Ke-Ni

Ke-Ni

Ka-Mi

Ke-Ni

Ka-Mi

Japan

I Rank

Battle rating:

AB	RB	SB
1.0	1.0	1.0

Class:

Light tank

Research:Free

Purchase:Free

Show in game

Description

The Type 98 Ke-Ni (九八式軽戦車「ケニ」) was a light tank prototype to replace and improve on the Ha-Go, built with a smaller silhouette and primarily focused as a light tank instead of a general purpose tank like the Ha-Go. It included some unconventional design choices for a Japanese tank: due to the small size of the tank and only having a driver in the hull, the machine gun was moved to the turret in a coaxial mount, and it had armour improvements and a Christie suspension. While a very promising tank, high command didn't feel the need to replace the adequately performing Type 95 Ha-Go's against the little Chinese armour they faced.

The Ke-Ni was introduced along with the initial Japanese Ground Forces tree in Update 1.65 "Way of the Samurai". Being a small and zippy tank, it plays very similarly to the M22; while the cannon isn't completely up-to-par, it does offer APHE to deal some post-penetration damage. It's best used in flanks and hitting enemy tanks from the side.

General info

Survivability and armour

Armourfront / side / back

Hull26 / 12 / 12

Turret16 / 12 / 10

Crew3 people

Visibility75 %

With around 12 mm of armour all around, this tank is barely bulletproof. German and British machine guns can even knock you down at point-blank range. Your crew is cramped and not numerous, which makes surviving a shot extremely unlikely. This is definitely not the tank to expose to any kind of shots. With its small turret and impressive gun depression, hull-down positions improve this vehicle's survivability and should be sought whenever possible.

Armour type:

• Rolled homogeneous armour

Armour	Front	Sides	Rear	Roof
Hull	12 + 10 mm (20-27°) Front plate 12 mm (71°) Front glacis 12 mm (2-58°) Lower glacis	12 mm (29-34°) Top 12 mm Bottom	10 mm (52°) Top 10 mm (12-52°) Bottom	10 mm
Turret	12 mm (0-81°) Turret front 16 mm Gun mantlet	12 mm (25°)	12 mm (25°) 10 mm (24-25°) Rear door	9 mm

Notes:

• Suspension wheels and tracks are both 15 mm thick.

Mobility

Speedforward / back

AB56 / 8 km/h

RB and SB50 / 8 km/h

Number of gears6 forward

1 back

Weight7.0 t

Engine power

AB248 hp

RB and SB130 hp

Power-to-weight ratio

AB35.4 hp/t

RB and SB18.6 hp/t

Game Mode	Max Speed (km/h)		Weight (tons)	Engine power (horsepower)		Power-to-weight ratio (hp/ton)
	Forward	Reverse		Stock	Upgraded	Stock	Upgraded
Arcade	56	8	7	141	248	20.14	35.43
Realistic	50	8		115	130	16.43	18.57

This tank is quite fast and can achieve surprising feats of mobility. Coupled with a good turret traverse speed, this tank can be reliably used in flanking manoeuvres. With its narrow tracks and good power-to-weight ratio, this tank is fast on almost any ground but easily loses speed on rough terrain, steep hills, and sharp turns. Another good characteristic of this tank is its reverse speed of -7 km/h, which allows it to effectively use overextend tactics (peek-a-boo).

Modifications and economy

Repair cost

ABfree

RBfree

SBfree

Total cost of modifications3 620

167

Talisman cost190

Crew trainingfree

Experts1 000

Aces10

Research Aces80 000

Reward for battleAB / RB / SB

10 / 10 / 10 %

100 / 100 / 100 %

Modifications

Mobility	Protection	Firepower
Tracks Research: 440 Cost: 19 45 Suspension Brake System Research: 380 Cost: 17 35 Filters Transmission Engine Research: 720 Cost: 35 70	Improved Parts Improved FPE Crew Replenishment	Horizontal Drive Research: 440 Cost: 19 45 Adjustment of Fire Research: 380 Cost: 17 35 Elevation Mechanism Research: 540 Cost: 25 55 Artillery Support Research: 720 Cost: 35 70

Armaments

Main armament

37 mm Type 100 cannon

Shoulder stabilizer

Reduces the swing of the gun in one plane while moving

Ammunition110 rounds

Reloadbasic crew → aces

4.3 → 3.3 s

Vertical guidance-15° / 18°

Offering an improved gun and ammunition selection compared to the Ha-Go, this tank offers a good learning curve from its predecessor. Though this cannon does not have the best penetration at rank I, the trademark Japanese APHE has a good amount of HE filler and ensures that each penetrating shot deals damage. The gun only has one type of ammunition.

37 mm Type 100					Turret rotation speed (°/s)					Reloading rate (seconds)
Mode	Capacity	Vertical	Horizontal	Stabilizer	Stock	Upgraded	Full	Expert	Aced	Stock	Full	Expert	Aced
Arcade	110	-15°/+18°	±180°	Vertical	16.18	22.40	27.20	30.08	32.00	4.33	3.83	3.53	3.33
Realistic					10.12	11.90	14.45	15.98	17.00

Ammunition

Penetration statistics
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Penetration @ 0° Angle of Attack (mm)
		10 m	100 m	500 m	1,000 m	1,500 m	2,000 m
Type 1 APHE	APHE	47	44	32	22	15	10

Shell details
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Velocity (m/s)	Projectile mass (kg)	Fuse delay (m)	Fuse sensitivity (mm)	Explosive mass (TNT equivalent) (g)	Ricochet
							0%	50%	100%
Type 1 APHE	APHE	700	0.72	1.2	9	12.8	47°	60°	65°

Ammo racks

Ammo racks of the Ke-Ni

Full ammo	1st rack empty	2nd rack empty	3rd rack empty	4th rack empty	5th rack empty	Visual discrepancy
110	105 (+5)	99 (+11)	81 (+29)	41 (+69)	1 (+109)	No

Only left side: 81 (+29)

Machine guns

7.7 mm Type 97 machine gun (coaxial)

Ammunition3 000 rounds

Belt capacity20 rounds

Reloadbasic crew → aces

3.9 → 3.0 s

Fire rate499 shots/min

7.7 mm Type 97
Mount	Capacity (Belt)	Fire rate	Vertical	Horizontal
Coaxial	3,000 (20)	499	N/A	N/A

Usage in battles

Being a light tank, the Ke-Ni cannot engage enemies head-on. To succeed in an assault, you need to be sneaky. Flanking, avoiding the enemy and going behind them is your best option. The 37 mm gun can penetrate most Rank I tanks if you hit their weak spots, though it may take a few shots to destroy an enemy. Your first shot should be to take out the enemy gunner so they can't retaliate. After that, take out their driver so they can't retreat. Never linger in an open field since anything can kill you with ease. Use your good gun depression to keep a hull-down position behind hills and just pop out to shoot. Hide in bushes or behind buildings or rocks. You are quite small, so use this to your advantage.

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Low profile
• Slightly improved 37 mm cannon able to penetrate the majority of rank 1 tanks it faces
• Coaxial machine gun (rare for a early Japanese tank)
• Large ammo load
• Short reload time
• Small engine, which is hard to hit from the front
• Good turret traverse
• -15° of depression
• Has shoulder lock, which is a primitive form of the vertical stabiliser
• Good reverse speed (-7 km/h)

Cons:

• Relatively little armour, can be penetrated by 12.7 mm machine guns
• Hard to angle due to the shape of the armour
• Only 3 crew members
• Crew is cramped
• Only one ammunition choice, can have difficulty dealing with heavily armoured tanks

History

Development

The Type 98 Ke-Ni was a replacement program started in 1938, for the Type 95 Ha-Go. The tank was supposed to have the same weight but with thicker armour. During development both Hino Motors and Mitsubishi Industries built a prototype being the Chi-Ni* Model A (Ko) and Chi-Ni* Model B (Otsu) respectively. As Hino built a suspension similar to on the Ha-Go, Mitsubishi went for a similar design to the Christie suspension. During trails the Model A performed stunningly better, especially offroad and was adopted as the Type 98 Ke-Ni.

But as the battle results of the Ha-Go came in, the Army realized the poor strength and disorganization of the Chinese army was no issue for the adequate ageing Ha-Go and didn't need direct replacement.

Only with the start of the Pacific war high command started taking note of how the American's .50 cal is enough to punch through the rather thin armour of the Ha-Go and eventually gave the light tank improvement contract to Hino with effective production starting in 1942. Though as many Japanese tanks and army manufacturing, production would be hampered by the Navy's resource priority leaving the total amount of Ke-Ni's built rather low at roughly 104 built.

*Not to be confused with the Chi-Ni medium tank prototype.

Design

Comparing the Ke-Ni to the Ha-Go, it featured thicker, welded armour of improved shape, the height of the tank was 50 cm lower in profile and slightly lighter and shorter. With the use of a Mitsubishi Type 100 6-Cylinder air-cooled diesel engine with 130 horsepower, it allowed the vehicle to travel at 50 km/h (31 mph) even with its thicker armour.

Three pairs of bogies with six road-wheels connected to the chassis using bell cranks, this gave the tank better stability over its predecessor which only had two pairs of bogies with four road-wheels which was a major complaint of Ha-Go crew as it would rock the tank on unfavourable terrain.

The driver was located in a central position of the chassis and received a standard wheel.

In contrast to the one-man turret of Type 95 Ha-Go, the Type 98 had a two-man turret, which featured additional room for a loader next to the gunner/commander. The gun was a Type 100 37 mm tank gun with vertical elevations of -15 to +20 degrees in the turret, a muzzle velocity of 760 m/s, and also a coaxial Type 97 (7.7 mm) machine gun instead of in the back of the turret.

Media

Skins

• Skins and camouflages for the Ke-Ni from live.warthunder.com.

See also

Tanks of comparable role, configuration, and era

• M22
• Tetrarch I
• BT-5
• Strv m/38
• Pz.38(t) n.A.

External links

Paste links to sources and external resources, such as:

• topic on the official game forum;
• other literature.

Hino Motors, Ltd. (日野自動車株式会社)
Light Tank	Ke-Ni
SPAA	Ta-Se · So-Ki

Japan light tanks
Type 89	I-Go Ko
Type 95	Ha-Go · Ha-Go Commander
Type 98	Ke-Ni
Other	Ka-Mi
IFV	Type 89
RCV	Type 87 RCV (P) · Type 87 RCV · RCV (P)
MCV	Type 16 (P) · Type 16 (FPS) · Type 16
USA	▅M24 · ▅M41A1