Once again we return to Japan for more obscure tanks designed in the death throes of the empire.
Click of the unit names to visit their D-day wiki page for more information & pictures.
The Type 5 Chi-Ri II was Japan's last tank design of WW2, an evolution of the Type 5 Chi-Ri. The ambitious design of the Chi-Ri's belt-fed weapon system proved to be to dificalt and was cancelled. With this feature removed the Chi-Ri's large turret was no longer necessary and in turn the large engine needed to power it too. With the removal of these the Chi-Ri II could be made smaller and more compact, this gave it a similar layout to the Type 4 Chi-To though. Because of this the Chi-Ri II was cancelled in favour of the Chi-To which was already fully developed.
The Type 5 Chi-Ri II TD was a proposed variant of the Type 5 Chi-Ri II, replacing the turret with a fixed superstructure. Development of the Chi-Ri II and in turn the Chi-Ri II TD was cancelled though and it remained only a paper project.
