Chapter 411 Frozen Soil (5)

Karius's worries became a reality. After he led the Tiger tanks to the front, a Stalker company and an infantry company happened to be defeated. According to their description, they lost a total of 5 Stalkers. But only one new Russian tank was destroyed.

This is a typical misuse of tank destroyers after excessive excitement. The armor of this flexible and fire-powerful destroyer is too weak. It usually uses a circle to deal with heavy tanks - using its own mobility advantage to find the opponent's target. Attacking from the side and rear has been a common tactic used by German tank destroyers to deal with the KV series in the past period. But the KV-3 is more maneuverable than the clumsy KV-1. Although the engine and the ill-matched gearbox often have problems, this obviously does not include these current tanks - those with poor mechanical performance were scrapped last night. Moreover, the use of this tactic requires more favorable conditions, such as the opponent's small number of heavy tanks, the opponent's relatively mechanical use of tanks, etc., but obviously the remnants of Bubnov's Guards Tank Brigade do not fall into this situation.

Precisely because of the lack of power of the Stalker, relevant parties have been trying to upgrade this equipment, proposing to build the No. 4 assault gun (tank destroyer) based on the No. 4 tank chassis and based on the No. 3 assault gun idea. Theoretically, the No. 4 assault gun The No. 3 destroyer should have better defense and stronger firepower, but the actual effect is very bad, far less successful than the No. 3 assault gun: the 75mm/70L long-barreled gun it wants to carry is very troublesome to produce, not only taking up a lot of rare metal resources but also The requirements for machining accuracy are high, which was finally cut off by Speer. The second best option was to install the 75mm/L48 tank gun, which would be better than directly producing the No. 4 tank. The designers also tried to install the 88mm/L56 tank on the No. 4 chassis. gun, and finally found that the No. 4 chassis was difficult to bear due to the overweight and the rear seat. In the end, a unanimous opinion was reached - the Panzer IV chassis was only used to produce tanks.

Some people have also proposed using the 3/4 universal chassis to produce fighter vehicles. However, since the production of the No. 3 chassis has been completely stopped in Germany, it is really unnecessary to restart the production of an independent chassis. With the integration of the Axis military industry, Italy will soon be able to switch to the production of Type III chassis and assault guns, and then use the Type 3/4 universal chassis to produce tank destroyers of the same level as Type III assault guns or stalkers. It is purely unnecessary. Mussolini was very keen on the No. 4 tank production line, but Italy's technical level could not keep up. After evaluation, experts pointed out ruthlessly: "Producing the No. 3 assault gun is the most suitable for Italy."

The pursuit of a more powerful tank destroyer has always been the common wish of the frontline and engineers. Except for the No. 4 chassis, the only one that can be effectively used now is the Tiger chassis, on which the arsenal has installed the powerful 88mm/L70 artillery ( Turretless type), the frontal armor has been strengthened by 15mm, the side armor has also been slightly strengthened, and the overall weight is more than 2 tons lighter than the Tiger. I have already thought of a name, and I decided to call it the "Tempest" destroyer (readers please do not confuse it with the historical Jagdtiger destroyer). But now that the Tiger tank has a huge advantage over Allied tanks, reproducing the Tiger destroyer is completely wasteful and will interfere with Tiger production. Hoffman stopped the idea - the Tempest destroyer is only researched but not produced.

Everyone pondered over it, and then came up with the idea of ​​installing an 88mm/L56 gun on the T-34 chassis with the intention of giving it a try. This time they achieved great success. The load-carrying performance of the T-34 chassis was better than that of the No. 4 The chassis is better. With the frontal armor strengthened to 75mm/60-degree inclination and the side armor thickened by 10mm, the weight of this destroyer is controlled at 30 tons, and its maneuverability is also very ideal. Engineers also tried to install an 88mm/L70 gun and found that although the firepower was significantly enhanced, the overall comprehensive performance was not as good as the former. This tank destroyer based on the T-34 chassis was named "Assaulter", but there was no confirmation on whether it would be produced. "The Raiders" were deeply divisive.

Those who support the continued production of tanks believe that although the overall performance of the T-34/76 tank has lagged behind the Type IV H tank, it is at least a medium-sized tank with not bad performance and can be used comprehensively by armored forces. Its range of application is greater than Tank destroyers are much more widespread; and those who support the conversion to Raider destroyers believe that in addition to eliminating the factors of outdated performance of the T-34/76, changes in the battlefield situation should also be considered: as the campaigns in the Middle East and Africa come to an end, large-scale armor will be needed in the future. The target of the war can only be the Red Army, and the continued production of T-34/76 cannot be effectively distinguished. Starting from April, the Panther tank will gradually enter the mass production stage, and the demand for the continued production of T-34 tanks will be further reduced, but The performance of the Assaulter is far stronger than that of the No. 3 assault gun or the Stalker.

Hoffman agreed with the proposal to produce the Raider, but he did not want the troops to be equipped with three different models of assault gun III, Stalker and Raider at the same time, with close positioning. In the end, the Ministry of Armament made a decision, based on the previous research and development. As a result, the 38T chassis was converted to carry 150mm caliber howitzers, the Cricket H-type self-propelled artillery was produced and assigned to infantry support operations, and the production of Stalkers was gradually discontinued, reducing the production of towed artillery of this caliber.

Therefore, Karius, who led his troops in pursuit, not only saw the stalker, but also the "Cricket" self-propelled artillery, which was extremely rare at this time - it was mixed with the stalker, about the same size, but with completely different characteristics. .

"How many tanks do you estimate the enemy has?"

The lieutenant in charge of the opposite team thought seriously and said: "I only saw 9, but I estimate there are about 15-20, and no anti-tank guns were found."

"Leave it to us, let the Tigers deal with them." Carius smiled confidently, "I saw you still have self-propelled howitzers, please help us deal with those infantry."

"No problem." The lieutenant nodded.

With Carius's second row as the lead, the company's 14 Tigers launched an attack in a standard wedge-shaped attack formation. He risked opening the tank hatch and used huge binoculars to observe the battlefield described by the hunters to find those hidden Russian tanks. Through battlefield cleaning and prisoner interrogation, the 506th Armored Battalion already knew that the opponent belonged to an elite force such as the 11th Guards Heavy Tank Brigade, and even learned that this was the Red Army Base Camp Reserve that had just been transferred not long ago, which made it more determined to wipe them out.

Carius searched very carefully, almost inch by inch, and finally found a group of Red Army tanks at the edge of a depression. It was an area covered with light snow and dotted with dry grass. The Russians were probably scared by the incendiary bombs and did not dare to look for places with lush vegetation this time.

"One, three... no, six." In addition to the tanks, Carius also saw a group of Red Army infantry pouring out from the side, and the number seemed to be quite large. He began to wonder: What are these guys thinking? Why don't they just retreat?

Karius didn't understand why the other side continued to stay in this area. Bubnov on the opposite side was even more distressed than him: the German attack last night caught him off guard. The fuel trucks prepared for the troops were destroyed by incendiary bombs. In addition to the overnight retreat, his tanks generally only had one-third to one-quarter of the fuel left. If he retreated directly without caring about anything, these tanks would definitely break down on the road. He had to find sufficient diesel supplies to have a way out. He didn't even have the idea of ​​capturing the enemy's troops - German tanks all used gasoline, and the Red Army's tanks, starting from the T-34, were all diesel vehicles, which could not be used interchangeably.

Just when Bubnov was worried about fuel, the troops encountered the attacking Hunters. After repelling the Germans with great effort, the fuel of all tanks was reduced to the lowest level. The only good news was that he contacted a Red Army infantry division, which was also the remnant of the retreat from Iran. He thought he was surrounded by German tanks, but he was happy after finding out that it was the tank brigade of the Guards. The division commander Colonel Maxim said that he still had some diesel to provide to the tank brigade. The only request was that the tank troops could lead the way and withdraw his troops to Baku.

Bubnov wanted this very much. The infantry assigned to him had been almost destroyed in yesterday's battle. Tanks alone without infantry cooperation were not enough to break out of the siege. Now the troops had lost contact with Lieutenant General Mezhov's army headquarters, and they didn't know what their mission and tasks were. Everyone was preparing to retreat to Baku to continue fighting based on instinct and the desire to survive.

"Didn't they say there were 15 or even more? Why did I only see 6?" After closing the hatch, Carius began to talk to himself.

Faced with an unknown enemy situation, he did not rush to attack. He asked his comrades behind him to wait for a moment, and he led only 4 tanks of his platoon to rush to the right path, which was more than 1,500 meters away from the depression. He was sure that the shells of the Russian tanks could not penetrate him. After passing through a bush, the tank drove onto a hill. With the ups and downs of the terrain, his vision suddenly widened, but he was also shocked: there were two tanks parked less than 400 meters to the right, with the muzzles facing his tank. Just now, due to the cover of the bushes, no one noticed the other party.

The Red Army was also shocked. They did not expect that after repelling the enemy's tank destroyer, another German armored force would come to attack, and it was the terrifying Tiger tank. More importantly, Carius discovered that the two tanks were still standing still, and seemed to have turned off their engines - in fact, this was a last resort taken by the enemy to prevent the fuel from being consumed too quickly.

Just as both sides were stunned by this sudden encounter, Carius was the first to react: the Tiger tank quickly turned right, and the turret turned even faster, and a close-range armored battle was about to break out...