Japanese military seeks answers for fatal Type 10 tank blast that should not have happened

A turret explosion that killed three Japanese crew members inside a Type 10 tank during manoeuvres earlier this week has caused shock and confusion in military circles. Japan’s defence ministry and experts concur that a round detonating inside a tank turret is virtually unheard of and the cause of the accident will need to be traced before the Ground Self-Defence Force’s (GSDF) newest and most advanced tank can return to training. An analyst suggests the investigation will look closely at anti-tank rounds that were being fired, the vehicle’s self-loading mechanism and the breech system. The GSDF has temporarily halted firing drills involving tank units. Commander Kentaro Hamabe, 45, gunner Shingo Takayama, 31, and Kozo Kanai, a 30-year-old sergeant overseeing safety during the drill, were killed instantly when the round exploded at about 8.40am on Tuesday at the Hijudai training area in Oita prefecture. The driver, who was in a separate compartment, is being treated for serious injuries. In a news conference on the day of the accident, GSDF Chief of Staff Masayoshi Arai expressed his condolences to the victims’ families and apologised “for causing concern and trouble for local residents and the public”. He also stressed the rarity of such an incident, saying: “I have no memory, nor have I ever heard of ammunition exploding inside a tank turret.” According to media reports, the last time a shell exploded inside the turret of a Japanese tank was in 1979, with one fatality. The incident was blamed on crew handling error. No easy answers Garren Mulloy, a professor of international relations at Daito Bunka University and a specialist in military issues, also expressed shock. “If there is going to be a catastrophic incident within a tank, then it is going to be related to a poorly trained crew, probably conscripts with little experience, who make a mistake or old equipment that has been badly maintained,” he said. “Neither of those scenarios apply here. From the ages and ranks of the men who were killed, it is clear they were professionals who had been doing this for some time, which makes the likelihood of a fundamental error far less.” The alternative explanations are also uncommon, which is cause for concern within the military. The rounds that the tank was firing from its 120mm gun were manufactured domestically by Komatsu, which has never previously reported an issue with munitions. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Japan Steel Works built the tank itself and there have been no comparable accidents involving vehicles that were first delivered to the GSDF in 2010. The breech mechanism was little changed in decades of tank innovation, Mulloy said, although automatic loaders were relatively newer. “The Type 10 is the first in Japan to be fitted with an auto loader, which is not generally well liked by crews because if there is a fault and the loader gets jammed, it usually takes a long time to clear,” he said. Investigators will be closely examining the debris for answers, according to Mulloy. The detonation of the shell forced out a series of blast panels in the turret, as they were designed to do. More telling is that a large and very heavy 50-calibre machine gun that had been affixed to a cupola on the turret was blown off and thrown about 15 metres (49 feet) away. The explosion did not, however, have the same impact as seen in footage from the earlier phases of the Ukraine war, with tanks exploding and turrets being blown high into the sky. In those images, the vehicles also generally caught fire and often caused other rounds to detonate. This did not happen with the GSDF tank. “Japan needs to consult every other nation that operates tanks with these 120mm smoothbore guns – the Americans, French, South Koreans, Israelis – to find out everything they can about their experiences and share what happened here,” Mulloy said. “This is a very serious failure of critical equipment and clearly the issue needs to be addressed quickly.” The tank was part of the Western Army, which is primarily charged with defending the islands of southwest Japan. Yakov Zinberg, a professor of international relations at Tokyo’s Kokushikan University, said Japan has been stepping up military manoeuvres in the south for a number of reasons. “Japan’s armoured units used to be mostly based on Hokkaido in the far north as a deterrent to Russia, but that has changed in the last decade or so,” he said. “Japan has been moving its tanks to the southern part of the country as the threat has changed to China. These units need to exercise in the environment that they are expecting to fight in and it’s natural that they should be based in Kyushu.” Although any regional conflict would be primarily fought in the air and on the sea, land forces could not be overlooked, he said. Ground units are nimble and able to move from Kyushu to the islands of Okinawa prefecture at short notice if needed.

Japanese military seeks answers for fatal Type 10 tank blast that should not have happened

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}A round detonating inside a tank turret is virtually unheard of. The last time it happened in Japan was in 1979

A round detonating inside a tank turret is virtually unheard of. The last time it happened in Japan was in 1979