Two secondary turrets were mounted in a lozenge configuration, one on the front left and the other one on the right rear, both with a limited field of fire. The main turret, with a commander cupola and a horse-shoe radio antenna around the turret, was positioned in the middle of the hull in an elevated position and had full 360° field of rotation. The first prototype of the Type 90 Heavy was an 18-ton vehicle with three turrets. It didn't progress further than the prototype phase, however. This ancestor to all Japanese tanks was built in 1927 and was classed by the Military as a Medium Tank. The roots of the Type 90 Heavy began with the first tank the Japanese Military produced independently, the Experimental Tank No.1 (実験タンク番号壱, Jikken tanku bangō wən), also known as the Type 87 Chi-I, a multi-turret design heavily inspired by British and Soviet tanks of the time (primarily the Vickers A1E1 Independent, which also inspired the Soviet T-28 and T-35).
One of these became the Type 90 Heavy Tank (タイプ 90 重タンク, Taipu 90-jū tanku), referring to its inception in 1930, the imperial year 2590. Imperial Japan was no exception to the rule, coming up with their own designs in 1934.
The A1E1 Independent for the British Empire, the Großtraktor or Neubaufahrzeug for Nazi Germany, and the T-35 of the Soviet Union are prime examples of this design fashion. The era became awash with the fad of multi-turret tank designs, with all of the most powerful countries adopting them in one form or the other. As such, tank designs of the period were heavily set on infantry support, being large, slow moving and bristling with anti-personal weaponry.
No one wanted another war rife with stalemates, no one moving for months on end due to swamp like terrain, and constant machine gun bombardment. A quick interim build, since I am working in parallel ona bigger SF project and currently "downed" through health issues: something Japanese on tracks.ġ:72 "Type 90-I (Jū-hi)" heavy tank vehicle "士 106' of the Imperial Japanese Army, 7th Armored Brigade China, 1941 (Whif/modified Dragon kit) by dizzyfugu, on Flickrĭuring 1930s, fears were strong among the most powerful military nations that a coming war would develop along the same lines as WWI.
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