"Send these eight heroes to Moscow as soon as possible to receive their honors. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info" Stalin said to Lin Jun after the proposal was adopted.

Lin Jun had already sat back in his chair, and after hearing this, he said: "For their heroic behavior, they need to be commended, but as for the crazy actions of the pilots, they still need to be reminded internally." Such an adventure would not be of much benefit to the military itself, and the use of such risky tactics on a large scale could not be promoted. ”

If all the pilots did such an outrageous thing, it would not bode well for the war, although Lin Jun himself liked the thrill of strafing the streets under the linden tree very much!

"Let the Propaganda and Agitation Department handle it, just don't overdo it."

Stalin tapped his large pipe in the ashtray and said, "There is no news yet about the air attack units from other directions that will attack tonight?" ”

"I asked the air forces of all sides to report tomorrow, and it is estimated that most of them should have returned, and the Air Force Committee will sort out a report on the integration of the German army's strategic air defense forces in depth and hand it over to the British."

The meeting lasted half an hour before it ended, and Lin Jun got into the car and returned to his home in Moscow, having not slept well for days. There was no light in Moscow at night, and the outlines of air-proof balloons could be seen over both sides of Enthusiasts' Street - Lin Jun had been to Unter den den Linden in Berlin, and geographically speaking, the situation here was similar.

This will visually measure the width of the channel over the street, and in such visibility, will it be possible to successfully bomb the Reichstag from an ultra-low altitude of 50 meters?

"It should be possible, but it's very difficult."

came up with a satisfactory answer, which also shows that the 8 long-range fighter pilots are all very skilled pilots, and they are a group of brave and crazy Ivan!

Vuginskaya had already arrived home first, but the children were in Zhukov, and the house seemed a little deserted.

"The bath water is already placed, do you want to eat something first?" After helping her husband take off her coat, Vukinskaya said.

"No, just eat before the meeting, don't be hungry. Just take a shower, I'm a little uncomfortable, and I'll ask Lisa to send my clothes to be washed tomorrow, they're very dirty. ”

Lisa is a staff member of Lin Jun's home in the city, and the waiters who receive state salaries - the marshal and the general are always away from home, and someone must take care of everything here, so Lin Jun's office director has assigned several service personnel to the marshal's house in the city.

I took a hot bath and didn't even want to get up when I soaked in the bathtub.

Vuginskaya walked in in her dressing gown and pressed her husband on the shoulder.

"Do you want to go back to the front?"

"Not in the near future, but I might want to go to Siberia."

As for what to do in Siberia, Lin Jun will not say it to his wife, it is the highest level of secret.

"Tonight our planes bombed Berlin, Polish arsenals and Romanian oil fields, and eight fighter planes to Berlin shot at Unter den Linden."

Hearing her husband's words, Vukinskaya didn't say anything, now she only cares about her lover in front of her eyes, and tonight's war doesn't seem to have anything to do with her.

The hot water is very comfortable, Comrade Marshal soaked in the hot water and did not want to get up, and this will be in the Everglades of Northern Ukraine, where 3 people are trying to climb out of the water!

Captain Georgy Mikhainovich Parshin was getting out of the cockpit half-sunken in the swamp, and just now his plane broke at least dozens of small trees before stopping, and it was a miracle that he could get out without exploding!

Pulling out the navigator Shavelin, who was behind him, he heard Corporal Kharchenko shouting: "Guys, for God's sake, pull me along!" ”

"God can't help us, dear Comrade Kharchenko, you should be glad that the plane didn't explode!"

After Shavirin got out of the water on his own, he pulled out the corporal who was immersed in the water in the back half of his body.

Standing on the fuselage of the Pi-2 night fighter with a broken wing, it was pitch black all around! I took out my flashlight and looked around, and I saw that it was all a grove in the swamp.

"I said if you can come up with a way, I'm going to freeze to death!"

The icy swamp backwater, the forest still has a very small amount of snow, and the temperature can still make a thin layer of ice form on the edge of the backwater!

"Take everything you can with you, and we'll go ashore."

Impatient with the chirping of the machine gunner, Parshin stretched out his foot to test the depth of the swamp, but fortunately, as if he had been embarrassed by his own landline, he did not sink down after passing his knees.

The three of them helped each other to get stuck in the stagnant water for more than ten meters, and finally set foot on the ground.

"Shaverin, where are we?"

"It should be north of the Turia River." The navigator told the machine gunners, who were dragging their boots, "This is a partisan zone, but the settlements and roads are under German control." ”

"If only I could find the guerrillas, but I'll have to dry my pants first!" Kharchenko shivered from the cold - he hadn't been so cold before, and he felt like his entire wet lower body was almost gone.

The three of them were busy gathering branches, and soon a bonfire was lit. The firelight gives people warmth, and they don't have to worry about whether it will be exposed, there is no man's land for dozens of kilometers around here.

Just now it was galloping in the sky, and this will become a soup chicken in three swamps, and the contrast is too great. But you can only go with the flow, who let yourself be unlucky!

An hour earlier, Parshin's planes had covered the formation of 2 high-speed bombers that had broken into Poland from an ultra-low altitude and bombed the Polish Radom Arsenal at night. The first half of the mission was basically uneventful, but it was intercepted by some anti-aircraft fire over the area of the arsenal, but the return voyage was lively - there were constant interceptions by German night fighters, even single shots!

With a full range of equipment, powerful firepower and nimble aircraft performance, Parschen took out two ME110s in the plane, but encountered a team of single-engine Mercedes 109s near Kovelli, unfortunately the engine was hit, and the left wing was cut off a small piece!

In order to deal with the two ME110s in front, Parshin wasted too much time, and as a result, a group of single-engine fighters who could only show their majesty during the day were besieged!

There are bullet holes in the wings, and the engine on the left wing is off, which is really damn!

Finally, he got out of the clouds and got out of danger, but the engines and wings were no longer able to withstand it, so he had to make a forced landing in a dark swamp. Fortunately, except for the fact that the navigator's arm hung up fragments of German 20-mm artillery shells, everything was safe.

I treated Saverin's arm with a first-aid kit, but the injury was not deep and the problem was not big.

The lower half of the three of them were stripped naked, and there was no way, even their underwear was wet - all the pants were hung in a circle with branches, roasted on the fire, and the flight jackets were taken off and wrapped around the lower bodies.

Fortunately, the return trip is planned to return from high altitude and high speed, and I wear a lot of clothes, otherwise I will be frozen enough if I take off my jacket!

Having managed to survive until dawn and his pants were dry, Parshin decided to set out east in search of the guerrillas.

、、、、、、

In the morning at the airport in Plungai, Lithuania, the pilots were already up early in the morning and ready for combat readiness, but there were still a few people sleeping in the barracks - Captain Kamozin and his men did not sleep until dawn.

As soon as the eight fighter planes returned to the airport last night, the pilots recounted to the welcoming crowd what they were doing in Berlin, which lifted the spirits of the people at the airport!

The bombing of Berlin was already exhilarating, not to mention the strafing of Unter den Linden and the drop of bombs on the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag!

However, after being greeted by an almost frenzied melancho, the eight pilots were called into the war room and asked to describe the entire process of the operation in detail.

After waiting for the criticism, no one was able to leave - fortunately, eight people were "released" an hour later, and the news was that the Kremlin seemed to be satisfied with their performance.

Bomb Berlin, it's worth celebrating!

The higher-ups did not allow the pilots who were going to go out on a mission tomorrow to have a big celebration, and they accepted eight people to congratulate themselves in the barracks, and anyway, there was no mission for their own people the next day.

At nine o'clock in the morning, the regiment commander broke into the barracks and shouted at Kamozhin: "Get up for me, go to the plane and sleep again!" ”

Kamozin jumped up from the bed at once: "Regiment commander, what's the situation?!" ”

Talking in his mouth, his hands and feet are neat and his pants are set.

Urgent take-off? This set is trivial for pilots.

"Don't wear flight suits, I'm not telling you to go to war. The Air Force Command of the Front Army has come with an order for the eight of you to go to Moscow immediately to receive commendations and dress decently! ”

At this time, all the pilots who reflexively got up stopped putting on their clothes and pants, "Moscow? ”

"Well, it's Moscow, go to the Kremlin! Damn, I knew I was going to Berlin too, and I let you guys take advantage of it! "The head of the regiment is waiting for the big bull's eyes, and he regrets it in his heart! Sigh!

What can be done, what the world can't buy is regret medicine!

"Ulla!" Lieutenant Majinin was the first to cheer in the barracks, and now everyone was cheering - if you want to go to Moscow now, it can only be one thing: to be awarded the title of "Hero of the Soviet Union", and if you are awarded other honors, you don't have to go to Moscow!

Disheveled, cheering in bed, not a bit of a hero!

The pilots dug out their uniforms in their cabinets, hung up all the medals, combed their hair, and looked in the mirror, a bit like they were going to a wedding.

A transport plane is already waiting and will send Kamozhin to Moscow.

Rejoice! Not only the pilots were happy, but the whole airport was celebrating, and even the commander of the Front, Tukhachevsky, sent a congratulatory telegram -- the Soviet Union has not once collectively awarded the title of "Hero of the Soviet Union" to a group of people who performed the same task for many years.

、、、、、、

On the outskirts of Leningrad, the test base of the Kirov plant. Spring in Leningrad has not yet arrived, but a hint of humidity can already be smelled in the air on the outskirts. The ice in the creek had begun to melt, a small amount of mottled snow could still be seen in the woods, and the grass was mostly exposed, but it was still yellow, and the new shoots had not yet grown.

Today, a guest came to the Kirov plant, and the reception place was chosen at the test base in the suburbs, not in the factory office. The guests seemed important, because even the 34-year-old Major General engineer, the deputy People's Commissar of the Soviet Union People's Commissariat of the Tank Industry and the chief designer of the tank factory, Joseph Yakovlevich Kokin, was greeted outside a workshop.

There is a reason why it is not in the main factory area, because it is stored here 4 German heavy tanks from the front line, which are being tested.

It's not that any big man in Moscow will come to inspect the Kirov plant, but Kokin is waiting for his biggest opponent in the field of professional design, a talented Soviet tank designer like him: chief designer of the T34 tank, chief designer of the Kharkov tank factory, Major General Engineer Mikhail Ilyich Koshkin.

None of the people on the side spoke, because Comrade Kokin had a serious face and did not say a word - in the Kirov plant, Kokin had more power than the director and the party committee! Absolute authority!

Not to mention that he was also the son-in-law of Marshal Voroshilov.

A car approached and stopped, and out of the back seat got a middle-aged officer in the uniform of a major general's engineer, this is the 44-year-old genius designer Koshkin.

"Hello, Mikhail Ilyich." Kokin was very generous today, smiled and stepped forward and stretched out his hand first.

"Hello, Joseph Yakovlevich."

After a while of greetings between the entourages on both sides, the two chief designers obviously didn't want to waste time and cut to the chase.

"The committee asked me to drop all my work and go to Leningrad, you see I came as fast as I could, where are the new tanks of the Germans?"

As he walked, Koshkin said that the "committee" he was referring to was the People's Commissariat of the Tank Industry, and that he could only accept orders issued there -- worse still, Kokin still had the title of deputy head of the committee.

Kokin led Koshkin to the side workshop, "We've broken down an end-of-life car, and the results are worrying to me, especially for your T34. ”

As soon as a group of people walked into the workshop, Koshkin saw a behemoth in the center of the workshop being disassembled, and workers were removing a huge turret with a horizontal cart.

"The German Tiger heavy tank is obviously a prototype of the original model."

Koshkin was immediately attracted by the big guy in front of him, who was being disassembled, and walked up a few steps to take a look.

"Joseph Yakovlevich, did you get its basic parameters?"

Put aside the personal "grudges" for a moment, and see that there is nothing else in the tank Koshkin's head.

Kokin on the side didn't even need to look at the record book, he could report it when he opened his mouth: "The armor in front of the hull is 102 mm thick, and the front of the turret is 135 mm thick, which is much thicker than the front armor plate of the original German medium tank, compared to the armor in the front of the body of the new improved No. 4 tank is only 80 mm, and the front of the turret is only 57 mm." ”

Kokin walked to the side of the hull, "It's a monster, the armor on both sides is as thick as the back, both are 82 mm, and this thickness should be able to withstand most of our armor-piercing shells at normal engagement distances." ”

Pointing to the turret that was being removed: "The turret also has a wide rectangular shield, 135 mm thick, which overlaps the 102 mm thick turret armor at the back, and it is almost impossible for armor-piercing shells to penetrate its turret from the front!" ”

As he spoke, he said to a technician next to him, "Let the crosscar put that turret down." ”

"Yes, Director." The technician immediately ran to the cross-car operation room.

"The thickness of the armor on the roof of the car is between 25 and 40 mm, and our current armor-piercing shells, which are mainly equipped with 23-mm armor-piercing shells for aircraft aircraft, are very difficult to penetrate diagonally through their top armor, and as far as I know, the theoretical penetration value of the latest armor-piercing incendiary shells equipped with МП-6 aircraft guns is 25 mm at a distance of 250, which is very difficult to deal with."

The near-point penetration ability will be stronger, but relatively - the thickness of the steel plate is equal to thicker at large angles!

Koshkin was looking down at a cut when he heard Kokin say, "That's thicker than the top of a heavy tank of any other country we know, and it's about the thickness of the side armor of Tank Four." "As a designer, he immediately saw something famous: the armor of this tank was in the form of occlusal joints, the structural properties were very good, and the quality of these welds was also very high! It seems that the skills of the German workers are superb!

He had already stood on top of the tank, took out a knife he had with him, tried to scrape the steel plate, and came to the conclusion that it was very hard!

Koshkin's knife is very particular, and its hardness can be compared with that of a three-edged scraper.

Seeing Koshkin's actions, Kokin, who was standing, said: "We have done steel performance tests, and alloy steel, to be honest, is tougher than the armor steel plates from our Kirov factory!" Kokin does not need to deceive himself about this, and Koshkin's psychology is also clear -- the steel plates in Kharkov and those produced by the Kirov factory belong to half a catty to eight taels, which is not shoddy, but it is by no means as good as the quality of German armor steel.

Koshkin studied the hull of a German tank for a while, and his mind was constantly thinking about how his T34 could destroy this steel monster!

"Difficult! Technologically at a disadvantage! At least not in terms of protection. ”

Looking up, he saw that the turret had been lowered and placed on a platform with thick sleepers behind the hull, and the workers had removed the thick steel cables on it.

The tank gun with a long barrel on the turret was very conspicuous, "obviously a derivative of the German 88mm anti-aircraft guns, which had caused enough trouble for our tanks." ”

The German 88-mm anti-aircraft guns used armor-piercing shells for flat fire, which was very dangerous for both the "Stalin-type" and the early KB, not to mention the T34! Fortunately, those anti-aircraft guns themselves did not have long legs or long armor, and they could not outrun tanks and shells.

There is a theoretical problem here: the higher the speed of the gun's chambering, the stronger the armor-piercing ability, and other data do not seem to affect the armor-piercing ability. In fact, in real combat, other data, such as the difference between the diameter of the shell and the thickness of the armor, also determines the armor-piercing ability - the higher the difference, the stronger the armor-piercing ability!

If the diameter of the armor-piercing projectile exceeds the thickness of the armor, the armor must be able to penetrate at a certain distance! Once the German 88-mm armor-piercing projectile hit the T34 in real combat, it was at a very long distance, and the difference between the diameter of the shell and the armor caused the armor of the T34 with a large inclination angle to block the shelling of the sun!

"Of the 92 rounds in reserve, about half of the ones we found were high-explosive shells, and the other half were blunt-nosed armor-piercing rounds." Kokin said, "Let's go, let's go to the shooting range." We have already done various shelling experiments the other day. ”

To get to the shooting range, you need to take a car, not far. "We did all kinds of mobility tests for the car that could still drive, and it could run at 38 kilometers per hour on road and between 10 and 20 per hour off-road," Cherikokin said. The action mechanism is too stressful and prone to failure, and we have fixed it several times. The fuel consumption is super large, and there is no more to run 140 kilometers on the road with a full tank of fuel. ”

"That's good news for our troops."

"Yes, good news, but you can't expect your opponent to have problems......"

A few minutes later, they came to an empty shooting range, and the convoy stopped at the edge of a tiger. As soon as Koshkin got out of the car, he saw a Tiger a few hundred meters away, which was probably used as a target and was riddled with holes!

However, Kokin didn't look at the target first, but climbed onto the front of the Tiger hull that could still be driven - the "swastikas" on both sides of the turret had been painted off and replaced with two large red five-star cars.

"Comrade Mikhail Ilyich, we have been fighting for many years." Kokin stood on the tank and said to Koshkin below: he likes the feeling of being on top, but this time it was not intentional.

Now Koshkin is a little confused, why would Kokin say such things here? Even the comrades in the neighborhood were a little puzzled -- as two of the most famous designers in the Soviet tank industry, it was a well-known secret that they had been fighting openly and secretly for many years, but no one would just talk about it.

"Yes, Joseph Yakovlevich, I do not deny that."

Since it was spread out, there was no need for Koshkin to hide it from his superiors in this committee: the struggle between the two could be described as full of gunsmoke for many years!

"Mikhail Ilyich, today I am not here to fight with you, as a tank designer that I can say to admire, I have a problem here that you need to solve together."

Kokin's words make it even more incomprehensible.

"You come up too, I've made a very interesting discovery here." As for the fight, Kokin suddenly stopped talking about it, and stretched out his hand to pull the old opponent into the tank.

"What do you have in mind here?"

Kokin smiled mysteriously at the side, and Koshkin looked at where he was pointing, his brow furrowed, but after a moment, he raised his head.

Koshkin stretched out his hand, "Joseph Yakovlevich, this is the end of our competition over the years, and today I have to admit that you are a noble comrade!" ”

The words were very solemn: after observing the place for a while, he understood why Kokin would say those few inconsequential words: the birth of new things is sometimes very accidental, and sometimes accidental discoveries can change a lot!

If Kokin had to continue the fight, he could have kept the discovery in his own possession, and the technical strength of the Kirov plant was sufficient - but Kokin did not do that this time, but shared his findings with Koshkin, apparently putting the national interest above his own honor and position in the industry.

Accidental discovery is like the invention of the grenade launcher: it could have been built a long time ago, but no one thought of it for a long time!

For tank specialists, a small discovery can turn into a technological revolution!

Before coming to Leningrad, Koshkin was told that the captured German heavy tank weighed 56 tons and had super thick armor! Needless to say, that weight would be super protective, but it is also estimated that it will also overwhelm the mobile device, which may be fast to maneuver, but the fuel consumption must be amazing, and the range is limited.

Protection, mobility, and firepower are like triplets who never stop competing with each other, and the designer wants to design a good tank, and these three are the first hurdles!

The balance is still prominent, this is something that needs to be calculated, thought twice and decided. The opponent's firepower is getting stronger and stronger, which is an inevitable trend in the development of tanks - if you want to survive, you must have reliable protection.

For a long time, in order to increase the defense capability of the tank, the designers have been constantly solving the problem by increasing the thickness of the armor - and then the oblique armor appeared, and the relative increase in the thickness of the armor in a geometric way, the excellent bulletproof shape of the T34 is a great success of the inclined armor in the tank industry!

The comprehensive performance of the T34 designed by Koshkin can be said to be the best tank in the world at the moment: if you want to win the war, then go and command the overwhelming T34! It is not for one-on-one duels between tanks, but for war! But the T34 is also facing the problem of the relative lack of defense capability of the German army's large-caliber anti-tank fire - how will the Soviet tank industry go in the future, and in the face of the threat of the German army's 88-mm anti-tank guns, will it continue to increase the thickness of the armor to solve it?!

What about the future? When the opponent's tank guns are getting bigger and bigger, are the armor plates designed to be thicker and thicker?

All tank designers understand that this will be a dead end, and along this line of thought the weight of the tank will increase by a geometric number until it will not be able to run at all!

If it were only the old line of armor-piercing bullets versus steel plates, this dead end would have appeared a little later, at least not all at once.

However, the appearance of armor-piercing shells led to the fact that the T34 could not block the attack of rockets using shaped armor-piercing warheads in actual combat, and even the "Stalin-type" sometimes did not work - the shaped armor-piercing shells equipped by the Red Army tank units could theoretically penetrate all their tank front armor!

Nearly three times the thickness of armor-piercing, and those engineers who have been obsessed with improving the elastic performance of armor-piercing believe that 3 times the caliber is only the initial stage of armor-piercing design, and it is still far from its technological apex! When the process of shaped armor-piercing projectiles becomes mature, the high-temperature metal jet of armor-piercing projectiles can penetrate at least 8 times the caliber of the shell homogeneous armor plate!

A 105 mm armor-piercing projectile will be able to penetrate 800 mm thick steel armor one day in the future?! If there really is such a day, how thick the armor of a tank that can block such an attack must be?! The maturity of the process of armor-piercing bullets may make the "armor bullet dispute" appear one-sided, and designers will be at a loss for it!

Geometrically, how much would a tank with the front of the tank be equivalent to 800 mm of steel armor thick? I don't think there's an engine to make it run!

Kokin's discovery seemed to provide a glimmer of hope for a future solution to that dead knot - the tank gun had a rocket on its shield, but only a small burn mark on the armor of the turret itself at the back!

"Gap! It's a gap! "Koshkin had already grasped the glimmer of inspiration in his head: the gap in space disrupted the coherence of the metal flow, rendering it powerless against the main armor behind it!

"Joseph Yakovlevich, if there is a tank whose armor is like a big pie, the armor plate is divided into several layers, the outer one is thinner, and the rear one is thicker, the effect of this armor-piercing projectile will be greatly reduced!"

With a "you understand" expression, Kokin said, "Not only for armor-piercing bullets, but also for armor-piercing bullets." We have done several tests with a 30 mm thick steel plate in front and a 50 mm thick steel plate at a distance behind it, and the results show that the ballistic effect is much greater than that of an 80 mm armor plate. ”

"Of course, the space in between can't be too big, and we're not balloon designers."

Everyone who understood laughed: of course, the bigger the gap, the better, but if it is too big, either the tank crew has no place to squeeze, or the tank is getting bigger and bigger - this has to be the most reasonable middle.

Koshkin also had some inspiration: "The void causes the instability of the metal jet, and the same is true for armor-piercing projectiles, which have an unstable trajectory after penetrating the first layer of steel plates, and their armor-piercing ability will be weakened as soon as the angle changes. What happens if we add something between two layers of armor? ”

In the past few days, Kokin has been put in the frame of his thinking by his new discoveries, in addition to coming up with the performance parameters of the Tiger tank and the tactics for the troops to deal with, calculating and calculating; Tests and re-tests revolve around the size of the gaps between the armor and the strongest and most perfect way to fix the two layers of armor.

Now Koshkin's words are like opening a window for him!

"Mikhail Ilyich, I remember Marshal Prenyakov mentioning at a Kremlin dinner that ceramics are sometimes more useful than steel."

Koshkin hurriedly asked: "Tell me?" ”

"Disperse the impact. On that occasion, a plate in front of Marshal Budyonny fell to the floor and shattered, and Marshal Prenyakov picked up a piece of broken porcelain and said that the ceramic was hard and seemed brittle, but if the craftsmanship was right, a thin piece of ceramic could block a bullet. ”

"Marshal Budyonny did not believe it, and Marshal Prenyakov spoke about the concept of dispersion of impact."

"The impact is dispersed, if you add some kind of ceramic in the middle of the void, of course, the ceramic that can best disperse the impact force, the effect may be better than any metal material!"

Kokin did not say that Marshal Budyonny was drunk that he almost used the table as his racetrack: the broken plates were not one, but a pile!

"This shows that our thinking does not need to indulge in a fixed thinking, always dealing with steel, who would have thought that ceramics have the ability to disperse the impact?" Koshkin spoke of his limitations.

"However, Joseph Yakovlevich, this technology is not needed in Kharkov yet, the T34 will not be able to use the idea of gap armor, otherwise we will be in big trouble." Koshkin knocked on the turret of the tank as he spoke, "It's like it, it's high-tech, but how much can the fascists build?" ”

They are all experts among experts, not to mention Kokin, Koshkin just spent a while in the workshop, and found that the manufacturing process of this Tiger tank is extremely excellent and complex, and this production cost and man-hours are absolutely indispensable!

These steels are all the best alloy steels, and the non-ferrous metals needed to manufacture high-quality armor alloy steel in Germany are limited, and the process is complicated, so the output will not go up! (As it is, one of the major problems faced by the Tiger tank is its very high production costs and a lot of man-hours!) Compared with the 49,234 American M4 Sherman tanks and 50,000 Soviet T-34 series tanks produced during World War II, the Tiger tank produced 1,355 units, and the King Tiger only produced 500 units. The German design was very expensive in terms of time, raw materials and expense, even compared to its own No. 3 and No. 4: the Tiger tank cost twice as much as the No. 4 tank and four times as much as the No. 3 assault gun! ）

If both Koshkin and Kokin had shifted their thinking to the newly discovered "gap armor" of tank protection, and the Red Army tanks had done the same, this production would have been a nightmare!

The T34 relies on simplicity, reliability, effectiveness and numerical superiority, rather than high technology, "T34 technology still can't pursue high indicators, but you can spend some time on new armor." ”

Kokin is in charge of the design of heavy tanks, and he is used for high technology.

Hearing Koshkin's words, Kokin also shook his head: "The task is too tight, and there are constant orders from above to increase production indicators." The number of Stalin-type manufacturers has not been able to go up, and it can't be compared with Kharkov, but the self-propelled assault gun has a new move, we have completed the combination of the 100mm anti-tank gun and the T34 hull you designed, and the production line is running at high speed.

We conducted experiments and found that the 100 mm anti-tank gun, improved from the naval gun, had a good damage to the Tiger tank with blunt-tipped armor-piercing shells, and was even more effective if high-speed armor-piercing shells with tungsten alloy cores were used. ”

The production capacity of the 105 mm tank gun could not be improved, it was too sophisticated, and Kokin could only choose the inferior 100 mm tank gun.

"Let's go, go see that target."

This time it was on foot, and after walking a few hundred meters, the Tiger tank was riddled with holes: but these holes were a little watery, basically on the sides and at the rear of the tank, and there were many pits left by armor-piercing shells in front of the turret and on the front hull, but there were not many bullet holes penetrated.

"Our old T-34 with a 76.2mm F-34 tank gun uses blunt-nosed armor-piercing shells, which are impossible to penetrate the front armor of the Tiger at any distance, and only penetrate its side armor at 100 to 200 meters. However, if a high-speed tungsten alloy core armor-piercing projectile is used, it can penetrate its side at a medium distance, about 600 to 700 meters, and for the front of the hull, the high-speed armor-piercing projectile must be close to within 200 meters to have a 50% breakdown probability.

The T34-85's 85mm tank gun was able to penetrate the front of the Tiger tank at 800 meters with blunt-nosed armor-piercing shells, and there is a 50% chance that it would have to be closer. For the front of the turret, it is best to get close to within 500 meters, but it is impossible to penetrate its shield at zero distance. ”

The shield of the Tiger is so large that it means that an 85-mm armor-piercing projectile hitting its turret front is ineffective!

"With the new high-speed armor-piercing shell, the 85-mm tank gun can penetrate its upper armor at a distance of 1,200 meters and the shield armor at 600 meters, but it can do nothing against the main armor of the turret in the rear."

Hearing Kokin's words, Koshkin: "What is the distance at which its tank guns destroy the T34-85?" ”

"At least two kilometers!"

What bad news! The empty shell of the T34 that was used as a target is not far away! (To be continued.) )