The "T-26" tank was the first tank to be massively equipped by the Soviet army, but due to the poor performance of the "T-26" tank in the "informal conflict" on the Chinese border, according to its combat practice, Soviet engineers adopted a series of upgrade and improvement measures for the "T-26" tank in order to extend its service life. Expanded fuel tank capacity; Some models added searchlights for use in night battles. The light tank, renumbered as the "T-26S", was fitted with a more robust 25 mm front armor and a turret with thick armor. Later, Soviet engineers took some defensive improvements, packaging the entire hull with a layer of armor, and some tanks were equipped with steel plates, so that the thickness of their armor reached 50 mm. After testing, the 45-mm gun of the improved "T-26" tank was able to penetrate the armor of the Chinese light tanks and the vast majority of armored vehicles, but due to the relatively low quality of the Soviet tankers, the "T-26" tank was still unable to compete with the Chinese army in terms of mobility and armor thickness.

Yang Shuoming carefully looked at the photos of the Soviet tank in his hand, and in these photos, he also found the "T-26", "T-27", "T-28" tanks and the multi-turret tank "T-35" made with reference to the Chinese "Land Patrol 1" tank, but did not find the figure of the famous "T-34" medium tank in the original historical time and space.

Yang Shuoming put the photo on the table, he picked up the pen, and under the prompting of the "supercomputer eye", wrote out the main data of the "T-34" tank, and then took a confidential material, compared the latest Chinese "Xinger" (code ZTZ-36) main battle tank that has been finalized and began to equip the troops one after another, and snapped his fingers lightly.

For this kind of Chinese tank, which can far surpass the "T-34" in all aspects, only a few people in China know about its existence.

May 7, 1936, Taiyuan, Shanxi.

"What the hell is this transporting on a rainy day? Sneaky. ”

Yan Xishan, the governor of Shanxi Province, who was standing in the pouring rain wearing a military raincoat and water boots, looked at the long convoy lined up on the asphalt road, and muttered a little puzzled.

Hearing that the dignified governor actually said a sentence of "sneaky", Zhong Liwei, a colonel of the Chinese Army sitting in a light all-terrain off-road vehicle, couldn't help but laugh.

As one of the escort officers, he certainly knew what kind of equipment this convoy was transporting.

"It's the latest tank for our troops, Governor Yan." In order to gain the understanding and support of the governor of Shanxi, Zhong Liwei still revealed some information to Yan Xishan.

"Looks like I've wronged your guys in the General Armament Department. A while ago, I also said that they were eccentric, and they didn't give us good equipment to join the army, hehe. Yan Xishan said with a smile, "Although it is said that 'if you say it, you will spill it', my old Yan still announced that I would take back the bad words I said behind my back, hehe." ”

"However, the arrival of this new equipment still has to be kept secret by Governor Yan." Zhong Liwei smiled and said.

"Don't worry, although my old Yan has not been in the military for many years, he still understands this rule, so you can rest assured that Brother Zhong." Yan Xishan waved his hand, signaling that he understood the important surname of secrecy, "These good things, if outsiders learn them and make more powerful guys, we will be miserable." ”

Zhong Liwei nodded and stopped talking, he raised his wrist, looked at the time displayed on the waterproof watch on his wrist, and then looked at the convoy slowly moving in the rain, and did not seem too anxious.

At this time, he recalled in his mind the content written in the notebook.

"As a professional soldier, I love all kinds of weapons, and I love all kinds of military-related equipment, and one day I want to open a little museum to collect these things that I love...... But the first exhibit I bought for the museum would be an all-terrain buggy with a strong American flavor, which the Americans call the 'Jeep' -- a truly magical weapon, and it was so well designed that it looked like a loyal soldier from the first day of the war to the end of the war. It has been soaked in seawater and rivers, its wheels worn out in the rocky deserts of Mongolia, its body sunk in swamps, it has trekked through the high mountains of the Tibetan Plateau, and it has haunted the primeval forests of Siberia. I can't remember how many weapons were loaded on such vehicles...... rocket artillery, mortars, machine guns...... It is used for reconnaissance missions as an ambulance, patrol car, command vehicle and general transport vehicle...... In its time, it was not as conspicuous as important weapons such as tanks, artillery, airplanes, submarines, it has always been overlooked, but it is everywhere! In the desert, it is more reliable than camels; In the steppe, it is faster than a leopard; In the ice fields, it is more hard-working than a polar bear......"

"Another exhibit that will be on display in my museum is our new assault rifle (I can't mention its official name yet)...... This is not the one that criminals use to rob banks, nor the one that I take into Mongolia, but the one that my Marines love to put down. It's simple and reliable, like a close comrade-in-arms. It has a simple structure, surnames can be trusted, and these two special surnames are the most important in battle. ”

"My museum will have weapons from all over the world - Germany, the United States, Great Britain, France, Russia and the United Kingdom, but the vast majority will come from my home country. Why do I love our own weapons so much? Because our designers recognized the most simple truth more than ten years ago - only simple and reliable equipment can meet the needs of war. In reality, the same is true: only simple and easy-to-understand plans can be successful, and only the simplest and most wear-resistant battlefield clothing is the best military uniform...... The requirements of us Chinese for weapons are: it must be easy to produce, simple in structure, easy to teach soldiers to use, and easy to maintain and repair. ”

"Our country's steel production is now basically the same as that of the United Kingdom, but we produce far more tanks than the United Kingdom, as well as the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom. If war breaks out, our tanks are simple in structure. It is possible to temporarily repair tens of thousands of such tanks in order to return them to the battlefield two or even three times. Many of our tanks are installed in some small factories, and some are even open-air factories, but they are such factories that produce the simplest and most reliable tanks in the world. ”

"Some people think that the tanks equipped by our army have a simple structure, and the use effect is definitely not good. But on the contrary, our tank was not only simple, it was the most powerful tank in the world at that time. ”

"One day, I bought an old book published in Yenching in 1927 on the question of future warfare, the author of which was clear-headed, sensible, logically impeccable, and analytical—after analyzing the ways in which he had developed military equipment during his lifetime, he declared that the tank would be parked in a museum, next to the skeleton of a dinosaur. His argument was simple - anti-tank guns had been developed to such an extent that in a future war they could completely wipe out the dense formations of tanks, just as machine guns completely restrained cavalry in the First World War. ”

"The argument of those who belittle tanks is simple: 'Look at the anti-tank shells!' Take a look at its hit accuracy and armor-piercing ability! This conclusion is actually untenable. An anti-tank gun is a defensive weapon, and any defensive system means that the troops are dispersed on a wide front, so that they are strong in some places, weak in others, and weak in some places, and where they are weak, and the tanks are concentrated in large numbers in that place. If it were impossible to distribute the forces and weapons evenly, then no defensive position would be sufficient for men. ”

"Imagine 10 anti-tank guns per kilometer of front, and the tanks would select a specific location and attack hundreds or thousands at the same time...... And when you concentrate all your anti-tank forces, the tanks only have to make a detour. Because the tank is an offensive weapon, it has the initiative in battle, it can choose when and where to attack, and how much force to use. It is completely wrong to hope that the perfection of anti-tank weapons will lead to the demise of tanks! Tanks are the attackers - they decide when, where, and how to attack. As long as they think they have confidence in success, when they have secretly discovered the weaknesses in the opponent's defenses (the existence of which are not easily detected by the defenders themselves), they will do it! ”

"The generals of our army have always understood perfectly well that victory in the war can only be achieved by advancing, and for them defense can only be understood as defeat and death. Even in the best of circumstances, defense can only bring stalemate! ”

"An offensive is about striking the hardest of the enemy's weakest areas. Therefore, to win you have to attack, you have to move forward suddenly and act resolutely. To do this, you'll need to have a car that can move outside to destroy the enemy and preferably not get hurt yourself. A vehicle that can fully possess the characteristics of mobility, firepower and protection is a tank. Maybe in the future, the armor of the tank will be more perfect, maybe it will not use tracks but use some other way to drive, maybe it will not have a cannon and use other weapons, maybe everything will change, but as long as its most important special characteristics - the comprehensive capabilities of mobility, firepower and protection remain the same, as long as there is war, as long as it wants to achieve victory, the tank will exist! ”

Zhong Liwei couldn't help but laugh as he looked at the new canvas-covered tanks in the convoy and remembered the various secrecy work that had been carried out around these tanks.

"Here, I would also like to say a few words about the secrecy of our tanks, which is actually very important."

"Just a few years ago, our troops were assigned new tanks, and of course, the soldiers of the division did not know about this at all. They enlist in these units, serve honorably for a certain number of years, and then go home; The other soldiers came again and learned a little about tanks, but they didn't hear anything about the new tanks, and they didn't see a single of them and went home. At the beginning of this year, our troops were converted into new tanks, and the original tanks were sent to the north of Korea, and of course, the soldiers still did not know anything about these things, whether the troops received new tanks or sent away old tanks. Soldiers served in the army and received combat training here, but they did not know anything about the types of tanks they were equipped with. ”

To some laymen, such a situation may seem incomprehensible. In the case of Western countries, when I came to Western countries and saw them for the first time, I was surprised to find that the soldiers of Western countries knew the names and models of their tanks, and they drove these tanks and shot them out of the tanks - this was also incredible to me. ”

"In our army, a lot of things are kept secret, our new tanks are mass-produced, but they are kept secret, even the tank units do not know about the existence of such tanks, the new tanks are accepted from the factory, they are transported in the form of convoys to the troops, they are escorted by officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and these officials are not allowed to talk to the driver. The convoys traveled only at night, the tanks were always completely covered with rainproof cloths, and all other vehicles were closed to other vehicles along their routes, and the tanks were heavily guarded along the way. ”

"The tank crews of the troops soon began to be trained on various features of the new tank, but did not tell them about the model of the new tank and did not let them see the tank. Just introduce the new sights to the gunners and teach them how to shoot from old tanks with new sights. Tank drivers are told that there will be a new tank in the near future, which will be very different, and then they are put on an intense simulation in the old tank. The commander was to tell them something about it and show them how to repair the new engine, but they still didn't tell them how powerful the new engine was. ”

"If, by accident, a terrible war comes, the troops are ordered to go into the tank parking lot, to drive the new tanks out of the warehouses, and to familiarize the soldiers with them - it takes only a small amount of time, and they immediately go to the front and drive this completely unknown tank against the enemy. Soon, they were comfortable with this new type of tank, because if a car driver can skillfully drive a 'Minsheng' brand car, then he can also skillfully drive a luxurious 'Feilong' brand car in a short time -- this is what our army has been doing in the past and now, they use the 'Minsheng' brand car to practice driving, and secretly hide the 'Feilong' brand car until it is really needed. And our enemies will not know about their existence until they encounter our new tanks on the battlefield. ”

"So, if you serve in our army until you retire, you may not know anything about some important equipment in the army, or only know very little - so that no matter where you go in the future, even if you go abroad, you will not be able to accurately describe the situation in our army."

At this time, Zhong Liwei seemed to have figured out the frightened expression of the enemy when he saw the rolling torrent of China's new "Walker" tanks in a possible future war.

October 29, 1936, Spain, on the outskirts of Madrid.

"Comrades! The situation is not so hopeless. They have 15000 soldiers, and we have 15 tanks! Therefore the forces are equal! ”

At this time, Soviet Captain Arman was trying to boost the morale of the Spanish Republican tankers.

After the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin decided to lend a helping hand to the Spanish Republican forces in the civil war in the face of military assistance from Germany and Italy to the rebellious Franco's "nationalist" army. In September 1936, the first Soviet tanks and related specialists sailed to Spain. On 12 October 1936, a cargo ship carrying tanks and "volunteers" arrived at the port of Cartagena, carrying 50 "T-26" light tanks and 51 "volunteer" tank specialists (all of whom were called volunteers because of the Soviet Union's participation in the "Committee for Non-Interference". At the same time, the military attache of the Soviet embassy in Madrid, Vladimir? Colonel Golev arranged for the establishment of a training center in Alchena, in the province of Murcia, about 90 kilometers from the port of Cartagena. The Soviet political axe did not intend to equip the tanks sent to Spain with Soviet crews, but trained the Spaniards to work on them. For much of the Civil War, Alchena was a training and technical center for the republican tank forces.

The "T-26" light tank was the standard infantry tank of the Soviet Red Army at that time, and it was the most produced Soviet tank at the moment. In fact, it was produced more than all other tanks in the world in the 30s combined. "T-26" is a copy of the licensed British "Vickers" 6-ton light tank, but the turret and artillery are of Soviet design. The Soviet Red Army, as was the practice of the average European country at that time, used several tanks for specific purposes at once. The slower "T-26" tank was used to support the Red Army infantry divisions, while the "BT-5" fast tank was intended for cavalry units and deep breakthroughs, much like the British cruiser tanks of the same era. Due to the special surname of the Spanish Civil War, the "T-26" tank was the main model of the tank sent to Spain during the war. "T-26" was not ideal for supporting infantry. It was thinly armored and vulnerable to the anti-tank guns of the time. On the contrary, the armor protection of the newer generation infantry tanks, such as the French "Renault R-35" and the British "Matilda I" type, is much better. But the "T-26" had an advantage in firepower, it was armed with a 45-mm dual-purpose gun, which was more effective and versatile than the weapons of the Anglo-French infantry tanks of the same era.

(To be continued)