Chapter 994 Double Cannon

After Malashenko said this, Kotin, who had not thought about it further, thought it was right.

After all, the Red Army had so many artillery pieces. If Malashenko just said an impossible caliber, it would be a waste of time. He should really provide Malashenko with several possible reference plans, at least there should be a comparison object.

Thinking of this, Kotin opened his briefcase without hesitation, took out a stack of documents, leaned forward slightly and handed them to Malashenko.

"At the beginning of the IS1 heavy tank project, the report you first submitted through General Zhukov gave me a lot of inspiration, including possible future firepower upgrades."

"The turret of the KV1 heavy tank has many unreasonable designs, especially in the replacement of a stronger main gun. These have been improved on the IS1 heavy tank. We have reserved sufficient space for the newly designed IS1 turret, and many possible firepower upgrades that were originally conceived have been taken into consideration."

"These are rough drafts of firepower upgrade plans. If there is no suitable one, we can discuss more specific plans together, Comrade Malashenko."

Malashenko took the thick stack of papers from Kotin. This thing, which is very heavy just in his hand, must not be simple. Malashenko began to guess what kind of future is prepared in it.

"I hope it's not too outrageous. As long as Kotin doesn't think about carrying 152, everything will be fine."

With a little trepidation, Malashenko gently opened the cover of the document, and the handwritten text data and hand-drawn sketches soon came into view.

Malashenko tried to read the details recorded on each piece of paper in detail, and some useless and complicated contents were simply skipped to save time.

About two minutes later, Malashenko, who had basically read the stack of papers, had basically come up with a plan in his mind, and then slowly spoke under Kotin's unblinking gaze.

"The navy's 100mm S-34 naval gun, this plan is very good, Comrade Kotin, how likely are we to implement this upgrade plan?"

Malashenko asked Kotin while tapping a plan paper he had taken out of it. Kotin, who knew what was recorded on it, did not seem to be very interested.

"This plan is one of our key considerations, but the current problem is that Grabin's team has not yet completed the improvement of this naval gun."

"We have contacted them before, and this will take a lot of time, which means that there is not enough production for us to use in the short term. If we choose this plan, the problem is that the tanks have to wait for new guns, which is unacceptable, Comrade Malashenko, you know what I mean."

The problem that Kotin mentioned is actually what Malashenko is worried about.

As in the original history, when the IS2 heavy tank was established, two main gun options of 100 mm and 122 mm were selected at the same time. In the end, because the production of 100 guns was too small to be supplied, the 122 gun was finally selected to be installed in order to quickly increase production and complete the replacement.

The 100 gun is good. The 100 gun, which was improved from the naval gun variant, is even the best tank gun of the entire Soviet Red Army in the Great Patriotic War.

It has excellent ballistic performance, high muzzle velocity, and armor penetration depth, which is on the same level as the German Long 88, and is only slightly inferior. And the use of 100mm fixed shells can save a lot of loaders' work intensity. The performance in all aspects is excellent. The comprehensive strength is above the short 88 and below the long 88, ranking between the two.

But the problem is that this thing is an imported product from the navy. It is not so easy to change the naval gun into a version that can be installed on a tank. The 130 naval gun that was tried before was directly installed on the car and boldly modified, which led to a tragedy.

The SU100Y, which has a bigger head than drinking poisonous milk powder, cannot be mass-produced at all. The poor performance even caused a failure in the comprehensive evaluation. After the previous lesson, the naval guns in the future must be more cautious. Malashenko and Kotin are very aware of this.

"It seems that it is too reluctant. After all, it is only the beginning of 1943. Let alone installing the 100 gun on the car, even the anti-tank gun version is probably still on the drawing."

Since the navy's is not good, how about our army's own?

Malashenko clearly knows that although the 122 gun is inferior to the 100 gun in many aspects, such as armor penetration depth, muzzle velocity, ballistic performance, and loading efficiency, the 122 gun is not completely useless and without advantages.

For example, the 122 gun has a larger caliber, more ammunition, and large-caliber armor-piercing shells have a high kinetic energy crushing effect on inclined armor, and the probability of ricochet is lower than that of small-caliber and long-caliber guns. These are the advantages of the 122 gun that cannot be ignored.

Especially when loading grenades to kill soft targets, the performance of the 122 gun is even better.

The 6 kilograms of TNT charge is more than twice the charge of the 100-gun grenade. Malashenko, who is very experienced in actual combat, knows clearly that the anti-personnel and anti-fortification battles he encounters are far more than twice as many as anti-armor battles. This can be seen from the ratio of high-explosive bombs and armor-piercing bombs on the vehicle.

In most cases, the number of armor-piercing shells carried in the vehicle is only half of that of high-explosive shells or even less. Efficient killing against soft targets and anti-fortifications is obviously more important.

As for the disadvantage of slow loading of the 122 gun, Malashenko does not think it is a fatal flaw.

For the Soviet Red Army, the armored cluster combat of large-scale tank units can make up for the defects caused by the loading time to the greatest extent.

There are always a few tanks that can enter the firing range at the same time. Most tanks with shells in the chamber are still in the state of looking for firing positions during maneuvers. When this tank enters the loading, there are always other tanks that can fire. This is not a single-vehicle shooting tank game.

It can be said that the more tanks in cluster combat, the smaller the impact of the linear exponential loading time will be.

Considering that the First Heavy Tank Brigade under his command is equipped with more than 100 heavy tanks. Malashenko does not think that the loading problem of the 122 gun will have a great impact. This has also been actually confirmed by the Soviet Red Army's iron torrent tactics in history, and there is no possibility of being questioned.

After thinking about all the causes and effects, pros and cons in his mind, Malashenko finally placed his bet on the 122 heirloom, and then turned to Kotin and spoke carefully again.