheme and wheel arrangement was similar to the Wolseley Armoured Car which had been used by the IJA. The spoked wheels of the Wolseleys were replaced by disk wheels with solid rubber tires. The turret had a cylindrical base with a sloped (in the driving direction) right upper part. A standard MG mount was placed in this sloped part for air defense. Another MG mount was placed in the turret front and a third in the left bow. In addition three gun / visor ports were placed along each side of the fighting compartment. The standard crew consisted of a driver, three gunners and a commander. Armament was three Type Taisho 11 6.5 mm MGs, and later three Type 91 6.5 Tank MGs.

A Type 92 Chiyoda Armoured Car and a Type 92 Iju Sōkōsha Tankette entering a chinese village, 1930th

Development was finished in 1931 and the vehicle was officially adopted as the "Chiyoda Armoured Car". In western literature the vehicle is often designated incorrectly as "Aikoku Armoured Car" which is a misinterpretation of the writings on a vehicle used during the 1932 Shanghai Incident. This writing refers to "Aikoku -Koto" = "Public Party of Patriots", a nationalistic and militaristic political party which donated money and military material to IJA (as Hokoku did for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN)). It has also been referred to as the Type 92 "Chiysda", which is only a misspelling.

Around 200 Chiyoda Armoured Cars were produced and used during several early and mid-1930s IJA operations in northern China for infantry support and security duties in captured regions. They were effectively replaced after 1937 by the Type 97 Tankette Te-Ke.

Technical details

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Type 92 Chiyoda Armored Car.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/20/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.