As Liszt said, after discussions, the Wehrmacht unanimously agreed that the light tank jointly developed by Tang and Germany was very advanced and very suitable for the equipment of the German Army.

In particular, a new combat theory is being born within the German army, that is, blitzkrieg, in which the key combat weapon is inseparable from the main battle tank with high mobility.

In fact, the German army did not fully believe that Datang could develop any haode weapons and equipment at first, after all, Datang had only just been established. Everything is because Hitler has just come to power and lacks international support to choose to cooperate with Datang, and they are very reluctant to let a top expert in the German military industry go to Datang, if it weren't for Datang to provide a large number of loans to Germany, they would have made a fuss.

Now when the jishu parameters of the new tank were transmitted back to Germany, Liszt, who had a very high prestige in the German army, was full of praise for it, which surprised these German officers, and they were surprised that there was such a jishuliliang in the Tang Empire.

After being surprised, the German Wehrmacht command immediately passed a resolution to equip the new tank, named it Tank No. 2, and approved the purchase of 300 modified tanks from Datang Heavy Industries.

Since the German government borrowed money from the Datang Empire, hard currencies such as gold and silver in Germany needed to be transferred to the Datang Bank for preservation in accordance with the loan treaty, so as long as Hitler nodded and signed, the Datang side could immediately deduct it directly from the German government's deposits in the Datang Bank, and at the same time, Datang Heavy Industries also began to set up the No. 2 tank production line.

Zhang Meng knew that the No. 2 tank developed and produced by Datang for Germany was much more powerful than the No. 2 tank developed and produced by the Germans themselves, and its mobility was much superior. Therefore, the German army will purchase more No. 2 tanks after the expansion of the army in the next five or six years, so Zhang Meng directly ordered Datang Heavy Industries to open up six production lines in the next year. 500 tanks could be supplied to the Germans every month, enough for the Germans to build dozens of armored divisions.

According to Zhang Meng's meaning, this No. 2 tank will become the main force of the German Army in the future, so the Datang Ministry of Defense immediately began to develop a restrained main battle tank for the No. 2 tank, which is used to equip the Royal Army of the Tang Empire, and will not be exported, only in this way can the Datang Army be in the leading position in equipment.

Although a military conflict between the Dons and Germany is almost impossible. After all, one is inland Europe and the other is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, separated by more than half the world. But planning ahead has always been Zhang Meng's mantra. Therefore, the Datang military naturally has to make some preparations.

However, the Tang Royal Army is different from the armies of other powers, and the military liliang of the Tang Empire is dominated by the navy and air force, because it is an archipelago country. It is destined that most of the battlefield will be at sea and in the sky. It also lacks strategic depth, so it relies on the navy and air force to defend the enemy outside the country, so the Tang Army is naturally very small.

The Tang Army is small, currently only three divisions of more than 50,000 people, this is a standing army, with the current population of 15 million in the Tang Empire, and the age is generally dominated by teenagers, its war potential is huge. More than 7 million people can be mobilized during the war.

At this time, the Tang Empire had actually begun to restrict the entry of foreign populations into the Tang Empire, if it had plundered the population everywhere regardless of the quality of the population. So now after the Tang-Japanese War, the threshold is naturally much higher, only the elites of various countries are eligible to enter the Tang Empire, and other populations entering the Tang Empire no longer enjoy various government subsidies, such as cars, houses, jobs and other preferential treatment, they cannot enjoy, after all, even if the financial resources of the Tang Empire are abundant, to ensure that the expenditure on medical insurance, education, pension, employment and other aspects of the population of 15 million is already a very huge number, which is not an easy thing. So the era of free lunches is over.

Although one of the war potentials of the Tang Empire was that the population resources were already very rich, and 7 million people could be mobilized to fight during the war, this liliang was already at the level of a great power country. However, the military policy of the Tang Empire tends to be naval and air force, and even during the war, it will be allocated to the navy and army, because it is an island country, so the scale of the land war is not destined to be too large, and the army will expand to about two or three hundred thousand at most during the war.

It is precisely because the army cannot expand its personnel much even during the war, so at the Datang National Defense Equipment Committee, the amount of appropriation for equipping the army with new main battle tanks is not very large, and the number of tanks equipped for the army is also limited to 300, basically each army standing division can be allocated 100 new tanks.

The Datang Army is small in scale and has little potential for war in the future, so in line with the basic guiding ideology of Zhang Meng's elite line, the National Defense Equipment Committee decided to go to Datang Heavy Industry to develop a powerful heavy main battle tank for the army.

This project is defined as the King Tiger main battle tank, codenamed T-1, which basically requires a weight of more than 60 tons, equipped with an 88 mm large-caliber gun and at least two M2 heavy machine guns, armor protection of at least 100 mm, and the speed is not too requirementary, with a minimum requirement of 35 kilometers.

Speed, firepower and armor protection have always been only able to meet the two, because the Tang Dynasty is dominated by islands, and the largest Fiji Islands is only 18,000 square kilometers, so it does not need the mobility of the Tang Army's tanks, so the speed requirements are not high, so it is possible to greatly improve the performance in firepower and armor protection.

At the request of the National Defense Equipment Commission, the tank designers of Datang Heavy Industries immediately began to design the T-1 King Tiger main battle tank.

Due to the previous experience in the design of the No. 2 tank designed for the German Army, the King Tiger heavy tank equipped by the Tang Army itself adopted a lot of No. 2 design ideas and components. At the same time, in order to restrain the No. 2 tank, the Don Army's own King Tiger tank had to embody a large number of leading jishu characteristics.

First of all, firepower, the T1 tank uses a new turret developed by the Tang Army, an 88 mm 70 times diameter cannon, this kind of artillery is inspired by the advanced jishu technology used by the Tang engineers according to the main gun developed by the German company Krupp for the No. 2 tank. Its ability to penetrate deep is extremely strong, with a body length of 6.3 meters, and it can directly penetrate the main armor of the German No. 2 tank at a distance of 2,000 meters or more, which shows that it is extremely terrifying.

The second is armor protection, T1 uses the most advanced special steel materials of Datang Heavy Industries, and the special steel smelted with three alloys of nickel-chromium-molybdenum, the thickness of the frontal armor alone exceeds 110 mm, and the side also reaches 90 mm, which can directly resist the attack of the No. 2 tank within 500 meters, and the strong protection ability is the first in the world, exceeding the armor protection level of all tanks in various countries.

Powerful artillery and thick armor made the T1 tank weigh a terrifying level of 65 tons, a veritable heavy tank. However, it also sacrifices maneuverability.

Despite the T1's 1,000 hp engine, Christie suspension and advanced hydraulic control system, the T1 has a maximum speed of only 40 km/h, which is a bit higher than the minimum speed limit of 35 km/h set by the Defense Equipment Commission.

Fortunately, the use of tanks of the Don Army was geographically limited to small islands, so this speed was actually sufficient, and the Don Army did not need excessively fast tank mobility.

In fact, the territory of the Tang Dynasty is composed of archipelagos, which limits the Datang Army to basically focus on defense, so the T1 tank does not need speed performance at all, but the powerful artillery and armor protection are more suitable, as if it was tailored for the Tang Army, the tank prototype was completed within a month and a half, and the test performance was outstanding, which was deeply loved by the officers and soldiers of the Tang Army.

In addition, more advanced than the tanks of other countries, the Tang Army's T1 King Tiger main battle tank has achieved helmet-based internal personnel, direct telephone communication, and is equipped with a radio system, so that the commander can keep in touch with each tank, and it is very convenient to cooperate, which makes the T1 tank become the strongest tank in the whole Shijie since the day it came out. (To be continued......)