Type 97 Te-Ke

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Good accuracy and damage

• Good gun

• Great gun depression

• Small turret profile

Cons:

• Weak engine, resulting poor acceleration and difficulty knocking down trees and walls

• Practically unarmored (UFP so thin that's it's overmatched by .50 cal machine gun rounds!)

• Slow aim time

• Slow turret traverse

• Small crew (commander also fills the roles of gunner, radio operator, and loader)

Performance

The Type 97 Te-Ke presents a different challenge to players used to conventional light tanks. While most light tanks favor fast-moving, aggressive flanking, the Te-Ke is a tank that needs to be played with great caution. Though not particularly unmaneuverable, the Te-Ke is slow to accelerate and has a slow-traversing turret while still being very poorly armored. At close range, the Te-Ke is easily outmatched by most tanks, and further exasperating this is the Te-Ke's two-man crew. A dead commander cripples the Te-Ke, as he is also the gunner, radio operator, and loader. The small crew can also result in your tank being knocked out from crew loss without losing all your HP.

The Te-Ke has a number of strengths that greatly reward players who carefully plan their positioning. One of these strengths is its gun, which is the same 37mm gun available on the Ha-Go, although considerably more accurate. With this increased accuracy, the gun's good penetration and alpha damage enable it to threaten even well armored enemy tanks at a safe distance. The Te-Ke is also endowed with characteristic Japanese gun depression, giving it 12.7 degrees of depression at the front and 15 at the sides and rear. Its good gun depression makes it possible for the Te-Ke to go hull-down almost anywhere where there's a sizable hill. The Te-Ke's puny one-man turret is too small for most tier II guns to hit reliably. Because of this, a hull-down Te-Ke is true danger to almost any tank regardless of whether or not they can see it.

Early Research

All modules are researched with the tank.

Suggested Equipment

Documented Tank and Crew Builds

Regardless of what equipment build a player chooses to use, using an enhanced gun laying drive is strongly suggested. Though ideally the Te-Ke is a stationary shooter, it has a very high after-shot aim bloom and somewhat slow aim time. The gun laying drive ensures that the gun is capable of sustained, accurate fire.

When considering what to use for the remaining two equipment slots, the key factor is distance. A Te-Ke player can decide to either go hull down in a place where they will be visible but have better chance of hitting their shots, or do so at a distance where they won't be visible but will have a harder time hitting shots. Should a player should choose to do the former, they will find themselves ducking in and out of cover often. Thus, the small aim bloom and aim time bonuses from vents will come in handy as will the hard view range boost from coated optics. Should a player chose to do the latter and stay stationary a safer distance instead, the extra concealment from a camouflage net and stationary view range bonus from binoculars will be more helpful.