Hello everyone,
so, tomorrow, we are going to recieve the Wargaming Type 97 Te-Ke as a reward (nice to see that the yesterday’s event leak was accurate, which means the rest of it (events in entire August) likely also are).
At first glance, it looks like a solid tier 2 tank. Thanks god it doesn’t have a “spitter” machinegun, but a relatively interesting 37mm cannon. Let’s have a look at it though to see how it’s doing.
Armor
As you can see, the armor is not this vehicle’s strong side. After all, it’s a lowtier light tank, it’s not supposed to be a hulking unpenetrable fortress (unless of course it’s sold in gift editions, then it’s okay). Either way, the armor is pretty clear from the picture, not too much to tell about it. The armor is roughly comparable to other tier 2 gift tanks – the Tetrarch and T1E6, it’s a little thinner, but it hardly makes any real difference. The obvious idea would be not to shoot the well-sloped part, which in theory has decent effective armor, but the thing is, despite its good slope, it’s only 6mm thick and thus it will be triple-overmatched by pretty much everything except for the .50 cals and the 15mm BESA (and of course the 7,92mm, but that’s another story, given its penetration), so it is pretty much irrelevant. In armor, it’s the worst tank of the three, but again, on this tier it hardly matters (the slope can save you from some of the .50 cal bullets I guess). It’s worth noting that the T1E6 has worse side armor by a few milimeters.
Firepower
The Te-Ke is equipped with a 37mm Type 98 gun, that is actually not bad. It has a decent penetration (40,4mm), standard damage (45), decent rate of fire (20) and tier-standard accuracy (0,4) and aimtime (2,2s). This gun is superior to the .50cal “spitters” of the T7CC and other tanks and possibly over the 15mm BESA MG, but it is inferior to the Tetrarch gun, especially due to the 2pdr penetration capabilities. What makes it very useful is the -15 degrees depression, but be warned – in 38 degrees frontal art, the depression is “only” -12,7 – still awesome, but less than advertised in WoT Wiki. It’s not an autoloaded gun, but against the opponents of its tier, it’s sufficient. Tetrarch is better and the T1E6 is different (it has an autoloader, but less penetration), I think it will do just fine. “Sufficient” is the right word I guess.
Mobility
The Te-Ke weighs 4,757 tons and is equipped with a 65hp engine, giving it 13,66 hp/t (to compare, VIc has 17,6, Tetrarch has 25,5 and T1E6 has 27,64 hp/t). Maximum speed is 42 km/h (15 in reverse).
I guess you can see where this is going. The mobility will be most likely rather poor. This might be compensated to some degree by terrain passability – we’ll have to see how much exactly, but the terrain passability of 0,8/1/1,6 is better than any of the other reward tanks (T1E6 for example has 1,1/1,3/2,4), but the mobility compared to other “blazing speed” reward tanks will likely be worse.
Conclusion
It’s neither a gem nor a complete shit, it’s going to be an okay tank. I assume the mobility will cause it not to be as desired as other reward tanks (plus the fact it is Japanese and thus, unless you are grinding Japanese tanks, useless for crew training). An interesting thing – it seems WG is hellbent on pushing the Japanese tanks to become more popular – just check the events of the EU server (linked above) – two events, tied to Japanese tanks in a month. Interesting.
Looks like finally i wont get free garage spot and will keep it :)
i remember when people sold the tetrarch and then felt bad for doing so!
I kept the tetrarch and the VIC but have sold many other free tanks and never regretted doing so, besides according the the rules you get one free reclaim of a sold premium tank via support.
Tho I joined WOT after the Tetrarch was gifted. I got it in a cheap T34 bundle a year ago. Its a fine tank. But its just silly with the 120 gold ammo pen at tier 2.
Like you need gold ammo for any tank at T2 when you have ~60 pen with regular AP.
Apologizing beforehand for using this post as a bump.
“The Te-Ke weighs 4,757 tons and is equipped with a 65hp engine”
So that’s where the Japanese hid their superheavy tanks!
Still beats the T1E6. The other free tanks laugh at it and steal its lunch.
I rage sold my T1E6 after I ambushed a PzII on Himmelsdorf. Shot a whole clip point blank up it’s ass for 0 damage, did the same thing again, died as the pzII bullets plowed through my front like butter.
It’s almost disappointing that it won’t be cluster-rape material for the micro-maus though. That’s some decent pen it has.
Didn’t reload to gold when going for PzII? Tsk, tsk, tsk~
Those were the days when gold ammo cost real money. If they ever get the “get your premium tank back” implemented on the EU server, I would be tempted to reclaim it and load it down with the shiny yellow stuff!
You can already do so. Just contact Support.
gold shells are for babies. i raped a T18 once with a vic in EU.
T1E6 is basically a stock T1 cunningham fitted with t2 specs and autoloader so it plays like a stock T1 + nitrox. at least you can pen T18 =|
T7 car before buff says hi.
T1E6 used to be decent tank until in one patch they have changed the way how tracks on tanks works. Basically until that point tracks weren’t acting like a spaced armor, and since they changed it T1E6 became shit. It couldn’t pen Pz2 from the side anymore and i stopped playing it. Still have it in garage, but will likely sell it one day.
wow premium light tank for nation that has higher tier light tank on tier 4, how generous… well tomorrow will all professional sealclubbers have chance to farm some easy kills in t18 and h35
And a good opportunity for me to load up my Te-Ke with APCR and club some seal clubbing noobs in their T18′s.
I guarantee you my Pz II J couldn’t care less about your APCR
Likewise my Pz. II J could care less about your Pz. II J. But nobody said anything about the Pz. II J’s so I don’t know why you felt the need to bring it up. Needed to boast or something?
Tetrarch with apcr to the front goes through like butter
As does Marder 2 with AP, or the french T3 premium TD.
Given the price most people have to pay to get a Pz II J, then the answer is probably Yes!
Pff, Chi Ha rapes P2J before it even gets into shooting range ..
PzKpfw II J is overhyped. Whenever I’m clubbing, I have little problems tearing them apart.
Then again, it’s usually *Bad* clubbers that have them, thinking they will be invulnerable.
I prove them wrong.
Yeah they are bad most likely. My 2J is almost always angled and your looking at 118mm front and 102mm sides with a tiny port covering. Also while a Tet can pen me I can pen him as well.
For the events of August , according to the WoT Event Calendar , should be accurate.
About the Te-Ke , I guess we’ll see, cause stats on paper are onething, effectiveness on the field is another :)
I’ll keep it and won’t play it unless I wver do the japanese lines.
Something that would help japanese tanks become more popular? More japanese tanks. Different ones to the “nice medium tank but terrible armor all around” stuff that’s on pretty much every tier of their tech-line. Yes it is a line, not a tree. All the people who prefer TDs or Heavies don’t have anything to go for currently.
*more attractive Japanese tanks
loli camo solves everything
t18 sealclubbers will be drooling when they see 15 oneshot tanks
can it hold the pz2 gun?
That’s gonna be a juicy target for my tetrarch
It seems like it was a good call to keep the Ha-Go, look at all that armor that can be overmatched by 57 mm AP.
57mm HE even better against tanks less than 28mm armor. I shot a poor tetrarch with it few days ago: -95hp
HE doesn’t have normalization so it can bounce, with 12 mm max armor the 57 mm shell WILL pen, regardless of where it hits.
Nice…I’m liking the looks of this. Another freebie tank to add to my collection, and dust off every 6 months or so after 98% of people have sold theirs, so the noobs can all go “where’d you get that?” LOL
Same. But I’ll likely play mine every month instead. I do that with my other gift tenks.
Actually, the armor is crap, you can over match the front plate so it doesn’t matter that it is slopped.
Time to buy some T18 and Hotchkiss again, and farm some kolobanovs :-)
Not on tier 2 ;)
at last we got an adeqate tank
Please tell me this thing gets tier 3 matchmaking! The Pz II J hungers for Kolobanov’s medals.
Go on a ahead and leave.
Just did the match, and due to the ground resistance it will actually have better effective output than the Light VIc, at 17,07 vs 15,38. T7 Combat Car still has better mobility (21,92) despite it’s rather bad ground resistance. T1E6 (24,57) and Tetrarch (24,11) are obviously the mobility kings amongst the gift tanks).
And while it doesn’t count due to being tier 3, the LTP has a pitiful 12,87.
The LTP disappoints once again, you say? How surprising~
None is driving Japos these days, I only managed to kill 2 last week. I have the Chi-Ri and I got the tier 8 last week. I did not free-xp so I have 150 matches on the beast. I have a good crew and “I feed them well” so they drive the biggest paper tank in the battle field but these little japos know how to fire fast and effectively.
Now, this little tier 2 comes too late for me, I have the tier 5 premium and I used it. A light tank premium when there are not light tanks after tier 4 is a waste for me. I will keep it for sometime though but you will not see my drive it. I only drive these premiums these days when that nation has light tanks above tier 5. I still drive my T2 with my 3 skill Chaffee crew, the crazy thing is that I dont drive that mad little tank as well as I used to anymore; recently I took couple bends going down hill and crashed against the walls. I need to drive it more often ;-)
One good thing about driving the Japos … I got the free Super Pershing cause I had a good crew in the premium tier 5 and the Chi-Ri. That SP is an excellent money maker. Other people I know that tried to get the SP, had to start the line and did not make it.
Great story
This isn’t for all servers is it? Because on the US server the mission starting on August 1st says earn 40k xp while being top 10 in xp on your team and you get a free LTP…
It’s not in the in-game EU mission list either. Also, if that’s true then your LTP mission is much easier than the one we’re supposedly getting :(
Nevermind, all you have to do is log in and you get the Te-Ke
How much do I get when I sell it?
I also used to say these tanks are useless. But since NA recently offered them (again) as mission prizes. T1E6 and LTP for example. I already had them from previous Wargaming gifts so i got compensation in gold instead. And the missions were also easy.
So yea even if it will be worthless, one day this tank will give some gold compensation.
Words of wisdom :P
I wouldn’t write this tank off. It will be an easy kill on some maps like Himmelsdorf, but not so on others. It does have a reasonable gun, and view range is good too. Put a good crew in it, cammo, recon, binos, then it may be a good medium to long range sniper. I can remember when the LTP was given away, it was laughed at because so many bad players drove it. Now when you see an LTP on the battlefield, the odds are its being driven by a higher percentage of good players. But I digress, and I’m dusting off the T18, H35 and PzII, for the coming feast!
TankInspector says terrain passability is very good – about 0.8/1.0/1.6. It still won’t be super mobile for a tier 2, but this will be far from a slug.
is this thing in HD ?
I thought they said all new tanks will come directly in HD.
They made the model for this thing a few months ago IIRC, so sadly, it’s not in HD :\
I wish they’d make some of the common premiums and/or gift tanks into HD… it’d give me somewhat of an incentive to drive them more :P
i feel really bad about selling the VIC, but this looks really cool. I guess I’ll prove its worth by playing like 50-75 battles in it and deciding whether to keep it or not.
Like others I’ve retained all of the gift tanks – some have not even been used once (the more recent ones).
I buy garage slots when then are at half price and always have some lower tier vehicles I can get rid of if I needed more slots without spending any gold.
Does anyone know when these tanks are delivered?
I’ve updated to 0.9.2 and have even played a few battles but nada…
I missed that today is the 31st July and it’s not August yet….. ooops doh!
Sitting here finding it odd that people are looking forward to getting what basically amounts to a small Ha-Go with slightly better accuracy and worse everything else…
I mean, it’s certainly not the worst thing ever – that title still belongs to the horrid POS T1E6 – but just looking at it and its paper stats in TI it’s nothing to really get excited over : \
Still, as with every other gift tank, it’ll get its chance to prove itself…
If WG want to make the Japanese tanks more popular why dont they make them less shit?
Why don’t they add an incentive to play them, everyone in july has struggled to kill 35 japanese tanks, most people haven’t, all they had to do was “double xp for every victory in a japanese tank” for a few days and boom, everyone invests in them.
Eh, at least it’s HD. And it’s a good sniper as well. Although the mobility isn’t great, it has a high camo value, so it’s harder to spot from range if you’re hiding behind a bush :D
One must keep in mind the purpose of these gift tanks, they are a perk for experienced players to have some fun with, not WN8 padders or credit ginders…this is why I think all future gifts will be tier 2 only, so as not to compete with the premiums that are for sale. The tier 3 LTP was just a little “too good”.
We must have gotten different versions of the LTP. The only thing “good” about it is its top speed and hull traverse rate, in just about everything else it’s mediocre at best. Probably the most boring, underpowered-feeling gift premium I’ve played yet…at least the T1E6 was quick and had a silly little autoloader to mix things up.
It’s certainly not going to compete with the tank that it’s a poor gameplay copy of, the T-127, so…mission accomplished there I guess.
Slope wont matter…..Its 6mm thick.
A 20mm overmatches x2 and a 37mm will pen it anywhere anyhow. No autobounce ever
True, but it makes a nice sniping tank due to its high camo value and decently accurate gun. Also has enough pen to shoot through stuff at range (unlike the T7 or VIC)
I definetely love the Te-Ke. :)
Fabulous camou, decent gun and he’s not easily farmed by T18 and H35 like the previous ones. ;)
yeah i just mastered my miniMaus(PzH35) by slaughtering the poo te-kes
but after that i played the Te-Ke. It is much better than T1E6 or T7CC
This thing’s actually pretty good. Although it has ~.4 accuracy, it can still work pretty well as a sniper on maps like Province. Also love how they made this thing HD before they distributed it. First prem/gift HD tank :D