On March 12, 1933, the German Ministry of Defense, the German new tank bidding will be held here secretly, and the companies participating in the bidding are the Dragon Soul Ordnance Complex, Krupp, Daim-Benz, Porsche, Henschel, a total of five companies submitted their tank design proposals.

The tank tender was presided over by the new Minister of the German Ministry of Defense, Werner von Blomburg, who entered the Military Academy in 1904, graduated in 1907, and entered the General Staff Headquarters in 1908. During the First World War, he distinguished himself on the Western Front and was awarded the Order of Pourle Mérite. He continued to serve in the Army after World War I, and in January 1933 Hitler ascended the throne as German Chancellor, while Blomburg was appointed Minister of Defense and Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht in Hitler's cabinet by President Hindenburg, and was promoted to General of Infantry. As soon as Hitler came to power, he announced to the military that he would rearm Germany, which naturally won the support of the military.

In addition to the Minister of Defense, Guderian, the founder of the German Armored Forces, was also on the list and served as the head of the review committee, and during the First World War, Guderian served as commander and chief of staff in the cavalry unit. In 1931, he was appointed Chief of Staff of the Motorized Infantry Unit.

However, due to the restrictions of the Versailles Peace Treaty, Germany could not possess tanks, so now the German Ministry of Defense's tank development program can only be carried out secretly, and this tank bidding meeting is also secret. Every company participating in the bidding had to give a guarantee to the Ministry of Defence that it would not divulge any secrets about the German tank bidding and to sign a guarantee.

At 10 a.m., the tank bidding will officially begin. The first was the announcement by Defense Minister Blomburg of the companies and personnel participating in the bidding. In addition to Xiao Wei, the Dragon Soul Ordnance Consortium participated in the bidding meeting, as well as Messerschmidt and Karl, as well as two engineers. Krupp is the head of the company, Krupp Sr., the company's chief designer Fiat, and two other engineers. Dalem Benz has chief designer Misia and three engineers. At Porsche, Ferdinand Porsche himself led the chief designer, Karl Porsche. Raber and his son Filip attended, and the Henschel company had Henschel himself and three designers present.

In addition to the Dragon Soul Ordnance Complex, which is mainly engaged in aircraft and artillery manufacturing, Krupp is also mainly engaged in artillery manufacturing, and several other companies are mainly engaged in automobile or railway locomotive manufacturing, because at this time there is no company in Germany that has designed and manufactured tanks in the past ten years, but this is not a problem. Everything is made from nothing.

Blomburg was very excited, because after reading the tank design proposals submitted by five companies, he was full of hope for the future of German tanks, and each company's plan had its highlights, of course, the most shocking thing was the design of the Dragon Soul Ordnance Complex!

According to the order of the draw, the first to take the stage to present and explain its tank design to the expert review committee organized by the German Ministry of Defense was Krupp.

Under the gaze of dozens of pairs of eyes in this small auditorium of the Ministry of Defense, Fiat, the chief designer of the Krupp company, strode up to the podium and hung the two tank designs of the Krupp company on the wall, so that everyone could clearly see the tank plans.

Fiat gave a gentle salute to the judges. Then he began to speak loudly: "Your Excellency, judges and experts, today I am honored to stand here on behalf of Krupp to explain to you our tank design proposal. First of all, I would like to introduce you to our design for our 15-ton light tank, which we call the Lynx, which means that we want it to be as agile and maneuverable as the Lynx. It weighed 15,500 kg, had a crew of 5, and was mainly armed with a 47 mm short-barreled cannon and two 7.92 mm machine guns. The engine is a 250 hp gasoline engine. The suspended suspension is a scissor horizontal spring suspension with 5 wheels on the left and right sides. The driving wheel is located in front, and the driven wheel is located in the rear; There are 5 track return rollers on each side. The length of the body reached 5.2 meters, the width of 2.8 meters, and the height of 2.4 meters, which could provide a large space for tank crews and cadets. The thickness of the armor in the main part is 40 mm, and the armor in the secondary part is 20 mm. The fuel carrying capacity is 350 liters. The crew consists of 5 people, including the commander, gunner, loader, driver and communicator. Its overall performance is excellent, and it can train more tank crews for Germany, and it is also capable of carrying out assault missions. ”

In fact, this design plan has long been in the hands of the judges, but no one else has it. Looking at the tank plan of the Krupp company, the people of Porsche and other companies were shocked, they did not expect that the plan taken out by the Krupp company was no worse than theirs, and the tank procurement of the German Ministry of Defense this time was really full of variables.

Fiat continued: "Okay, I'm going to show you our medium tank scheme again. Everyone knows that medium tanks are characterized by a balance of firepower, mobility, and protection. It does not emphasize one aspect, but strong tuning performance. In addition to this, medium tanks require more concentrated action. 48 times 75 mm guns and two 7.92 mm machine guns, 87 rounds of 75 mm shells and 4150 rounds of 7.92 mm machine gun rounds. The tank is controlled by a crew of 4 - the commander, gunner, loader and driver. The powertrain is a 12-cylinder, water-cooled petrol engine that makes 420 hp at 2,600 rpm. 50 mm armor in the front hull, as well as in the superstructure, 80 mm in the front of the turret. The body length is 6.9 meters, the width is 3.2 meters, the height is 2.5 meters, and the engine compartment is located behind the body. The driver was in front of the left side of the tank and at the same time doubled as a machine gunner. In the turret, the tank commander sat under the roof hatch, while the gunner was to the left of the breech and to the right of the loader. The turret was offset 100 mm to the left from the chassis centerline, while the engine was shifted 200 mm to the right to remove the barrier between the torque shaft and the electric motor that rotated the turret, while allowing the torque shaft to be connected to the gearbox. Due to the asymmetrical layout, the right side of the tank was used for placing ammunition cabinets. Uses a technically proven spring-loaded suspension, five pairs of large-diameter load wheels. In this way, the total combat weight of the tank reached 34 tons, it had good protection and firepower, and its mobility was also ensured. ”

Krupp's medium tank scheme was really good, and even Guderian nodded frequently, and it seemed that he was quite satisfied with this scheme. Fiat had apparently noticed this as well, and by the time he had finished, his confidence was even stronger! Fiat walked off the podium with a smile, he believed that in this tank bidding, Krupp would win at least one of the two schemes! (To be continued.) )