Christie, whose full name is Walter Christie, is the inventor of Christie's suspension, who designed the first tank after the end of World War I and first used a balanced suspension device and springs on the two load wheels of this tank. This balanced suspension device made his tank much more advanced in balance than the tanks of various countries in the same period, but the military disliked that his tank could not rotate 360° and did not pay attention to it, coupled with the small power of the tank engine and the low driving speed, 2 years later, Christie modified the tank, used a new engine, and increased the speed, but still did not install a rotating turret on the tank, so the US military snubbed him again.

This gave Contini the opportunity to meet with Christie after arriving in the United States, and expressed the hope that he would be able to go to Italy to develop his suspension and tank, and promised to provide all the support. Christie, while still trying his luck in the United States, is clearly not going to refuse the president's kindness – he is completely aware of Contini's whirlwind of spending money in the United States, and he has no doubt at all, he just doesn't feel like leaving the United States.

Contini was not reluctant to do so, but gave two seductive advices:

"Why not consider a proper tilt arrangement where the elastic parts of the suspension are arranged vertically, which would greatly reduce the interior space, so why not consider a proper tilt arrangement so that the springs use tensile set instead of compression set to support the body? This results in a significant reduction in the height of the vehicle, which is good for the balance of the vehicle, and I also recommend the use of a combination of hydraulic shock absorbers, which reduces bumpiness for the occupants, improves ride smoothness and thus improves hit accuracy. ”

This opinion made Christie's eyes light up on the spot - although the president is young, he knows how to do it.

"In addition, although the design of the rotating turret is a must, but it is not your forte, I have a lot of designers under my command to get the required rotary turret, what you have to do is to concentrate on the chassis, especially the suspension...... There is a specialization in the art industry, and an engineer cannot be expected to be proficient in any field! ”

Christie was tempted at the time, but because he was very interested in the inclined arrangement that Contini reminded him, he deliberately stayed for another year - history has taken a fork in the road here, Christie did not fiddle with the rotating turret that he was unfamiliar with, but tried several ways to suspend the inclined arrangement, which proved to be of high value, and after thinking about this, he happily came to Italy to report - the president is much more knowledgeable than the US Department of Defense.

Choosing Christie suspension to start designing the tank is Contini's careful thinking: there are three types of tank suspension during World War II, including Christie suspension, balanced suspension and torsion bar suspension, torsion bar suspension is of course the most clever, but at the same time the technical difficulty is also the highest, to the point where Haw Par has developed to the pinnacle, the balanced suspension arm Christie suspension is slightly more complicated, and the comprehensive performance is slightly higher, starting with Christie suspension is the simplest and most convenient way to upgrade tank manufacturing.

What kind of tank suspension to choose, on the surface, is a technical selection, but in fact, it is a national strength selection. Italy is not the United States, nor Germany, does not have such a strong technological development and production capacity, if you want to build your own tank, you can only start from simple and easy-to-use things, Contini thinks that the Soviet Union's path is closer to Italy's reality - in terms of industrial level (technology is not scale), Italy is barely superior to the Soviet Union among the major powers, and in terms of user ability and quality, it can only be said that it is barely superior to the Soviet Union. Therefore, with the help of German technical forces, taking the road of Soviet armament development is in a sense more in line with Italy's national conditions and actual needs, but Contini is very self-aware, even if he takes the Soviet road, it is impossible to learn from the iron comrades to explode the tank sea, Italy's own national conditions are like this, the army is good to have a little, the key is the navy and air force.

All things considered, the easy-to-learn Christie suspension was Contini's first choice. This is almost the same as the idea of building the Ida, Contini also wants to learn from the American tyrants to build the Essex class, but this is something that small Italy can't do, even if he can toss and increase Italy's military equipment by 2-3 times, it is still a fraction of the American tyrants, so Italy can't build mass warships, and the quality must be guaranteed. As long as the wave of John Bull is killed in the middle of the war and the Mediterranean Sea is closed, Italy can close the door and become a prominent international power and compete for world hegemony. Inexistent!

What's more, the choice of Christie to hang is not without good tanks, the Soviet Union's BT fast tank, T-34, Britain's Cromwell, and the post-war Merkava can all be classified into this ranks, in Contini's vision, Italy's main battlefield in the future is in North Africa, fast, reliable, easy to maintain on the battlefield is a must have conditions, there is this foundation and then a little advantage, precision German goods can be considered, not the other way around.

"President Ziano...... "I was very excited to see him Christie, "Your idea of tilting the arrangement and changing compression to tension is very good, I have done nearly a year of experiments, and found that it can effectively increase the body space and longitudinal stability, and at the same time appropriately reduce the body height, of course, the technical difficulty will be a little higher, I am confident that I will further improve and improve, I also applied for a patent, eh, I co-own the patent with you, I am ranked before you, so it will not offend you, right?" ”

"It's all your work, I don't want to take it for ......myself," Contini laughed, "Since the patent has been applied, that's fine, but if there is any income in the future, it's all yours personal, I don't want a penny, you know that my net worth is okay......"

Christie laughed: a young and rich capitalist like Contini and at the same time generous cannot be found in the United States, so he has to travel thousands of miles to Italy to join - who is not for the cause, it is better to have a boss who appreciates himself than anything else. ”

"Are you still tinkering with the rotating turret?"

"Nope! I've spent all the year studying the chassis, and I don't have the heart to think about turrets at all, you are right, I can ask other professionals to help with turrets, my ability and specialty are not in this field. ”

Contini observed a moment of silence for the US Army, whose T3 Christie tank 1928 was gone: "It just so happened that I acquired a tank and armored car production plant, they used to copy the Renault-17 tank, I plan to ask you to build a new and better tank, you can become the chief engineer of the chassis, preferential treatment!" The other artillery, power, armor, and turrets are all in charge of it, and I have a good team! ”

"Okay? How many are you going to build? When asked this, Christie guessed in her heart that 3-5 cars were about the same, and the U.S. Department of Defense asked companies to order in batches.

"Let's test 20 cars first...... If it's good, give me 300 cars, and improve them while producing. ”

Christie is happy to die - it's good to have a rich boss, and the ghost is willing to serve the U.S. Department of Defense who picks the door!

The next day, Christie inspected the Ansaldo tank and armor manufacturing plant in Genoa, and thought that the strength of the plant was still very good, and it was a large factory in the United States, and the contact with the engineers of the plant was very smooth, and they did not reject themselves at all, and two days later saw the German "tractor" developers, and then the Czechs - sure enough, it was a joint group, and the employment was international.

The tank team, led by Contini, spent a week designing a future-oriented Italian tank, because the Fiat 3000 tank, which is currently the most commonly equipped in Italy and weighs less than 6 tons, is regarded as a light tank, so the first product of the combined tank is only 10.5 tons, and it deserves the title of M1 medium tank, the main data include:

Crew: 3 people, driver, commander, loader and machine gunner

Length: 5.11 meters

Width: 2.19 m

Height: 2.23 m

Weight: 10.5 tons

Engine: United Power 1926 diesel, 150 hp (TBD) – the reason why the engine is not more powerful is to control the volume, and Contini does not think that the wheeling in North Africa has any practical effect.

Maximum off-road speed: 40 km / h

Maximum road speed: 60 km/h

Maximum travel: 250 km

Main gun: 37mm/38x gun (to be developed), with the ability to change to 50mm or 57mm/36x guns

Secondary Armament: 2 x 7.92mm machine guns

Frontal armor: 22-25mm, inclined arrangement, the specific angle is determined according to the needs of the layout;

Turret armor: 25mm on the front and 15mm shield, 18mm on the sides and rear

Side and rear armor: 13mm

Bottom armor: 10mm

Top: 8-10mm

For the time being, the armor existed as a riveted structure, and after the technological advance, it was changed to a welded or cast combination......

In Contini's vision, this tank will be developed from next year, and it will take at least 3-4 years to produce a prototype, and the real mass construction will not be until at least after 1932, so he set the technical indicators to 1935, at least to ensure that this tank is advanced before 1935, and it can still be hung at the end of the first-class before 1938, and no matter how far it goes, it is not daring to have extravagant hopes. If you have to compare, it must be significantly better than the German tank No. 1, stronger than the No. 2, barely on par with the early tank No. 3, or a little stronger than the Soviet T-26 and almost on par with the BT-7

Then according to the chassis configuration can be a variety of deformation vehicle design, self-propelled artillery, self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, tracked personnel carriers, command vehicles can be transformed, such as engine upgrades and structural strengthening, after the gun is upgraded, the overall chassis is estimated to withstand 13-14 tons of transformation weight, so maybe it can also be changed to assault guns to accompany infantry attacks, it is enough to fight a big war, as for tanks, he will consider new and better goods.

The German side is also very excited about this design, this indicator is beyond the tractor they are exploring in terms of data and concept, although some engineers doubt whether it can really be realized and report to the country, but Sickert ended this doubt with a cold joke - just toss, anyway, this kid has money, don't spend it in vain!

PS: Yesterday I watched the movie "Assassination of the Gestapo", the name is really bad, it is obviously the assassination of Heydrich, fortunately I was not distorted by the title, the content is still good......