Standing on the top of the hill and looking out to sea, you can see the faint smoke rising from the sea antenna, and although you can't see the battlefield at all, you can imagine the fierceness of the battle on the battlefield.

Several Chinese soldiers were standing on the top of this low hill at the moment, taking turns using binoculars to look out over the ocean to the north, all wearing armored uniforms, tank caps, and tank boots on their feet, and there was no doubt that they were all armored soldiers.

Not far behind these armored soldiers, in a bush, an air defense camouflage net was erected, under the camouflage net lay a few empty oil drums, on which a car radio receiver was placed, a telegraph operator and an officer stood by this radio station, with an air defense camouflage net on their heads, and were busy setting up the antenna of the radio receiver, perhaps because they could not help much, those armored soldiers would stand on the top of the hill and look to the north, and their intuition told them that there must have been a battle in the sea there, and the battle was quite fierce.

When the armored soldiers were standing on the top of the hill arguing whether the battle on the ocean over there was a naval and air battle at a visual distance or a face-to-face fleet battle, Leng might as well shout from behind him.

"Hey! What to see! After the radio came up, there was nothing to do, right? Let's go down the mountain and check the tank tracks! ”

Several armored soldiers looked back and saw that a senior officer had reached the top of the mountain, and it was none other than Tian Miao, the acting commander of the 6th Armored Division, who was chewing a handful of tobacco in his mouth as usual.

The armored soldiers hurriedly put the telescope back on the receiver, and then ran down the hill in a puff of smoke, back to the foot of the mountain, and at the foot of the mountain, in the woods, some heavy tanks and medium tanks were parked, and the crew members were gathering around the vehicles to carry out some necessary maintenance, and the air defense vehicles on air defense duty had raised their guns, and if the enemy planes attacked, they could drive out of the woods at any time and go into battle.

"Staff Officer Chu, how is it? Got in touch? ”

Tian Miao walked over to the radio receiver and questioned the officer who was assisting the operator in fiddling with the radio.

"Not yet, contacting."

Seeing that it was the division commander who arrived, Staff Officer Chu hurriedly stood up and saluted.

Tian Miao nodded, didn't say anything, picked up the telescope resting on the radio, and then turned to look at the ocean, in the lens, he also saw the smoke rising from near the sea antenna.

"Good guy, it looks like there's going on over there. In this battle, the Navy can be regarded as too addicted, and our 6th Army can't sit still. ”

Tian Miao took a sip of the tobacco in his mouth, and then sighed a few words.

Originally, the task of their Sixth Armored Division was to seize a British barracks in the eastern area of Muscat, and decide whether to hold it according to the situation, if Tian Miao thought that it could not be defended, then simply destroy the ammunition depot in the barracks, and then withdraw to the west to join the main force.

Tian Miao's assault column, codenamed "Hunter," consisted of an armored regiment with two tank battalions, a mechanized infantry battalion, a reconnaissance company, and a baggage and communications company.

The task is not complicated, but when Tian Miao led the assault column to the target area, it was only then that the British barracks had already been empty, and as for the ammunition depot, it was also empty, obviously, after the battle of Deng 6, the British troops stationed here had already retreated, and judging from the traces near the road, the British troops were likely to withdraw to the southeast, according to the air force reconnaissance, there should be a very important oil field, and the British troops seemed to have gone to defend the oil field, However, it cannot be ruled out that the British commanders were gathering forces and shrinking the defensive line.

So now Tian Miao must report the situation here to his superiors, because the distance is too far, he can only use wireless telegraphy to get in touch with his superiors, so this mountain has become a temporary reporting point, Tian Miao is anxiously waiting for the orders of his superiors, his superiors are the theater headquarters.

This battle has been fought so far, Tian Miao has not really fought any hard battles, there are infantry and the first armored division on the side of Muscat City to undertake the attack mission, and their sixth armored division belongs to the nature of reserves, in fact, the current sixth armored division only boarded the 6th regiment, the other troops are still in Karachi in the north of the Gulf of Oman waiting for the transport fleet to come back to pick them up, until the troops are gathered, they cannot take on the main attack task.

Tian Miao really wanted to turn his title of "acting division commander" of the Sixth Armored Division into a regular division commander, so he was eager to make meritorious contributions and wholeheartedly wanted to fight a few beautiful battles in this Muscat Oman, but now the British army actually retreated to the oil field, which made Tian Miao very depressed, and he was now ready to ask his superiors for permission to continue to advance the armored regiment to the southeast, capture the oil fields in one go, and annihilate the British troops.

In addition to the reason for his meritorious service, there was also a secondary reason that also made Tian Miao anxious to attack the British army, and this reason was equipment.

In this Muscat campaign, the General Staff specially approved the transfer of a batch of newly developed heavy tanks to the Sixth Armored Division, and asked them to conduct actual combat tests of the prototypes of these heavy tanks to see how their performance was. Unlike medium tanks and first-generation heavy tanks, this new heavy tank has very thick armor, and uses inclined armor, the frontal armor of the hull is up to one hundred and five millimeters thick, the frontal armor of the turret is up to one hundred millimeters thick, and the caliber of the tank gun is also larger, reaching 1o5 millimeters, and the total combat weight of the tank is close to fifty tons, such a behemoth, without a doubt, is the most offensive weapon of the Chinese 6th Army.

Because the weight of the tank is too large, it is very inconvenient to pass through bridges and roads, which also directly limits the application of the tank to the battlefield, in Southeast Asia, which is full of rivers and swamps, it is impossible to easily use this heavy tank, but the Middle East This kind of desert and desert area has become an ideal battlefield for this heavy tank, the reason why the General Staff is so anxious to send this heavy tank to Muscat is to use this Muscat battle to test the real combat effectiveness of this tank, especially the protective force, In the end, the test of the shooting range is not as reliable as the test of the battlefield.

Tian Miao also wants to know whether this tank has a future, for the road of the tank, there are currently two opinions in the General Staff, one opinion is that the heavier the tank, the better, it is better to show it like the Navy armored cruiser 6 monsters, and the other opinion is that the tank is not necessarily the heavier the better, the future tank exhibition, will be directly affected by the aviation technology exhibition, and the final integration of tank technology and aircraft technology is not necessarily impossible, so analyzed, The tank of the future will definitely not become a monster weighing several hundred tons on the 6, perhaps, a tank of fifty tons will be enough.

The difference in the idea of tank design is also one of the differences in the current world military theory community on the tank exhibition, the second difference is whether the tank should be a single turret or multiple turrets, now all countries are exploring the correct way to develop the tank, China is of course no exception, but compared with other countries, China's military theory exhibition is not a multi-headed exhibition, on this, Chinese President Zhao Bei played the role of a lighthouse, he said how to design a tank, then the designer how to design a tank, The controversy of the General Staff may only play a reference role, and it is actually President Zhao Da who determines the road of future tank exhibition, and his tank design principles are very clear, that is: a single turret, a long-barreled special tank gun, a fast degree, thick armor, and an advanced fire control system.

In fact, according to Zhao Bei's original words, he wanted to show a so-called "main battle tank", which combines the dual advantages of the fast medium tank and the thick armor of the heavy tank, but in order to do this, a practical problem must be solved, that is, the power problem, in order to make the thick armored tank run as fast as a medium tank, it needs a more powerful tank motive, to do this, ordinary diesel engines are difficult to do.

Therefore, as soon as Mr. President gave the order, China's tank designers began to design a tank motive that provided strong power for this future "main battle tank", and at the same time, in order to test the performance of this new tank motive, the tank designers also designed a heavy tank, which is the new tank equipped with the armored regiment commanded by Tian Miao, in a sense, they may be regarded as the prototype of the future "main battle tank".

Or in other words, the kind of "main battle tank" that Mr. President said is a kind of heavy tank that can run faster, and in order to realize Mr. President's idea, Chinese tank designers have hollowed out their minds, taken inspiration from the new aviation engine, and improved a new diesel engine with an EFI fuel supply system and a turbocharging system, and quite vividly called it "roar", because once this kind of motivation is running, the noise is definitely not comparable to ordinary tank motives.

In order to match the "humor" of the tank designers, the armored troops also called the heavy tank with this new tank motive "wild boar", because its movements are indeed very similar to wild boars, it runs fast, and its tactical actions look very "savage", just like wild boars, arching back and forth arrogantly, and nothing can stop it.

As soon as the General Staff issued an order, these "wild boars" were transported directly to Karachi, the assembly place of the 6th Troops of Deng, Tian Miao was overjoyed when he saw it, so he couldn't wait to follow the first batch of 6 troops to set foot on the dry land of the Arabian Peninsula, he wanted to see with his own eyes the ability of these "wild boars", after all, after the end of the Burma Campaign, the British Government strengthened the combat readiness of the troops stationed in the Middle East, and now, the troops of the 6th Army deployed by the British Army in the Middle East are better equipped than the British troops in Southeast Asia. Although most of the British army's tank performance is very average, but they have a sufficient number of anti-tank guns, although they are temporarily modified from field guns, but if they are equipped with suitable shells, then these medium-caliber anti-tank guns have a very strong armor-piercing ability, China's medium tanks have been a little powerless in front of these anti-tank guns, especially the side armor, in fact, in the Deng 6 operation, some of the medium tanks of the Chinese 6 Army were destroyed by the British army's anti-tank guns in the Deng 6 field, compared to the Malaya Deng 6 battle, Muscatden 6 was much more difficult.

Tian Miao very much wanted to see with his own eyes the actual combat effectiveness of this heavy tank, and according to the experimental data handed over to the front-line troops by the General Staff, this heavy tank could withstand the frontal attack of all the British anti-tank guns, and more importantly, this tank ran quite fast, especially in this dry coastal area, using this tank can easily sweep the entire battlefield, and even the boat bridge troops are not needed.

There must be pros and cons, because this tank is too heavy, there is currently no kind of tank trailer that can drag it, so, this tank can only rely on itself to maneuver between the battlefield and the battlefield, it is conceivable that the fatigue of the armored troops driving this tank, and more importantly, the long-distance maneuver will wear out the motive and the track and the running gear, which will definitely have an impact on the combat effectiveness of the tank, and then consider that this heavy tank is only an experimental combat deployment, once the fight will encounter what situation, Even Tian Miao was completely unsure.

However, Tian Miao still hopes that this tank can achieve the first important result in his hands, he hopes that this result is a heavy tank of the British army, although most of the tanks equipped by the British 6th Army are cruiser tanks and infantry tanks with very average performance, but according to the relevant intelligence obtained by the Military Intelligence Bureau from the spies lurking in Iraq, Palestine and other regions, the British 6th Army in the Middle East also has at least one heavy tank, it is worth mentioning that this heavy tank is not manufactured by British factories, Rather, it was made in Soviet factories.

The British 6th Army actually used a heavy tank from the Soviet Union, which is a bit surprising, but this is indeed a by-product of the "London Mutual Defense Treaty", in fact, since the signing of that treaty, Britain, France, the Soviet Union, the three signatories have strengthened military-technical cooperation and exchanges, Britain and France sold the most advanced fighters to the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union paid the corresponding amount with its factory-made heavy tanks, so, The Soviet heavy tanks that the British army in the Middle East were equipped with can also be seen as the result of barter.

These Soviet heavy tanks were transported to the Middle East through Palestine, and the British army has deployed them in Iraq, Muscat, Oman and other regions.