"I think everyone should know that now the Germans have replaced their tank No. 4 with a powerful tank gun, which poses a great threat to our tanks. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

Not long ago, during an encounter in the vicinity of Ostrov, a tank company of the Soviet Red Army was attacked by German tank No. 4.

The T-34 tank of the company, the front armor of the 60-degree inclination was actually penetrated by the No. 4 tank of the Germans, which shows that the new tank gun of the Germans has been able to penetrate all types of tank armor of our army. ”

In the conference room of the Ministry of Defense in Moscow, a meeting is taking place. The meeting was chaired by Senior General Manturov, who had just become Deputy People's Commissar of Defense, and discussed mainly matters related to the development of new tanks.

"Comrade General," said tank designer Kotin, tremblingly, calling Manturov to his rank, and then said: "We have all heard about it, but our 76-mm tank guns and 85-mm tank guns can penetrate the front armor of tank No. 4 at a distance of 2 kilometers. ”

The only person in the entire conference room who did not dare to look at Manturov was the famous tank designer Joseph Kotin.

Just a year ago, Manturov, as People's Commissar of Construction, strongly supported the development of the T-34 tank. This excellent tank, developed by the team of Kotin's rivals, Morozov and Koshkin, was superior to Kotin's work in every way.

The advent of the T-34 dealt a great blow to Kotin's status and his self-confidence. With the support of Manturov and Stalin, production lines for T-34 tanks were set up in several industrial centers across the country.

Suddenly, Koshkin and Morozov became heroes in the military industry, respected by Stalin, and at the same time jealous of Kotin.

The frustrated Kotin, who blamed the success of the T-34 and the failure of his own work on Manturov's involvement, began to hold a grudge against the incident, and on many occasions, he said in front of everyone that Manturov was not. Later, after Manturov became deputy prime minister, Kotin did not dare to speak ill of him again because of the other party's power.

"Comrade Kotin," Manturov said, sitting up straight, "you are right, our tank guns really do not have anything to improve, at least we can penetrate the armor of tank No. 4 at a distance of two kilometers."

However, with the introduction of new tank guns by the Germans, the survivability of our tanks will be greatly reduced. In this way, we need to increase the protection of the tank and increase the thickness of the armor.

It seems to me that both the KV tank designed by you and the T-34 tank designed by the leadership of Comrade Morozov have the need to upgrade the armor. ”

Morozov, who participated in the meeting, looked at Manturov in the general's uniform, and his heart also had a sense of awe. He handed Manturov a document and said: "Comrade Manturov, just as soon as we learned that the Germans introduced a new tank gun, we got data on this gun from the People's Commissariat of Defense and worked out a plan for upgrading the armor of the T-34 tank.

After exchanging views with our comrades in the design bureau, we finally decided to thicken the front armor of the T-34 to 65 mm, the armor in front of the turret and on the sides to 90 mm and 75 mm, respectively, and the roof ...... Behind ......"

Manturov looked at the armor configuration map provided by Morozov, and felt that it was no different from the armor upgrade scheme of the T-34 in history. If upgraded according to this scheme, the T-34 tank will be able to resist the new German tank guns.

After the improvement, the Kwk40 main gun of the German tank No. 4 could not penetrate the T-34's front armor at a 60-degree inclination at any distance.

However, due to the lack of tilt angles, even if the T-34's turret armor was increased to 90 mm, the No. 4 tank was still able to penetrate the T-34's turret front armor at a distance of a thousand meters. It needs to be increased to at least 110 mm to have sufficient resistance.

Manturov made a mark with a pencil on the draft of the armor configuration provided by Morozov, and then said: "Comrade Morozov, I think the front armor of the turret could be a little thicker, at least to 120 mm. ”

"120 mm? Is this necessary? ”

"Yes," replied Manturov, "to tell you the truth, the Germans are already working on a new and powerful tank, based on reliable intelligence."

The tank's main gun is said to be able to penetrate 130 mm of vertical armor at a range of 1,500 meters. In such a situation, we should start working on a tank that can fight it. ”

"But, Comrade Manturov," said Morozov, frowning, "if the armor of the T-34 is thickened to 120 mm, I am afraid that the weight of the body will be greatly increased, and the space inside the car will be reduced, which may cause a lot of trouble, unless we redesign the chassis." ”

True, the T-34 tank had difficulty increasing the turret armor to such a thickness of 120 mm due to the small size of the hull. In such a situation, Morozov had to redesign a larger chassis.

Actually, Manturov is not unaware of this truth. The reason why he proposed the 120 mm design was to get Morozov to redesign the chassis of the tank, so that the T-44 tank could be introduced as soon as possible to fight the future Tiger tank.

"In that case, the upgrade plan for the T-34 will be done according to your design. And in order to deal with the threat of new German tanks, you will also have to consider redesigning a new medium tank. Manturov said what he knew about the characteristics of the T-44 tank: "The turret of this tank should be centered, the turret armor should be 120 mm thick, and the front armor should be 90 mm thick......

"Understood."

"Comrade Manturov," at this time, another tank designer, Kotin, also submitted to Manturov a plan for upgrading the armor of the KV tank. "Actually, a few days ago, we also decided on an armor upgrade plan. The turret armor of the KV tank could be thickened to 120 mm, the thickness and inclination of the armor in other positions could not be changed, and it seemed that the chassis would also have to be redesigned. ”

Manturov nodded slightly, and said: "The angle of inclination of the armor of the chassis of the KV tank is too small, and the angle of inclination of the side armor is still 0, which leads to too low protection and fails to play its due defensive role."

In my opinion, the new chassis, both frontal, back, and side armor, should have a greater angle of inclination. I'll go back and give you a draft drawing, and you can just design according to the draft. At the same time, there should be a larger turret mount to accommodate a larger turret, as well as a 100 mm caliber D-10 tank gun with a 53.5x caliber ratio. ”

"D-10 tank gun?" Neither Kotin, nor Molozov, had never heard of such a tank gun.

"Yes, two comrades," Manturov explained, "and not so long ago, I ordered Comrade Petrov and his team to design the S-34 naval gun they designed as a tank gun.

This 100 mm caliber naval gun with a 53.5 times caliber ratio has been proven to be capable of penetrating 165 mm armor at a distance of 1,000 meters in previous tests.

If it is converted into a tank gun, it is believed that it can play a greater role on the battlefield. ”