afterglow

Chapter 215 Chariot Chassis Potential; see also detailed work

The next actual test is step-by-step. In addition to reliability, firepower, and protection, the passing performance is the most important thing that officers value.

The level of traffic conditions in various regions varies, good and bad. A tank that can come and go freely in the land of old industrial countries in Western Europe such as Germany and France may struggle in the mud of Eastern Europe.

At this point, Ming is still the one that suffers, and the hypothetical pre-set combat areas are all out-and-out bad places—deserts and hills in the northwest, jungles and islands in Southeast Asia.

In particular, the Dutch don't seem to care much about their colonies, and the level of infrastructure is hard to describe.

Java is slightly better, after all, the colonial capital Batavia is here, while many places in the two islands of Sumatra and Kalimantan are primitive.

But even in Java Island, many bridges on rivers are still stretched. Some girder bridges and rigid frame bridges are slightly better, with a passing weight of tens of tons, but the rest of the old traditional arch bridges may only be a few tons.

A truck full of goods has to be driven carefully, let alone a tank.

This caused the armored unit to be very depressed. When they encountered a river, they had to check the water depth to see if they could wade through it. If not, they had to wait for the engineers to come and build the floating bridge.

Based on the above, the opinions and opinions of the people present are different, and they are all talking about it.

Several officers also argued because of disagreements, and one of them took out a special map directly from the bag, and then continued to argue based on it.

Zhou Changfeng thoughtfully looked at the deep track ruts, and said to himself: "I think, heavy tanks don't need to worry too much about this. The attack on the Nanyang region is left to light tanks and infantry units." That’s fine, and you can ask the Air Force to help you when you encounter strong fortifications occasionally.”

Everyone at the scene cast their eyes over one after another, and someone hugged their chests and said slowly: "This involves a choice..."

"No," Zhou Changfeng interrupted him, "It should be said that if you are too demanding in this regard, you are putting the cart before the horse."

The lieutenant colonel was a little embarrassed, but he still nodded and said, "Then you might as well listen to the navy's high-level remarks."

"Heavy tanks themselves cannot be considered as conventional weapons. Their production cost and deployment difficulty are far higher than those of ordinary tanks, and this brings about their unparalleled breakthrough capabilities. Such units deserve some support in other aspects." concession."

"Just now, many people complained about its troublesome transportation, high fuel consumption, and poor environmental adaptability. Do you think this is reasonable? These characteristics are the inevitable result of the current technical conditions. With a strong gun, those shortcomings will naturally come."

After Zhou Changfeng finished speaking, some military officers who loved steel giants immediately agreed.

"Well said! Clearly organized."

"Indeed, where there is gain, there must be loss. It must be powerful and easy to serve...how can there be such a beautiful thing?"

"But there is a limit to the 'concession'." A thin old man wearing round glasses slowly added a sentence.

The "II-" pictogram, purple frame, and blue background indicate that this is a major general of the supply army.

Zhou Changfeng nodded and said, "Senior is right."

He thought for a while, and then added: "I heard that the Ordnance Bureau has received design drafts and ideas for so-called super-heavy tanks and land cruisers in the past two years. This is a typical violation of the basic design principles of weapons. Even if the design of a weapon does not intend to win by quantity, but to pursue excellence, it should not be so extreme."

The chunky middle-aged colonel before pondered: "Well, at least I feel that our army should give priority to 'high quality' in tanks and other weapons. Where we may fight in the future...the capacity is limited."

"I agree." Zhou Changfeng nodded.

"I agree too." Yan Chenwu beside him also said lightly.

Under the same transport capacity conditions, it is natural that the stronger the combat power of a single vehicle, the better - for example, a maximum of [-] armored vehicles can be delivered to a certain place, so it must do everything possible to strengthen the combat power of these tanks to increase the tactical advantage.

And the combat area of ​​the Ming army determined that each tank should not be too heavy, at most [-] tons.

So this means that the Ming army needs an armor that weighs 22-30 tons, is equipped with a 57-75mm gun, and can resist the current worse situation.

The mainstream anti-tank guns before the middle of the war were basically 37mm level, occasionally 47mm level, and the armor penetration depth of 500m did not exceed 50mm. Heavy firepower.

Therefore, if the space inside the car is pursued, then the vertical armor will be used, but the weight will increase; if the inclined armor is used instead, the same protection capability can be achieved with a thinner thickness, but the space inside the car will also be smaller.

How to weigh it depends on the ability of Daming's tank designer.

In addition, the car radio, the most exquisite optical sights, the highest-grade armor steel, etc. are all integrated, because the pursuit is to maximize the combat power of the bicycle, and the cost is secondary.

You can also think about it the other way around, when it can fight two against one, as long as the cost does not exceed twice that of the opponent, it is profitable.

Zhou Changfeng's imaginings are very beautiful, but he also knows that this is not in line with the law of development of things.

Having foresight can indeed avoid detours, but it does not mean that you can move forward by leaps and bounds.There is still a way to go, but it is a straight line.

The development of technical equipment comes step by step. He knew that the most important thing was to leave more redundancy for the tank chassis so that it could be gradually upgraded in the future.

像历史上德国人在这方面就吃了亏——兢兢业业的IV号坦克最初的A、B型只有16-18吨、装甲15-20㎜；之后的D、E、F型不断的加厚装甲、换装长管坦克炮，重量增加到22吨；等到巅峰的H型，重量已达25吨。

Because the original design never thought that it would develop like this, the chassis of the No. IV tank had been excavated to the limit by the Germans, and it was overwhelmed, and it was no longer able to carry heavier and heavier improvements.

Obviously, if the chassis weight redundancy can be designed to be larger at the beginning, leaving sufficient margin for future improvements, then the time-consuming replacement of the production line can be avoided.

This is also the minimum goal that Zhou Changfeng set for himself - if the designer of Ming Dynasty did not foresee the long-term war and the accelerated development of tanks due to the war, and did not leave enough redundant designs foresight, he would do everything possible to change it .

Americans with deep pockets might not care about it. It would be trivial for them to open more than a dozen production lines at the same time, but for Daming, which has a limited automobile industry, a little bit of waste is unacceptable.

The sun is setting in the western mountains, and the day is about to leave.

The test on the first day is over, and there will be a series of detailed tests such as long-distance continuous driving for testing reliability, live ammunition shooting with tank guns, whether the crew members in the car have a good view, and the time to replace the road wheels or road wheels. .

On a small slope in the southeast of the test site, two bored sentries were chatting without saying a word.

"...the steel factory is also very dangerous. My cousin wrote a letter saying that people died in their factory a few days ago. The ladle was not hooked firmly, and it flipped over when it was brushed, and the bottom was drowned. The two of them were burned to ashes on the spot."

"Tsk tsk tsk, it's a fatal accident... let's not talk about it, I'll go and make it easier."

A big sentry came forward with a gun on his back, unbuttoned his trousers and released the water.

A moment later, just as he was about to return, he caught a glimpse of something moving by the bushes not far away.

He thought he was dazzled and didn't bother to care about it, but after hesitating for a while, he stopped and looked intently.

Seems like a person?
"Hey, the surname Hu! There seems to be some movement here."

The two sentries immediately raised their guns and walked over slowly.

The vegetation here is luxuriant, and the grass in the field can barely reach the calf. If you hide next to the bushes and lie on the ground, it is really difficult to detect.

Before the two of them approached, a figure stood up tremblingly, and said repeatedly while getting up from the side: "Both...Second masters, don't shoot."

Wow?Really a person?

The big sentry who was taken aback snapped, "Come out! What are you doing?!"

I saw this man dressed smartly, dressed as a hunter, and was holding a gun in his hand.

"Xiaomin is a hunter on the side. He went out of the mountain and took the wrong path."

"You don't want to die? Are you here because you want to be shot? Get out!"

"Orion? Where's the thing you're hunting?" Another sentry observed more carefully, and already felt that something was wrong.

The big man said: "Are you really good at hunting? You can't hit prey with such a gun, so it's better to be honest and use a bird gun."

The southeast of Laizhou is Daze Mountain, so there are continuous mountains and hills next to the test site, and there are naturally some hunters in rural areas.

But... This guy's clothes look like typical rural people, but the shotgun he holds in his hand is not. It is clearly a Baocheng brand shotgun - this is a civilian shotgun produced by a gun factory in Daming, which is very popular. It fires .22LR bullets for hunting small and medium game, or for recreational shooting.

But generally only urban people will buy this thing. In order to save money, hunters in rural areas often ask local blacksmiths to make their own shotguns. It keeps pace with the times and is in line with the times. What it makes is a simple single-action musket that fires military rifle bullets, but it can only be fired once and loaded again.

Moreover, this person's face and hands are quite smooth and fair.Most of the soldiers were from rural areas, and this abnormal situation immediately attracted the attention of two sentinels.

"Throw away the gun, come and search."

Although the sentinel ordered this, the Orion was reluctant, and seemed to be struggling with something.

"Hurry up, what the hell are you doing?!"

As he said that, the big sentry stepped forward, trying to subdue him, while the other stood guard with a gun on the spot.

However, at this moment, when the Orion took the gun from behind his back, Lengbu raised the gun and shot.

"Bang! Bang!"

The two gunshots were very close to each other, the big man was shot in the stomach and fell to the ground, and the "Orion" was shot in the left arm.

The sentry rushed up immediately, knocked it down with a backhanded butt, then pulled the bolt to reload, pointed the muzzle of the black hole at his face, and kicked the shotgun away from the ground by the way.

"What are you doing?!" The sentinel turned to look at his companion lying on the ground, and asked eagerly, "Is there something wrong?!"

The latter clutched his stomach, dark red blood oozing from between his fingers, "It's...it's okay."

Since it was dusk, it was time to change the guard, so the other two sentinels who were walking hurried over after hearing the gunshots.

Shots were fired, people were injured, and the matter was quickly reported.

The big sentinel who was shot was fine. The .22LR bullet had limited power, and it just penetrated a section of intestines. Cut off a small section and sew it up.

After being taken away, the "Orion" faced interrogation. At first, he insisted that he was just an Orion. The previous shooting and wounding was not intentional, but accidentally went off.

The next day, after dawn, the soldiers who searched carefully around the incident site found a canvas bag hastily hidden in the bushes, which contained a camera, film, a small notebook and the like.

With the evidence in hand, there is no more effort now, and the dejected "Orion" can only tell the truth.

At noon, where the evaluators stayed, everyone was leaving the yard in twos and threes, ready to eat.

"As expected, there are spies."

"Heh, the spy will be beheaded if caught."

"That's all right, stop the test and investigate for three days."

According to the interrogation, this "Orion" is actually a native of Laizhou Prefecture. He was recruited by Tsarist Russian agents and learned a series of espionage skills. This time he learned that there was a big move in the Laizhou test site, so he was ordered to infiltrate and secretly shoot.

In this vast area of ​​hundreds of square kilometers, he found a place with loose control and slipped in. However, when he returned, he couldn't find the way back, so he had to choose another way, and he was discovered.

At the same time, according to his confession, although he has only been in one-line contact, there must be other people who are doing the same thing, so the test site chose to suspend the test and wait for a team sent by the foreign police to investigate.

As a result, the next few days were uneasy, and it was not uncommon to see Dama Jindao's foreign factory agents running around, or taking a group of people away for questioning one by one.

And Zhou Changfeng also received special care, and was taken away for questioning several times, but since his father died in the border war with Tsarist Russia, and now he has a good relationship with Shen Yu, the agents did not embarrass him anymore.

After three days of flying dogs, six or seven suspects were taken away by agents, and follow-up testing could continue.

In addition to the two heavy tanks, the trial-produced three-axle ten-wheel heavy truck produced by Yanjing Xunjie Automobile Company also underwent a complete test.

This kind of heavy-duty truck with a single-wheel front axle and two-wheel rear axles can be called a painstaking effort. To be honest, for Daming, who has a weak auto industry and little accumulation, it is not easy to develop a heavy-duty truck by himself, but it is hard and rigid. Putting it here, in the end, I can only reluctantly do what I can.

"How much does it carry? Ten tons?" Zhou Changfeng thought of the Bussin NAG900 heavy truck equipped with the Red Eagle Legion that he saw in Spain. It can carry a nine-ton No. II tank.

"Slightly smaller, nine tons, ten tons is the limit." The man from the manufacturer replied.

The enthusiastic Luo Fu took the fast canvas and spread it on the ground. After squatting down, he probed to check the driving axle of the car. He asked, "Can the output of the engine be maintained?"

"The conclusion from our trials is that it is best to limit it to 110 horses, and running at [-] horses for a long time is likely to shorten the life span."

"Rear two-axle drive?"

"That's natural."

(End of this chapter)