"Chairman, at your wedding, I will give 100 of these 88mm anti-aircraft guns to the Wehrmacht as a congratulatory gift in the name of Krupp." Gustav stroked his proud work, "It just so happens that the Wehrmacht has long-range and short-range anti-aircraft guns, but there is a shortage of medium-range anti-aircraft weapons." Now with it, the skies of our Motherland will be incomparably safer! ”

"Thank you very much, Gustav, I like this wedding gift very much." Leon and Gustav hugged and said.

"Chairman, I have prepared a congratulatory gift for you." Lehar smiled and said, "I was going to give it to you at your wedding, and since Monsieur Gustav has given you his gift now, then I will join him too." But I'll have to wait a bit. ”

With that, Lehar whispered a few words to one of the Rheinmetall engineers who accompanied him, who nodded and drove away.

Moments later, a truck drove up in front of Leon under the Engineer's lead. Then a group of workers jumped off the truck with a few boxes on their shoulders, and under the guidance of several engineers, they quickly opened the boxes and assembled some of the parts inside.

Soon, the mysterious gift revealed his face - a cannon with a huge shield and a barrel pointed parallel to the ground.

"It's an anti-tank gun." Leon recognized it as it was.

"Yes, this is a 37mm caliber combat defense gun." Lehar nodded and began to introduce his gift to Leon, "It weighs 432kg in battle, and can be towed directly by light vehicles, and in extreme cases, even pushed by soldiers. ”

"It has a maximum range of 4,025 meters, its muzzle velocity is 782 m/s when firing armor-piercing shells, and when we tested it, it could penetrate 45 mm of homogeneous steel armor at a distance of 450 meters, and now all the tanks of all countries, including our No. 2 tank, have no direct fire against it!" Lehar said proudly.

The more Leon listened to these data, the more familiar he felt, and when he heard about his shell muzzle velocity and armor-piercing ability, he suddenly realized that this cannon was not the famous PAK37 battle defense gun in later generations.

However, it was not famous for its prestige like the Flak18 anti-aircraft gun, but for its power problems in World War II, and was even nicknamed a "stepping stone" by German soldiers.

However, it is still capable of dealing with the current tanks of various countries.

"We also used it as a basis to design a 37mm tank main gun, and in the future I plan to use it to compete for the main gun scheme of the No. 3 tank." Lehar said with a smile.

"No, no, no, the Wehrmacht's future Tank III scheme will not use this caliber 37mm, it is too small." Leon kindly reminded.

I'm not stupid, using the "stepping stone" as the main gun of the future No. 3 tank, wouldn't it be a repeat of the mistakes of Germany in the previous life? Leon thought to himself.

Before the war, Guderian divided German tanks into two basic types, namely battle tanks carrying high-velocity guns for anti-armor combat, and support tanks carrying large-caliber guns to shoot high-explosive ammunition.

And the No. 3 tank, equipped with a small-caliber, high-muzzle velocity KWK36 gun (an improved version of the PAK37), was a German battle tank designed to deal with local armored targets.

However, with the entry into service of various new tanks of the Allied forces, the Germans found that the No. 3 tank, which was specially responsible for dealing with armored targets, was not as good as the No. 4 tank, which was equipped with large-caliber artillery and was specially used to support the infantry.

As a result, the Germans changed their minds and strengthened the No. 4 support tank. They lengthened the barrel of the Kwk37 75mm/L24 tank gun, lengthened the multiple diameter from the original 24 to 48, and renamed it the Kwk40 75mm/L48 tank gun, which re-suppressed the Allied tank forces.

Therefore, as a later generation, Leonnaise never intended to equip the No. 3 tank with a 37mm or 50mm tank gun.

"That's right." Lehar was a little disappointed, "It seems that our company's plan No. 3 needs to be redesigned. ”

"It's okay, there's still plenty of time." Leon comforted, "Now our No. 2 tank is still very advanced, and there is no need to tender for the No. 3 tank in the short term, so you still have a long time to redesign the large-caliber tank gun." But I like the gift you gave me, with this anti-tank gun, we will not have to think about how to deal with enemy armored targets for a long time. ”

"Haha, if you like it, I'll go back and arrange for the factory to produce 200 of these guns and matching ammunition, and hand them over to the Wehrmacht on your wedding day." Lehar laughed.

In fact, Le Harr originally did not plan to give so many guns as a gift, he initially planned to give more than a dozen guns to the Wehrmacht to test the power, and then hoped to use the excellent performance of this artillery to get the Wehrmacht to place an order with him. In this way, he can both give gifts and receive a batch of orders, which is the best of both worlds.

But just now he keenly caught a look of dissatisfaction on Leon's face.

Although Lehar didn't understand why Leon was unhappy with this anti-tank gun, which could penetrate the main armor of all tanks today, he knew that Leon would never place an order for him for this gun.

But it wasn't just this that completely changed Lehar's original gift-giving plan, but because of the army artillery order that Lyon gave to Krupp.

In the past, Germany's weapons and equipment were tendered by various arms companies, and the most suitable one was selected from their proposals. And this time the large-caliber artillery of the Wehrmacht Army did not pass the tender, but went directly to Gustav's Krupp.

At first, Lehar couldn't figure out why Lyon did not launch a tender and gave the order directly to Gustav.

And just now, when Gustav boldly sent 100 anti-aircraft guns, Lehar figured it out, not because of the excellent performance of the Krupp family's artillery, but because Gustav was the first to support Lyon, which was the special care that Gustav gave to "his own people".

So Lehar changed his congratulatory gift plan, increasing the original dozen doors by more than ten times to a full 200 doors, he didn't want to replace Gustav's position in Lyon's heart, he just hoped that Lyon could understand that he also firmly supported him, so that Rheinmetall could take a piece of the pie in the future division of interests!

And Leon is no longer the novice he was when he first came to this world, how could he not understand what Lehar is so painstakingly for? So, with a meaningful smile, he shook hands heavily with Lehar and Gustav.

The German Army Munitions Group, in this ordinary weapons test site, has formed a preliminary structure!