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Vienna in January was covered in a thick layer of snow, and in the splendid palace of the Austrian Emperor, politicians and generals were at odds, each trying to fight for as much benefit as possible for their country at the negotiating table.

In the western suburbs of Berlin, at the army test site, another group of people were in a different mood.

When Tatsuten, accompanied by several officers, appeared at the proving ground, the testers and staff speculated about what new weapons had attracted the new Kaiser to the site, knowing that he had never been there since he ascended the throne.

Although the test site was already heavily guarded, the Praetorian Guards brought by Chen Tian still added a cordon around it and cleared out all non-key personnel.

The equipment for the test was brought from East Prussia by train, and the four big ones were still covered in thick canvas, and the first three were one size smaller than the last, but the smallest was one and a half people tall, and lay there like a hill.

Chen Tian is wearing a gray military uniform today, the style is the same as an ordinary field marshal's uniform, without ribbons and medals, which looks simple and comfortable. Since the Minister of War went to Vienna with a cadre of generals, only General Matthew and a dozen or so colonel-level staff officers came to watch the test with Chen Tian this time.

One of them, a young major in a black military uniform, sat quietly in the corner, his expression calm and cautious.

After a while, an officer in charge of performing the test walked up to Chen Tian and asked respectfully:

"Your Majesty, can the experiment begin?"

Chen Tian glanced at the flat ground not far away, and there were five armored soldiers standing next to the four piles of things, and they were untying the ropes under the canvas at this time.

"Well, let's get started!"

The officers quickly conveyed the order, and the armorers neatly removed the canvas, and the first to appear in the sunlight were three black iron guys, who were both familiar and unfamiliar to them, because their bodies and turrets were almost the same as the current main tank of the Imperial Armored Forces, the "Stone II", and because they had completely different weapons on their turrets: the barrel of the first car was almost 23 times longer than that of the "Stone II", and the second car had no guns installed on the turret, Instead, there were two machine guns that were thicker than normal machine guns, and the third turret had a strange nozzle-style barrel.

"Your Majesty, these three are the transformation cars of the 'Stone II' tank, and they are named 'Stone IIB', 'Stone IIC', and 'Stone IID' respectively." The officer in charge of the test explained in a timely manner next to Chen Tian, "The leftmost one here is the 'Stone IIB', for which we have installed a 37 mm long-barreled anti-tank gun, which is equipped with a special scope and armor-piercing shells, which can easily penetrate the armor of any tank or armored vehicle in the world at a distance of 500 meters, including the 'Stone II' itself." The standard reserve of this tank is 30 armor-piercing shells and 50 ordinary grenades! ”

"The second one on the left is the 'Stone IIC' with two 20 mm guns mounted on the front of the turret, and in order to make it anti-aircraft, we have also modified its turret so that its cannon has a maximum elevation angle of 45 degrees and a maximum depression angle of 8 degrees. Its standard reserve is 300 rounds of 20-mm machine guns. ”

"The third is the 'Stone IID', which is also the first Spitfire tank of our army. It has a special flamethrower mounted on the front, with a maximum spitfire distance of 50 meters, carries 400 litres of fuel, and can breathe fire about 30 times. Except for their weapons, the above three tanks have the same driving and protection performance as the Stone II. ”

After the officer finished the introduction, Chen Tian nodded with satisfaction, these are all deformation vehicles developed according to the experience of the armored forces in actual combat, with the development of tank technology in various countries, there will be more deformation cars in the future, but the three in front of him are more than enough to deal with the British.

"Very well, these three tanks should be sent to the British battlefield for combat testing as soon as possible!" Chen Tian made a simple instruction, and the British Isles became the best testing ground for the German army.

As the canvas on the outside of the last tank was lifted, the eyes of the officers present widened one by one, this was a strange guy who had never met. Like the Stone I and Stone II, it has steel tracks, a body, and a turret, but it is very different from the Stone series in terms of details: the body below the turret is square, the height is close to that of the Stone series tank, but it is nearly half the size, and the turret is twice as large as the Stone series; In the center of the turret was a gun with a barrel much longer than the Stone series, and a machine gun on the left side of the front of the turret and on the left; The exterior is relatively smooth, with only a few rivets on the body, and a certain bevel on the body and turret.

"Ho! Tank III! Chen Tian suddenly had such a thought in his head, as if he had seen the famous No. 3 tank of the Third Reich in another world. In fact, the new tank, called "Monster", will play the same tactical role as the number three, the assault tank!

"Your Majesty, this is the prototype of the 'Monster I' tank manufactured by the Königsberg Armored Research Institute!" Although he participated in the design of this tank and had already seen the design drawings, Chen Tian still listened to the officer's explanation very carefully, after all, he had been busy with the war for the past half a year, and during this period, the experts must have made a lot of technical improvements to the "monster".

Just as the officers were amazed by this never-before-seen newness, the panzers quickly climbed into the tanks through the hatches in the hull and turret, and then with the roar of engines, four tanks started one after the other!

As when the Stone series tanks were launched, puffs of green smoke continued to erupt from the tail of the "monster" with the roar of the engine, and with a somewhat harsh sound of metal rubbing, the huge "monster" began to move.

"At present, our 'Monster I' prototype weighs 15 tons, is 5.5 meters long, 2.8 meters wide and 2.5 meters high, and is armed with a 45 x diameter 50 mm tank gun, with 88 rounds of standard ammunition, and an improved "Firebird" machine gun in the turret and body, with 1,200 rounds of ammunition each. The turret and body armor are made of homogeneous armor plates, the turret uses the latest welding technology, the body uses welding and rivet hybrid technology, the front of the turret adopts a spoon-shaped structure with an artillery shield, the thickest part of the frontal armor of the hull reaches 35 mm, the front of the turret plus the shield can reach 40 mm, the sides of the hull are 20 mm, the back is 15 inside, and the roof and bottom armor are 10 mm! ”

"The prototype uses a Daimler inline 4-cylinder, 200-horsepower water-cooled gasoline engine as the power unit (the A7V tank, a famous German activity fortress during the First World War, uses this engine, but the A7V weighs 30 tons and has 1,626 members, so the maximum speed is only 10 kilometers per hour), and the maximum road speed reaches 30.5 kilometers per hour during the test, the off-road speed can exceed 15 kilometers per hour, the fuel tank capacity is 300 liters, the maximum road travel is about 150 kilometers, and the off-road travel is 80 kilometers. The car had a balanced coil-spring suspension (the same suspension used by the A7V tank, which was more comfortable than the British tanks of the same period), and 5 separate load wheels on each side of the tank. In previous tests, according to the testers' reactions, the balance and comfort of the 'Monster I' when traveling is better than that of the 'Stone II' tank, and the average armored unit is completely acceptable! ”

While the officer was talking, Monster I had left the other three tanks behind and was running wildly in front of him, and a puff of dust and smoke was raised behind the vehicle.

With a larger body, more solid armor, thicker artillery, and faster speed, Chentian's staff officers couldn't help but marvel.

At this time, the young major with an indifferent expression also looked intently at the galloping "monster" on the test ground, its graceful posture, the rapid and coherent movement when it turned around the target flag, and the constantly rotating turret as it went, all of which seemed so fascinating.

In Chentian's view, although the current armor steel plate technology still needs to be improved, the "monster" can not be compared with the Führer's No. III tank in terms of defense, but there is no doubt that it is already a product ahead of the times, which is not only thanks to the designers of the Königsberg Armored Research Institute, but also thanks to Germany's superior industrial system.

First of all, the German military industry, large and small traditional arms factories provide the most powerful guarantee for the German army, and the Krupp enterprises and the Mauser company are the leaders among them.

The century-old Krupp Enterprise (founded in 1811 as a steel mill) is famous for its artillery technology, and they have been supplying artillery to the Prussian army since 1844, and the excellent artillery produced by them has shown their skills in Prussia, Austria, Prussia and World War I, among which the 420 mm siege gun successfully developed in 1909 created the world's best. This vast industrial empire not only made artillery, but also performed well in steel and even shipbuilding. In fact, as early as 1906, the Krupp enterprise manufactured submarines, and the Baltic fleet of Chentian still purchased two experimental submarines from them, until Wilhelm II specially approved the deployment of the best submarine designers and technicians to the Königsberg shipyard, and at the same time, Chentian also recruited many well-known submarine engineers from the United States, Britain and other countries with high salaries, which made the Königsberg shipyard gradually become the largest submarine manufacturing base in Germany and even the world.

At present, whether it is a stone series tank or a new monster tank, the artillery they use is the product of Krupp enterprises, especially the 50 mm tank gun on the "Monster I", which is a new type of cannon specially developed by Krupp after receiving the order (that is, a gun with a long barrel, low ballistics, and a large muzzle velocity and a small angle of fire).

Although the history of the Mauser company is not as old as that of Krupp, the Mauser brothers have created a Mauser myth, and since the 70s of the 19th century, the Mauser rifle has become the most reliable individual weapon of the German Army, and the 98 series rifle has been in full bloom. In fact, not only rifles, but also the Mauser company has been committed to the research and production of various light weapons, including the Mauser pistol produced in 1896 (the famous barge gun, the structure was hardly improved for more than 40 years, but due to its high price and size, no country used it as the standard weapon of the army, but the Chinese loved it). Starting from the "Stone I", all types of German tanks were equipped with machine guns without exception, which proved to be "infantry killers" in actual combat, while the Stone series and Monster series tanks were equipped with 7.92 mm "Firebird" improved machine guns, although this machine gun was provided by the East Prussian Soldier Factory invested by Chentian, but the technology was successfully researched in cooperation with the Mauser company.

In addition to the excellent arms industry, before the outbreak of the Great War, the German automobile industry had formed an independent industrial sector, with an annual output of 20,000 automobiles, and such a huge automobile industry provided technical support for the development and production of armored vehicles in Germany. Among the dozens of automobile factories, the most famous, oldest and largest automobile factories are Mercedes-Benz and Daimler, Mercedes-Benz began to produce "Verlo" brand cars in batches in 1894, and Daimler first applied nozzle carburetors and magneto ignition devices in 1901, and the performance of the engine was greatly improved, which also made it possible to use tractors that needed high-power engines. After the establishment of the GG tractor factory invested by Chentian, the first thing was to purchase gasoline engine technology from Daimler and set up an engine research laboratory in cooperation with the company, and the 200-horsepower Daimler engine used on the "Monster I" is the best gasoline engine at present.

In addition, the Chentian Engine Research Laboratory is committed to developing diesel engines with higher power, smaller volume and weight, and strives to put this safer engine on the tank as soon as possible. The chief designer of this project was none other than the inventor of the diesel engine - the German Rudolf. Diesel Diesel was a brilliant inventor, but not a shrewd business mind, he developed and patented the first diesel engine in 1892, but he put the immature diesel engine into commercial production two years later, and the result was not only accepted by the public but also in debt, and later Chen Tian found him and paid off the debt for him (otherwise the poor inventor would have been swept away by the waves on the deck of the ferry in 1913, Of course, most historians agree that he committed suicide out of desperation), and since then Diesel has been in the engine laboratory in Königsberg. Now German submarines are far ahead of Britain and France, and Diesel and his diesel engine technology have contributed a lot.

After bypassing the target flag, the "monster" has a distance of more than 50 meters ahead of the "stone", and the next thing it will have to undergo will be an obstacle test, first a trench about 1.5 meters wide, followed by several rows of wooden piles about 1 meter high, connected by barbed wire, then two trenches about 1 meter wide and 30 meters long, and between the trenches there are several machine gun fortresses made of mounds and stones, which is also the most common defense method in positional warfare at present.

Further afield, there is a wall of masonry, a slope and a large puddle.

"How deep is that puddle?" For the "defensive position" in front, Chen Tian had no doubt that the "monster" could easily pass through, and he was more interested in the cross-country ability of this new tank at this time, so he turned his head and asked the officer in charge of explaining.

"Back to Your Majesty, about 1.1 meters deep!" The officer quickly gave the answer, "The brick wall is 2 meters high and 20 centimeters thick, and the earth slope is 2 meters high and the slope is 30 degrees!" ”

"Oh......" Chen Tian looked at the galloping monster expectantly, and when it came to the front of the trench, it didn't seem to have any intention of slowing down.