Five Hundred and Ninety One Monsters of the Soviet Union

On July 10th, in the hinterland of the Soviet Union, in the production workshop of Chelyabinsk, a tank was slowly driving out of the workshop. This was not a T-34 tank, but a tank even more Bigger, more powerful tanks. [For more exciting novels, please visit www.wuruo.com]

"Ivan, this is our latest design and production super T-34 tank. It has a famous name called Stalin." The engineer pointed to the tank triumphantly and said, "This is a test model. Wait until the quantity When it was produced, it was the most powerful tank in the world."

"In order to deal with the German 75mm and 88mm high-power armor-piercing projectiles, we have worked hard." The engineer pointed to the tank's artillery barrel and said: "Because of metallurgical problems, we cannot adopt a high-caliber design. To achieve the purpose of improving the armor-piercing power, so we can only increase the caliber of the artillery to achieve the goal of surpassing the power of the German artillery."

This artillery was modified from the army's 122mm caliber cannon. The successful anti-tank guns of this era seemed to be amateur artillery that became temporarily monks. Reminiscent of the power of the Germans using 88mm anti-aircraft cannons to anti-tank, you know how terrible the Soviet artillery is. In fact, if only discussing the destructive power of the artillery, the power of this artillery has surpassed the German Tiger tank in active service.

The main reason that forced the Soviet designers to use such a huge caliber artillery is that the Soviets have not been able to get a complete German Tiger tank so far. Therefore, the Soviets did not know what kind of power the German 88mm cannon had, so they had to increase the power of the artillery as much as possible to ensure that the next generation of tanks could surpass the German Tiger tank.

Therefore, the 85mm caliber artillery is not within the selection range, because it is inferred according to the level of metallurgical technology of the Soviet Union that it is completely unrealistic to rely on the 85mm caliber artillery to surpass the German 88mm cannon, so the Soviets had to use more powerful guns. caliber artillery.

Among the many options, three kinds of artillery were placed in front of the Soviet designers, namely the 100mm caliber artillery, the 122mm caliber artillery, and the 152mm caliber artillery.

The 152 mm caliber was the first to be ruled out. This kind of artillery was used on the KV-2 tank. Its performance on the battlefield and reputation were extremely poor. The rate of fire was too slow and would affect the volume of the tank’s turret.

Then the 100mm caliber gun was excluded. Although this kind of cannon is expected to be very powerful, and can be loaded in one piece, the rate of fire is more guaranteed, and the volume of the tank turret can also be further compressed.

But it is a pity that the reference version of this artillery BS3 anti-aircraft artillery is too large, and the recoil is also a headache.

Therefore, the final weapon selection of the Stalin tank determined the 122mm caliber artillery as the preferred weapon of this tank, and after a series of experiments and modifications, such a super tank with a tonnage of more than 45 tons was produced.

However, the Soviet tank technology is actually not particularly mature, so although this IS-2 tank looks gratifying, it still has many problems. Because the weight of the tank is really exceeding the standard, the speed of this tank is really not high. The driving speed on good roads does not exceed 40 kilometers per hour, and the off-road speed is even below 20 kilometers per hour.

And because the main gun modified by the 122mm cannon is used, part of the design of this cannon is also used. The shells still use sub-package ammunition, and because of the small internal space, the layout of these sub-package ammunition inside the tank is simply terrible. .

The warhead is basically placed inside the turret, but the propellant charges are placed under the floor, which is a disaster for the loader. The loader must first push the shell into the barrel, then bend down to open the floor, take out the propellant charge, straighten up to reload, and then close the breech block to complete the entire loading action. As a result, the battlefield fire rate of the IS-2 tank is only two rounds per minute, and the rate of fire may be even lower if you are not very skilled.

But the Soviets used the most primitive way to solve the problem of German tank superiority: they made trade-offs on the three important performances of tanks, and reordered them with their own understanding and the needs of the battlefield: they believed that the firepower of tanks was better than that of armor. Protection is important, and armor protection is more important than mobility.

"When will this kind of tank be mass-produced?" A general frowned and looked at this rough-looking tank, knocked on the tank's crooked fenders, and asked, "I'm talking about reaching every The monthly mass production level is 100 vehicles.”

"Comrade General." The Soviet designer named Ivan said in frustration: "The lathes and workers in Kyiv were intercepted by the Germans, which seriously affected the reconstruction of our tank factory here. We only It can be made by hand, and the output has not been able to meet the requirements.”

"Let's get to the point! When will we reach the monthly output of 100 vehicles?" The general frowned and snorted coldly, obviously not satisfied with the refusal of the engineer named Ivan: "This is in the name of our great leader Come to name the tank! If it cannot become a super weapon that changes the battlefield, do you know what the consequences will be?"

"Comrade General! We will work overtime for production, but we can only maintain the production scale of a dozen tanks per month. If we want to equip troops on a large scale, we will have to wait at least five months. The American machine tools and equipment are still available." Only when the corresponding raw materials are in place can we continue to increase production." Ivan said hastily.

The general nodded his head, acquiescing to this statement. He paused for a while before speaking again: "I don't care what method you use, prepare 300 of these tanks before winter comes, our counterattack plan has been approved, and these tanks must be in place on time to participate in the winter counterattack. "

"We promise to complete the plan!" The engineer named Ivan shook the general's hand and patted his chest. Valshilevsky, who was standing on the side, took the general away with a smile, and continued to introduce other parts of the entire tank production workshop. It also produces KV-2 tanks and T-34 tanks, with tens of thousands of workers.

...

On July 19, that is, nine days later, "My head of state, are you so sure that the Soviets are preparing to mass-produce a new type of tank? And the gun has a caliber of 122mm? This is a bit different from the caliber of the mainstream tank guns in the world today." Porsche Corporation The head of the frowned at the German intelligence service

At the German Wehrmacht Military Industry Development Conference, the information just obtained from the spy network "Hive" and the film submitted by the leader Hive personally even contained photos of this tank and various parameter data.

Guderian, the equipment director of the German armored forces and the expert representative of the front-line armored forces, was shocked by the data of this tank. Once this tank enters service, the T-34 will be able to compete with the German Tiger tank and Leopard tank. High and low combination. At that time, the losses of the German armored forces will skyrocket, and the amount of losses will be unbearable for Germany.

"My head of state, if this information is true, we must deal with it." Guderian frowned and looked at the photos of Soviet tanks, and finally said: "The advantage of our armored forces lies in the high quality of the soldiers. The cooperation is mature. This advantage is based on the performance of the tanks enough to save these crew members. Once the losses start to increase, the combat level of our armored forces will decline, and they will fall into a vortex of greater losses. .”

He paused, glanced at Akado, and continued: "If we and the Soviet Union fall into an inefficient competition of quantity consumption, it is likely to bring the war to a stalemate."

Akado did not expect that because of his improvement of the German armored forces, both the United States and the Soviet Union launched their own new generation of tanks faster than before, and because there was no technical difficulty, the design adopted targeted The trade-off allowed Soviet tanks to catch up with German tanks in such a short period of time.

But the good news is that Akado's technological development has not stopped, and it is even faster than the original German technology. Now he has at least two ways to improve the power of tank artillery. The 88mm caliber gun with a longer barrel with a larger diameter, and the other is to distribute new tungsten alloy armor-piercing projectiles for all tanks on the front line.

Moreover, the Soviet Union has not yet mass-produced this IS-2 tank, only a sample has been produced, and the progress is similar to that of the King Tiger tank being tested in Germany. Once the German King Tiger tank weighing more than 45 tons enters service, the advantage will immediately return to the German side.

But everyone knows that the era of relying on technological advantages to fight wars with almost zero casualties has passed, and now the weapons and equipment of the two sides are gradually approaching as a whole, unless Germany can come up with epoch-making weapons and equipment to change the war again mode, otherwise we can only endure the current situation.

"There is no good way, let the technical department start to act, first replace all the heavy tank destroyer battalions with new artillery, and then try to replace the 88mm 71-caliber long-barreled artillery before winter comes." Akado thought After thinking about it, he said to Krupp and the heads of some other technical departments: "On the other hand, the new artillery shells should also be distributed to the frontline troops. At least let the soldiers have an understanding of their new weapons."

After he finished speaking, he looked at Krupp: "The development speed of the 105mm tank gun must be accelerated! We will put the King Tiger tank into mass production in the next few months! In this era, if there is no progress, it will be Going backwards!"

"Understood!" Krupp nodded solemnly.

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