High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Type 3 Ho-Ni III (????? ??III, San-shiki h?sensha?) gun tank was a tank destroyer and self-propelled artillery of Imperial Japanese Army in World War II. The Type 3 No-Ni II superseded the Type 1 Ho-Ni I in production, and was much safer for the crew due to its having a completely enclosed superstructure. Previous gun tanks, Type 1 Ho-Ni I and Type 2 Ho-I, are not really optimised designs. Ho-Ni I uses a semi-enclosed casemate for the main gun, which made the crew vulnerable to the close combat situations expected for a tank destroyer design; Ho-I, originally meant to provide covering fire for standard medium tanks against gun batteries and fortifications, requires specialized ammunitions in tank destroyer roles. The fully enclosed and armored casemate of the Type 3 Ho-NI III was intended to address these issues, and an order was placed with Hitachi Ltd in early 1944. Production was hampered by material shortages, and by the bombingof Japan in World War II, and only 31 or 41 units were completed by the time of the end of the war.