Soukou-Tei No.4

Soukou-Tei No.4

Soukou-Tei

Type T-38

Soukou-Tei No.4

Soukou-Tei

Type T-38

Japan

II Rank

Battle rating:

AB	RB	SB
1.3	1.3	1.3

Class:

Armored gun boat

Heavy boat

Boat

Research:7 900

Purchase:10 000

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This page is about the Japanese armored gun boat Soukou-Tei No.4. For other uses, see Soukou-Tei (Family).

Description

The Soukou-Tei, Soukou-Tei No.4 is a rank II Japanese armored gun boat with a battle rating of 1.3 (AB/RB/SB). It was introduced in Update 1.89 "Imperial Navy".

General info

A Soukou-Tei (1940) sailing next to a wrecked Soukou-Tei (1940)

Survivability and armour

The Soukou-Tei (1940) is likely the first truly armoured boat you'll be unlocking in the tech tree- although not by a huge margin. The superstructure is protected by 7mm of RHA, while the hull is protected by 4mm of RHA. At a few hundred meters this will make you immune from 7.7mm machine gun fire, but everything else can still penetrate this boats armour. at range some heavy machine gun rounds may fail to penetrate as some of the armour will be angled, but in any case it's not something to rely on.

A Soukou-Tei (1940) cruising a river

Mobility

The Soukou-Tei (1940) like the previous boat is very very slow, it can reach exactly the same speed as the Model 1927 (26kp/h in RB modes and 35 kp/h in AB modes), making it one of the slowest vessels around its battle rating. This can make playing it fairly tedious as it will take a fairly long time to advance to combat ranges on most maps. Its mobility and ability to turn is about as you'd expect, not standout but not terrible, it will lose a lot of speed when turning hard though so be aware of this if you're taking fire.

Armament

Primary armament

The Soukou-Tei (1940) and Chi-Ha sharing the same 57 mm Type 97 tank gun

This boat is equipped with the 57mm Type 97 tank gun, which is functionally very similar to that found on the I-Go Ko and Chi-Ha tanks, though it has some slight ballistic differences. For the Soukou-Tei though it's a fairly underwhelming weapon. It will do significant damage to smaller boats when the shot lands but landing a shot is the hardest part. It comes with three different rounds:

• HE - Decent damage output over a fairly wide area
• HEAT - Decent damage output over a condensed area, slightly lower velocity
• APHE - Very little damage potential

Overall the stock HE round is the most consistent, it deals a fairly effective amount of damage, and will black out compartments on smaller boats with a single hit. The HEAT contains a lot of explosive filler, but it doesn't spread damage over a wide area, and it's fairly ineffective when compared to the HE, it does have some viability against more armoured vessels though. The APHE is close to useless functionally, it only has slightly more penetration power than the HE and contains less than half the explosive filler, the HEAT will be a better option against armoured targets.

7.7 mm Type 89 'special' machine gun

Secondary armament

The Soukou-Tei is also equipped with two twin 7.7mm turrets, these are the same guns found on the Type T-1 MBT. They have very little damage potential against enemy ships unless engaging at very close range. They come with three belts-

• Universal - A mix between armour piecing and incendiary tracer rounds
• AP - Majority armour piercing
• API - Majority incendiary tracer

Overall the incendiary tracer rounds do the most concistant damage overall to vessels and aircraft, the damage itself is fairly poor, but if you are in a situation where you find yourself needing to use these guns, the API belt is the way to go. Unlike the previous Soukou-Tei model the turrets on this variant have double the elevation, meaning than can be used more effectively against aircraft, a good burst will knock one out.

Usage in battles

Soukou-Tei (1940) engaging with its two dual 7.7 mm machine gun turrets.

This vessels' playstyle is very very similar to the previous model, the 1927- and in much the same vein, because of all the various drawbacks this vessel has, it's hard to pinpoint a truly effective way to play it, as it just does not excel in any capacity. A safe, and arguably effective way to play it is by using it as an escort for some of the larger ships on your team, this works in theory, but in practice a lot of the large support vessels around this battle rating are almost twice as fast as you, so you'll likely be left lagging behind the group.

In any case though aiming to stay close to friendlies is the best way to keep yourself afloat, you can't take much fire, so you'll need a buffer from your team to help you out, in a one on one engagement you'll likely lose, as you just don't have the accuracy to be able to quickly sink enemy boats at long or close range. You can however, aid some of the larger ships in sinking enemy boats, try to aim for the same targets as your team to contribute to knocking them out. The 57mm is a fairly damaging weapon, so aim to take out the compartments of the enemy boats you come across, the fire rate isn't terrible, and if you have the range you can finish off an enemy boat in 3 or 4 good hits. Even though this boat is an upgrade firepower wise from the Model 1927, being more aggressive and fighting one on one is still a largely inconsistent tactic, and you should still aim to support your friendlies.

Because most if not all friendly vessels will outpace you, try to aim to reach some cover around some commonly traveled areas of the map first, and then team up with any large friendly ships that come close to you afterwards, this allows for you to stay relatively safe for as long as possible. Try not to stray too far from cover or friendlies, you can't reliably engage past 1,000 meters anyway, and if an enemy starts engaging you at range and you're not in cover, there's nothing you can do as you're just too slow to retreat, and lack the consistent firepower to cause much damage. It's important to note here that this boat is largely more effective in AB mode as opposed to RB mode, as the main tedium of playing this boat is aiming the gun, and AB ranges automatically, it still wont excel, but you'll likely notice much better results when playing this mode.

Modules

Tier	Seakeeping	Unsinkability		Firepower
I	Dry-Docking	Tool Set		Type 92 APHE	7.7 mm AP belt
II	Rudder Replacement	Fire Protection System	Smokescreen	Type 3 HEAT	7.7 mm API belt	Auxiliary Armament Targeting
III	Propeller Replacement			Improved Rangefinder		Primary Armament Targeting
IV	Engine Maintenance	New Pumps		Artillery Support

Pros and cons

Pros:

• High damage from the main gun

Cons:

• Very inaccurate main gun
• Incredibly slow
• Fairly weak, despite the armour

History

• 

  No.3 being lifted

• 

  No.3 Cruising

• 

  No.3 Cruising

• 

  No.3 Cruising

• Soukou-Tei No.7 + No.?.jpg

  No.7 + No.? docked

• Soukou-Tei No.7 + No.? (Inf).jpg

  No.7 + No.? docked with infantry praising banzai

Media

• 

  Soukou-Tei opening fire

• 

  Soukou-Tei & I-Go sharing the same tank gun

• 

  Soukou-Tei fighting while coming out of a smoke screen

• 

  Soukou-Tei's window opened with visible captain

• 

  Soukou-Tei full side-shot of the river boat

See also

Links to the articles on the War Thunder Wiki that you think will be useful for the reader, for example:

• reference to the series of the ship;
• links to approximate analogues of other nations and research trees.

External links

Paste links to sources and external resources, such as:

• topic on the official game forum;
• encyclopedia page on the ship;
• other literature.