A Better Philippine Army and Marine Corps in the Cold War to Present

There were word-of-mouth accounts of Filipino resistance fighters and USAFFE remnants using captured Type 89 I-Gos, Type 95 Ha-Gos, and Type 97 Chi-Ha but no written source or photographic proof exists. However these WWII IJA tanks were obsolete even by the time of the war. A .50 cal can easily penetrate it. So after the war these Japanese light tanks were either scrapped for their metal along with leftover U.S. armor, planes, and howtizers, thrown into the sea to form artificial reefs, or used as target practice during the Cold War.

Photo: A pair of Type 97 Shinhoto Chi-Ha tanks captured intact in the Philippines near the end of WWII.

This also presents the question: Why would the Philippine Army or the Marine Corps use obsolete light tanks that could be destroyed by a grenade or an A-T rifle? Not to mention the lack of ammunition or spare parts. Since this post-war period, Japan could not produce spare parts for these tin cans.

Shermans were sold to the IDF around the same time. This is the first time I heard the PA using Pattons as Wikpedia does not list it. If ever Pattons were used, it was probably deployed alongside the M24 Chafee and the Walker Bulldogs.

I'm doing some research on the Chaffee in use within the Philippine Army. Still searching for accounts on that.

As for IJA light tanks, the leftovers/captured ones were used by the Chinese communists during the second phase of the Chinese Civil War. The only post-war combat for the Japanese light tanks. In a hypothetical scenario the leftovers were utilized by the Philippine Army, these would have been used against the Huks in the 1950s.

Photo: Type 97 medium tanks used by the Chinese Communist People's Liberation Army moving into the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang during the Chinese Civil War in 1948.


Photo: The Gongchen Tank on display in the main hall of the military museum in Beijing. The red writing does not appear to be faithful to the original scheme. (Source: Tanks Encyclopedia). The Gochen tank was a modification of Type 97 light tanks that were left by the Japanese.


Photo: Type 95 Ha-Go light tank with Chinese communist markings.

The French and the Dutch utilized some Japanese light tanks including the Type 89 I-Go. These saw action in the Indonesian Revolution and the First Indochina War.

Photo: A captured Japanese Type 89 I-Go tank in use by the Dutch army in Indonesia, September 1946.


The Thais also have around 7 in service decades after the war, with only one functioning as of 2015.
Photo: Probably the most historically-inaccurate painting of any WWII relic of any type, anywhere……a preserved Ha-Go in Thailand, wearing 21st century digicam disruptive camouflage. (Source: World War II after World War II)


Royal Thai Army Type-95 Ha-Go Tank

There were retired in 2017-2018. Back then in that era, there were fanboi hopes of bringing back Shermans, Stuarts, and Bulldogs back? The problem: majority have been scrapped decades ago and the rest are in display with no hopes of reactivation. The Bulldog may pack a punch against NPAs or BIFF, but the Shermans and Stuarts would be vulnerable to IEDs, mines, A-T rifles, and RPGs especially for the latter. Yes, a handful of RPGs or anti-tank launchers have been captured from insurgents.

There's also the cancerous community known as the Russian fanbois who think the AFP should use Russian hardware like the S-400, S-300, T-14 Armata, MiG-31, Su-35, etc. They are deriled by the defense community because they all think that Russian hardware is the best without even researching its pros and cons. Just because they used it in Battlefield 3, WarThunder, and World of Tanks or the mere fact that it looks cool is why people don't take them seriously.

The Challenger 1 costs $1.5 million per unit. That's around PHP 72,000,000 per unit in today's price. The Challenger 1 would be ideal for armor support against the NPA and BIFF. On the downside, it would continue the stigma within the AFP of always accepting hand-me-downs from other countries.

I remember it was around summer 2014 when I read about the RPG-7 acquisition project from Bulgaria. Took until 2018 to finally materialize.

Those Russian fanbois keep on begging the DND to purchase the Kilo-class submarine and T-14 Armata or even to purchase inactive T-72s and T-80s.