Only a handful of the tanks were made for testing purposes and the tank was not selected for mass production. One complaint against the Ha-Go was a tight turret, and unfortunately the Ke-Ri, once equipped with the 57mm gun, was even more cramped. The Type 3 Ke-Ri was a prototype that upgraded the Ha-Go in 1943 with a with a Type 97 57 mm gun. Despite the introduction of the unrelated and newer Ke-Ni and Ke-To light tanks that were more modern and lower to the ground than the Ha-Go, the Ha-Go remained Imperial Japan’s primary light tank for the duration of WW2. That said, there were a couple of attempts to upgrade the basic tank. The Ke-Nu and Ke-Ri tanks were two such variants.ġ. Ultimately the military decided that the Ha-Go was “good enough”, and this was the deciding factor in keeping it in use long past its prime. There are some possible reasons for the extended use of the tank, including dispersion across the Pacific – making it easier to leave obsolete tanks in place than to attempt to recall them, a mature manufacturing process, easy availability of parts compared to completely new designs, and popularity with tankers already trained on the tank. Two lesser-known versions of the Ha-Go are worth mentioning, however, and could be introduced to games that want to illustrate a progression of the tank over time, a tank that otherwise saw very little change over the near decade in which it was used when compared to light tanks of other nations. It needs little introduction here, since information on it is widely available. The Type 95 Ha-Go was quite possibly the most recognizable Japanese tank of World War II.
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