Type 97 for GF9 - Tanks! (including the Kai Shinhoto variant)

Hello all,

Another round I must add, after eating some steamed rice and drinking some tea to meditate upon the "Do" of the tank, also known to the wide populace as the art of "Sensha-Do"... ahem, no, not really, just another bout of creating something and digging into numbers as usual, as per my passion which is getting stronger than actually wargaming the further time goes (should I become worried now?   ). Anyway, behold below, two variants of the Type 97 Chi-Ha medium tank:



And now, let us look at what the justification of my numbers is. First, it had slightly thicker armour (8-25 mm) than a Type 89 (having 6-17 mm armour). So I just added a single defence dice to account for that. And now to the gun. The earlier variant was armed with a type 97 57 mm tank gun, while the later variant - the Kai Shinhoto was up-gunned with a longer barrelled high velocity Type 1 47 mm tank gun. Penetration values compared [from http://www3.plala.or.jp/takihome/tankguns.htm ]:

Type 97 57mm Tank Gun:
Caliber : 57 mm
Barrel Length : 1.057 m (L18.5)
EL Angle of Fire : -15 to +20 Degrees
AZ Angle of Fire : 20 Degrees
Muzzle Velocity : 350 m/sec
Penetration : 20 mm/500 m
Used by Type 97 Medium Tank

Type 1 47mm Tank Gun:
Caliber : 47 mm
Barrel Length : 2.250 m (L48)
EL Angle of Fire : -15 to +20 Degrees
AZ Angle of Fire : 20 Degrees
Muzzle Velocity : 810 m/sec
Penetration : 55 mm/100 m, 40 mm/500, 30 mm/1,000 m
Used by Type 97-Improved Medium Tank, Type 1 Medium Tank, Type 3 Amphibious Tank

Notice the underlined, the Type 1 47mm tank gun had around twice the effectiveness in armour penetration than the short barrel 57mm Type 97 gun. Hence the increase in hit dice.

As to the speeds, Type 89 was 25 km/hr, while both variants of Type 97 had 38 km/hr, so that would suffice to remove the slow capability (taken from http://www3.plala.or.jp/takihome/yi-go.htm for Type 89, and for Type 97 http://www3.plala.or.jp/takihome/chi-ha.htm and http://www3.plala.or.jp/takihome/shinhoto.htm).

One note, the national trait maybe overpowered now. It seriously requires play-testing, so once some one has time and the wish, let me know how it goes (I can just imagine the apocalyptic picture of swarms of Type 89's or Type 97's, send shivers down my spine). Anyway, any comments are very welcome. Going back to the USSR next, I am in the middle of trying to understand how to get the T-28 and T-35 land battleships to work properly in the game, so the next post may be a bit of fun and giggles project. Stay tuned...

Great work yet again! I love seeing the making of the pasta that goes into your card posts. This time I may have some suggestions / food for thought. The old 97 feels about right cost and stat wise, though I'm not sure if initiative should be a 1 but can definitely make the argument for it even to myself

The new 97 I think is a bit out of balance compared to the official cards. Being lazy I remembered the site had their preview for the new heavy British tanks so I wanted to use those for a comparison.
New British Tanks
The Valentine sports I believe a 2-pounder gun rated as an Attack=3 and the Churchill a 6-pounder with Attack=4.

Looking at the stats for those two, the Type 1 47mm seems roughly comparable to the 2-pounder and if the penetration tests can be compared apples to apples, about a 1/3rd of the penetration of the 6-pounder. So it seems for the official stats don't quite scale linearly perhaps. Admittedly I didn't put the time into it to make sure its a fair comparison with good sources so YMMV.

With that in mind, the Shinhoto seems overpriced at 22 when for 25 you can have a Churchill. My thinking may be along the lines of attack=3 and 15 points making it like a glass-hulled Valentine+ Mobile Mass making up cost for the missing 3 hit points. That price would let you use it a bit easier as a swarm member as well.

Hopefully I have my numbers right, far easier to nit-pick than to create and would feel like an arse if I'm off base with those! To go along with this, the next tank in line, the Chi-Nu Type 3 is the same base just with new turret to fit the 75mm, correct? In that case make Attack=4 (just like the 75mm Shermans) cost would be +3 again to 18 points (compared to late war Sherman's 20), or maybe bump up its initiative a point or two and with Mobile Mass make that a 20 pointer cost.

Thumb's healing nicely, hopefully I can get back to building and playing soon, I have a platoon of Type 89's that I need to assemble and could pit those 5 against a Sherman 76mm for a 25point fight.

I do have a question for Mobile Mass, when is the firing tank selected and do you have to tell your opponent? I guess I just would like your expanded thoughts on how exactly it would play out in a game. My hypothetical would be if you have to declare your intent at the start of the shooting round, the opponent could focus fire on the designated hitter and if a critical hit like Bailed Out is played on the tank, would all the Mobile Mass have to forfeit their shots? Or could they just shoot individually, or may another tank be elected and the bailed out one not count? I apologize if I missed this on the other thread.

Thank you so much, and many thanks in advance!

Cheers for the review, I agree with your suggestions - changed. As to the mobile mass, it is done in the shooting phase. About the Mobile Mass rule, thanks for the review. I seriously didn't think very thoroughly on how this may work, that's the trouble when you don't play test your stuff much. One interesting variant you could employ - you secretly write down which tank is the main shooter right at the beginning of the shoot phase (leaves the opponent guessing and sweating who is the true devil here).

The other way this can work, is you forfeit shooting with those tanks which will support and you declare this as soon as your main tank shoots - if other tanks had worse initiative and supporting, they will miss their shots when their turn comes though.

Let me know which one works better to your thoughts/post-play. Then I can re-word the explanation to make it clear for others.

As to initiative 1, I will perform some more historical analysis and change if I see otherwise, I just thought the national trait I came up with works best with the "Samurai" not having a good deal of individual initiative - i.e. more robust in their tactics and more tending to follow orders rather than invent. But this requires me to dig deeper into literature, as this may be another "stereotype view" trap that I have fallen into (everybody does, right?), so watch this space for change or further explanations as well as soon as I get to something.

Also, just a thought I may add with testing points - I don't think points linearly add up. Pit 3 honeys against a Panther on a "flat disc world", even if you lower the Honey's initiative to a 1, you may see that the Honey's will eventually bring the Panther down, there will be probably only one damaged Honey left standing, but nevertheless....