ST-A2

ST-A2

ST-A1

Type 61

ST-A2

ST-A1

Type 61

Japan

IV Rank

Battle rating:

AB	RB	SB
6.3	6.3	6.3

Class:

Medium tank

Research:31 000

Purchase:200 000

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Description

The ST-A2 is a Rank IV Japanese medium tank with a battle rating of 6.3 (AB/RB/SB). It was introduced along with the initial Japanese Ground Forces tree in Update 1.65 "Way of the Samurai".

It is a sidegrade to ST-A1, which takes sniping duty as it's main work, neglecting most of the other roles. One can literally treat them as the same tank, but they have some minor quality of life differences, which will be mentioned here.

General info

Survivability and armour

Armour on ST-A2 is about the same as ST-A1, but there are some differences to it's weaknesses.

• Hull is now raised to engine deck level and slope goes all the way up the turret, resulting in turret being well above engine deck. The frontal armour is even more angled now, with effective thickness of about 90-100 mm, but it now also connected to engine deck, and in connection spot it's about 80 mm effective thickness like before. Most of tanks can still penetrate entire armour with no issues, so overall on tank's own BR it changes only rear gun depression and ability of certain tanks to just explode the tank with HE when it's hulldown.
• Since hull is raised higher, there is less chances that enemy APHE will hit driver optics on accident or will be stopped by transmission and won't destroy the tank. Also, gunner's head is now above gun breech, so random shrapnel has a chance of hitting him, if enemy shell explodes above it, resulting in complete crew knockout, unlike with ST-A1.
• Machine gun on top of tank was removed, while commander cupola was raised a bit. Overall it makes it harder to destroy tank with HE, but nothing more.
• Ammo rack in back of the turret is now facing turret and is much narrower a target, so gun breech shields it entirely. Because of that, as long as ST-A2 fires off first two rounds in first-stage rack, the chances of tank exploding due to ammo rack being hit through the turret is reduced. It came at a price, though, as it is now even easier to shoot the tank from the side or back. The block outside of turret's back isn't even modeled, so if HESH hits back of the turret, it's going to explode the entire tank.
• Turret neck is no longer a weakspot for SPAA, but tank can still be destroyed by SPAA firing at MG port, because their shells still cause spalling or explode and hit ammo rack despite it being rotated away from the weakspot. Still, it will definitely take them longer to deal with the tank that way.

Mobility

Mobility characteristic
Weight (tons)	Add-on Armour weight (tons)	Max speed (km/h)
34.2	N/A	50 (AB)
		45 (RB/SB)
Engine power (horsepower)
Mode	Stock	Upgraded
Arcade	775	954
Realistic/Simulator	442	500
Power-to-weight ratio (hp/ton)
Mode	Stock	Upgraded
Arcade	22.66	27.89
Realistic/Simulator	12.92	14.62

The 3d mobility of this tank are the same as predecessor, as well as their effective offroad and top speed - about (AB/RB) 40/33 km/h forward and 18/15 km/h backwards offroad and 50/33 forward and 20/17 backwards.

Armaments

Main armament

The gun is the same as ST-A1, and so are the optics. So one must unlock APHE as the very first module and then try to get aim adjustment as soon as possible, leveling it same way as ST-A1.

Due to turret being elevated above engine deck, gun can now depress enough to fire at tanks behind it, no matter how low their profile is, as long as they stay on even ground.

90 mm M3A1
Capacity			Vertical guidance	Horizontal guidance	Stabilizer
40			-10°/+13°	±180°	N/A
Turret rotation speed (°/s)
Mode	Stock	Upgraded	Prior + Full crew	Prior + Expert qualif.	Prior + Ace qualif.
Arcade	22.85	_.__	_.__	_.__	32.64
Realistic	14.28	_.__	_.__	_.__	20.4
Reloading rate (seconds)
Stock	Prior + Full crew	Prior + Expert qualif.	Prior + Ace qualif.
9.75	_.__	_.__	7.5

ST-A2 Optics
Which ones	Default magnification	Maximum magnification
Main Gun optics	x8	x16
Comparable optics	Type 74G

• It is important to remember the earliest your enemy would have x16 scope is at a battle rating of 7.3/7.7 (AB/RB) with German Leopard I while even the SPG class tanks will most likely have an ~x6 or x8 at best.
• Be aware when utilising guns which lack stabilizer, attempting to shoot on the move while viewing through x16 optics is almost a guaranteed miss due to the movement of the vehicle over the terrain. If needed to aim at targets on a move, do not change pace or make sudden changes as the gun will fire less predictably and most likely result in a miss.

Ammunition

Penetration statistics
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Penetration in mm @ 0°
		10m	100m	500m	1000m	1500m	2000m
M318 shot	AP	174	171	159	149	133	122
M71 shell	HE	13	13	13	13	13	13
M82 shot	APCBC	182	180	168	153	140	128
M304 shot	APCR	264	260	245	226	210	191
M332 shot	APCR	271	270	245	217	192	170
M348 shell	HEATFS	305	305	305	305	305	305

Shell details
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Velocity in m/s	Projectile Mass in kg	Fuse delay in m:	Fuse sensitivity in mm:	Explosive Mass in g (TNT equivalent):	Normalization At 30° from horizontal:	Ricochet:
								0%	50%	100%
M318 shot	AP	853	11	N/A	N/A	N/A	+4°	47°	60°	65°
M71 shell	HE	823	11	0.1	0.5	925	+0°	79°	80°	81°
M82 shot	APCBC	853	11	1.2	20	137.2	+4°	48°	63°	71°
M304 shot	APCR	1021	7.6	N/A	N/A	N/A	+1.5°	66°	70°	72°
M332 shot	APCR	1178	5.6	N/A	N/A	N/A	+1.5°	66°	70°	72°
M348 shell	HEATFS	853	6.5	0.0	0.1	926.17	+0°	65°	72°	75°

Smoke characteristic
Ammunition	Velocity in m/s	Projectile Mass in kg	Screen radius in m	Screen time in s	Screen hold time in s:	Explosive Mass in g (TNT equivalent):
M313	821	11	13	5	20	50

Machine guns

The 12.7 mm M2HB machine gun was removed, so ST-A2 only has (7.62 mm) M1919A4 in it's turret. It still can be used to damage open-top SPG, but fighting light tanks with it is not possible. Planes are also harder to engage with it.

On other hand, it's trajectory is similiar to APHE shell up to 760 m, so you can use it to check your aim in RB, if necessary, which further confirms sniper specialization of ST-A2.

Usage in battles

As before it is required to stay out of sight and find a good, defensible spot on the map and use your current best ammunition to destroy enemy tanks from your effective range. Due to armour still being completely inadequate for it's BR, it's still recommended to snipe enemy either from afar (Preferably with HEAT-FS) or flank them and snipe from angles they don't really expect (again, the further away the better), using your superior optics.

It is also recommended to avoid rushing down super-light SPG and tanks like AUBL/74, as 7.62 MG will likely fail to destroy it in case if you miss, unlike 12.7 mm of predecessor.

Pros and cons

Summarize and briefly evaluate the vehicle in terms of its characteristics and combat effectiveness. Mark its pros and cons in a bulleted list. Try not to use more than 6 points for each of the characteristics. Avoid using categorical definitions such as "bad", "good" and the like - they can be substituted with softer forms such as "inadequate" and "effective".

Pros:

• Overall better sniper qualities than ST-A1 (but they only really matter in RB)
• Can defend itself against other tanks in case of a rear flank, unlike ST-A1
• Harder to hit ammo rack in turret from the front, and overall better protection against autocannons, HEAT and pure AP in turret
• Harder to be destroyed by HE shot to the turret, can technically tank some attacker's plane assault with it's front
• Harder to destroy by poorly aimed shot in down-tier

Cons:

• Worse against light tanks than predecessor due to lack of 12.7 mm MG
• Still can be destroyed in one shot by nearly anything on battlefield via crew knockout, as long as they have APHE or HESH
• Raised turret still cannot use certain hulldown spots, but raises tank's profile
• Hull weakspot is even more relevant now

History

Describe the history of the creation and combat usage of the ground vehicle in more detail than in the introduction. If the historical reference turns out to be too big, take it to a separate article, taking a link to the article about the vehicle and adding a block "/ History" (example: https://wiki.warthunder.com/(Vehicle-name)/History) and add a link to it here using the main template. Be sure to reference text and sources by using <ref>, as well as adding them at the end of the article. This section may also include the vehicle's devblog entry (if applicable) and the ingame encyclopedia description (under === Encyclopedia Info ===, also if applicable).

Media

Excellent additions to the article would be video guides, screenshots from the game, and photos.

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 vehicles;
• links to approximate analogues of other nations and research trees.

External links

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• encyclopedia page on the tank;
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