"I think the best way to overcome these problems is to develop a completely new tank!" In Chiyou's company, a middle-aged engineer in overalls held a stack of reports he had measured in his off-duty hours, and spoke to a large group of engineers and designers in the conference room. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

He said this very suddenly, so that the large group of senior designers in the room, who were still arguing endlessly about the design plan of the "destroyer tank" proposed by the front, all stopped the endless argument and looked at him, the engineer assistant who could only sit at the bottom of the conference room.

"Repairing the trimming shears on the chassis of tank No. 1 will never form a breakthrough! After all, Tank 1 was designed before the start of the war, and it could not always meet the needs of the front, at least in terms of the room for improvement, and it performed very poorly. As an assistant engineer, Zhang Shiyang has been involved in the improvement of the No. 1 tank, but the more he studies the improvement of this tank, the less he has a good impression of this tank.

From a positive point of view, the No. 1 tank used the latest and most advanced technologies in the world at the time, directly skipping the cluttered shape and entering the era of single-rotating turrets. And it is equipped with auxiliary motors inside, and high-power radios are used, which makes it possible for tanks to fight in groups.

However, this also made the interior of the No. 1 very small - although it was improved to use a larger turret and ended up cramming four crew members, it still did not change the fact that the No. 1 had limited potential.

The suspension system was originally designed to be improved from the tractor, and the size of the hull also made it impossible to install larger and more ferocious guns...... A series of problems brought the No. 1 tank to the end of its development, and the designers only made the chassis of the No. 1 car uglier and uglier in the end.

The center of gravity of the No. 1 self-propelled gun was too far forward, and its cross-country maneuverability was only half that of the No. 1 tank. It satisfies the artillerymen in that it can stop and fire at any time, and saves the trouble of setting up the artillery, but its poor suspension and the inconvenience caused by the rear engine to the members did annoy the artillerymen who had just received the new weapon.

In addition, the No. 1 support model, which was equipped with a 75 mm support gun, was also unsatisfactory in many places, and after the front-line soldiers got the prototype car, four people huddled together in a low and fixed fighting room, and there was a sense of joy in rubbing oil with each other. The crowded space even affected the amount of ammunition stockpiles, which was a bit laughable.

Therefore, Zhang Shiyang finally made up his mind and put forward his own proposal after being tormented for 2 months by the chassis of the No. 1 tank, which had limited room for improvement in terms of modification. He knew that he might lose his decent job because of this hasty decision, but he still decided that he should do it, because he didn't want to use the broken chassis of No. 1 to sew and mend it anymore.

Surprisingly, a group of engineers present did not express any angry criticism of this bold idea, and everyone was obviously tormented by the gap between the performance of the No. 1 tank and the requirements of the military.

"When did the military make a request that it could only be modified with the chassis of tank No. 1?" An elderly chief engineer turned his head to the side and asked an assistant who was specially assigned to him: "Find out the research and development requirements of the army and the relevant reports, and check them carefully." ”

Hearing the old engineer say this, everyone suddenly had a spicy feeling that ginger was still old: after being tortured for so long, everyone had an idea of avoiding difficulties. It's just that the people above don't know what to say, and the people below don't dare to make their own decisions, as for the way to avoid difficulties, the first breakthrough chosen by this old engineer is to find a breakthrough in the hard requirements.

Under normal circumstances, the development of any kind of weapon is a process of making trade-offs and balancing between the needs of the military and the research and development capabilities of enterprises. In most cases, the resulting equipment is the product of compromising some performance and accommodating each other. This is because the military's needs are often ambitious, and actual R&D capabilities are very limited most of the time -- this is the gap between ideals and reality.

After that, the old engineer turned his attention to Zhang Shiyang, who was speaking, and gave a slight warning in a slow voice: "We didn't put forward a suggestion for another design, because we couldn't give up immediately when we encountered difficulties." This is a big taboo for designers and engineers when they are engaged in scientific research projects, and young people should be more practical, understand? ”

Zhang Shiyang was stunned for a moment, this sentence was not so much a rebuke and warning, but a kind of care and protection, with such a mention from this authoritative engineer, the matter he rashly spoke about was determined to be of a nature and could not be investigated by others. So he quickly stood up, bowed to the respected chief engineer, and thanked: "The students thank the teacher for his teachings. ”

Seeing Zhang Shiyang so "on the road", the old engineer nodded with satisfaction and motioned for the other party to sit down. Then a group of technical experts waited, waiting for the group of assistants to find something useful in the relevant military research and development applications and related documents.

More than half an hour passed, and finally several assistants raised their heads, shook their heads with some tears and laughter, and returned an answer that made everyone laugh and cry: "The military does not have a hard requirement to use the No. 1 tank chassis, and the initial decision to use the No. 1 tank chassis is because the front line is in a hurry to wait for weapons and equipment, and we have an internal compromise plan in order to simplify the design." ”

"Hah! After doing it for a long time, it turned out that we had gotten ourselves in. The old engineer at the head suddenly laughed, and then dispelled the embarrassment of everyone present: "Since we set the rules ourselves, there is nothing to say." ”

He stretched out his hand to a tank No. 1 improvement team, opened his mouth to change the existing team composition, and arranged the work: "Your group has the best knowledge of tank No. 1, stay and continue to work on the improvement and upgrading of tank No. 1." ”

Then the old man looked at Zhang Shiyang again and decided: "The rest of you, concentrate your strength and do a good job in the design of the No. 2 tank as quickly as possible!" (To be continued.) )