World of Warships Final Review: Japanese Tier VII Premium Cruiser Tokachi

Ladies and Gentlemen, with Update 0.11.10, Wargaming are introducing a somewhat new system of Battle Pass. The dockyard events were teeeeeechnically already a Battle Pass type of content but now we are getting an official one. This Battle Pass will have three levels, Free, Premium, and Premium + Season bonuses with additional rewards and in-game advantages.

For the final reward of the Premium Battle Pass, you will be able to get Tokachi, the new Japanese tier VII Premium Cruiser. The question obviously is if she would be a proper reason to go for the Premium Battle Pass. Is she worth it? Is she a Japanese version of Atlanta? Here is my opinion.

Historical background

In terms of historical background, Tokachi is a bit weird. Initially, her story goes aaaaaaaaall the way back to the Alpha of the game. In those days, we had a Furutaka stock hull with twelve 140 mm guns in six twin turrets.

While that modified Furutaka wasn’t real by itself, such design actually existed. At the end of the First World War, Japan started work on an improved version of the 7 200 tons scout cruiser design. This improved version would reach a standard displacement of 8 000 tons and had a planned armament of five to six turrets with 140 mm guns. Three turrets would be mounted at the front in a pyramid arrangement and the rest would be mounted at the rear.

This design would, in the end, never come to be due to the arrival of the British Hawkins-class heavy cruisers. This led to the creation of a new design armed with 200 mm guns in single turrets and using the same arrangement as the 8 000 tons scout cruiser. This design would later become the Furutaka-class.

In World of Warships, Tokachi is bringing back that scout cruiser design but with some notable modifications. Firstly, just like in Alpha, Wargaming are using the hull of Furutaka. Secondly, the 140 mm turrets were swapped for 127 mm ones for some reason. In action, it is basically a Japanese Atlanta with Torpedo Reload Booster.

Ship’s preview

Ship’s commemorative flag

The camouflages

The permanent camouflage of Tokachi comes with the standard permanent tier IX economic bonuses:

• +5% Credits
• +50% XP
• +50% Commander XP
• +50% Free XP

The Good and the Bad

The Good

• Twelve guns broadside
• Decent DPS
• Good fire-starting capacity
• All turrets able to rotate at 360°
• Fast turret traverse
• Torpedoes with high firing range
• Fast torpedo reload
• Good maximum speed
• Tight turning radius
• 48 mm deck armor
• Narrow citadel
• Good concealment
• Access to a Torpedo Reload Booster consumable

The Bad

• Low HE penetration
• Long reload for 127 mm guns
• Short firing range
• Standard cruiser dispersion unlike Atlanta and Flint
• Thinly protected turrets
• Only three torpedoes per side
• Terrible anti-air
• Loses a lot of speed when turning
• Paper-thin citadel protection
• Bow and stern that can be overmatched by 203 mm AP shells

Modules

Hull	Engine	Gun Fire Control System	Main battery	Torpedoes
Tokachi	Propulsion: 102 000 HP	‎Type7 mod. 1	127 mm/50 3rd Year Type in a turret	‎Type93 mod. 1

General Characteristics and Playstyle

Consumables
Slot 1	Slot 2	Slot 3	Slot 4
Damage Control Party Work time: 5 s Cooldown: 60 s	Hydroacoustic Search Number of charges: 3 Work time: 100 s Cooldown: 120 s Torpedo spotting range: 3.0 km Ship spotting range: 4.0 km	Torpedo Reload Booster Number of charges: 3 Work time: 1 s Cooldown: 240 s Torpedo reload time: 8 s	Fighter Number of charges: 3 Work time: 60 s Cooldown: 90 s Number of planes in a squadron: 3 Patrol radius: 3.0 km

Is Tokachi a Japanese Atlanta? Well… kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinda.

Compared to Atlanta, she has a much lower main battery damage output. She might get better ballistics and turret handling as well as roughly similar fire-starting capacity but the DPM is well behind her U.S. counterpart. We are, in fact, talking about approximately two third of Atlanta’s DPM. Atlanta also happens to have a destroyer dispersion while Tokachi has a cruiser dispersion. Overall though, her damage output is still quite fine in my opinion, especially considering that she has an easier time getting hits at long range. Also, with her speed and good maneuverability coupled with the extra armor of the Furutaka hull, she can engage targets in open water fairly comfortably.

Beyond her main battery, Tokachi, unlike the whole Japanese light cruiser line, has proper, usable, and reliable torpedoes. While she might only have three per side, she can still launch them quite often with that short reload and as such, they are able to compensate for the reduced damage output of her main battery to some extent. I would honestly be tempted to say that Tokachi succeeds at being a hybrid between DPS cruiser and torpedo cruiser where the light cruiser line utterly failed.

As a whole, she has a flexible playstyle between island hugging and raining HE from cover and doing open-water gunboating as well as throwing her torpedoes at the enemy.

If you want to see the ship in action, here is a commented replay of one of my games:

Main Armament

6 x 2 127 mm/50 3rd Year Type in a turret All turrets can rotate at 360°
Maximum Firing Range	13.570 km
Reloading Time	7.0 s
180 Degree Turn Time	7.2 s
Optimal firing angles at the front	37°
Optimal firing angles at the rear	32°
Sigma	2.0 sigma
Maximum Dispersion	127 m
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – 127 mm HE Type1
Alpha Damage	2 150
Penetration capacity	21 mm
Explosion size	0.41
Fire chance	9 %
Projectile Speed	915 m/s
Air Drag	0.334
Projectile Mass	23.0 kg
Type of Projectile	AP – 127 mm AP Type0
Alpha Damage	2 200
Projectile Speed	915 m/s
Air Drag	0.335
Projectile Mass	23.0 kg
Projectile Krupp	2 266
Projectile Detonator	0.01 s
Detonator threshold	21 mm
Ricochet Angles	45° – 60°

For its tier, the main battery of Tokachi is alright. It definitely is nothing great compared to Atlanta and Flint, her direct counterpart but it’s usable. While Atlanta and Flint have the volume of fire and dispersion, at least, Tokachi has an easier time landing shots thanks to her superior ballistics. Now, don’t get your hopes too high, her ballistics is still nothing crazy. At 13 km, the difference is around 1.8 seconds but at least, it will allow Tokachi to have an easier time hitting destroyers and cruisers while still giving you the capacity to abuse island covers.

Other than that, Tokachi is your typical HE spammer/fire starter. You can either do that from behind islands or in open water, especially with those turrets turning at 360°. Her turret handling is really nice as she will always have all guns on target no matter what.

Secondary Armament

4 x 1 120 mm/40 10th Year Type on a Model C mount
Maximum Firing Range	5.600 km
Reloading Time	6.0 s
Sigma	1.0 sigma
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – 120 mm HE Type0
Alpha Damage	2 000
HE penetration	20 mm
Explosion Size	0.38
Chance to Cause Fire	8 %
Projectile Speed	825 m/s
Air Drag	0.348
Projectile Mass	20.3 kg

Decoration/10.

Torpedo Armament

Unlike the rest of the Japanese light cruisers, Tokachi has proper torpedoes. It’s only three torpedoes per side but at least, they are fast and have a bit better spotting distance. In terms of reaction time, we are looking at something around 8.5 seconds. This is already a whole lot better than the 11 seconds/10.5 seconds of the tech tree ships.

On top of that, with the combined fast reload time and the access to a Torpedo Reload Booster, Tokachi can actually get quite a lot of torpedoes in the water for them to get an impact. Considering that her concealment is also pretty good, she will have little problem closing the distance to drop her torpedoes at her target.

Anti-air Armament

The anti-air of Tokachi is too weak to be anything worth mentioning. If a carrier is going for you, the only thing that will matter is how much you can dodge the drops.

The Armor

The armor protection of Tokachi is both good and bad at the same time. It is good because you have a 48 mm deck armor as well as a citadel that is particularly narrow.
It is bad because the citadel sits high above the water and the bow and stern remain extra fragile with a 13 mm plating.

Overall though, you can somewhat get away with getting devstruke with this ship the same way you would with a Smolensk. Broadside, best side. Because the ship is so narrow, the shells will just go straight through without arming at close range.

External armor protection:

Front and rear armor protection of the middle section:

Citadel armor protection:

Turrets armor protection:

Final Opinion

By all means, Tokachi isn’t a particularly good cruiser. However, she is definitely not terrible either.

Her damage output is still quite reasonable for her tier and she has a flexible playstyle between island hugging and open-water fighting. She also gets usable torpedo armament that gives her an appreciable additional source of damage.

Would she specifically be worth getting the premium battle pass? Eh. I would say no, but it isn’t particularly expensive, so if you have extra doubloons lying around, I guess you can consider it.

Recommended Build

For the Tokachi, I recommend the following commander build and upgrades:

If you have one of the Sukuzi brothers, their improved Survivability Expert is quite useful on Tokachi.

This concludes my review of Tokachi. Thank you for reading this article!

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Also if you are new to the game or want to get back to it, feel free to use my Recruiting Station code for free goodies such as Premium ships, premium time, and more: https://warships.net/yuzorah

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Yuzorah

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