"The replenishment of these months is crucial, considering that there is still battle damage and the need for more tanks, so it is entirely worth postponing the production of the Leopard, and if the number is not enough until July, it can be postponed until the end of August, and the other ......" Hoffman said with a helpless expression, "Guderian told me three times in a row that he wanted to change the tank destroyer battalion in the 1943 Panzer Division into an Panzer Battalion - so that one Panzer Division would have four Panzer Battalions. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 info He has a good reason, tank destroyers are very useful in defensive operations, but in offensive operations it is still hoped that tanks will be put into them. ”

Speer also smiled bitterly: the need for another 30 tank battalions may not be able to switch to the production of the Leopard by the end of the year.

"But there are some workarounds." Hoffman had an idea and proposed a new method: "The 512th Heavy Armored Battalion will soon be formed, and the establishment of the independent heavy armored battalion will come to an end for the time being. If the production of the Tiger can be more, in addition to replenishing the battle losses, 3 more will be formed every month, and 12-15 divisions will be considered to be assigned to the Tiger armored battalion, and the tank destroyers in the establishment will be replaced, so that they will have the level of 3 medium tank battalions and 1 heavy tank battalion, so that the number of tanks in each division will be 330, which seems more reasonable. ”

"If this happens, in order to ensure the production of the Tiger, the new heavy tank will not be able to be put into production this year."

Hoffman knew that he was talking about the upgraded version of the Tiger - the Tiger King, which is a heavy guy with 150mm thickness frontal armor, although the weight has been reduced and improved at his request, but the total weight still inevitably touched the 60-ton mark, and the plan is to equip it with an 850-horsepower HL234 engine and a new gearbox, of course, there is also a "mid-term facelift": the frontal armor is upgraded to 130mm, an 88mm/L71 tank gun is installed, and the weight is controlled at about 54 tons. The rest of the accessories, including the engine, remain unchanged, so that the maneuverability decline is still on the verge of barely acceptable.

He waved his hand: "Since the HL234 engine is not mature, the new heavy tank will be put on hold for a while, and it will not be too late to talk about upgrading the Tiger when it is mature." Actually, the King Tiger is not my favorite new tank, I prefer the concept of the E-series generic products, the E50 is still a little heavier, and the E45 or E40 will be better. Of course, no matter how it is designed, the production quantity must be large enough, and a design with a monthly production of less than 800 vehicles is not acceptable. So I didn't hesitate to turn down Dr. Porsche's request to develop a 100-ton Mouse tank - it was a purely immobile fixed turret, and it was better to build more warships with the energy and materials. ”

The E series was formally proposed by Heinrich Kniknickamp, chief engineer of the 6th German Arsenal in May 1942, ready to comprehensively use the existing tank and armored vehicle technology, combined with the future combat needs to develop armored vehicles with high versatility parts, although the existing Tiger and Leopard tank parts are universally promoted by Hoffmann, but in fact it is also part of the product of the plan, according to the preliminary assumption of the Ministry of Armaments, the future armored vehicles and tanks are divided into E-3, E-5, E-10 and E-25 according to tonnage, E-50, E-75 and E-100. Among them, the E3 and E5 are mainly used as light auxiliary vehicles, the E10-E25 are destroyer vehicles, the E50 and E75 are the main vehicles, and the E100 is a super heavy tank.

But Hoffman had his own ideas about the plan, believing that the series was too layered and unreasonable: first, he believed that the E3-E5 could be merged into the E-5 family; Second, the E-10 should be relaxed to the E-15 to enhance adaptability; Considering that the Red Army was about to launch the T-34/85, the positioning of the two series of E-25 and E-50 was very awkward - the E-25 could not do the T-34/85, and it was too wasteful to use the E-50 to deal with the T-34/85, so he wanted to combine the advantages of the No. 4, the Leopard, and the Tiger to launch the E40.

The positioning of the E-40 is very clear: combining the production convenience of the 4, the mobility of the Leopard and the firepower and armor of the Tiger. The closest idea is to further strengthen the armor defense capability of the Leopard tank while ensuring that the production quantity can keep up, based on the common basis of Haw Par parts, but this is a very difficult goal to achieve - the conversion to the Leopard will immediately directly affect the current production and the reorganization of the troops, and the improved version of the Panther will involve more, and Hoffman believes that this problem will not be solved until the second half of 1944.

As for the E-100, Hoffman didn't want to cut it directly, and he also wanted to cut the E-75, but in view of Germany's unique advantages and deterrence in the field of heavy tanks, he hoped to modify it to the E-60 and use it with the E-40, using the HL234 high-horsepower engine plus 88mm/L71 or 105mm/L68 tank guns to form the backbone of the independent heavy armored battalion - the code name can be called the Lion tank (different from the historical No. 7 tank).

Speer has fully understood Hoffman's point of view: first, the No. 4 will continue to be built, and when it can basically meet the scale of the reorganization, then consider switching to the Leopard type; second, to expand the production of the Tiger and equip some of the elite troops, but not to rush to upgrade - at least for a year; Thirdly, the study of the E-series universal tanks, attempts to introduce new products in the fall of 1944 or early 1945.

"The second area of production that has problems is shipbuilding, which is more and more troublesome." Seeing that the tanks were more or less communicated, Speer turned to shipbuilding, "The first prominent problem is the slipway. At present, the Italian side has three battleships in the process of rebuilding aircraft carriers, namely Dunkirk, Ise and Hyuga, and will soon join the fourth - Jean-Bar; At the same time, the damaged Zeppelin and Scharnhorst needed to be repaired, and a total of 6 large slipways had to be occupied. Although the aircraft carrier Aquila has been completed and commissioned, and the battleship Empire and the aircraft carrier Harrier Eagle are also in the final outfitting, they are still very compact in terms of time and space, but the Italians have put forward new requirements. ”

"What requirements?"

"Due to the success of the Europa, the Italian Navy is interested, and Prime Minister Mussolini has agreed to convert two large cruise ships, the King and the Count of Savoy, into an integrated aircraft carrier and has sent me a telegram hoping for our help."

"He's finally enlightened? I thought he was going to go to the victory party with those two blue streamers in his arms......" Hoffman sneered, "on what terms?" ”

"All the renovation costs, materials, materials and carrier-based aircraft belong to us, the Italians provide the site and part of the labor, and one of them belongs to us after the completion of the construction, but they have to take the one that is completed first."

Hoffman "tsk" repeatedly: "Mussolini's level of doing business is really straight......"

"It will take about 60 million marks to retrofit according to Europa standards, and it will take 5-6 months."

"Okay, I promised." Hoffman sighed, "The Navy has sunk a Europa and needs to make up for it." ”

"This would take up a total of eight slipways and manpower. In addition, in order to transport Middle Eastern oil, Italy also wants to start construction of 3-4 20,000-ton oil tankers one after another. The cumulative shipbuilding capacity has exceeded the actual capacity of the shipyards in the Mediterranean, both supporting resources and human resources are insufficient, and we must also reserve 1-2 spare slipways for the maintenance of large warships, such as the Scharnhorst and Zeppelin this time need to be overhauled in Italy for a long time. Speer's last sentence touched on the core issue, "Therefore, it may not be realistic to plan to start construction of two Yunlong aircraft carriers in Italy, and forcing the construction to start will cause a great degree of delay, so I suggest that it be put back in China." ”

"Can we cope with it in our own strength? Will it affect the progress of the Dafeng reform and the existing two cloud dragon reforms? Hoffman knew that in February and March, he had each laid the keel for a cloud dragon, and that he was going to lay the keel for the two big phoenixes in April and May.

"It can barely cope, but it will cause the progress of the other 4 aircraft carriers to lag behind. It is initially expected that the Yunlong reform will be postponed for 2 months, the Dafeng reform will be postponed for 4 months, the original single Yunlong construction period of 20 months, now it has become 22 months, and the Dafeng has been changed to 24 months, which is now changed to 28 months. Or temporarily cancel the construction of the other 2 Cloud Dragons.

Hoffman couldn't make up his mind after thinking about it for a long time: the North Sea Fleet had only 4 aircraft carriers by 1945, which was obviously not enough, not to mention compared with the United States, even the Royal Navy, and 6 plus the batch of aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean could barely cope with it.

In the end, he said: "2 Yunlong reforms, 2 Dafeng changes will be given priority to start, and the other 2 will be discussed again by the Admiralty, anyway, it will be in June if the construction really starts." I propose that transports, tankers, and other civilian vessels be arranged to be partially built in France, to relieve the pressure on the Italian direction - any delay in time is an endless trouble for the future. ”

The second shipbuilding problem raised by Speer was about the fastest progress of the Dunkirk renovation project: in the process of rebuilding, the engineers found that the main guns that kept the front end of the deck had a greater impact on the take-off of the aircraft, which would not only disturb the air flow, but also impact the structural strength of the deck by the muzzle storm. And if in future operations, aviation warships and battleships or heavy cruisers are paired to break relations, and it is of little value to retain the front-end artillery.

Hoffman agrees: "How do they want to change? It took too long to completely convert into a standard aircraft carrier. ”

"There is no need to completely follow the standard aircraft carrier, only the main gun is removed, the front end is flattened, the internal structure is not moved and the hangar is not extended, only the turret seat and ammunition magazine are reused." Speer pulled out a rough revised design for Hoffman to see. (To be continued.) )