Karius's fears became a reality, and after he led the Tiger tank to the front, it happened that a company of pursuers and infantry were defeated, and according to their description, they lost a total of 5 pursuers but only destroyed one new Russian tank. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

This is a typical misuse of tank destroyers after over-euphoria, this kind of maneuverable, firepower destroyer is too weakly armored, usually used in a circle to deal with heavy tanks - using their mobility advantage to find the opponent's flank and rear to attack, this is a common trick used by German tank destroyers against the KV series in the past period. But the KV-3 was more maneuverable than the clumsy KV-1, and although there were frequent problems with the engine and the mismatched gearbox, it was clear that the current tanks were not included - the poor mechanical properties had been reimbursed last night. Moreover, the use of this tactic requires more favorable conditions, such as the small number of heavy tanks of the opponent, such as the fact that the opponent is more mechanical in the use of tanks, etc., but it is clear that the remnants of Bubnov's Guards Tank Brigade do not belong to this situation.

It is precisely because of the lack of power of the pursuer that the relevant parties have been trying to upgrade the equipment, proposing to carry out the No. 4 assault gun (tank destroyer) on the basis of the No. 4 tank chassis according to the No. 3 assault gun idea, the theoretical No. 4 destroyer should have better defense and stronger firepower, but the actual effect is very bad, far less successful than the No. 3 assault gun: the 75mm/70L long-barreled gun that you want to carry is very troublesome to produce, which not only occupies more rare metal resources but also requires higher processing accuracy. In the end, it was cut down by Speer, and it was better to install the 75mm/L48 tank gun than to directly produce the No. 4 tank, and the designers also tried to install the 88mm/L56 tank gun on the No. 4 chassis, and finally found that the No. 4 chassis was difficult to withstand because of the overweight and the rear seat. In the end, a consensus was reached that the chassis of the No. 4 tank was to be used only for the production of tanks.

It was also proposed to use a 3/4 universal chassis for the production of fighter vehicles, but in Germany the production of chassis No. 3 had been completely stopped, it was not necessary to restart the production of an independent chassis. With the integration of the Axis industry, the Italian side will soon be able to switch to the production of chassis No. 3 and assault guns, and then use the No. 3/4 universal chassis to produce tank destroyers of the same level as No. 3 assault guns or Stalkers. Mussolini was very interested in the No. 4 tank production line, but Italy's technical level could not keep up, and the experts assessed it mercilessly and pointed out: "The production of the No. 3 assault gun is the most suitable for Italy."

The idea of a more powerful tank destroyer has always been a common desire among front-line and engineers, and the only thing that can be effectively used now is the Tiger chassis, on which the arsenal has installed a powerful 88mm/L70 gun (without turret), while the frontal armor has been strengthened by 15mm, and the side armor has also been slightly strengthened, and the overall weight is more than 2 tons lighter than that of the Tiger. With the name in mind, it's called the "Tempest" fighter (please don't confuse it with the historical Tiger Hunter destroyer). But now that the Tiger tank has a huge advantage over the Allied tanks, and the reproduction of the Tiger destroyer is completely wasteful, and it will interfere with the production of the Tiger, Hoffman stopped the idea - the Tempest destroyer is only researched and not produced.

Everyone pondered and pondered, and hit the idea on the T-34 chassis, with the mentality of trying to install 88mm / L56 guns on the chassis, this time it was a great success, the T-34 chassis carrying performance is better than the No. 4 chassis, in the front armor reinforced to 75mm / 60 degree inclination, the side armor thickened 10mm under the premise that the weight of this destroyer is controlled at 30 tons, and the mobility is also very ideal. Engineers also tried to install the 88mm/L70 gun, and found that although the firepower was significantly enhanced, the overall overall performance was not as good as the former, and the tank destroyer based on the T-34 chassis was named the "Raider", but there was a great deal of disagreement about whether to produce the "Raider".

In favor of continued tank production, the T-34/76 tank, although the overall performance has lagged behind that of the Type IVH, is at least a medium tank with good performance, which can be used by armored forces in a comprehensive way, and its range of use is much wider than that of tank destroyers; Those who support the conversion to the production of Assault destroyers believe that in addition to the factors of the backward performance of the T-34/76, changes in the battlefield situation should also be considered: as the Middle East and Africa campaigns are coming to an end, the goal of large-scale armored warfare in the future can only be the Red Army, and the continued production of the T-34/76 cannot be effectively distinguished, and from April, the Leopard tank will gradually enter the mass production stage, and the demand for continuous production of the T-34 tank will be further reduced, but the performance of the Raider is far stronger than that of the No. 3 assault gun or the pursuer.

Hoffman agreed with the proposal to produce the Raider, but he did not want the troops to be equipped with the No. 3 assault gun, the Chaser and the Raider three different models of tank destroyers with close positioning, and finally the Ministry of Armaments made a decision to transfer the 38T chassis to carry a 150mm caliber howitzer according to the results of preliminary research and development, and to produce the Cricket H self-propelled gun and assign it to infantry to support operations, and successively discontinued the production of the Hunter to reduce the production of this caliber towed artillery.

Thus, Karius, who led the pursuit, saw not only the pursuer, but also the "Cricket" self-propelled gun, which was extremely rare at this time - it was mixed with the pursuer, about the same size, but with completely different characteristics.

"How many tanks do you estimate the enemy has?"

The lieutenant who led the team on the opposite side thought about it seriously and said: "I only saw 9 vehicles, but I estimated that there were about 15-20 vehicles, and no anti-tank guns were found." ”

"Leave it to us, let the Tiger deal with them." Karius smiled confidently, "I see you still have self-propelled howitzers, please help us deal with those infantry." ”

"No problem." The lieutenant nodded.

Led by Karius's second platoon, the company's 14 Tigers attacked in a standard wedge-shaped attack formation, and he ventured to open the tank hatch and use his huge binoculars to observe the battlefield described by the pursuers in search of the hidden Russian tanks - through battlefield cleaning and prisoner interrogation, the 506th Panzer Battalion knew that the opponent belonged to an elite unit such as the 11th Guards Heavy Tank Brigade, and even learned that this was the reserve of the Red Army base camp that had just been transferred not long ago, and strengthened its determination to annihilate it completely.

Karius searched carefully, almost inch by inch, and finally found a group of Red Army tanks on the edge of a depression, an area covered with light snow and dotted with dry grass, and the Russians were probably frightened by the incendiary bombs, and this time did not dare to look for a place with lush vegetation.

"One, three...... No, six. In addition to the tanks, Karius also saw a group of Red Army infantry pouring out from the side, and there seemed to be quite a few of them. He muttered: What are these guys thinking? Why not just retreat?

Karius did not understand the other party's reasons for continuing to stay in this area, and Bubnov on the other side was more distressed than him: the German assault last night had caught him by surprise, and the fuel trucks prepared for the troops were destroyed by incendiary bombs, and in addition to the overnight retreat, his tanks generally had only one-third to one-quarter of fuel left, and if he retreated directly regardless of it, these tanks would definitely lie down on the road, and he had to find sufficient diesel supplies to find a way out, and he did not even have the idea of capturing the enemy. The German tanks were all gasoline, while the Red Army, starting with the T-34, had all diesel tanks, which were completely unusable.

Just when Bubnov was worried about the fuel, the troops encountered the pursuers who came to attack, and after trying their best to repel the Germans, the fuel of all tanks was reduced to a minimum, and the only good news was that he contacted a Red Army infantry division, and the other party was also a remnant of the retreat from Iran, who thought he was surrounded by German tanks, and after figuring out that it was the tank brigade of his own Guards, he became happy, and the division commander, Colonel Maxim, said that he still had a little diesel fuel in his hand to provide to the tank brigade, The only requirement was that the tank troops would open the way in front and withdraw their troops to Baku with them.

Bubnov couldn't ask for this, the infantry assigned to him had been almost damaged in yesterday's battle, and tanks without infantry cooperation were not enough to break out of the encirclement, and now the troops had lost contact with the headquarters of Lieutenant General Mezzov's army group, and they did not know what their mission and task were, and everyone was ready to retreat to Baku to continue the battle with instinct and desire for survival.

"Doesn't it mean that there are 15 or more? Why do I only see 6 of them? After closing the hatch, Karius began to talk to himself.

Faced with the situation of unknown enemy situation, he did not rush to attack, he asked his comrades behind him to wait for a while, and he only took his platoon of 4 tanks to the right side of the trail, where it was more than 1,500 meters away from the depression, he was sure that the shells of the Russian tank could not penetrate him, after passing through a bush, the tank drove up a hill, with the undulation of the terrain, his vision suddenly broadened, but he was also taken aback: less than 400 meters on the right side there were two tanks parked, and the muzzles were facing his tank, Just now, due to the cover of the bushes, no one noticed the other.

The Reds were also taken aback, they did not expect that the German armored units would attack after the enemy tank destroyers had just been repulsed, and it was the terrifying Tiger tanks. More crucially, Karius discovered that the two tanks were still standing still and seemed to be extinguishing their fire - in fact, the enemy had to take a measure of last resort to prevent the fuel from running out too quickly.

While both sides were stunned by the sudden encounter, Karius was the first to react: the Tiger quickly turned to the right, the turret turned even faster, and a close-quarters armored battle was on the verge of breaking out...... (To be continued.) )