Soukou-Tei

Soukou-Tei

Type T-1

Soukou-Tei No.4

Soukou-Tei

Type T-1

Soukou-Tei No.4

Japan

I Rank

Battle rating:

AB	RB	SB
1.0	1.0	1.0

Class:

Armored gun boat

Heavy boat

Boat

Research:4 000

Purchase:2 100

Show in game

Description

The Soukou-Tei, Sakigake is a rank I Japanese armored gun boat with a battle rating of 1.0 (AB/RB/SB). It was introduced in Update 1.89 "Imperial Navy".

General info

Survivability and armour

This boat equips a 6.5 mm RHA on the bridge and in each turret. The armour can only prevent rifle calibre machine guns or fragment of shell from doing any damage.

Mobility

In spite of small hull, its speed is not that good because this boat is equipped with only one small diesel engine.

On a large map, this boat typically will be sunk before taking on any enemy vessels within effective range of its armament.

Armament

Primary armament

Soukou-Tei equips one1 turret on the front of bridge with a 37 mm Type 11 cannon.

Secondary armament

There are two turrets on the front of the bridge and the stern armed with a Type 38 machine gun.

Usage in battles

This ship is very difficult to use given that the twin 6.5 mm machine guns are vastly underpowered against even smaller ships like the LS3 or MTB1-1 and it's 37 mm cannon has trouble hitting anything due to the HE round's low velocity. This accuracy is further exacerbated by the fact that the rough seas which cause the gun the bob up and down constantly and despite its small size it's quite slow and with a Battle Ranking of 1.7 it would encounter similarly ranked (but faster or better-armed ships) very regularly. It's also very vulnerable to aerial bombardments as none of its guns has high depression of firepower.

As such, captains of this ship would often find themselves outgunned by other ships and very vulnerable to bombing runs. To make the most out of it, it's recommended to act as an escort to larger, slower ships who can provide the firepower while you can hide in its silhouette plinking away at any low flying aircraft or small ships attempting to sneak in torpedoes or depth charge attacks. While it's unlikely to destroy anything, the covering fire might be enough of a distraction for them.

Should you find yourself sailing solo, captains should take advantage of its small size to hide behind terrain or any other obstacles and while difficult to use, the 37 mm HE rounds' low velocity does allow it to fire over low obstacles allowing it to act as light artillery of sorts. The armour itself is thin and not particularly useful against the type of calibres you'd be facing but it can be somewhat enhanced at a distance.

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Small hull is easy to hide behind the rocks
• Able to constantly fire every 2.6 seconds (2.0 s with maxed crew)
• Huge Silver Lion gain

Cons:

• Slow speed
• Weak weapons
• Main gun inaccurate beyond 1 km
• Despite steel armour, anything with a calibre larger than 12 mm can penetrate it
• Machine gunners can't shoot upwards. Good opportunity for dive bombers. 

History

"Soukou-Tei"(装甲艇), also called "AB-Tei"(AB艇) is a Japanese landing support craft built by Imperial Army since the 1920s.

"AB-Tei Pioneer" is the first prototype of AB-Tei built 1928. This boat was bit top-heavy so during the war it modified to mast get shorter. Pioneer means its hull name, "Sakigake"(さきがけ).

During early of Chino-Japanese war, this boat was used for a patrol around Tianjin.

Media

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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

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• topic on the official game forum;
• encyclopedia page on the ship;
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