Chapter 242: B1-bis
As soon as the four Tigers recognized the enemy, they stopped their vehicles, causing many of the infantrymen, who were nervously clinging to the tanks, to accidentally crash into the stiff tail armor.
"What?" Eric touched his sore head and cautiously poked his head out from behind the tank.
Immediately afterward, he saw a series of French heavy tanks in the woods not far away, "five big and three thick", pointing at him with black holes.
"God!" Eric was startled and immediately put his head back.
"Phew! Bang! Bang! As soon as he retracted his head, the muzzles of the guns pointed at the tigers erupted in flames, smashing armor-piercing shells on the tigers' bodies.
Erik, who was leaning back against the tank, clearly felt several vibrations, which were the result of the kinetic energy transfer of the armor-piercing projectile.
Eric hurriedly turned around again, although he didn't understand why the French tanks hadn't rushed out to slaughter him before, he knew very well that if the tiger that was blocking his shells had a little problem, the French tanks would no longer be able to stay where they were and fire.
Thankfully, the still-roaring engine and the rotating turret told Eric that he was safe and sound.
"Free Fire!" While giving orders to other vehicles with the on-board Fu.5 ultra-shortwave radio, Wittman patted Wall on the shoulder and motioned for him to fire quickly.
"Boss, we're using a grenade." Wall was stunned for a moment.
"Do you want to replace it?" Joseph followed suit.
"No change! A grenade is a grenade! Wittmann stared closely at his target, a strangely shaped tank, the French B1-bis heavy tank.
The B1-bis heavy tank was developed in the late 30s, it was born in response to the expansion of the German army, and was developed from the B1 heavy tank with thicker armor and more horsepower, and is the most advanced heavy tank of the French army so far.
The reason why it is said to have a strange shape is mainly because the configuration of its two main guns is really rare (not only is the turret equipped with a SA34 47mm tank gun, but also a SA32 75mm 17 times diameter short-barreled howitzer on the right side of the front of the car), and in addition to the strange shape, its design is also extremely strange.
The B1-bis heavy tank has a single-man turret arrangement, which means that one person in the turret has to take on all the duties of gunner, loader and commander, completing a series of tasks such as target search, gun loading, and firing, which puts a lot of pressure and consumption on the turret crew.
However, although it is a miracle as a whole, it still caused great problems for Germany in history - a large number of No. 2 and No. 3 tanks equipped by Germany at the beginning of the war could not penetrate the front main armor of the B1-bis 60mm inclined 45 degrees at any distance, and the sides and rear also needed to be at a very close distance to penetrate, usually a B1-bis can beat several German tanks, and in the face of such "monsters", Germany can only hand over 88mm anti-aircraft guns and Stuka to deal with.
But now, the situation is reversed.
A full 23 B-1bis frantically poured shells at the Tiger, which was born years earlier, but could only leave a small hole in the Tiger's main armor, which was 100mm thick and tilted 50 degrees.
In this era, perhaps only large-caliber anti-aircraft guns and French dive bombers could destroy the Tiger.
"Boom!" With a sharp shock from vehicle No. 1331, an 88mm high-explosive grenade in the barrel left where it had been and accurately hit the target that Weitmann was pointing at 200 meters away.
After the violent explosion, the flames and smoke dissipated, and the hit B1-bis did not change in the slightest except for a deep pit and a few shallow craters in the turret.
A grenade with an instantaneous detonation fuse could not penetrate the armor of the B1-bis.
However, after eating an 88mm grenade, the ferocious B1-bis had not fired any more shells for a long time - the members inside were clearly not as troubleless as the tanks they were driving.
"Armor-piercing shell loading!" Wittmann commanded the Tiger to withstand the onslaught of other French tanks while calmly loading a PzGr39TS steel-core shell-piercing shell.
"Aim, fire!"
"Phew!" There was another shudder, but this time it was no longer a high-explosive grenade that posed little threat to the tank, but a PzGr39TS, the most advanced German at the moment!
For example, the Soviet Union was equipped with 152mm armor-piercing shells with 95mm armor-piercing shells as the core as early as 1923, but those armor-piercing shells were only used as shells for anti-tank guns and were not taken seriously by various countries.
But Germany is different, PzGr39TS is specially ordered by Lyon to develop something, there are German engineers accurately designed something, the position of the steel core in the middle is more reasonable than that of other countries, and the steel core material is also harder, which makes PzGr39TS can penetrate 84mm thick and 30 degrees inclined homogeneous steel armor at 2000m, and can penetrate the same material armor with the same inclination angle of 110mm thick at 500m, which ranks first in the world in armor-piercing ability!
In other words, the PzGr39TS can penetrate the main armor of any tank (except the Tiger) within visual distance! Of course, this condition was only possible if the German gunners were accurate enough to shoot.
And now, the poor B1-bis is only 200m away from car 1331, and its main armor is only a pitiful 60mm thick, although its inclination angle is 45 degrees, but this is far from enough to block the Tiger shot.
The 39TS armor-piercing projectile flew away from the barrel with a cloud of flames, and the light metal collar on its periphery detached from the core as soon as it flew out of the chamber, leaving only an elongated steel core that spun at high speed towards its target.
0.25 seconds later, the bullet core accurately hit the front armor of the B1-bis, and it easily burrowed into the "belly" of the B1-bis with high-speed rotation, and then carried the melted fragments of the front armor of the tank and penetrated the rear armor into the soil!
It beats the B1-bis in pair!
However, even if the armor-piercing bullet was punched, the melted fragments of the front armor still pierced the bodies of all the members of the tank, killing them in the steel grave.
"Armor-piercing shell loading!" Wittmann coldly continued to give orders, and at the same time chose a new target.
Just after car 1331 took the first kill, the other tigers also replaced with armor-piercing shells and began to kill in all directions, and almost every cannon shot turned a French tank into a pile of scrap metal.
After losing 6 or 7 tanks in a row, the commander of the French armored forces finally realized the difference between friend and foe, and understood that his artillery could not penetrate the front of the tigers under any circumstances.
"Get moving! Move it! Go around to the sides and behind the backs of these German bastards! The French commander quickly made the wisest decision, "We want to avenge our dead brother!" Let these German Iron Kings know that we are awesome! ”
The French armored units immediately dispersed on the orders of the commander and surrounded the German tank units on both sides.