As the No. 1 deputy political commissar of the East China Military Region, Li Jianguo thought that he knew enough about the equipment of domestic armored vehicles, but he had never heard of this type of engine, which not only made Li Jianguo curious, but also a little unacceptable: What a student knows, I don't know?

"Speaking of 8V331TC41 diesel engine, it is necessary to start from 1976, after the end of the turmoil of the first 10 years, the central leaders judged the situation and were shocked to find that for various reasons, China's army equipment has lagged far behind Western countries, and in terms of the army that we are proud of, with the development of weapons and equipment, armed helicopters and anti-tank missiles to the fist of the army: tanks pose a very serious threat, whether it is the international situation or actual needs, All require tanks to have higher mobility to improve the survivability of the battlefield.

According to the information and intelligence that our country had at that time, as of October 1976, the Soviet Union had been equipped with a new type of main battle tank, and the new heavy main battle tanks of the United States and Germany were also under development, and the total combat weight of the main battle tank equipped by Western countries at that time was generally 46 tons to 65 tons, and the caliber of the gun was 120mm to 125mm, basically a smoothbore gun, and the engine power was from 735 kilowatts to 1119 kilowatts. At that time, China's main equipment was still the Type 59 medium main battle tank, and the main weapon was a 100mm caliber rifled gun, which was far inferior to the world's advanced level in terms of engine power, protection capability and artillery caliber......"

Li Jianguo's expression has become serious unconsciously, although he is not a military director, but as an active officer of our army, understanding the equipment of our army and foreign armies is his compulsory course, of course he knows what Chen Geng said, but as a student, Chen Geng knows these things in such detail It shocked him. Suddenly, he said: "Engine power is just a reference data to measure the maneuverability of the tank, right?" The really effective data is still the unit power of the tank. ”

The so-called unit power, that is, the maximum power that can be emitted by the tank engine divided by the full combat weight of the tank when it is fully fueled and fully loaded with combat personnel, this unit power directly determines an important data of the tank: from 0 to 32 km/h, this acceleration ability is an extremely important indicator of the tank's maneuverability, just like the acceleration ability of civilian cars from 0 to 100 km/h.

"What you said is," Chen Geng nodded: "But at this point, our country is also lagging behind the West, the unit power of Western countries is generally between 17.5 kW/ton and 20 kW/ton, and the time required to accelerate from 0 to 32 km/h is only 7 to 10 seconds, this speed can support this tank to avoid incoming anti-tank missiles on the battlefield, but the acceleration level of our country's tanks is relatively poor, because of the lack of power, this acceleration is generally greater than 15 seconds, Basically, as long as it is targeted by enemy anti-tank missiles, there is no escape......"

"The engine is the bottleneck." Li Jianguo sighed.

"Yes, our country's engine technology is too backward." Chen Geng also sighed, the "heart disease" problem of the republic is not a day or two, but Western countries have experienced the first industrial revolution and the second industrial revolution, and it took hundreds of years of accumulation to get to this point. It is clearly unfair to blame today's backwardness only on the decade that has just passed.

"......" Li Jianguo was silent for a while, but said, "Go on." ”

"Yes," Chen Geng thought for a while, and then continued: "The threat from the north is imminent, so no matter how difficult it is, we must develop a new type of tank, so in 76 years, our country began to study the needs of a new generation of tanks, and the first thing to develop a new type of tank is to have an engine with higher power and better performance."

At that time, the Ministry of Ordnance Industry and the Military Commission organized a group of experts and scholars in the field of domestic military industry to discuss the new type of tank to be developed in China, and based on the understanding of the relevant information of the Soviet T-72 main battle tank, it was believed that if the maximum power of the new tank engine could reach 588KW, it would be able to meet the demand......"

"I know this," Li Jianguo's conversation was also hooked up by Chen Geng, and said with a smile: "At that time, I also participated in this discussion as a representative of our East China Military Region, and many people thought that higher power was needed at that time, for this, the Ministry of Ordnance Industry also specially organized a real vehicle test of the unit power and acceleration performance of the vehicle, and the final result was that if the unit power was about 18 kilowatts / ton, the vehicle could obtain the best acceleration." ”

"You're right, it's 18 kilowatts per ton." Chen Geng gave a small compliment, he didn't expect Li Jianguo to participate in this discussion.

"Hehehe......" Li Jianguo waved his hand a little proudly, and Chen Geng was in a particularly happy mood when he talked about it nearly 10 years ago, if he said that he took care of Chen Geng more in the consideration of love before, but now, he began to appreciate this little guy a little. Pretending to be modest: "It's been a long time, and I almost can't remember it...... And then you say, what about later? I don't know what happened next. ”

Li Jianguo knows about this test, but he doesn't know the cause and effect of this test, is it strange? In fact, it is not surprising at all, this is determined by the special situation of China's military industrial system and the army, in many cases, the military industrial system and the actual user of this new equipment when developing a new equipment: the military, not only will there be a disconnect when communicating, and even the military research and development system will be on its own There are many examples, on the contrary, the communication between the military industrial system and scientific research units will be more.

Of course, this situation is not normal, but it was the situation at that time.

"Later, after testing, it was proved that the maximum total power of 588 kilowatts is indeed insufficient, considering the full combat weight of the new tank, the maximum power required for the new tank engine in our country should reach at least 735 kilowatts, that is, the later new 735 kilowatt tank engine project.

After the state approved the research and development plan of the new 735 kilowatt tank engine project, because the country began to implement reform and opening up, after some weighing, the then Fifth Machinery Department secretly purchased 10 8V331TC41 turbocharged diesel engines from the German company MTU in 1978.

The 8V331 series engine is a civilian model of the MB870 series tank engine equipped with the German 'Leopard 2' main battle tank, many parts are common to MB870, compared with the military MB970, it only reduces the number of cylinders, changes the material of the load-bearing parts and reduces some of the performance, but compared with our country's old saying, even the civilian 8V331TC41 is also quite advanced products.

The Fifth Machinery Department attaches great importance to this project, set up a special project, named this project 8V165 engine project, and refers to the 8V331TC41 engine to develop 8V165 military turbocharged engine task to the domestic diesel engine in the most powerful technical strength of Shanchai (Shanxi Diesel Engine Factory), not only from the country's major research institutes and factories to draw elite soldiers, but also from the development of 537KW turbocharged diesel engine Jichai (Jilin Diesel Engine Factory) to transfer technical backbone and funds, At that time, the predecessor of our Department of Automotive Engineering, the Department of Power Machinery of Huaqing University, was also seconded, and my supervisor also helped for a period of time......

Li Jianguo can be regarded as knowing why Chen Geng understands these details that he doesn't know so clearly: daring is what his teacher said to them. At this time, I was relieved, and at the same time, I was more anxious: "What about the engine?" Did it work? Where are we now? ”

Although seven years have passed since the project was established in 1978, and no news of the success of this project has been heard, Li Jianguo still has a little desire in his heart -- it is really because of the "heart disease" that our army's demand for advanced engines is too urgent.

"No," Chen Geng shook his head, looking at the eagerness in Li Jianguo's eyes, Chen Geng couldn't bear to say the worst result in his heart, but he couldn't help but say: "At that time, the first batch of engines imitated had to be tested on the bench, but the maximum power measured after being put on the bench was only 667 kilowatts, which had not yet reached the target of 706 kilowatts set in the first stage.

The most terrible thing is that the 10 8V331TC41 engines purchased from Germany have been very stable and reliable in long-term use, and the quality is very good, but our imitation 8V165 engine has a very serious cylinder pulling phenomenon, which is mainly due to the problems of lubrication and cylinder materials.

Later, although some improvements were made, the problem of pulling the cylinder has not been solved, and there have been some problems such as fuel injection pump plunger stagnation, supercharger surge, etc., and the German side has also refused to provide us with 8V331TC41 original machine drawings, technology and process documents and other information, and finally because our basic technology of materials and processing technology is not up to the requirements, the development of new tank engines has to be forced to stop. ”

Forced to stop because of material and process issues? Hearing that 8V165 turned out to be such a result, Li Jianguo was extremely gloomy. After a while, he said, "So there is a plan to introduce MTU engines this time?" How much do you know about this program? ”