With that said, Japanese authorities thought the Type 38 gun still a serviceable mount and the Type 97 chassis still retained a few good years in yet - plus both were available in some number and success was witnessed with the Germans adding their 15-cm sIG 33 guns to tracked chassis such as captured Czech Panzer 38(t) tanks in Europe. The decision was therefore made to mate the two weapon systems into a makeshift, inexpensive self-propelled gun system with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries being made the primary contracting activity.
The Type 38 gun would be seated in a fixed superstructure that was protected only by a forward shield or armor that slightly protected the forward sides. The crew of four or five personnel would operate the gun breech in an open-air setting, exposed to the elements and battlefield dangers but systems such as these were always intended to operate behind direct lines of contact. The gun was situated well-forward in the design with the Type 97 hull left largely intact. There were a set of tracks straddling either side of the tank hull with six road wheels to a track side. The drive sprocket was located at the front of the design with the track idler at the rear. Three track return rollers were positioned along the underside of the upper track element. The glacis plate was well sloped and the engine remained at the rear. Only a portion of the Type 97's lower superstructure remained, the rest of the design being capped by the impromptu open-air gun mount. The superstructure and gun mount essentially replaced the original turret assembly of the base Type 97 and was wholly fixed in place with some elevation flexibility. Power was derived from a Mitsubishi Type 100 air-cooled V12 diesel engine outputting some 170 horsepower. This allowed for speeds up close to 24 miles per hour with a range out to 156 miles.
Once again the industrial limitations of the Japanese Empire shown through with the Type 4 Ho-Ro. The system was severely limited in production to the point that only twenty five or so vehicles were ever produced. Mass produced forms never appeared as the Type 4 was essentially forged into existence by the hands of laborers without the benefits of assembly line benefits.
With their limited reach from the start, the Type 4 Ho-Ro was seemingly never formally organized into any pairing larger than four vehicles. Once in practice, and despite being designed as a self-propelled gun for field artillery duties, Allied actions soon forced the Type 4 into the close support artillery role instead, often in defense of Japanese-held territories. Her fixed superstructure forced the entire hull to be turned towards a target area for engagement and the open-air nature of her design exposed the crew to every sort of imaginable battlefield danger. Born as an offensive weapon, the Type 4 was forced to become a haphazard defensive weapon by the end of the war. She was utilized by the Japanese Army in defense of Okinawa with limited success but, in the end, her limited quantity and her outdated design led many examples to be destroyed in combat, outdone by more formidable Allied artillery pieces or infantry and armor advances overrunning her positions. Only a handful of complete examples were ever captured by the Allies.
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