In medieval Europe, bulky and thick, full-body armor was all the rage, when this trend developed to an extreme, ordinary swords could not pierce the heavy armor of knights at all, and the battle between knights could not be divided until both sides were exhausted, and hundreds of years later, in the era of great industry, the uneven development of technology and thinking made a similar comical situation reappear - two heavy warships may not be able to penetrate each other's armor, and the solution to the problem is to develop and equip themselves with larger caliber artillery, As a result, the naval race has escalated. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

On land, the new armoured fighting vehicles were in the same situation as naval warships, most notably the British "Kitchener" heavy tank, whose 37mm cannon could not penetrate the frontal armor of their own turret at any distance, but fortunately, the British did not have to worry about their opponents introducing and equipping this vehicle, and with their knowledge of German and Irish vehicles, this tank gun seemed to be more than enough to meet the demand, just as their opponents felt that their tank guns could easily deal with "Kitchener". Again, both sides were misled by inaccurate and even false information, a mistake that soon became apparent in the Battle of the Cohen Peninsula......

Boom!

With the deafening roar of the 50x diameter 75 mm tank gun, another Krupp munitions armor-piercing shell came out of its chamber and flew at a speed of more than 700 meters per second towards a target 200 meters away -- a British "Kitchener" heavy tank with only a huge head exposed.

The cannonballs bombarded the front of the turret of the British tank, and countless sparks burst into the sky in an instant. Before the results of the battle were confirmed, the commander of the German "Teutonic Knight" who had just opened fire shouted: "Armor-piercing shell loading!" ”

The young and strong loader quickly withdrew from the previous shell, and the clatter of the shells was a pleasant note in the battle symphony. I saw him take out an armor-piercing bullet with a warhead and a half-human height with a shell case attached to it from the shell rack, and struggling to stuff it into the chamber.

At this moment, the commander, who had always been staring at the front of his eyes, patted his leg regretfully and said, "The shell failed to penetrate the target." ”

The gunner leaned closer to the scope and muttered in a voice that only he could hear: "Damn, if you encounter a hard-shelled turtle that is difficult to deal with, do you have to get closer to pry open its shell?" ”

The rate of fire of a purely manually loaded gun is usually inversely proportional to the caliber, and the 75 mm gun of the "Teutonic Knight" is reloaded once, and the British tank on the opposite side is often able to fire one, a half or even two. The shells fired from the 37mm guns repeatedly struck the armor of the German tank, constantly making a metallic sound similar to the hammer hitting the bottom of the pot, so that every crew member inside the tank always hung in the air - although the enemy tank guns were only half the caliber of their own, the German tank crews did not feel that they could rest easy, because during the training course, they were required to learn and remember the effective penetration depth of various guns, and the German 37mm anti-tank guns were equipped with tungsten core armor-piercing shells. At a distance of two hundred meters, it was possible to penetrate the "Teutonic Knights" in any part except the front of the turret, including the relatively thick bow armor.

After a fierce exchange of fire, his own tank was shot several times but did not penetrate once, and Second Lieutenant East did not feel lucky, but speculated that the performance of the enemy's 37mm gun and the armor-piercing shells equipped with it did not meet the pre-war estimates. In this case, why not take the initiative to press forward, on the one hand, you can improve the armor-piercing effect of your own tank cannon, and on the other hand, you can deter the opponent in momentum?

After a moment of thought, the second lieutenant's sonorous voice sounded in the cabin of the tank: "Matt, inform cars 4 and 5 to follow us, and the rest of the tanks will shoot in place; Ruud, 50 meters in first gear...... Everyone's sit tight! ”

Advancing means a corresponding increase in the probability of being penetrated by enemy artillery, but the driver of the tank does not hesitate in the slightest. Amid the exceptionally loud roar of diesel engines, the three Teutonic Knights, marching side by side, move forward with a steady and slow gait like elephants strolling on their own turf. As they advanced, their guns paused firing, coaxial machine guns and bow machine guns fired repeatedly, and bullets with tracer rounds flew across the narrow battlefield......

After advancing about thirty meters, Ensign Rost's command vehicle was interrupted by an enemy shell on the right track. Hearing the strange noise coming from outside the car, the driver knew that something was wrong, and in order to prevent the vehicle from deflecting on the spot, exposing the relatively weak side of the defense to the enemy's gun, he hurriedly took emergency stop measures.

The second lieutenant also immediately asked the signal corps to notify the two wingmen who were working together to stop.

Perhaps there was something wrong with the communication equipment, only one of the two "Teutonic Knights" advancing side by side stopped moving, and the crew of the other chariot obviously did not notice the situation of his companion, and continued to move forward alone, and by the time this guy stopped, he had already surpassed his companion by several bodies, and thus became the target of the enemy's concentrated fire!

From the moment it stopped, Rost's tank resumed its previous accurate fire, and as it moved forward for such a distance, the shell's penetration effect changed dramatically: a second armor-piercing shell pierced the turret of the hardened British tank. Although there were no heavy ammunition explosions, judging by the fact that the crew opened the hatch and evacuated in panic, the British tank had lost its combat effectiveness.

On the German side, one of the tanks that was suddenly at the front was hit by a "broken belt" in the blink of an eye, thus losing its normal ability to move, and the British fire deliberately avoided its heavily armored parts, trying to attack the viewing holes on the front of the tank, the muzzle of the machine gun, and the side of the body. After receiving more than a dozen shells, the "Teutonic Knight" seemed to give up resistance, its guns and machine guns quieted down, and after a few moments, the escape hatch at the rear of the turret opened, and two crew members came out of the smoke-filled cabin one after another, one of them was swept down by the British machine gun before he could take two steps, and the other guy saw that the situation was not good, and hurriedly lay down on the back of the chariot's butt and pretended to be dead......

Ensign Reut's car was also under intense enemy fire, and its turret and bow were repeatedly shot unharmed, indicating that the position was relatively safe from a technical point of view. So, he radioed the entire front pressure of the chariot behind him, and after several fruitless shots, a "Kitchener" suddenly drove out of its hidden position, revealing the guy with a short barrel in the front of the hull - this 76. The main role of the 2 mm caliber gun is to support infantry operations, and if equipped with special armor-piercing shells, it can still achieve good damage when attacking armored targets at close range.

How could a well-trained German panzer watch this dangerous man calmly take his position and aim and fire, and while he was still climbing uphill, at least two "Teutonic Knights" turned their guns around. The Kitchener's hull armor was much easier to deal with than the hard-to-move turret, as evidenced by the battle the night before.

The aggressive "Kitchener" was killed in seconds as soon as he showed his face, how could the rest of the British tanks repeat the mistakes of the past? They decisively changed their tactics and attacked the tracks of the German tanks to prevent them from carrying out oppressive attacks, and in such close quarters, the gunners on both sides played quite efficiently. After a while, the number of German tanks that could not move due to damaged tracks increased to 4, but by this time, there were only 3 British tanks left, and their determination to resist was greatly shaken, and they began to retreat, leaving the infantry behind the palace to the angry German armored force in front of them, but how could it be so easy to get out? The ravines in which they were located were no better than the hand-dug communication trenches, which allowed them to retreat to the rear positions, and marching along the ravines could temporarily disengage the German tanks, but to evacuate from this area, they would eventually have to climb out of the ravines from other positions, and the Germans would not know anything about this?

Ten minutes later, Second Lieutenant East opened the captain's hatch and took a deep breath of the air that was still mixed with the smell of gunsmoke. The fierce gunfire echoed through the fields, but the battle was over, and the German infantry was driving the British soldiers out of the trenches who had surrendered. Some of the grass-green painted "Kitchener" are still burning, and some are mostly intact in appearance, except for circular bullet holes in the turret. The ensign sat in the hatch, pulled out his cigarette, and silently watched the difficult creatures, first known to the world at a military parade in the British royal celebration, but their brilliance was completely overshadowed by the larger, more powerful "paladins" with their multi-turret construction. The Germans, who were actively preparing for war, collected as much intelligence as possible about the various weapons and equipment of their opponents, compiled them into technical atlases and distributed them to the front-line troops, and the German officers and soldiers gave them various nicknames, such as "Kitchener" and "British turtles," which meant thick armor and slow speed. In order to deal with this protective British tank, the German military replaced the 50mm gun used in the prototype and earlier models of the "Teutonic Knight" with an expensive 75 mm tank gun, and confident German experts believed that the new gun was enough to penetrate the frontal armor of the "Kitchener" at a distance of 800 meters, but from the course of the battle, this data was only effective for the side and rear armor of the "Kitchener".

Thankfully, the British also lacked accurate judgment on the actual performance of the "Teutonic Knight", in fact, in order to meet the requirements of the German General Staff for firepower and speed, the "Teutonic Knight" prototype was not much more protective than the standard tank "Celtic Warrior" enthusiastically promoted by the Irish, and after Daimler-Benz successfully developed a new diesel engine with superior performance, engineers took advantage of the situation to improve the design of the "Teutonic Knight", and the armor thickness of the turret and bow was increased by 30%.

The crew of the tank was busy repairing the tracks, and Esther quietly finished smoking a cigarette, then got out of the car and walked to the front of the tank. The frontal armor of this "Teutonic Knight" was deeply marked by British armor-piercing bullets, and he stretched out his finger and gently touched the marks of a tough guy's scar, the burning sensation caused by the huge impact had long since disappeared, and the gray metal exposed to the air gave people an extraordinarily compact and thick feeling.

(End of chapter)