afterglow

Chapter 214 Laizhou Proving Ground;
"How does it feel to come out?"

"That's needless to say, it must be comfortable."

At dusk the next day, Zhou Changfeng walked out of the prison together with a civilian major in navy uniform.

The latter's name is Luo Fu. As a civil servant, his specific official position is to assist in the management of the mobile equipment of the Navy Department in the capital. Simply put, it is to help manage the various vehicles of the Navy Department in the capital.

He and Qin Zizhen were the ones who were ordered to find Zhou Changfeng in Toulouse last time. As acquaintances of the same faction, there was no estrangement between them.

"Sir Zhou, you can no longer talk to yourself in the future," Luo Fu sincerely reminded: "The temper of a big man is unpredictable. Tolerance once is magnanimous, but it doesn't mean that there will be a next time. Repeatedly and again. That would be conniving."

Generous?

I find it funny that you say that Zhu Lingjing is a magnanimous woman!

Zhou Changfeng nodded with a wry smile, but did not speak.

An ordinary Xunlei [-] off-road vehicle was parked beside the gate of Qixia Prison, but it had an indigo license plate, indicating that it was a government vehicle.

The crimson license plate is for the army, the turquoise license plate is for honorable persons, and the dark black license plate is for the police. The font color is all white, while ordinary civilian license plates are black on a white background.

I don’t know if it’s because he’s seen too much, Zhou Changfeng has always felt that the civilian license plates with blue background and white characters are not very attractive, but now the Ming government uses this ugly blue background and white characters, and the civilian license plates have become white background with black characters, but Very pleasing to the eye.

The two drove all the way to the pier, crossed the river by ferry, and then arrived at Jiangbei Railway Station.

Because I'm not in a hurry, there's no need to fly.In other words, don’t dare to fly on the grounds of “official business” arbitrarily, otherwise you will be easily impeached.

This is like using [-] miles to expedite at will in ancient times. In the Ming Dynasty, usually important official documents or military information were delivered through the "urgent delivery shop", which was delivered step by step through the manpower of the store, and it could be transmitted [-] miles a day and night. , but occasionally there are people who change people without changing horses. If you use this without authorization, you will be impeached by the Taoist officials.

Waste of national resources, if you don't do it, who will you do?I am worried that this year's target has not been completed yet. Isn't this a reward for political achievements?

When boarding the car, Zhou Changfeng was surprised when he saw Luo Fu following him, "Huh? Are you going too?"

The former had an expression of "what are you thinking?" He pointed around, "Brother, you are a prisoner now, why are you running outside alone?"

"No, I mean... can't you change to someone else? Don't you still have your job?"

"Don't underestimate people," Luo Fu said solemnly, "For those who specialize in motor vehicles, you should know that this Laizhou proving ground has new heavy-duty trucks in addition to evaluating chariots."

There are three types of trucks widely equipped by the Ming army. One is the Ford G917 truck, and the other is the [-]-type six-wheel light truck and the [-]-type six-wheel medium truck.

Although the latter two have six wheels, the former has two axles and a standard load of one and a half tons; the latter has a larger and stronger chassis with three axles and a standard load of two and a half tons.And this is only the load under field conditions. In fact, if the road conditions are good, such as driving on a concrete road, it can even be doubled.

In addition, there are some special-purpose heavy trucks, which are mainly used to transport tanks, or to load some particularly heavy things.The Ming Army is currently using GPE-2 heavy trucks from the French Bellier company, with a load of up to nine tons, and more than 700 trucks have been imported successively so far.

Obviously, this is far from meeting the needs of Ming Dynasty itself. Even though it is true that the automobile industry of Ming Dynasty is weak, the Ming army cannot accept the fact that the country does not have its own heavy trucks.

Therefore, several automobile manufacturers are working hard on their own research, and this time is the time to test the results.

After getting off the train in Jinan and then taking a car to Laizhou Prefecture, after more than two days, the two finally arrived at the largest army weapons experiment center in Ming Dynasty on the evening of the [-]th.

The nature of the Laizhou Proving Ground is basically the same as that of the Aberdeen Proving Ground in the United States, but there is no task of training ordnance maintainers here.

"It's 22 miles from north to south, and [-] miles from east to west. However, some places are divided according to mountains and rivers, so it can only be said to be approximately a square."

As it was getting late, several officials led Zhou Changfeng and Luo Fu to the place where they were staying, and introduced them by the way.

Luo Fu has been to this place several times, and he is used to it, but Zhou Changfeng is still a little puzzled.

He looked at Luo Fu who was making tea, and asked, "It's only twenty or thirty miles long at most, so it can't be tested for long-range artillery."

The latter ignored the tea and started to pick up the teacup, and took a big sip, "You don't know this? The experiments on long-range bombardment are basically done in the northwest, Yunnei County."

Yunnei County, also known as Tuoketuo County in later generations.It was abolished during the Jiajing period, and it was restored in the Later Ming Dynasty after a hundred years.

Considering the convenience of transportation, the Ming army set up the comprehensive test site in Laizhou, but some special equipment tests will also choose another place.

Some large-caliber cannons often have a range of 20-30㎞, and it is naturally difficult to find suitable vast land for experiments in the area east of the Hu Huanyong line.

In addition, there are some shady chemical and biological things, and it must be placed in a remote place, the better.

Luo Fu seemed to be a very particular person, and he complained about the environment of the place where he stayed for a long time, sloppy here, outdated there.

Compared with him, Zhou Changfeng is not so picky—it takes a night to lay a tarpaulin on the ground and wrap it in an army blanket, and it is also a night to set up a tent and lie on a camp bed. There are electric fans, lights, and running water here. What do you want?

He adjusted the electric fan, turned off the light, and then carefully went to bed in a normal lying position. "This is already very good. During wars, you can only camp on the spot."

"Using the sky as a quilt and the ground as a seat, the battle is really hard." Luo Fu on the other bed seemed to feel the same way, but then he made a 180-degree turn, "It's a pity that I am a clerk, and I have never tasted such hardships. "

In the dark, he found the teacup on the bedside table. Zhou Changfeng, who had just taken a sip, almost spit out. He coughed and said, "Ahem... what you said... When the Marine Regiment expands in the future, come over and experience the 'Heaven is the quilt,'" The ground is the seat'."

"There will be wars in the future, and we will have to travel thousands of miles to Nanyang. It's so comfortable to stay in the capital, why bother?"

"That's up to you, I'll apply directly when the time comes." Zhou Changfeng said with a smile.

"Hold your hand high, Mr. Zhou..." Luo Fu with a bitter face said depressedly: "I have thin arms and legs, and my body is weak. If I contract malaria in Nanyang, I'm afraid I will leave a pair of orphans and widows."

"What are you afraid of? It's Nanyang. You can get as much Kinney as you want."

"Don't do it."

In the darkness, Zhou Changfeng rolled his eyes and said quietly, "You can keep some extra spoils with special approval."

Hiss, this seems to be really tempting. Luo Fu thought of his wife who spent money like water, and suddenly he was a little shaken.

He hesitated: "Then...we'll see the situation..."

Get it!

The idea of ​​pulling people was not Zhou Changfeng's whim, he had such thoughts on the way of these two days.

Luo Fu's professionalism in the operation of automobiles and armored vehicles is very good. Considering that all kinds of vehicles will inevitably be captured in the process of attacking the Nanyang region in the future, it is naturally excellent to be able to make good use of them.

Trucks transported from the mainland still take up valuable transportation capacity; and the captured armored vehicles can also be modified to continue to function, such as installing anti-tank guns and anti-aircraft guns on their chassis, and converting them into self-propelled artillery.

In history, after the Germans conquered Tobruk, faced with the mountains of captured British military supplies, they made good use of these spoils, and the African Legion became rich overnight.

In terms of tactics, let go of your hands and feet and fight with all your strength. In terms of strategy, you might as well plan carefully. This is what Zhou Changfeng has always insisted on.

In the next few days, military officers or technicians who came from all over the country to participate in the evaluation arrived one after another, and several tank and truck samples for testing also arrived.

In the early morning, the military column came to a slow stop. On a series of flatbed trucks mounted on it, the large tanks were tightly wrapped in canvas, and there were several escort guards standing in front of and behind them.

In fact, there is no need for the evaluators to come to see things and unload the truck, but everyone felt bored, so they came early in the morning to watch the excitement.

Impressively, I saw a big sign hanging on the outside of the canvas package, with four big red characters "Superior Exceeding Limits" written from right to left.

Immediately there was a sound of searching among the onlookers.

"So what is the width of this thing, and how is it?"

"Look, the tracks protrude from both sides of the scooter. This six-axle scooter is 304 centimeters wide. It is estimated that the chariot is 320 centimeters wide and facing upwards."

"So much over the limit? Trouble."

The so-called "overrun" refers to a term for train freight, which means that the width, height, and weight of the goods carried exceed the conventional limits. In later generations, there are three levels: first, second, and super.

Armored vehicles are naturally much larger than ordinary things, so a series of special vehicles such as tanks, armored vehicles, and self-propelled artillery need to adopt special transportation rules when transporting them.

an hour later.

Several trial-produced combat vehicles were finally successfully unloaded. The two Type [-] vehicles of Yangyue Company and the two Type [-] vehicles of Yanjing No. [-] Heavy Machinery are now undergoing inspections before the test and are being refueled.

They are all painted with a khaki paint, which means that they are test objects.

A series of canvas sheds were set up on the side of this test site, and the evaluators gathered here received the technical detailed sheets of the two manufacturers on their respective works.

Ever since, everyone started talking about it all at once.

"The fuel consumption per [-] miles is [-] liters? Is it a typo?"

"That's road fuel consumption, and off-road, it's about 250 liters per [-] miles."

"Grass?"

"The big guy must be drinking a lot of oil, ten cylinders and three hundred horsepower, it's not a toy."

In terms of appearance, the design of the two prototypes is quite different.

Type 80 car is riveted turret and body, equipped with 7.36mm short barrel gun, three 300mm machine guns in parallel machine gun, turret top machine gun, and car body heading machine gun; suspension is leaf spring, independent, that is, five large diameter load-bearing wheels; powered by a 26-horsepower ten-cylinder air-cooled gasoline engine; empty weight [-] tons.

The Type II vehicle has a cast turret and a riveted body. It is more rounded in appearance. It is equipped with a 48 mm long barrel gun and also has three machine guns. The suspension is a leaf spring and balanced. group; power is also 300 horsepower gasoline engine; empty weight 29 tons.

As for the thickness of the armor, the requirement given by the Ordnance Bureau is that it can defend against the armor-piercing shells of 500mm anti-tank guns or the delayed high-explosive shells of 37mm field guns at a distance of 75m.

This is actually the easiest to achieve, but it is also the most difficult to weigh. It seems that a pile of steel plates is enough, but the subsequent sharp increase in weight and increased manufacturing difficulty will cause many problems.

In Zhou Changfeng's opinion, the designs of the two are not satisfactory. He is not an expert in this field. He doesn't know whether the industrial level in the 30s was only so high, or the manufacturer of Daming made mistakes in design.

"Where did this two-and-a-half-inch gun come from? Are the shells universal?" A short, fat middle-aged colonel asked a key question as soon as he came up.

The technical staff of Yangyue Company clasped their hands and replied: "Type 22 mountain guns, [-] times the diameter, and the same ammunition."

Even if the caliber is the same, the ammunition may not be universal, which is easily overlooked.

譬如德国人在大战期间搞出了上十种同口径却只能单独生产的炮弹，Pak40反坦克炮用75×714㎜弹药、四号坦克的Kwk40坦克炮用75×495㎜弹药、豹式坦克的Kwk42坦克炮用75×640㎜弹药等等。

Regardless of the fact that the army's logistics will be scolding, more importantly, due to adjustments and new production lines, this has affected the production capacity of the rear factory to some extent.

"Why do you want to use this cannon?"

"Return to sir, because it really meets the needs. The travel of the rear seat is also short, and the interior of the turret can be arranged much more spaciously. Although the barrel is short and the muzzle velocity is low, it can penetrate a 500mm steel plate at 25 meters if it is an armor-piercing projectile. , enough to deal with light tanks; moreover, guns of this caliber are more effective against bunker bunkers, and we think that there should be more demand for bombarding enemy firepower points in actual combat.”

This idea is quite interesting to Zhou Changfeng. The 80mm anti-explosive bomb has a charge of 740g TNT, and its effect on civil engineering works is indeed much better than that of the 150mm anti-explosive bomb that can only hold 48g TNT.

Everything starts from actual combat. The British and Dutch in the Nanyang region don’t have any serious armored troops, just some tin cans.

Besides, it’s not impossible to change tank guns. The big deal is one south and one north. The south car uses an 80mm gun and the north car uses a 48mm gun, because the latter needs to deal with its northern neighbors.

So he talked with Yan Chenwu, and the latter agreed, so they affirmed the design on behalf of the navy.

至于48㎜长身管炮，其实就是正在试制的48㎜反坦克炮的坦克炮版本，身管倍径由38倍截短至32倍，500m可击穿42㎜垂直镍锰装甲钢。

At this time, several prototype vehicles that have been prepared can finally be launched.

The crew members in charge of the test picked up the Z-shaped handle and shook it vigorously at the rear of the tank, getting faster and faster. Finally, with the sound of "chucking", several steel behemoths woke up.

The Laizhou Proving Ground has a tank passability test area several kilometers long, with all kinds of rugged, wading, sandy, muddy, soil slopes and so on.

Dozens of technicians and military officers present also picked up their binoculars to carefully observe and compare the pros and cons of the two prototypes.

(End of this chapter)