For the army in the era of mechanization, tanks are undoubtedly the most important source of strength. This combination of firepower, speed, and protection has fundamentally changed the situation of land warfare since the era of hot weapons: the trench defense line combining machine guns and barbed wire can no longer be an obstacle to the attacker's vertical and horizontal advance. In the first two years of World War II, the German tanks painted with the Iron Cross logo were the invincible conquerors of the planet; They led the vengeful German army, which was even more powerful than the Napoleonic army of the past, and swept through almost all of Europe and North Africa like a tsunami.

Although the German tanks in history have been famous, and the performance of armored aces such as Kalius and Wittmann is an eternal legend, from the perspective of war economics, this armored force, which has been praised and praised by countless posterity, has shocking flaws and waste. The manufacturing process of cutting-edge combat vehicles such as the Tiger, King Tiger, and Ferdinand is complex and resource-intensive, which is not suitable for the World War II, an era in which quantity is more than quality: the total number of Haw Par series produced in the entire war was less than 8,000 units, while the United States and the Soviet Union produced nearly 100,000 units of the M4 and T-34 alone, which was more than 10 times that of the former!

In order to compensate for the lack of tanks, Germany was forced to mass-produce assault guns, which were cheap items that looked like donkeys rather than horses, to fill the gap; In the later stages of the war, usually a Dick Silk character such as a No. 4 tank or No. 3 assault gun had to face more than 5 enemy main tanks. It can be said that the little qualitative advantage possessed by the German heavy tanks was entirely the result of the suffering of the vast number of grassroots troops; And due to the collapse of the Luftwaffe in the later period, this poor quality advantage will be wiped out by air strikes!

In view of this, Fang Yan encouraged his cheap father Rudolph to enter the automotive field early on, in order to be able to participate in the tank bidding logically in the coming days, so as to change the distorted situation of the scientific and technological tree in the development process of the German tank. The one-sided pursuit of bicycle performance, which leads to vicious increases in weight, manufacturing time, and resource consumption, must be stopped, and the ideal balance between performance and quantity must be achieved. It was a wise choice in the context of the World War II era. As for how to build tanks, Fang Yan is also confident: as a traverser, he knows the advantages and disadvantages of various types of tanks in the historical plane, and without any suspense, he has learned from others and selected a broad path that can make a great leap in the strength of German armored forces.

When it comes to the best tanks of World War II, most people immediately think of the Soviet T-34; This classic laid the foundation for later generations of main battle tanks, and became the absolute workhorse of Soviet armored forces in World War II due to its surprisingly cheap practicality. In contrast, Germany's Black Panther, and the American M4 Sherman, were overshadowed by it; The former's weight of 45 tons was still not suitable for mass production in wartime, and its reliability was not optimistic because it was significantly overweight compared to the original design. The latter's speed, firepower, protection, and travel are not as good as the tonnage of the T-34/85, otherwise they would not have suffered powerlessly in the face of the German Haw Par tank.

However, another Soviet tank was overlooked by most people because it did not go to war. That was the new medium tank T-44, which was mass-produced in the USSR at the end of 1944.

In 1943, with the emergence of two new German tanks, the Tiger and the Panther, the protection of the T-34 tank, which was originally quite reliable, became as light and fragile as a vegetarian in front of these new tanks. Faced with this unfavorable situation, the Soviet military urgently needed to make its tanks more protective, and the successor to the T-34, the T-44, was born. The T-44's protection has taken a striking leap forward through design innovations such as switching to torsion bar suspension, moving air filters, and horizontally arranging the engine: its frontal armor has skyrocketed from 47 mm to 90 mm on the T-34, and with a 60-degree inclination, it is as solid as a mountain in World War II. The thickness of the armor under the hull was also 90 mm. Considering that the probability of hitting this area is low, and the shells themselves have a reverse angle of incidence, the 45-degree inclination of the armor here is also sufficient.

In other positions, the T-44's armor was equally impressive. The armor on the sides of its hull is up to 75 mm thick, which is already the level of defense of a heavy tank; The front, side, and rear armor of the turret are also 120, 90, and 75 mm, respectively. Compared with the heavy tank IS-2, which entered service at the same time, it was not lagging behind at all. In terms of firepower, the T-44 was armed with the same 85mm L53 gun as the T-34/85, and if it had not been greatly delayed by the botched armor-piercing shells, its firepower would have been a strong presence comparable to the German Tiger tank.

The most commendable thing is. With such a heavy defense, the total combat weight of the T-44 turned out to be only 31.8 tons, which is 400kg lighter than the 32.2 tons of the T-34/85! This makes it powered by a 520 horsepower diesel power. The power-to-weight ratio is 16.3 hp/tonne and can be driven on the road at a speed of 53 km/h. It can be said that this is a medium tank with heavy tank firepower and protection, and this has an unparalleled huge advantage over heavy tanks in terms of battlefield deployment and rear production!

Although the T-44 still had some minor shortcomings, such as a high drivetrain failure rate due to the transverse engine, a turret configuration that was not as good at shelling as the semi-ovate version of the IS-3 that entered service the following year, and a cramped interior with a small and cramped interior crew, there was no doubt that it was an extraordinary design that was a qualitative leap forward from previous tanks. Later, 100,000 T-54/55 series main battle tanks were produced, which was based on the T-44 and optimized all the indicators and details. Compared with this tank, whether it is the American Pershing, the German King Tiger, or even the Soviet Union's own IS-3, it is far surpassed by the T-44 in terms of cost performance.

Based on this, Fang Yan decided to carry out an all-round copycat of the T-44's design techniques. Although he was not a professional engineer in the field of mechanics, because later generations of dissecting this old tank had already been full of sweat, Fang Yan was constantly exposed to it, and he also knew the most critical design points needed to build this tank. Through the follow-up processing of professional engineers, Fang Yan is fully confident that the same pulse combat vehicle derived from the classic tank T-44 can be launched in advance; As long as the tonnage utilization of the T-44 is available, even if the subsystems are different from the original, the final tank can still sweep through the contemporary enemy and become a legend!

As the snow melted and the branches turned green, on February 1, 1934, Fang Yan drove through the high-rise streets of Hamburg to the Volkswagen factory on the outskirts of the city. In the sunlight, the giant three-V-shaped logo at the main entrance of the factory is particularly eye-catching. The car factory was founded by Rudolph in the summer of 1924: in order to save brain cells and satisfy the bad taste of being a traverser, Fang Yan proposed to take the name of Volkswagen, and Rudolph nodded his approval. Today, despite the economic crisis, it still has more than 2,000 employees; In the city of Hamburg and throughout northern Germany, Volkswagen has a reputation for excellence.

Since there was an appointment the day before, Fang Yan was able to enter the factory without hindrance and smoothly came to the technical director Ferdinand? Inside Dr. Porscher's office. Historically, this legendary engineer in the field of automobiles has made a name for himself: not only for creating the classic Beetle compact car and becoming the head of Hitler's most relied on national sedan project, but also for mastering the way of electric transmission that was ahead of his time, and in this way he designed the Tiger P and the Mouse super-heavy tank in the war.

In this plane, Volkswagen's purpose is quite in line with Bolcher's ideal of developing a small national sedan; Therefore, Bolcher, who resigned from the Daimler-Benz car factory, chose to join Volkswagen instead of founding Porsche, which bears his name, as was the case in history. Fang Yan was really overjoyed to learn that there was such a top mechanical engineer in his own automobile company, and with the help of Polsher's mind, Fang Yan was completely sure that his rough and empty concept would be turned into a concrete chariot on the other party's drawings.

"Dr. Porcher, I think you've noticed the Army's rearmament." Seeing Polshena's slightly puzzled eyes, Fang Yan did not beat around the bush at all, but told the top talent in the industry all his intentions, "Due to unfair treatment, Germany withdrew from the international disarmament conference in October last year; The strength of the army needs to be expanded at a minimum, and it is only a matter of time before the limits of the Treaty of Versailles are broken. Although you are an automotive designer, there is a huge similarity in the mechanics of cars and tanks, so I wonder if you would like to design a tank for the Army? ”

There was a strange sparkle in Porsher's eyes, and he didn't know whether he was surprised, hesitated, or confused. Although the young man in front of him was the youngest son of the chairman of the Brom Group, he joined the army early; The day-to-day operations of the Brom family business have nothing to do with him. In addition, the young man's service is still the navy, and at this moment he is asking himself to design a tank for the army; No matter from which point of view, Fang Yan's actions today reveal twelve points of unusualness! (To be continued.) )