Of course, Liu Fangwu and Xu Daorun's trip to Fu'an had little to do with the Navy's equipment renewal, and although NORINCO also undertook part of the Navy's munitions manufacturing business, its main customers were still the Army's. Pen & Fun & Ge www.biquge.info North Industries produced most of the light weapons and artillery for the army, and even armored vehicles such as infantry fighting vehicles and self-propelled guns.

Two high-level military officials came to the company's test site, which naturally attracted the company's great attention, and a group of leaders of all sizes came and received Liu Fangwu and Xu Daorun diligently. The entire administrative system of the Tang Dynasty is very resistant to formalism, especially after Bai Nan took over, he once again issued repeated orders and reaffirmed that any form of false emptiness was strictly excluded. Therefore, Liu Fangwu and Xu Daorun came to NORINCO, although the reception staff was numerous, but they did not make any reports, nor did they hold any receptions or anything like that, the two military bigwigs went straight to the topic and came to the test site.

They themselves only came to see a new weapon developed by NORINCO, not to do any inspection and research.

On the flat sand, two desert camouflage armored vehicles were parked there, Xu Daorun glanced at the two vehicles, and muttered: "Sure enough, it's the same as in the photo, isn't this thing the T-34!" ”

In the era in which Liu Fangwu lived, the T-34 was the main combat weapon of the Soviet armored forces, and it was a weapon that had a significant impact on the development of tanks in later generations.

Since its formation, the Datang Army has always adhered to the concept that tanks are of little significance in actual operations. Most of the enemies of the Tang army were feudal armies. Even a lot of them are cold-weapon armies. Even if it is the regular army of European countries. At most, they are troops with rear-loading rifled guns and can dig trenches, and Datang has formed a certain number of armored vehicles, which can easily crush these troops. Therefore, the core of the mechanization idea of the Datang Army is mainly infantry fighting vehicles and self-propelled artillery, and tanks were not developed at the beginning.

However, as Datang continued to intervene in one war after another, Datang's military commanders gradually discovered a situation, although Datang's armored assault was still unsolved, but it still exposed a lot of problems. For example, the 30mm light cannon carried by the Type 82 infantry fighting vehicle. In the face of some fortifications, it is not powerful enough. Moreover, when the infantry fighting vehicles are charged, it is still due to the lack of firepower, so that this shock force, if it is interfered with by the enemy's dense artillery, will still encounter many problems. In some special battlefield environments, such as street battles lined with buildings, the combat effectiveness of infantry fighting vehicles is discounted, and infantry fighting vehicles carrying a squad of soldiers and insufficient firepower are likely to be in street fighting. Encounter the enemy's entrenched stronghold and lack effective destructive capabilities. Eventually, it suffers.

For the time being, these situations have not yet appeared on the official battlefield of the Tang Army, and in the past Tang and Western Wars, in fact, mechanized troops have not been used very well. The backward Spanish colonial armies were often unable to withstand the artillery bombardment of the Don Army, and were then scattered by the infantry, and the terrain of Mexico was not suitable for the movement of armored troops.

However, Datang still uses armored forces in many places, the eastern part of Datang is an endless plain, and there are some narrow plains in the west, while North China and Jiangnan are all large plains, and even to the European and Western European Plains, the Polish Plain, and the Ukrainian Plain, are all flat terrain suitable for the deployment of armored forces, and they are also potential areas for the use of troops.

At a time when the whole army is working hard to find room for improvement, the army naturally also focuses on the tanks that it has not been able to make. The tank is a weapon, and the Tang military industry does not have the strength to manufacture it, but the Tang Army, which has long adhered to the principle of spending the least amount of money, that is, pursuing cost-effectiveness ratio, does not particularly need tanks. But when the size of the Tang army is getting bigger and bigger, the enemy is also growing, and the various challenges and risks facing the Tang Dynasty are becoming more and more complex, the Tang army hopes to have more powerful land weapons to make itself like a tiger.

As a result, the army officially issued a new project plan, and NORINCO immediately used its own technical reserves to create this guy who was almost exactly the same as the T-34.

"With a total weight of 28 tons, it used a five-man crew, a commander, a driver, a gunner, a loader and a radioman. We designed a 76 mm smoothbore tank gun with a low-cost, fast-building cast turret and two 7.62mm side-by-side machine guns powered by a two-cylinder diesel engine that could deliver 500 hp and reach a maximum road speed of 50 km/h for a range of 280 km/h. The armor thickness of the front of the body and the turret is 50 mm, and the defense is better due to the use of inclined armor. The designer of NORINCO explained to the two military bigwigs.

Xu Daorun actually felt that this explanation was not necessary at all, this tank that was positioned by the military as a Type 90 medium tank plan, the difference between the appearance and the T-34 tank was very small, only some details were different, which of course had something to do with the fact that the designers had seen more tanks in later generations, and there was a certain benefit. In other aspects, there are no noticeable differences with the T-34 tank.

Liu Fangwu asked, "Have you started testing these two prototypes?" ”

The designer replied, "We just finished testing from Los Angeles to Toyobara and back again, and both prototypes were successfully tested without any breakdowns along the way. Weapons testing has also been carried out in parallel, and our 76mm smoothbore gun has been designed to be very reliable and powerful, capable of breaking through extremely strong fortified defenses. ”

Liu Fangwu nodded and said: "The Type 90 tank is the first tank that our army will be equipped with, although for our military enterprises, its technology is not particularly difficult, but our military will begin to require its reliability, durability and cost." ”

The designer hurriedly said: "Don't worry, Minister Liu, we are different from the stupid black and rough of the Soviets, we are very careful in the manufacturing process, and at the same time optimize the design as much as possible, so that the 90 project can achieve a perfect balance between simple and easy to build and reliable leather." ”

According to the army's plan, the army will build a tank regiment in all mechanized brigades and a brigade-affiliated armored battalion in all motorized infantry brigades, and some infantry regiments will also add armored battalions according to their needs to meet their own needs. In this way, the whole army needs at least 1,500 tanks, which is also a huge order that cannot be ignored for NORINCO. (To be continued.) )