Chapter 789 Bear Tank

Although the T-31 medium tank is good enough in design data, it can only be used as a regular main battle tank in the short term, and it is by no means a daunting behemoth in terms of tanks.

In order to make up for the shortcomings of armored forces in attacking and frontal combat, it is necessary to design a very large heavy tank.

In the design concept of heavy tanks, Australasia gave up the speed it has always pursued and changed the main design direction to firepower and armor protection.

The T-31A heavy main battle tank is the best answer given by the Royal Arsenal to the Ministry of Defense's heavy tank requirements.

Although it looks like the same model as the T-31 medium tank, the two tanks are similar in appearance, but the weapons they carry and the fundamental design concept are completely different.

The T-31A heavy main battle tank is called the Bear Tank within the Royal Arsenal. In fact, it is also easy to understand. The design concept of the T-31A heavy main battle tank is strong firepower and high protection, which is similar to animals like bears.

Of course, bears are one of the few relatively strong wild animals in the whole of Australasia (there are Alaskan brown bears in the territory of Alaska).

For this reason, when giving code names to tanks, Alaskan brown bears are also given priority, and the T-31A heavy main battle tank has also won the reputation of being the first tank with a code name in the history of Australasia tanks.

To be honest, Arthur was also very curious about this heavy tank that the Ministry of Defense was very satisfied with.

After seeing the specific design data submitted by the Ministry of Defense, Arthur finally understood why the generals of the Ministry of Defense were so satisfied.

The T-31A heavy main battle tank is 41 meters long, 45 meters wide, and about 93 meters high.

This is currently the largest tank in Australasia, with a conventional weight of 37 tons and a full-load combat weight of 45 tons.

In terms of weight alone, it has already crushed the tanks of this era. The reason for such an exaggerated weight is largely due to the special steel armor covering the entire body of the T-31A heavy main battle tank and the newly upgraded firepower system.

The entire tank can almost be said to have no defensive defects. The bottom of the vehicle, which had not received much attention in the past, was also covered with a layer of steel armor over 25 mm thick.

In the area where the tank was mainly hit, the thickest part of the armor reached 102 mm, and the thinnest part was 82 mm, which can be said to be the key area.

In other parts of the tank, it was still covered with a layer of armor ranging from 40 to 82 mm. The thickness of the armor varies according to the different explosion damage in each part.

But it is certain that the protection capability of the T-31A heavy main battle tank is at least several times higher than that of the previous generation of tanks, and even compared with the T-31 medium tank.

In terms of the firepower of the tank, the T-31A heavy main battle tank is equipped with an 88mm rapid-fire gun specially designed for it by the Royal Arsenal, with a firing rate of about 12 rounds per minute, which can be said to take into account both power and firepower.

Of course, ordinary tanks will not be so wasteful. After all, the number of shells carried by themselves and whether the base of the tank can withstand such a large-scale recoil limit the firing speed of the tank gun.

There are three types of shells equipped for this 88mm artillery, namely 88mm prv5 armor-piercing shells, which are specially used to smash the enemy's armored forces.

The second type is the 88mm explosive shell that focuses on lethality. There are a lot of iron pieces and steel balls inside the shells, which can cause a wider range of damage after the explosion.

The third type of shell is a more ordinary conventional 88mm shell, which has a relatively balanced armor-piercing and lethality, and its overall applicability is also a little higher.

With these three types of different shells, the lethality of the T-31A heavy main battle tank has been greatly improved.

Coupled with the great bonus of the heavy tank's load, the 88mm shell reserve alone has reached 72 rounds, allowing this heavy tank to kill the enemy unscrupulously on the battlefield without any worries.

In terms of secondary weapons, the T-31A heavy main battle tank is completely different from the previous tanks.

Most of the previous main battle tanks chose a combination of artillery and machine guns, and the T-31A heavy main battle tank not only has a secondary artillery on this basis, but also increases the number of machine guns.

At the rear of the tank, there is a 20mm machine gun that can only rotate 180 degrees. This gun is the main weapon of the Cromwell I tank, which can already prove the strength of the T-31A heavy main battle tank in terms of firepower.

Of course, the 20mm machine gun has a small reserve of shells, only 45 rounds. The machine gun designed at the rear of the tank is mainly used to preemptively carry out fire coverage when the main gun cannot respond in time to prevent dangerous situations in certain specific situations.

In addition, this machine gun can also make up for some deficiencies in the light power of the T-31A heavy main battle tank and enhance the killing of infantry units.

In addition to the two large and small guns, the T-31A heavy main battle tank also has a total of 3 machine guns, 2 in the front and 1 in the back, which further enhances the killing ability of infantry units.

The machine gun bullet reserve has also been greatly improved compared to all previous tanks, reaching 5,200 rounds.

With these weapons and equipment and the reserve of shells and bullets, the T-31A heavy main battle tank can be said to be the tank with the most firepower at present. It can not only easily destroy the enemy's tanks, but also cause terrible damage to other enemy troops.

The reason why the Ministry of National Defense praises the T-31A heavy main battle tank is that in addition to the excellent design data of the T-31A heavy main battle tank, its sample experiments are also convincing.

Yes, long before the Ministry of National Defense reported the design of the T-31A heavy main battle tank to Arthur's desk, the Ministry of National Defense and the Royal Arsenal conducted experiments on this tank.

It's just that Arthur had other things to do at the time, so he didn't participate in the experiment of this tank, and he didn't witness the moment when this tank showed its excellent performance.

In fact, with its powerful artillery and heavy armor, the test results of the T-31A heavy main battle tank cannot be bad.

If there is a problem, it may be whether the power system of the T-31A heavy main battle tank can drive the entire tank forward stably.

But considering that the company that provides engines for the Royal Arsenal's tank construction is the Diesel Engine Research Laboratory, which has the ability to build aviation engines, this question actually has a positive answer long ago, that is, it can definitely drive.

Of course, as mentioned before, when this tank was designed, the previous concept of pursuing speed was abandoned.

This also led to the T-31A heavy main battle tank having the lowest speed among the new generation of tanks, and even inferior to the previous generation of main battle tanks.

According to the design data and predictions provided by the Royal Arsenal, the maximum speed of the T-31A heavy main battle tank can reach 30 kilometers per hour, and the stable travel speed is only 20 kilometers per hour.

In the preliminary test, the maximum speed can indeed reach 30 kilometers per hour, and even on extremely flat roads, it has reached 32 kilometers per hour many times.

But in the stable speed test, the performance of the T-31A heavy main battle tank is still somewhat less than expected.

The data predicts that it can reach a stable travel speed of 20 kilometers, but this data only appears occasionally on relatively flat roads.

In the simulated battlefield environment and on the bumpy road, the stable speed of the T-31A heavy main battle tank dropped to 15 kilometers per hour and 18 kilometers per hour respectively, which is still a certain distance from the design data.

This is actually normal. After all, there is still a big gap between the flat road and the simulated battlefield environment. The speed of cars on different roads is different, not to mention the larger and heavier tanks.

And considering the powerful firepower and excellent armor protection capabilities of the T-31A heavy main battle tank, the small defects in speed can actually be ignored.

For Australasia, there may be two main battlefields for future wars. One is the place where World War II broke out in history, that is, the troubled Europe.

The other is the only competitor of Australasia in the Pacific, which is also a powerful island country with serious military strength.

There is actually no need to say much about the island country. The battlefield with the island country is either on the islands in the Pacific or on the island country's homeland.

Most of the time, tanks do not play a big role, relying more on the powerful firepower of the navy and the air support of the air force.

The main battlefield of the Australasian tanks is still in Europe. Europe is the region with the most complete infrastructure at present. Both Western Europe and Central Europe have dense and complete road systems, which are ideal flat areas.

When the T-31A heavy main battle tank arrives in Europe, it can use these roads to travel, which can greatly reduce the time required on the road.

This can also make up for some shortcomings of the T-31A heavy main battle tank in terms of speed. It is precisely because of these reasons that the T-31A heavy main battle tank has fully met the expectations of the Ministry of Defense and Arthur for heavy main battle tanks, and Arthur naturally agreed to the Ministry of Defense's procurement plan for these tanks.

Having said that, because it was already the second half of 1931, it was very close to the war that Arthur imagined.

I dare not guarantee that there will be a few years, but it is likely that Australasian will not have time to develop the next generation of tanks before the war comes.

In other words, by the outbreak of World War II or even in the middle of the war, the tanks that Australasian can rely on are likely to be three different styles of tanks of this generation.

Because of this, the Ministry of Defense purchased a large number of these three types of tanks.

In the order for purchasing tanks signed by Arthur, the Ministry of Defense purchased a total of 1,025 tanks.

Among them, there were 153 Cromwell I tanks. These 153 light tanks will be dismantled and organized into three tank divisions to form reconnaissance tank units for each tank division.

As the main force of tanks, the Ministry of Defense will purchase 637 T-31 medium tanks, most of which will be used to replace the main battle tanks that are obviously outdated in the 1st and 2nd tank divisions, and a small number will be kept as inventory.

As for the T-31A heavy main battle tank, the Ministry of Defense gave a purchase quantity of 235. According to the plan given by Defense Secretary Thomas, most of these 235 tanks will be replaced by the 3rd Tank Division, and the 3rd Tank Division will be transformed into a heavy tank unit in Australasia.

This tank unit will be mainly responsible for attacking and destroying enemy tanks, attacking important enemy defense locations, etc. during the war.

The remaining few heavy tanks will be used as warehouse reserves to facilitate timely replacement when serious problems occur in the tanks in the army.

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