Are there any informed types out there that can settle something for me...?
Is Tamiya Acrylic Paint actually an acrylic or is it a type of lacquer paint...?
Personally, I have used X-20 thinner, regular lacquer thinner, water, isoprophyl alcohol, Mr. Hobby Leveling Thinner, and they all work good.

Can someone please chime in on this with the "truth"...!

themermit

Strictly speaking, Tamiya acryls are not acrylics. This is so because, you can not thin them with water alone. I find Mr. Levelling Thinner produces the best results.

actually tamiya acrylics are well, acrylics. This is made from water-soluble acrylics resins. Thus, you could actually thin them with water. The difference between thinning with water and alcohol/lacquer thinners is that water evaporates slower and some thinners have components to improve dilution etc. therefore affects the workability and performance of the paint during application.

Remember, the thinner is just a means to make paint get to a workable consistency (for us is through an airbrush). After it carries the paint to where it is intended, it should leave the building, so to speak.

Have you tried thinning them, with water alone?

You can have acrylic enamels and acrylic lacquers they can both be oil/alcohol/water based.

A lacquer in the modelling world is really just a paint that dries extremely quickly in a very thin coat.

Certainly the spray cans from Tamiya are termed lacquer however I think the speed with which their bottled paints dry they would fall into the same category.

Bit of a run down on it here http://www.scalemodelguide.com/painting-weathering/painting-guide/paint-types/

I thin it with water for brush painting. It sometimes dries too fast so a drop of windex helps.

Yep, tried it and it was ok. Not that I would want to since I have thinners on-hand but if I was in the highly unlikely scenario where I have no thinners at all, I would go for it. Even tamiya claims that it uses water soluble resins.

Although I noticed that it took a bit more to mix the paint thoroughly and I used an electric hobby paint mixer