Chapter 1023 Sending Someone Away

The changes in the internal equipment are very gratifying, and the changes in the external armor are also exciting.

The original two-stage hull hand armor plate has now been replaced with a whole piece of 120 mm homogeneous steel armor plate with a large defensive inclination angle of 60 degrees. When facing full-caliber armor-piercing projectiles with horizontal trajectory, this solid and reliable hull front upper armor plate can provide an equivalent armor thickness of more than 220 mm.

Unfortunately, this hull front upper armor plate is not welded on, but is an integral cast armor cast from a mold, which is connected to the entire hull as a whole when it leaves the factory.

Integral cast armor has the advantages of cast armor. This manufacturing method can save a lot of costs and working hours, and save the waste of solder and cutting scraps needed for welding armor. It corresponds to the theoretical spirit of keeping everything simple in the wartime technical equipment manufacturing of the Soviet Red Army, and is in line with the core guiding ideology of drowning the enemy with the red ocean.

But compared with rolled homogeneous steel armor using welding technology, the biggest problem of integral cast armor is that the quality of the armor itself is not very reliable.

Because the mold used for casting constitutes the irregular shape of the armor itself, the one-time integral cast armor will inevitably have impurities and bubbles mixed in, and the armor defense coefficient is not as reliable as the German tank armor of the same level made by cutting, processing and welding. This is inevitable given the technical level of the Great Patriotic War.

This situation is obviously not good news for Malashenko, but considering the physical thickness of the IS2's upper front armor plate, it has reached an astonishing 120 mm tilted 60 degrees, so let alone the German short 88, even the Black Panther and the King Tiger can't penetrate this solid defensive armor with a large tilt angle. The so-called unyielding wall defense is basically like this.

In short, because of the influence of Malashenko's enhanced butterfly effect, Kotin has prepared the IS2, which was mass-produced in 1944, in advance this time. And as the newly finalized 122mm tank gun continues to expand its production scale, the total output of IS2 will only increase. The IS1 heavy tank, which is currently in mass production, can only be regarded as a transitional model.

Kursk, the largest bloody battle in the history of human warfare, is just around the corner. With the combined power of Father No. 1 and Father No. 2, Malashenko asked himself if he was finally confident and ready to fight the German zoo.

After receiving the new car, the next work and things to do were natural and very simple.

The 18 IS2 first batch production models delivered recently, except for Malashenko and Lavrinenko who each took one, the remaining 16 were all allocated to the first heavy tank battalion as the spearhead force, including the command vehicle of the battalion commander Kurbalov.

The remaining newly delivered IS1, including the second-hand old IS1 replaced by the first battalion, were all distributed in equal amounts to fill the remaining tank battalions, replacing those old and outdated KV1 heavy tanks.

After doing all the above, Malashenko found from the technical equipment report handed over by Lavrinenko that the Stalin Guards 1st Heavy Tank Brigade now only had a very small number of KV1 heavy tanks, while the number of IS1 and IS2 heavy tanks was the absolute majority, which was undoubtedly very exciting good news.

"What do you plan to do with the old KV1s that have been replaced? Do we keep them ourselves, or do you have any other ideas?"

Faced with Lavrinenko's question, Malashenko gave an answer after a little thought.

"Do we have enough manpower in our brigade now? I mean, are there enough crews to operate tanks?"

Lavrinenko could probably guess what his old classmate was thinking, and after a little thought, he answered again.

"If we don't count the newly arrived self-propelled howitzer battalion, we have enough manpower, and we can even say that we have a surplus."

"But now we are very short of manpower, and there are still a few SU152s that don't even have loaders, so we can only train with incomplete crew members."

"If you want us to use all the remaining KV1 heavy tanks, the manpower is obviously not enough. Now what? What are you going to do?"

As Lavrinenko guessed, Malashenko did plan to use all the KV1s to expand his strength.

But the very realistic problem is that the tank crews approved by the superiors have been used up, and Malashenko needs to choose between requesting another batch of tank soldiers or giving away this batch of old KV1 heavy tanks.

Assuming that this batch of old KV1s is included, the total number of heavy tanks that can be directly used in combat under Malashenko's brigade will reach or even exceed 160.

More tanks are certainly a good thing, but do you really need so many iron bastards? Or can these heavy tanks play their best role in battle?

After thinking for a long time, Malashenko finally felt that biting off more than he could chew was not a good thing.

From now on, the number of KV1 in his army will only decrease until it is completely eliminated by the father series.

In the upcoming Battle of Kursk, KV1 will be the bottom of the heavy tanks of both sides. Not only can it not beat the Tiger, but even the Black Panther can definitely beat the KV1 to the ground.

Malashenko felt that it would not only waste manpower and resources to equip these KV1s that were about to be swept into the garbage dump of history with complete crews and full supplies, but they would not be of much use when they arrived in Kursk. It would only add pressure to Karamov's logistics troops and give the Germans heads for free to brush up their records.

Thinking of this, Malashenko, who had made up his mind, turned around quietly again and asked Lavrinenko.

"Are there any friendly tank troops around us?"

Malashenko's sudden question actually stumped Lavrinenko, who was unprepared.

"Well, there should be. I remember that the 64th Army seemed to have a tank unit, but I don't know if that group of people drove T34 or KV1. What? Do you want to send it to them?"

Standing at the side of the training and preparation field, Malashenko could see the old KV1s that were being maintained and counted by Karamov's men not far away. The scars of the cruel war were clearly visible on these steel behemoths. Now it was time to find a better home for them.

"Most of the tanks sent to Stalingrad recently have been replenished to us. If we give these KV1s away, we should be able to gain a lot of favors. Anyway, we don't need them now, so let's arrange someone to contact them and ask them to send someone to pick up the vehicles."