Real World Vehicles

A myriad of real world vehicles can be seen throughout Neon Genesis Evangelion, End of Evangelion, and Rebuild of Evangelion. These are usually military vehicles, sometimes civilian, but always drawn and animated with great detail to their features.

Evangelion has a special relationship with warships, which go on their own page, although boats and small watercraft will remain on this page. See Warships in Evangelion for details on the warships of the series.

Ground vehicles

Type-74 Nana-yon

The tank most commonly seen in the series, the Type-74 is the main battle tank of the JGSDF with 700 deployed as of 2006. It was originally designed during the 1960s, an era of tank design where it was assumed that HEAT (High-Explosive Anti-Tank) rounds had made most armor obsolete, and as such it has relatively thin armor that made the tank almost completely obsolete before the first production models even rolled off the assembly line in 1975. It is primarily armed with a Royal Ordnance L7 105 mm rifled gun, sports 120mm of armor, carries a crew of four, can travel at a speed of 53 km/h, and weighs 38 tonnes.

It can be seen in Episode 1, Episode 9, End of Evangelion, Evangelion 1.0, and Evangelion 2.0.

Type-74 tanks from Episode #01.

Type-90 Kyū-maru

A tank that shows up briefly in Evangelion 1.0, the Type-90 was the JGSDF's replacement for the Type-74 and as of 2010 there are currently 341 on active duty. Being faster (70km/h), more armored, better armed (Rheinmetall 120 mm smoothbore gun with automatic loader), requiring less of a crew (3), and being produced with mostly native built parts the Type-90 is far superior to the Type-74 in almost every way and is slated to be sublemented by the new Type-10, making it an obvious choice for inclusion in the Rebuild of Evangelion movies.

It can be seen in Evangelion 1.0 and Evangelion 2.0.

Several Type-90s open fire in Evangelion 1.0. Note the reactive armor plates bolted onto the chassis and turret

BM-30 Smerch

The BM-30 "Smerch" (tornado) is a Russian-built multiple rocket launcher first designed in the 1980s that is currently used by 13 different countries, and whose Russian designation is 9A52. It is capable of firing 12 300mm missiles and rockets in 38 seconds over a maximum distance of 90km, with a total reload time of twenty minutes. It requires a crew of three, weighs 43.7 tons, and has a maximum speed of 60 km/h.

It can be briefly seen in Evangelion 1.0 during the initial attack on Sachiel.

Smerch in Evangelion 1.0 and in real life

M-270 MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket System)

The iconic M270, often referred to simply as the MLRS, is an American-made rocket artillery system first delivered to the US Army in 1983 that has since come to be used by 12 different countries, including 99 in use by the JGSDF. It can fire 12 rockets in less then 40 seconds or 2 missiles every ten seconds, and can be reloaded in either 4 minutes (M270) or 3 minutes (M270A1). It requires a crew of three, weighs 27.5 tons, and has a maximum speed of 50 mph (80.5 km/h).

A MLRS firing

Three MLRS firing at Sachiel in Evangelion 1.0

AMX-10 RC

A French tank destroyer and recon vehicle.

Several of these can be seen in EoE being used by the JSSDF to assault Nerv's defenses.

Aircraft

Sukhoi Su-33 Flanker-D

A Russian Navy fighter first introduced in 1994, the Su-33 can be seen prominently in Episode 8. This is rather different from the Su-33's real-life production run being limited to 36 aircraft (excluding prototypes).

Su-33s from Episode #08 compared with real-life Su-33s.

Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey

A American multi-purpose tilt rotor aircraft that combines the speed of an aircraft with the landing versatility of an helicopter. First conceived in 1983, built by the Bell and Boeing corporations the prototype flew in 1989. The Osprey began to phase out the older Sea Knight helicopters in the U.S. Marine inventory in 2007 after some setbacks during testing. The V-22 Makes some discreet appearances in Evangelion 1.0 performing evacuations. The Osprey also appears in Evangelion 2.0 by delivering personnel to the Eva-03's activation test, as well as appearances in the Evangelion 3.0 teaser at the end of 2.0.