Chapter 1568 Does It Work?

Rubber is as important to war as blood in the human body.

Without it, you can't even fight a decent hot weapons war, and all kinds of heavy equipment will be difficult to move and become a pile of scrap metal.

Rubber is so important, but in a sense, this military necessity created by nature is the sorrow of the Soviet Union.

Located in the high-latitude zone, there is no large area of ​​rubber planting in the Soviet Union. Natural rubber has never been available to the Soviet Union since God drew lots to divide the land.

In addition, the blockade and siege of imperialism and European powers in the early days of the Soviet Union, and the more severe sanctions imposed by Europe after the end of the Soviet-Finnish War, made it difficult for the Soviet Union, which did not produce rubber itself, to purchase and import it from foreign countries, forcing the newly born Soviet Union to start trying to extract and synthesize artificial rubber early.

The Soviet Union first synthesized artificial rubber in 1931, and large-scale production was scheduled for the following year, 1932. The military rubber that can really play an important supporting role in the war was officially developed in 1940, the last year before the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War. Its name is chloroprene rubber.

Chloroprene rubber has many advantages. It has excellent oxidation resistance, durability, fire resistance, corrosion resistance, and dissolution resistance. The most important thing is that it is not flammable and can extinguish itself after catching fire.

The Soviet military industry, which was overjoyed, immediately put chloroprene rubber into many uses, such as self-sealing fuel tanks for aircraft, road wheels for tanks, etc.

This time, Comrade Lao Ma also set his sights on artificially synthesized chloroprene rubber.

However, Comrade Lao Ma's advantage of this thing is not that it can be used to strengthen road wheels to reduce shock for tanks. The shock-absorbing effect of the rubber supported by the Americans on road wheels is much better than this thing.

What Malashenko really likes about chloroprene rubber is its excellent fire resistance and non-flammability. In addition, it is also the inherent property of rubber. This easily reminds people of a world-famous future main battle tank: the T72B main battle tank.

It's funny to say that the T72, which is regarded as a general military vehicle and has a much lower project weight than the T80 series main battle tanks, has even been "differently treated" in the application of armor materials.

The ceramic composite armor used in the T80 series was not approved for use on the T72. The reason is very simple: the cost of advanced protective materials is too high, and the design positioning of the T72 itself is not enough to support the use of such luxurious materials.

After the application was rejected, the R&D and design team of the T72 main battle tank could only settle for the second best and began to seek a cheap ordinary material to strengthen the tank protection. The final answer they found was fireproof rubber.

How to explain to Kotin that rubber can enhance the protective effect of tank armor against chemical energy metal jets is a headache for Malashenko now.

It is definitely not appropriate to talk directly with armor configuration. I have no evidence and I can't turn a piece of composite armor mixed with rubber into Kotin out of thin air and point it out. After thinking carefully for a while, I finally found a statement that I thought was okay and slowly spoke.

"First, let's assume that a layer of fireproof rubber is sandwiched between two steel armor plates. This is a new type of armor."

"Then, we use chemical energy armor-piercing shells to try to shoot at this armor target plate. After the metal jet penetrates the first steel armor plate and contacts the rubber interlayer in the middle, what effect do you think will be produced at this time?"

Armor-piercing shells are actually not new things and have appeared a long time ago. As the top heavy tank master of the Red Army, Kotin naturally knows its working principle and understands what Malashenko means by metal jet. This is not something difficult to understand.

After tilting his head and thinking for a while, Kotin's answer came out quickly.

"The rubber interlayer will not be able to withstand the high temperature of the chemical energy metal jet. Even the fire-resistant rubber will melt into a fluid and will not have any defensive effect."

Pure rubber will definitely not be able to withstand the bombardment of ultra-high temperature metal jets. This is indeed the case with inertial thinking.

However, the idea proposed by Malashenko is a sandwich structure composite armor with a layer of rubber in the middle and steel plates inside and outside. At this time, we can't just consider the defensive effect of the rubber itself against the metal jet, you also have to take into account the existence of the two steel plates inside and outside.

"That's right. It's true for pure rubber facing metal jets, but we are now assuming that there are two pieces of armored steel sandwiching the rubber in the middle, and the layers are glued together with adhesive, which is a stable fixed state."

"Compared to armored steel, rubber is soft, impact-resistant, highly elastic, and can disperse the force of metal jets, while armored steel has good toughness, high ductility, and is strong and reliable. What we have to do is to combine the characteristics of these two different substances, so that their advantages coexist and enhance the defense effect against metal jet armor-piercing shells."

"This three-layer structure of armor plates needs to be arranged at an angle to achieve better results. The metal jet will cause serious damage to the armor itself in the process of penetrating the armor. The tilted armor is severely deformed and moves violently, causing a relative cutting movement between the layers, just like the volcanic eruption of the earth and the rotation of the planet will form rolling uplifted mountains."

"Well, I know there may be something wrong with my description, but that's what it means. I just want you to understand that this new type of armor arranged at an angle will have a cutting effect on the metal jet, which will seriously affect the remaining armor-breaking ability of the metal jet "

"Our Red Army has good inclined armor designs for both heavy and medium tanks. This armor layout idea is readily available. Especially at large inclination angles, such as 60 degrees, it can achieve very good cutting of metal jet motion. The effect, I call it the inclination effect, it’s my own name.”

At the end of the speech, Malashenko felt a little confused and spread his hands in embarrassment, indicating that he had only so much to say and hoped that Kogin could understand.

Facing Malashenko who had an expression of "I've finished speaking, it's your turn", Kogin, who couldn't see anything special or unusual from his face or expression, first lit a cigarette for himself and puffed out a puff of smoke between his hands. After thinking for a while with a cigarette in his pocket, he slowly and leisurely spoke to Malashenko.

"Will this work? Will it work as well as you say it will?"

Malashenko probably guessed that Kotin might ask this question, but to be honest, without actual testing, Malashenko could only say everything that should be said to Kotin. There is no other way.

"Is this design reasonable? Of course, because it has feasible theoretical support. So is it useful? No one can say until it is tested. You will know if you try it. Any new weapon must be tested before a conclusion can be drawn, and the same goes for armor. "