Judging from the feedback from the battlefield, the T95 "Weasel" light tank equipped with a 57-mm anti-tank gun, although it is the best performance among the tanks of various countries on the battlefield, also exposes the weaknesses of weak armor, low protection and insufficient artillery penetration. In addition, after receiving the news that the European Union had begun to equip a heavy infantry tank of more than 40 tons on a large scale, the army equipment department began to ask the major tank factories to start designing and developing a new type of main tank to replace the T98 "Shepherd" tank currently equipped with it, as the main force of the future imperial army armored forces.

This is the origin of the 46-ton T02 Tiger heavy tank, which is currently armed by the Imperial Army.

However, although the Tiger tank is technologically advanced and has superior performance, the more advanced it is, the more complex it is, which also means that the production process is very complicated, which in turn limits the production of the T02 Tiger tank to a large extent.

Obtaining enough tanks has always been the expectation of the armored forces, but this is only a good wish, and the production of tanks will never be able to satisfy the growing appetite of the Imperial Army.

After receiving the commission from the military, the five major heavy machinery groups of Jinyang North Heavy Machinery Group, Luoyang Imperial Standard Heavy Machinery Group, Jiangxia Heavy Machinery Group, Wuhu Heavy Machinery Group and Shenzhou Heavy Machinery Group were based on the T98 Shepherd Dog tank and soon built prototypes. Just after the New Year, Lieutenant General Li Haiying, commander of the 1st Imperial Armored Army, took an inspection team composed of Colonel Yang Jiaquan, assistant director of the armored corps, and Colonel Li Guohao, deputy director of the Armored Equipment Division of the Army Equipment Bureau, to the Fengzhou tank test site to test the performance of the school buses in each factory and finally determine which factory designed and developed the tank to win the bid.

At this time, it was still the middle of winter, and after getting out of the warm car, Li Guohao only felt as if he had walked into an ice cellar, and the temperature outside was minus 17 degrees, which was the coldest day of the year.

"Sir, your overcoat!" Fortunately, the accompanying adjutant brought an overcoat from the car.

With the roar of diesel engines, a tank painted with the M03 number appeared in people's sight, looking at the tank speeding in the snow, everyone present couldn't help but sigh at its excellent performance, this is the first time they have seen this new medium tank with excellent performance.

“…… What you see now is the VK401M tank school bus developed by Wuhu Company, which is the most outstanding model in a series of prototype tests. It features a high-performance torsion bar spring-suspended undercarriage with staggered 8 pairs of load-bearing wheels. The thickness of the frontal armor of the hull is as high as 80 mm, the side armor is 45 mm, the armor surface is a new 55-degree inclined arrangement, and the Jiangxia type is equipped with a long barrel 75 mm main gun, which is no less deep than the Jinyang 90 mm main gun. Lieutenant Colonel Lin Ke, director of the Fengzhou Tank Test Base, explained to Admiral Li Haiying the performance of several experimental prototypes, and it can be seen that the lieutenant colonel praised the performance of the Wuhu company's prototypes.

Indeed, in the five-kilometer off-road maneuverability test at the test site, the VK401M took the lead and showed excellent off-road maneuverability.

The problem is that at the hearings at the test site, Colonel Li Guohao, on behalf of the Imperial Army Armament Bureau, raised a lot of doubts about the design of the Wuhu company.

This led to a conflict of ideas between Colonel Yang Jiaquan and the two of them.

Of course, Colonel Yang Jiaquan hopes that the armored forces are equipped with better performance of the combat vehicles, but Li Guohao believes that although the VK401M adopts a more space-saving and more excellent performance torsion bar suspension system, its structure is too complex and precise, and the staggered load wheels are easy to be stuck by mud and ice slag, and it is not easy to maintain. It is conceivable that when the load wheels inside are damaged, at least three load wheels need to be removed to be replaced, which is not in line with the requirements of army equipment in terms of ease of maintenance.

In addition, the VK401M is too sophisticated and complex, and its manufacturing time is about twice that of the VT401E prototype provided by Imperial Standard Heavy Machinery. This results in a high production cost, although it is not unacceptable, after all, the raw materials and weapons used in each tank are about the same, and the proportion of the total cost of manufacturing the hull to the total cost of tank manufacturing is not high, mainly because such a sophisticated and complex structure will cause the production of VK401M to be too low.

"Colonel Li Guohao, is it possible that we can equip these two tanks?" Lieutenant General Li Haiying is also not without regrets, he is also optimistic about the VK401M with better performance, but the opinion of the army equipment department is to choose the more "simple" VT401E, the prototype of the Imperial Standard Heavy Industry adopts a simple box-type national structure, which not only increases part of the volume of the car, but also reduces the weight of the structure. Its hull is actually just 7 pieces of rolled homogeneous armor of different thicknesses welded, plus a cast turret, the entire hull construction is extremely simple, which is very suitable for mass production with automatic welding lines.

VT401E still adopts a simple and improved coil spring suspension system, which avoids the production problems that may be caused by the precision and complexity of VK401M's machining, which is fully in line with the design requirements of the army's equipment department's usual "easy to produce" tank, but this suspension running mechanism makes the comfort of the occupants in the car greatly reduced.

Obviously, the army equipment department does not care about and consider the feelings of ordinary soldiers when making decisions.

"This is impossible, General, how would you feel if you were asked to use one division equipped with VK401M against two or three divisions equipped with VT401E in wartime. Although VT401E is simple, it is more suitable for mass production, and with the exception of slightly inferior maneuverability, it is not weaker than VK401M in terms of protection and fire performance indicators. In addition, it should be noted that the army's armament department has always emphasized that the caliber of artillery should be controlled between times, and there is a basic basis for this. Larger caliber long-barreled guns are more difficult to machine, and the performance requirements for steel are also higher, and if the barrel is too long, although the shooting accuracy of the gun will be improved, it will also cause the tank to move more muzzle between the movement, and it will be more difficult to quickly capture moving targets. ”

Li Guohao replied without flinching, "When we design a new tank, we can't just look at its performance indicators, in fact, the first thing to consider is its battlefield consumption and production quantity, all armored vehicles are consumables on the battlefield, if there is not enough quantity to replenish, then we will put fewer and fewer tanks on the battlefield, which is absolutely unfavorable for a protracted war." If it is only to deal with a local battle or a local conflict, there is no doubt that the VK401M is a better choice, but the Imperial army needs to face the next full-scale and protracted war! ”

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