Chapter 688 Dawn (18)
The choice Hoffman faced was also played out in the Kremlin a few days ago. The General Staff of the Red Army was divided into two factions, represented by Zhukov and Vasilevsky. A large number of people argued fiercely about the big solution and the small solution. Basically, everyone who participated in the ****** meeting spoke and expressed their opinions. After two days and one night of long discussions, Stalin finally approved Zhukov's plan with a final decision. Of course, there is a clear prerequisite for promoting this plan. It must be that the Central Asian strategy has achieved certain results, that is, it can only be carried out after the German army is fully mobilized.
In order to enhance the feasibility of Zhukov's plan, Stalin invested a lot of money and allocated 6 newly formed Guards Tank Brigades in one go. Among them, two tank brigades were fully equipped with the IS-1 heavy tanks that the Red Army had just produced, with each brigade having 58 tanks. This new tank, which had always been highly expected to compete with the Tiger tank, had gone through different stages of testing and development such as KV-13, KV-85 and IS-85, and finally matured and began mass production in September. The first batch was used to equip the new Guards Tank Brigade.
The other four brigades were equipped with the mass-produced model that had never appeared in history - T-43/85. Since Germany had not put the Panther tank into combat (the product had begun production), and the Tiger and No. 4 tanks had achieved remarkable success in combined operations, the Red Army borrowed and imitated the German army's ideas in terms of armored equipment, and also used heavy and medium tanks as a combination of concepts. The requirement for medium tanks was to restrain the German army's main force - No. 4H. Past encounters have fully proved that the T-34/76 is not very useful and is completely at a disadvantage in the face of the No. 4H. Although the T-43 had made many improvements in defense and equipment, its firepower was still weak. Finally, Marshal Voroshilov decided to install the same 85mm gun as the IS-1 on the T-43, forming a new model of T-43/85.
There was a debate within the Red Army on whether to produce T-34/85 or T-43/85. After demonstration and comparison, it was believed that although the T-43/85 was more difficult to manufacture, its performance was better than that of T-34/85, and the latter was finally chosen as the development channel.
The T-43/85 is larger than both the T-34 and T-43/76, and the number of crew members has increased to 5. Due to the hasty development work, there are still many imperfections in the T-43/85, but the anxious Stalin has no time to care about these and can't wait to use it. While he ordered continuous improvement, he also ordered the arsenals in the Ural direction to increase production efforts and transform the old T-34 production lines into new T-43/85 production lines as much as possible.
With the fall of the Caucasus oil fields and a large number of industrial areas, by the autumn of 1943, the Red Army had moved towards a different approach to military construction: no longer pursuing the absolute number of heavy equipment including tanks, but emphasizing improving performance while maintaining the minimum number. The reason is obvious. Whether it is oil or steel, the Red Army is no longer allowed to continue to build and maintain the scale of mass production of 20,000 to 30,000 tanks and armored vehicles per year. It must change from a sea of tanks to a strong and elite approach. Due to the heavy loss of human resources, the armored force reserves are also insufficient. Qualified armored soldiers cannot rush to the front line like infantrymen who can fire a rifle. They must be trained and trained, and training will inevitably consume the limited and very precious fuel and vehicle resources. To ensure the combat of the front-line troops, the resources and training of the reserve team can only be compressed.
If Hoffman knew, he would be impressed by how similar the historical process is. Stalin's current choice is the choice of Germany in history. It was simply that Stalin did not have to maintain a large submarine force, and no matter how sophisticated and quality-oriented Russian products were, their complexity could not be compared with German products, so the Red Army could be armed with more armored vehicles than Germany at the same time in history.
Taking tanks as an example, Stalin required the production of about 12,000 tanks per year in the future, of which 2,000 were IS-1-level heavy tanks, 6,000 were T-43/85-level medium tanks, and 4,000 were tanks equivalent to T-34/76 and their variants (such as SU-100\SU-76, etc.), which was half the number in history.
While the requirements for quantity were reduced, the requirements for performance were increasing day by day. The IS-1 was far from the perfect heavy tank in the Red Army's ideal - this title was reserved for the IS-2, which was equipped with a 122mm/43-caliber gun with a weight of just over 40 tons. The thickest part of the front armor exceeded 120mm and had an angle. According to the designer, both defense and firepower exceeded the German Tiger tank. Voroshilov had promised Stalin that the IS-2 would be mass-produced in January 1944, and the number would not be lower than the current IS-1 production level - 100 vehicles per month, and strive to increase it to 200 vehicles/month in the fall of 1944.
The IS-2 was not the end of the development of the Red Army's heavy tanks. The IS-3 heavy tank was also lying on the designer's drawing board. The gun would use the same 122mm as the IS-2, but the armor would continue to be strengthened, probably reaching the standard of 160mm, to counter the new heavy tanks that Germany might launch. The armor steel provided by the United States through the Far East route was almost all used in the heavy tank production line.
This point made them guess right. The 58-ton Tiger King tank, which was reduced in weight under Hoffman's strong suggestion, has completed all tests except the engine and gearbox, and all aspects have been well received. The 88mm/L71 tank gun performed particularly well. The only regret is that after increasing its weight by 10 tons, the Tiger King is inferior to the Tiger's relatively excellent mobility, but compared with the historical weight of 68-70 tons, its stability and mobility are obviously better.
Maybach had been criticized more than once by Field Marshal Keitel, who accused them of delaying the delivery of the 850-horsepower HL234 engine to production, and even the finalization work had not been completed, which delayed the production of the King Tiger. However, Hoffman and Speer believed that the top priority was to complete the transformation of the 1943 type and upgrade the production of the Panther tank as soon as possible. On the schedule of the Armament Department, May 1944 was a key node, which was not only the time when the 1943 armored divisions were fully repaired and refitted, but also the day when the production of the Panther tank was stabilized and the King Tiger tank began mass production.
Hoffman also proposed the revised requirements for the 1944 armored divisions, that is, after the production and performance of the Panther tanks are stable, the first batch of elite armored divisions will be re-equipped, and all their No. 4 tanks will be replaced with Panthers. The armored regiment of each armored division will be adjusted to 1 heavy tank battalion (Tiger) and 3 medium tank battalions (Panther, but the number of equipment in each battalion will be slightly less than that in the No. 4 period). The total number of tanks in the 1944 upgraded armored divisions at full strength is about 290-300.
The Supreme Command and the General Staff expect that the Tiger King equipped with the 850-horsepower HL234 engine can be put into service on schedule, and proposed to adjust the independent heavy armored battalion to the Tiger King tank in the future. Given that the 88mm/L71 gun equipped with the King Tiger was difficult to produce, and its yield rate was two orders of magnitude lower than that of the 56-caliber 88 gun, in order to take care of future production, Speer agreed to produce enough tank guns first and stockpile them after repeated requests from Keitel and Zeitzler. At the same time, he also expressed preliminary approval of the designer's suggestion to consider installing a modified 105mm/L68 tank gun and agreed to continue to improve the test.
With the advancement of the development of the King Tiger, Germany's subsequent development plan in the field of heavy tanks has become a blank. Whether it is the Lion, the Maus, or the P1000, Hoffman mercilessly killed the design draft on the first day it was submitted. His requirements were very clear. The subsequent focus was to promote the development of the E series armored vehicles and tap the potential of the soft equipment of the existing Tiger and Panther tanks - for example, it was required to have infrared night vision, two-way stabilization and firing on the move, and the development of various types of armor-piercing discarding sabots (APDS\APCR). Especially for armor-piercing shells, Germany actually has technical reserves, but due to resource limitations and shooting accuracy in the early stage, it has been working hard on artillery. Hoffman hopes to improve it in the next 1944.
In his mind, neither the 1943 nor the 1944 armored divisions are completely ideal armored divisions. His ultimate ideal is to be able to uniformly equip E45 tanks by 1946 or 1947, and use standard main battle tank thinking to solve the current difficulties in the use of heavy and medium tanks. For this reason, E45 is currently the focus of various tank manufacturers, and its standards are not generally high - it requires the firepower and defense of heavy tanks, the tonnage and mobility of medium tanks, and the production similar to the No. 4 tank and a universal chassis design that is easy to expand and transform. In the words of the designer, this is a "perfect" tank.
Of course, the production and model of tanks are not the focus now. The focus is how to deal with the Red Army's heavy attack on Central Asia. After receiving the situation report, Hoffman sent a telegram to Rommel, asking about the specific location of his army group and whether it is possible to retreat to the Caspian Sea to organize defense. Rommel's answer was very unsatisfactory. The main force of the Central Asian cluster is now located in the oasis center of the triangle surrounded by the three cities of Bishkek, Dushanbe and Tashkent.
This place is convenient for exerting influence on all parties and obtaining supplies nearby. The location is very good, but it is too far away - the straight-line distance to the Caspian Sea is about 1,300 kilometers...