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【Three Watches】

[Today's third update, cumulative update of 21,000 words, double the chapter owed yesterday, at the end of the month, ask for a monthly pass, ask for a reward, roar~~]

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After the outbreak of large-scale tank battles in Europe, in order to learn from the experience of tank battles on the battlefield, a new type of main battle combat vehicle is undergoing high-intensity testing in the Beiyuan Synthetic Tactical Training Base of the Chinese Empire in Asia. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info╔╗^//^

On the test site, amid the roar of a huge motor, I saw a new combat vehicle maneuvering at high speed, and the test track was dusty. Suddenly, he advanced at high speed on the flat road, suddenly advanced quickly on the undulating ground, crossed a two-meter-wide trench, a half-meter-deep river, smashed through a one-meter-thick brick wall, climbed a 60-degree slope, and successfully passed through anti-tank obstacles such as horse rejection, hidden piles, and barbed wire.

This is the test vehicle of the new M16 combat vehicle that was successfully developed by the Equipment Science and Technology Research and Development Department of the Imperial Chinese Army in five years. Although the prototype test vehicle of this tank had been manufactured in Guanghua 14 years, the War Department repeatedly postponed the purchase, requiring the Ministry of Scientific Research to improve the defects according to the performance of the M07 and M10 tanks in the Japanese and European theaters, and at the same time learn from the experience and lessons of the European Somme tank battle, so it was finally delayed until the 16th year of Guanghua to obtain a formal procurement contract, considering that the first batch of new combat vehicles were delivered in the 16th year of Guanghua, so it was finalized as the M16 type by the Army Nomenclature Committee.

In view of the fact that in the Battle of the Somme, the tanks of various countries were so high that they were easily hit by direct fire from artillery, and the fragile tank armor could easily penetrate even a 37 mm smoothbore gun.

On the basis of the M10 tank, the height of the M16 tank is reduced and flattened, which reduces the probability of hitting direct fire from enemy tanks.

The actual combat in the European theater has shown that the combat personnel in the combat vehicles with various load-bearing wheels, inducing wheels and towing wheels, and installing a spring-suspended shock absorption system between the load-bearing wheels and the vehicle body, are more able to quickly adapt to the ever-changing battlefield and find a favorable firing position to attack the enemy tank. ╔╗

Therefore, the M16 tank refers to and absorbs the advanced spring shock absorption structure of the A7V-4 tank improved and upgraded by the Germans on the basis of the M10 tank, and optimizes it and installs it on the M16 tank.

With a total length of 8 meters, a width of 3 meters, and a total height of 2.7 meters, the vehicle is closer to a modern main battle tank.

Considering that the caliber of the main gun of the tank on the European battlefield has increased to more than 40 mm, and the thickness of the armor is also increasing rapidly, in order to adapt to the leading position of the main battle vehicle in the next five years, the M16 tank of the Chinese Empire uses a 47 mm 30 times extension high-pressure smoothbore gun, with a maximum range of 2.1 kilometers, and can effectively penetrate 30 mm of high-strength Chinese special steel or 40 mm European Krupp steel armor within 600 meters. The improvement in the reserve ammunition is considered that after the end of the largest and most fierce tank battle on the battlefield, each vehicle consumes an average of 40 shells, so it is redundant to complete 150 or 200 rounds of ammunition, but because too much ammunition affects the safety of the vehicle, increases the load, and affects the speed and maneuverability of the vehicle. As a result, the M16 tank has only 60 rounds of ammunition in reserve.

After investigating tank battles on the European battlefield, researchers of the Imperial Chinese Army found that the most lethal force on the battlefield was not the main gun of the tank, but the machine gun weapon system of the tank, which shot and killed a large number of enemy personnel. Therefore, the engineers installed a 12.7 mm M2 heavy machine gun with 800 rounds of ammunition above the turret of the M16 tank, which is extremely powerful. Become a real weapon of high destruction for the M16 tank.

The actual combat in the European theater has shown that the armor protection of combat vehicles is the first life and the first law of battlefield survival. Therefore, the M16 combat vehicle uses high-strength Chinese special steel composed of nickel-cadmium and comprehensive heavy armor protection, with a frontal armor thickness of 60 mm and side armor of 35 mm, focusing on the protection of bomb bays and fuel tanks.

Large-caliber artillery and heavy armor protection made it possible for the total combat weight of the M16 tank to reach

In order to be able to propel this behemoth, the propulsion system uses a Diesel Type 15 six-cylinder, six-stroke high-power diesel engine with a power of 150 hp and a thrust-to-weight ratio of 5 hp per ton. ╔╗The powerful engine makes the M16 tank reach a maximum speed of 20 km/h on flat ground, 8 km/h on an 8-degree slope, 4 km/h on a 30-degree slope, and a maximum climb of 75 degrees on a slope. It can cross a 2.2-meter trench and a 1.2-meter-high wall, wading more than 0.5 meters, and no longer easily sink as the M10 tank in the Japanese landing war, which has a wading height of less than 0.2 meters.

The speed and firepower of the vehicle have been greatly increased, and the biggest problem that arises is the load-bearing capacity and durability of the vehicle's tracks, which can carry a 30-ton hull and reach a speed of 20 kilometers per hour.

The greatest success of the M11 was the greatly increased durability of its tracks. The engineers introduced the most wear-resistant special alloy steel from Imperial Steel as the track connection bearing, and added an inset groove between the bearings, which were filled with rubber and lubricating oil to increase the wear resistance of the tracks, so that the track life increased to 120 kilometers. The M16 tank received strong support from the Imperial Rubber Chemical Group, and developed a wear-resistant rubber lubricant codenamed 93, which reached 300 kilometers when testing the track life, making the battlefield assault capability of the M16 tank double that of the M10 tank.

Overall, the M16 has reached the level of comprehensive overpowering of the M10 tank, becoming the most powerful main combat vehicle in the world, and no tank is his opponent, worthy of the name of the king of land warfare.

However, behind the power comes a high cost. As early as many years ago, when the M10 tank was just put into production, its cost reached more than 500,000 dragon coins, and with the progress of the Chinese Imperial chariot manufacturing process, by the 16th year of Guanghua, the cost of the M10 chariot had been reduced to 200,000 dragon coins. Now the cost of the M16 tank has soared to 350,000 dragon coins again, although the Imperial Congress is not very happy with this price, but thinking that the cost of the M10 tank will soon decrease with the progress of technology, so it finally approved the defense budget for the first batch of 200 M16 tanks.

At the same time, the Chinese Empire was inspired by a new type of battlefield assault weapon from the Tsarist Russian armies on the Eastern Front in Europe: the wheeled chariot.

On the Eastern Front, due to the economic difficulties of the Tsarist Empire, the Russian soldiers in the trenches often used a rifle for several people, with an average of less than 8 rounds per person. ╔╗In this difficult situation, the Russian Emperor was attacked by the powerful tank units of the German army, and suffered heavy casualties.

In order to reverse this situation, the Tsarist Empire, on the one hand, bargained with the Chinese Empire, hoping to obtain the advanced tanks of the Chinese Empire, and on the other hand, the Russians were also trying to develop and produce their own vehicles.

However, Russia's weak industrial capacity simply did not allow it to produce the required tank parts, such as engines and vehicle tracks. Later, Russia thought of a way to import civilian car engines from the Chinese Empire, which barely solved the engine problem of the combat vehicle, but the track problem was still not solved. Originally, it was considered to dismantle the tractor tracks as a site, but after modification, it was found that the cost of the Russian-made combined combat vehicle was higher than that of the M10 tank of the Chinese Empire, and it was immediately rejected by the Russian Duma parliament.

Subsequently, Colonel Pilov of the Tsarist Army Armament Committee came up with a solution, he wrapped the outside of the car with iron sheets, and after adding a heavy machine gun, it became a combat vehicle with the ability to quickly penetrate defenses.

The use of car chassis and wheels of the vehicle, can quickly enter the battlefield, high-speed travel car tires are not so easy to be exploded by the enemy's bullets, and the additional iron protection can block the flying bullets and shrapnel, when the vehicle penetrates into the dense German army, the vehicle-mounted heavy machine gun can easily strafe the enemy, and cause heavy casualties to the enemy, its effect is often much greater than the combat vehicle.

Photographs and achievements of the rudimentary wheeled chariot invented by Russia were sent back to the Chinese Empire, giving another inspiration to the chariot engineers of the Chinese Empire, and a new main battle weapon was born.

At this time, the performance of the armored personnel carriers of the Chinese Empire on the European battlefield was unknown, and they were almost ignored by many countries, because the speed of the tracked combat vehicles was too slow, the targets were too large, and they were easily targeted by enemy artillery and tanks, and the casualties caused by damage were much higher than the loss of a combat vehicle.

As a result, feedback from the European battlefield required the tank engineers of the Chinese Empire to improve the armored personnel carrier. Personnel carriers require speed, rapid delivery capabilities, and rapid strike capabilities. Although the M10 armored personnel carrier combat vehicle of the Chinese Empire has strong firepower, it does not meet the requirements of actual combat. ╔╗

Under these circumstances, the Imperial Chinese Army Armament Committee launched the W16 wheeled infantry fighting vehicle under the special guidance of the Chinese Emperor Wang Chenhao, inspired by Russian modified cars, and under the joint improvement of professional combat vehicle designers and engineers.

W16 wheeled infantry fighting vehicle, also known as Guanghua sixteen-year infantry assault fighting vehicle. It was jointly developed by the Imperial Chinese Army Equipment Commission, Ford Motor Industry Group, and Beiyang Ordnance Heavy Industry. The general layout scheme of the engine and transmission system in front and in the rear of the crew compartment has the advantage of providing more space for the fighting compartment to arrange ammunition and crew working positions.

The vehicle is composed of three parts: fire system, fire control system and wheeled chassis. It uses a 6x6 wheeled chassis, which is comparable to the technical performance of the world-class Ford heavy-duty off-road military jeep built by the Chinese Imperial Ford Motor Company, with a double-crosswall independent suspension system, a hydraulic shock absorption system, bulletproof rubber tires, and a front and middle axle steering mechanism. It adopts 6x6 and other wheelbase drive mode. These Type 10 personnel carriers, which proved to be a huge rib in the Japanese landing war, often sank and stalled, and became the king of the Imperial Marine Corps officers and men. During the landing operation of the army, many soldiers sank to the bottom in the M10 troop transport combat vehicle.

To this end, the new W16 infantry fighting vehicle because of the requirements of the Marine Corps, for the first time to carry out amphibious design, in the tail of the hull has two rudder in one conduit propeller propulsion device, simple structure, light control, large thrust on the water. When the vehicle is in an upright position when it is on land, it can be rotated 180 degrees when it is launched.

The Type 10 infantry vehicle has been greatly improved, and the detachable access hatch designed in key parts also facilitates the on-site maintenance of troops in a field environment.

In terms of protection, the hull of the W16 infantry combat vehicle is a fully enclosed floating shell structure made of armored special steel, with an average thickness of 10 mm and a frontal thickness of 20 mm, and the front and sides of the hull can protect against 7.62 mm armor-piercing shells and artillery fragmentation at close range, and can prevent penetration by 12.7 mm heavy machine guns at a distance of 500 meters. The body part is the cockpit, the power compartment and the fighting compartment. ╔╗The cockpit is located at the front of the car body, and is equipped with a vehicle control mechanism, observation instruments, a vehicle commander and a driver's seat, and a fire extinguisher. The engine and transmission device and power compartment of the W16 wheeled infantry vehicle are located in the left middle of the body close to the cab, and it is equipped with an engine, gearbox, clutch, transmission box, transmission shaft, water cooling system, ventilation system and fire extinguishing system. This structure facilitates the entry and exit of passengers/passengers through the rear and side doors, and is also easy to operate the vehicle. However, this structure makes the interior noise and temperature high, but it is still within the tolerable range.

The commander and driver's cab are located at the front of the vehicle (the driver is on the left, the commander is on the right) and are separated from the passenger compartment by a steel plate. The commander and driver each have 3 periscopes, which are convenient for battlefield assault.

The most important thing is the power plant of the tank, for which Ford Motor Industry has specially developed a 320 hp Ford K-type 6-cylinder, 4-stroke direct-injection air-cooled diesel engine that can be used on bombers. The engine has undergone high-intensity testing by the Army Commission, with advanced performance and reliable structure, making it an excellent military engine. In addition, a 200-watt generator and a 300-watt starter motor are installed on the engine. The transmission adopts the mechanical transmission of the racing model originally used in the competition produced by Ford, with a total of 6 forward gears and L reverse gears, with a large transmission range, and makes full use of the engine power to meet the requirements of high off-road maneuverability.

The fighting compartment is located behind the power compartment, and on the left and right sides of it are the crew seats. On the right side of the power room, there is a passage connecting the cab and the crew compartment, and the right side of the passage has a side door, which can be used for the occupants and the crew to get on and off the car. There are periscopes and spherical shooting holes on both sides of the hull and on the rear door, which can be used to carry people in battle. The fighting compartment in the middle of the rear of the power room is equipped with an overhead single turret (the weapon is placed on top to facilitate the evacuation of bullet chains, shells and smoke exhaust from the turret), which has three defense performance, and the gun commander is located in the lower fighting compartment on the right side of the turret.

In terms of armament, there is a Type 2 12.7 mm heavy machine gun, and a side by side Type 10 6.5 mm Browning light machine gun.

In addition, Wang Chenhao personally designed a lightning cannon launch system for this type of infantry combat vehicle to cover the advance of the combat vehicle, carrying four 37 mm lightning guns, which can be adjusted from 0 to 180 degrees in front and rear, and 30 degrees in left and right. It is mainly used to disrupt the enemy's purpose by firing lightning shells during a vehicle assault, and can also be used to attack important enemy targets at medium and close range when parking, and cover the infantry to pull out the enemy's fire point.

The tire casing of the W16 infantry fighting vehicle gives high-strength sealed rubber tires, which can travel at a speed of 40 kilometers per hour for half an hour even if hit.

Under normal circumstances, the W16 wheeled infantry combat vehicle carries 10 people, the maximum speed of the combat weight is 60 kilometers per hour, 5 kilometers on the water, 35 kilometers off-road, the maximum travel is 300 kilometers (highway), 80 kilometers on the water, the higher the vertical wall is 0.5 meters, and the wider the trench is 2 meters.

The Chinese Empire had the new M16 main combat vehicle and the W16 wheeled infantry tank, but the War Department was not satisfied with this. Intelligence from the battlefields of Europe indicates that there are still dead spots in the attack power of the vehicles on the battlefield. Although 16 tanks worked together to make up for the dead end in this area, it was not enough. The enemy's howitzer position can fire warp howitzers to destroy the vehicle, and in turn, if the team can quickly deploy howitzer fire points, it can counterattack and suppress the enemy's tank unit.

The Army Armament Committee provides cover for large-caliber howitzers with curved ballistics based on 16 vehicles (direct-fire guns) and W16 vehicles (heavy machine guns, small-caliber mine guns).

This is not a new idea, so the railgun that Germany and France have long begun to develop, and the super cannon developed by the Chinese Empire can be regarded as the originator of vehicle-mounted howitzers.

The first combat vehicle-mounted artillery was invented by France in 1915 during the Third Battle of the Somme. Shortly after the creation of the tank in the First World War, the French, in order to make the bulky towed gun more maneuverable, able to quickly think about shifting positions in various terrain conditions, installed a field gun on the chassis of a tracked tank, which gave it maneuverable off-road performance. But the self-propelled guns of this time did not have armor protection and were only suitable for fire support of infantry. During a German vehicle assault, the howitzer of this tracked tank managed to destroy several German vehicles.

In this way, with the actual combat test, the Imperial Chinese Army Equipment Committee then started a discussion, and submitted it to the Imperial Congress for consideration, and finally sent it to Wang Chenhao, Wang Chenhao himself almost forgot the importance of this self-propelled gun, so he made a series of instructions on the official document.

First of all, Wang Chenhao believes that in terms of firepower, the tank is a direct-aiming weapon, which requires a large direct-aiming distance, but does not have high requirements for the maximum firing range, so the tank gun is a cannon, and the pitch angle is generally about minus five to plus 20 degrees. Self-propelled artillery is mainly aimed at intermittently, and has higher requirements for the maximum firing range, in addition to self-propelled anti-tank guns, the requirements for direct aiming distance are not high, so self-propelled artillery is mainly howitzers, cannons, howitzers, mortars, etc., and the pitch angle of artillery is generally between 0 degrees and 30 degrees, and some can reach 90 degrees (self-propelled anti-aircraft guns).

Secondly, in terms of fire control, the tank talks about the first enemy to discover, the first enemy to fire, and the first hit, so the tank pays more attention to how to find the enemy first and fire quickly. The tank focuses on "knowing the other". The self-propelled artillery generally cannot see the target, and the target is generally reported by the observation post or the superior, but it also pays attention to the time of the transition from the march to the battle, although the enemy cannot be seen, but if you know the geographical location, and then know where the target is, the fire control system can quickly calculate the shooting of Zhu Yuanlai, focusing on the "confidant"

In terms of protection, Wang Chenhao pointed out that the tank is an impact weapon, and the attack mainly comes from the front, so the frontal armor of the tank is very thick, which can reach tens of centimeters. Self-propelled guns are long-range support weapons, and the attack mainly comes from the enemy's long-range artillery fire, that is, shell fragments with equal probability on all sides, so the armor of the self-propelled guns is of equal thickness and very thin.

In terms of mobility, Wang Chenhao instructed: In order to meet the tactical requirements, the tank needs to be fast and flexible to maneuver, and the engine is required to be able to provide strong acceleration and large ton power. Self-propelled guns do not have high requirements for this, and it is generally possible to choose a tank engine with a similar chassis or other types of engines. In fact, due to the fact that the tank is heavier than the self-propelled gun and does not have an advantage in tonnage power, the mobility of the tank is no better than that of the self-propelled gun.

In short, Wang Chenhao supports the development of self-propelled artillery combat vehicles, which can be improved based on the W16 wheeled infantry combat vehicle, which does not require much protection and only requires mobility, so that self-propelled artillery can quickly enter the designated area and carry out artillery strikes against the enemy.

Wang Chenhao's special instructions immediately made it impossible for members of Congress to prevent the Army Commission from developing a vehicle-mounted self-propelled artillery project and allocating relevant funds.

With Wang Chenhao's strong support, the Imperial Army Committee quickly came up with a design. Named the Z16 wheeled self-propelled artillery fighting vehicle, or anti-tank fighting vehicle. The Z16 anti-tank combat vehicle is based on the chassis and power system of the W16 wheeled infantry combat vehicle, carries a 120-mm howitzer with a crew of 6 people and a total combat weight of 20 tons. The maximum highway speed is 45 kilometers per hour, the off-road is 15 kilometers, the maximum distance is 300 kilometers (highway), the vertical wall is 0.4 meters high, and the trench is 2 meters wide.

With the successive development of the M16 main battle tank, the W16 wheeled infantry tank and the Z16 anti-tank combat vehicle, the Chinese Imperial Army's armored forces have made a new leap, and their combat effectiveness will be higher than that of the European armored forces, representing the highest field of the world's armored forces, and continuing to lead the direction of the reform of the world's armored forces.

Since then, the three armored corps weapons of the Chinese Empire have been called the Three Musketeers of the Chinese Imperial Armored Corps by the international community, and have become the symbol of the Chinese Empire's domination of the world in the field of the armored corps, and its international code name is MZW16, which has become an international star equipment in the late World War I and World War II, and is warmly sought after by various ** experts.