Five Hundred and Fifty One Suspension

In the Soviet Union, the arsenal in the Ural Mountains, code-named Project 9137, has now been completed, and a ribbon-cutting ceremony is in progress. This project included the establishment of a series of tank production factories in Chelyabinsk, turning it into a city specializing in tank production.

The chimneys erected here like a forest prove its grandeur and grandeur. If you count some skilled workers withdrawn from Minsk, Kharkov and Donetsk, there are 30,000 employees here. It can be said that It is another industrial heart of the Soviet Union.

Of course, this factory is an important base for the production of tanks in the Soviet Union, and the lathe equipment established with the help of American engineers is also preparing to serve for the production of new Soviet tanks. This kind of tank is a war monster carefully designed by Soviet scientists, and it is the decisive weapon that Stalin placed high hopes on.

This tank is equipped with a 76 mm caliber tank gun, which is modified from a Soviet anti-aircraft gun. It is very practical and more powerful than the main gun of the kv-1 tank, but this tank is more powerful than the kv-1 tank Less steel is needed. The entire tank uses the same inclined armor plate as the German tank. The only difference is that this tank has a hatch for entering and exiting the tank on the front armor plate.

This tank has 7 road wheels. Of course, this is directly related to Germany's preemptive purchase and confidentiality of the suspension system of the Christie tank. The Soviet Union did not obtain relevant patents and technologies, so it could not come up with any decent shock absorption solutions for a while. We had to use the technology on the kv-1 tank to deal with it temporarily.

Of course, what I have to say is that by mistake, the King Tiger tank being developed by Germany and the T-34 tank that the Soviet Union is preparing to produce both use "torsion bar suspension", and the experience of later generations has proved that torsion bar suspension is the The mainstream choice for tank suspension systems. This suspension has many advantages over the Christie suspension commonly used in German tanks.

Because the suspension of the Christie tank is designed on the principle of spring force, this kind of suspension takes up a lot of space inside the car body, which also makes the T-34 tank in another time and space, as well as the one produced by Akado in this time and space. The internal space of the German Panther Tiger tank body is a bit messy, which affects the storage of ammunition and the placement of equipment.

This is also the result of Akado being fooled once under the misleading of the "t-34 tank mythology" he heard. In fact, from the perspective of simple structure and space utilization, torsion bar suspension is a tank suspension method generally recognized by everyone.

What's ridiculous is that the much-criticized suspension systems of the Tiger tanks and Leopard tanks produced by Nazi Germany in another time and space are precisely the main battle tanks used by the American M1 main battle tank, the German Leopard 2a6 main battle tank, and the Chinese Type 99 main battle tank. Tanks, Russian t-72 and t-80 main battle tanks generally use torsion bar suspension. On the contrary, the Christie suspension adopted by the mythical t-34 tank was completely eliminated.

Why is this so? In fact, this should be explained from the German's own suspension design: German tanks indeed use a more advanced and simple and reliable suspension system.

However, because of their persistence and unavoidable difficulties, they changed a simple and advanced suspension system beyond recognition.

To put it simply, the torsion bar suspension must stagger the positions of the road wheels on both sides, so as to place the "torsion bar" that needs to traverse the entire car body, which also causes the "problem" of the asymmetry of the road wheels on both sides of the tank. Of course, this asymmetry does not affect daily use at all, but for Nazi German designers in another time and space, it is simply an unbearable "disaster".

As we all know, in another time and space, the Tiger tank and the Panther tank use a staggered road wheel structure. This structure is forced to be adopted because of the insufficient weighing capacity of the rubber on the edge of the road wheel. That is to say, Germany must try its best Under the limited length of the vehicle body, more road wheels are installed to support the weight of the entire tank. So for the torsion bar structure, engineers need to install more torsion bars—there are as many as 16 torsion bars for the Tiger and Leopard. In this way, the advantages of the simple structure of the torsion bar disappear immediately.

Of course, another reason that made the Tiger and Leopard walking mechanisms more complicated was that Hitler and German designers found it themselves-they couldn't bear the asymmetry of their tank load wheels, so they used means to make complex interlaced The road wheels are symmetrical...isn't it beautiful? Isn't it a surprise? So many Virgo German designers and leaders appeared together in the history of World War II in Germany, it really makes people want to cry without tears.

Coupled with the problem of the tiger tank’s own small horse-drawn engine and gearbox failure, it also created an illusion that made later scholars fall into misunderstandings: the t-34 tank has a simple structure and few faults, while the tiger tank has a complex structure and many faults . This is actually a very wrong argument, at least not impressive and comprehensive.

If you investigate the technology used by German World War II tanks in depth, you will immediately understand that the Germans themselves have drawn a strange circle for themselves, and let themselves fall into the "evil way" of tank performance.

German smelting technology is developed, and a process called surface hardening treatment has been discovered, which has brought the armor quality of German tanks to a higher level. But the price is that the surface hardening process in Germany will increase the weight of the metal-similar to the hundred steelmaking mentioned in martial arts novels, different densities will naturally affect the weight.

So while improving the protection, the weight of German tanks rose to a new height. Coupled with the weight bonus brought about by the use of staggered road wheels and double torsion bars, German tanks basically had an incredible weight at the time. Of course, the benefits brought by the double-row staggered road wheels are beyond doubt, and the comfort and stability of the tank are simply unparalleled.

I don’t know if you have felt that these performance improvements are all good aspects: the armor of the tank is thicker, and the running gear is also better. Of course, if you count the consistent reputation of German tank guns and the German aiming system. We will find that this tank is infinitely close to one word: "perfect". So now a new question arises—the armor is stronger, the running gear is more comfortable, and the power of the artillery is also superior to others. Does this tank really have no shortcomings?

Naturally, the weakness lies in the engines and gearboxes of the Tiger and Leopard tanks. In order to allow the tanks to have extraordinary maneuverability, the engines equipped with these two tanks are naturally powerful and have excellent performance. What came was a plummet of reliability, and the problem of extremely high failure rate appeared. Another terrible problem is reflected in fuel consumption. The nickname of fuel tiger is not in vain.

Suppose you buy a car with great driving experience, perfect safety system, beautiful interior, and enough appearance to reflect your noble taste. Is this car really perfect? Is it expensive to fix your car? Did you vomit blood when you bought the car? Is the fuel consumption per 100 kilometers tear-jerking? You may have money and don't care about these shortcomings, but have you ever thought about what kind of disaster it is when you have tens of thousands of such cars and have to use them every day? At that time, Hitler and his logistics department were facing such a disaster, so they were not wronged at all.

In this time and space, the Germans did not fall into a terrible vicious circle. The weight of their tanks has always been very good, and the good bulletproof shape makes up for the thickness of the armor to a certain extent. At this time, German tanks are steadily moving towards the main battle tanks Conceptually moving forward, not towards the path of no return to heavy tanks.

Akado jumped into the hole that Hitler dug without hesitation. He bought the patent of Christie's suspension system and kept it strictly confidential. This kind of suspension, which is actually very backward, was used on the new German tanks Leopard and Tiger , and also complacently felt that he had simplified German tanks and reduced the failure rate.

When German engineers don't have to worry about such boring things as "left-right symmetry", when German engineers don't have to sigh for the quality of the rubber on the edge of the road wheel, they naturally found a tank suspension system that is more suitable for war, that is, Time-proven torsion bar suspension.

Akado, a layman, was also stunned by the calculated data later. Only then did he realize that sometimes the so-called T-34 myth is not always true. He admitted his mistake and ordered the decisive use of a more advanced torsion bar suspension in the design of the German next-generation tank King Tiger.

Now the most advanced t-34 tank in the Soviet Union also uses torsion bar suspension, and more avant-garde uses a rear gearbox. This tank also has sloping armor plates and has excellent bulletproof appearance, and its 76mm cannon can also threaten the Leopard tanks put into production in Germany at a distance of 500 meters. Compete for strength.

Stalin arrived here today, inspected the production of the entire factory, and personally painted the last piece of paint on the first t-34 tank that rolled off the production line. Surrounded by applause, the Soviet Union's first advanced t-34 tank The Type 34 tank was officially put into service, and was immediately loaded on a train and sent to the Ukrainian front to participate in a new counterattack.

This time the Soviet Union mobilized 500,000 troops from the Far East, and dispatched all the troops they could deploy to the front line, which can be said to be quite well prepared. The high-level Soviet Union knew very well what would happen if Ukraine was out of control for a long time, and the anti-Soviet wave there was stronger than imagined.

With experienced soldiers and equipped with new weapons, the Soviet Red Army has paid a certain amount of capital this time. This time Stalin decided not to let the political people get involved. He prepared a real military commander for the millions of troops on the front line.