Krupp AG and Porsche AG have their own priorities, and it is not possible to say which one is better, everything depends on the decision of the jury. Of course, it is not only the jury that can decide, after all, it is the military expert, the current Chancellor Hitler, who will make the final decision. Even if the opinion of the jury, Hitler could not listen, he could decide according to his own preferences, but the opinion of the jury was really important and would greatly influence Hitler's decision.

The third demonstration plan was the later famous Daimler Mercedes-Benz company. The famous Panther medium tank was a Mercedes-Benz product, but that would be ten years later. Chief Designer Misia slowly walked to the podium and began to present their tank design to the Secretary of Defense and the judges, as well as to their peers.

Mercedes-Benz's plan is decent in appearance, and like their true colors, their cars are also decent and pay more attention to details. Misia said loudly: "Greetings to Mr. Minister, judges, colleagues. Today, on behalf of Gallen-Benz, I would like to share with you our tank design proposal. First of all, let's talk about the light tank design scheme, according to the requirements of the Ministry of Defense, our tank design team carefully studied the current trend of tank development in the world, and then designed a light tank that is most in line with our country. It has a combat total weight of 14,500 kg, a crew of 5 people, a traditional arrangement, a cab in the front of the hull, a middle fighting compartment, and a power compartment in the rear. The turret is a three-person turret, and the cab is a two-person turret, which can provide convenience for training. It has a 40 mm cannon with a barrel length of 52 calibers, an ammunition base of 70 rounds, a maximum range of 1,000 meters, and can penetrate 25 mm thick steel armor at a distance of 500 meters. 2 x 7.92 mm machine guns. Reserve 4,000 rounds. The engine is an 8-cylinder gasoline engine with a maximum power of 200 hp, the transmission includes a dry clutch, a 5-speed mechanical gearbox, a steering clutch, brakes and a two-stage planetary side reducer, and the running gear includes a balanced suspension with 6 load wheels on each side, 3 carrier pulleys and tracks. The first and sixth of the 6 load-bearing wheels are large-diameter wheels. The middle four are small diameter wheels. The hull and turret are riveted with steel armor, after all, this is a light tank, which can be manufactured quickly and in large quantities, and the quality is difficult to guarantee if welded. The thickness of the armor on the front of the hull and turret was 50 mm, on the sides of the turret - 30 mm, and on the other parts - 20 mm. The body size is 5200 mm * 2500 mm * 2450 mm. ”

The most peculiar thing about Mercedes-Benz's light tank program is its load-bearing wheel, generally speaking, the tank's load-bearing wheels are of equal diameter, or large diameter or small diameter, but Mercedes-Benz's light tank program is small in the middle. Big at both ends. So this caught the attention of the judges and designers from other companies, but Miasi didn't say it, and everyone couldn't guess. Probably this is a combination of the advantages of small diameter wheels and large diameter wheels.

The most unique of Mercedes-Benz's medium tank solutions is its load wheels, which show on the drawings that it has 10 pairs of small-diameter load wheels, which are not even one-third the size of the large-diameter load wheels of ordinary tanks.

Misia continued: "Let's take a look at our medium tank scheme. Its combat total weight is 35 tons, and the crew is 4 people. The total length of the car is 6.95 meters, and the width of the car is 3.2 meters. The height of the vehicle is 2.48 meters. From front to rear in turn is the wheelhouse, the fighting compartment and the power transmission compartment. The cab is located in front of the left side of the body. There are 3 people in the fighting compartment, the gun commander is in the front, the commander is in the back, and the loader is on the left. The power compartment in the rear of the hull was separated from the fighting compartment by a partition, the engine was located in the center, flanked by radiators and fuel tanks. The last part is the gearbox and fan, the driving wheel is in the rear, and the inducing wheel is in the front. We equipped this medium tank with a 75-mm 50-caliber main gun with an ammunition base of 90 rounds and two 7.92 mm machine guns for secondary armament. Carries 4,500 rounds of ammunition. The power plant is a horizontally opposed piston 6-cylinder water-cooled gasoline engine, which is actually a 12-cylinder engine, due to the fact that it is opposed, with 6 cylinders on each side, and the maximum engine power is 450 horsepower. The gearbox is mechanical, with 4 forward gears and one reverse gear. The most distinctive feature of our medium tank is the use of 10 pairs of small-diameter load wheels with a diameter of 250 mm. The front and rearmost load-bearing wheels do not touch the ground when driving on the flat road, and the suspension device is an independent coil spring type suspension device, and adopts the axle frame structure, the advantage is that the structure is simple and the cost is low, even if several load-bearing wheels on each side are broken, can also drive as usual. The hull is a welded structure, the turret is a cast-welded hybrid structure, the minimum thickness of the hull armor is 20 mm, the front part of the hull is 40 mm thick, the frontal armor of the turret is 80 mm thick, and the other directions are 40 mm, and the protection is very strong. In general, the optimization of protection, firepower and mobility was achieved. ”

Xiao Weiguo also noticed this medium tank scheme of the Mercedes-Benz company, which was somewhat similar to the later British "Churchill" infantry tank in terms of appearance and structure, and the most distinctive thing was the mobile device. The "Churchill" used small-diameter load wheels, and the huge 40-ton body had 11 load wheels on each side. The advantages are low cost, simple structure, easy production, and can continue to operate even if individual load wheels are destroyed. However, the overly small load-bearing wheels also cause the suspension travel to be too small, and the comfort when off-road is too poor, that is, it is very bumpy, like a car without a shock absorber. I don't know why Mercedes-Benz wants to use this kind of small and small load-bearing wheel, although this small-diameter wheel does have the advantages of simple structure, easy maintenance, and can drive after damage, but it is really a kind of car for tank crews.

Of course, in history, the staggered load wheels commonly used in Germany in World War II connected the transverse torsion bar, which is a complex travel mechanism. That's not a good structure either, and Mercedes-Benz's small-diameter wheels are a little better. The first advantage of the staggered load-bearing wheel structure is that it reduces the pressure of the tank on the ground, so that the tank has better passability, and at the same time, the wider hull than the general tank also provides a stable guarantee for the accurate shooting of the gun, and effectively reduces the recoil. But on the battlefield, to maintain the inner load wheel, you have to remove the load wheel on the outside first, and this dense layout can easily lead to the situation of locking between the load wheels, and the staggered load wheel can not be guaranteed because of the layout limitation, and the result is that the damage rate of the load wheel is improved, and the effect of improving the survivability of the tank is not played. (To be continued.) )