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For armies, armor-piercing shells have always been the main ammunition used against enemy tanks. www.biquge.info The main battle tanks of all countries in the world are basically using rifled tank artillery, because the stability of the shells fired by the smoothbore gun is poor, and the shooting accuracy of the tank in the original mobile combat is not high, and if the smoothbore gun is used, the hit rate will be even lower.

For tanks, there is a dilemma between the choice of smoothbore guns and rifled guns. The smoothbore gun has no rifling and has a simple structure, so the bore pressure is high and the muzzle velocity of the shell is high, which is most suitable for firing armor-piercing shells. Although the Chinese Empire is in a leading position in smoothbore gun tanks, the first party also wants to imitate the smoothbore gun tanks of the Chinese Imperial Army, but unfortunately they have not mastered this technology, and they are not as rich as the Chinese Empire to install accurate optical sighting systems for tanks, so they can only rely on rifled guns to improve accuracy.

Nowadays, the Chinese Empire has developed a stabilized tail shelling armor-piercing shell, a new type of artillery shell that can greatly improve the flight stability of the shell, so that the smoothbore gun is not weaker than the rifled gun in terms of accuracy. What is obvious is that the high chamber pressure of the smoothbore gun can fire more lethal armor-piercing shells, coupled with its simple production process, its advantages are already very obvious.

Wang Chenhao, Zhang Zizhong, and their entourage followed Yang Bing to another shooting range, where several gray-haired artillery experts, with the assistance of more than a dozen assistants, were conducting live-fire tests of the latest model of stabilized tail shell-out armor-piercing shells.

Wang Chenhao's arrival made them very happy. They all rushed to explain for Wang Chenhao and others.

Phelps Lee, an artillery specialist, is of mixed Eastern and Western descent, and his appearance is indistinguishable from Westerners except for his black hair, but he is a native Chinese. He has been working on armor-piercing shells for more than twenty years. The development of the stabilized tail shell was made possible by chance, when Phelps, while researching the earliest smoothbore guns, an assistant made a mistake by loading two round solid shells into the chamber, and after firing, one of the shells hit the center of the target paper. ╔╗

This phenomenon was keenly observed by Phelps, who soon put two more hairs in. And after several tests, he found that the accuracy of the shells was somewhat improved compared to the previous ones. So he tried to tie a cannonball to a piece of wood with duct tape, only to find that the cannonball flew out and separated from the block, making the trajectory of the cannonball much more stable.

Soon, Phelps consulted ballistics and physicists and theoretically discovered the key to this.

Phelps then systematically studied it, and his final research result, the "tail stabilized deshelling armor-piercing projectile", was improved step by step from the original ordinary armor-piercing projectile.

Originally. The power of an armor-piercing projectile depends on the kinetic energy (velocity, mass) of the projectile when it hits the target and the physical properties of the shell material itself. The armor-piercing projectile is only affected by drag and gravity after being accelerated by the propellant in the breech, so that the armor-piercing projectile still has a large velocity when it hits the target. Armor-piercing projectiles must be designed in a shape that is conducive to reducing drag.

Phelps based on basic knowledge of physics. The thinner the projectile body, the less resistance. But considering that the caliber of the gun is certain, he came up with a lightweight butt to sandwich the armor-piercing projectile body in the middle, the caliber of the butt is the same as the caliber of the cannon, the armor-piercing projectile is made into a slender rod shape, and after the discharge of the cartridge buttle automatically falls off due to the effect of resistance, and the projectile body continues to fly along the barrel. This is where the term "husking" comes from.

In order to ensure the smoothness and accuracy of the slender projectile body during flight, when making armor-piercing shells. In the tail section, four tail wings are installed, arranged in a cross shape. Therefore, it is called "tail stability".

Phelps' tail stabilization technique was inspired by the rockets used in the Buran rocket launchers of the Chinese Empire. Phelps knew very well that kinetic energy is determined by speed and mass, and that increasing the mass of the projectile body at a certain speed is another way to increase kinetic energy, so armor-piercing projectiles should be made of metal that is denser, harder, and resistant to high temperatures. This can also ensure that the projectile body is not easy to bend when colliding with the hit armor, and the heat energy generated by the collision will not reduce the strength of the projectile.

After continuous experiments, Phelps finally adopted the tungsten carbide alloy warhead newly developed by Imperial Steel in the material selection of armor-piercing bullets.

Since the armor-piercing projectile is a purely kinetic energy projectile, it completely relies on its own kinetic energy to hit the tank armor, and the impact of the high-speed armor-piercing projectile on the tank greatly exceeds the bearing limit of the armor and can forcibly penetrate. In the process of passing through the armor, the high-speed core of the armor-piercing projectile will rub violently with the armor, causing part of the armor to melt and fly into the tank with the armor-piercing projectile, causing damage to personnel and equipment.

After years of research by Phelps and his team, the early sub-caliber shell-piercing projectile has evolved into today's tail stabilized armor-piercing projectile, the shape of the core is similar to a long arrow, the body is slender, the diameter reaches 40 mm, the length-diameter ratio is more than 20:1, and the tail of the core has a tail to maintain stability and shooting accuracy in flight. The shape of this similar long arrow can not only reduce the flight resistance and maintain the speed, but also have a small surface and a large impact force when colliding with armor, which can effectively increase the depth of armor penetration.

Since the diameter of the stabilized tail shell shelling armor-piercing projectile is much smaller than the caliber of the gun, it is necessary to put a belt on the core before it can be fired by the gun, and the function of the belt is to seal the breech and increase the force area of the projectile, so that the projectile can obtain a high muzzle velocity.

At present, the muzzle velocity of the stable tail shell shelling and armor-piercing projectile used by Phelps test has reached about 1000 meters per second, which is equivalent to nearly three times the speed of sound, and the outer edge of the projectile belt is wrapped with a thin layer of copper hoop, and the copper hoop will rub against the barrel in the process of the projectile flying out of the barrel, and after the projectile flies out of the barrel, the belt is split and fallen off by the action of air resistance, and the remaining arrow-shaped core continues to fly at high speed.

At the range, Phelps personally used an 80 mm smoothbore gun for comparative testing, using ordinary armor-piercing shells and stabilized tail deshelling armor-piercing shells. Results: The results of the test show that: The range and accuracy of the stabilized tail shelling armor-piercing projectile are higher than that of ordinary armor-piercing shells, but what surprised Wang Chenhao, Zhang Zizhong and others the most was that the 80 mm caliber stabilized tail shelling armor-piercing projectile penetrated 300 mm thick China Special Steel at a distance of 1,500 meters. ╔╗

Wang Chenhao suddenly exclaimed: "Great! With this new type of armor-piercing projectile, presumably the German tiger will only have to escape when it encounters the Chinese tiger! ”

Zhang Zizhong said: "It happens that the test is also 80 mm, which can be directly used for the launch of the M36 main battle tank, and the German No. 6 tank is only more than 110 mm, which is enough to penetrate it within two kilometers!" ”

At this time, Yang Bing said: "What Weichen just meant was to suggest that the empire export this new type of armor-piercing shell to the Soviet Union and reduce the caliber for use in M28A3 tanks. In this way, the Reich did not need to use the M36 tank directly, and the M28 tank was enough to offset the advantage of the German Tiger tank. ”

Wang Chenhao looked at Zhang Zizhong, who thought about it, then nodded and said, "This is indeed the fastest way to support the Soviet Union!" ”

Wang Chenhao then said: "The Soviet battlefield is urgent, support them, but strictly control the technology." The Soviets must not be allowed to learn from it, especially to prevent the Germans from obtaining relevant intelligence information. ”

Phelps smiled and said, "Your Majesty rest assured. The core of this stabilized tail shelling armor-piercing projectile requires a high-strength special alloy material. At present, only the empire has the production technology of tungsten carbide, even if the Soviets or Germans imitate it, their material technology cannot meet our level, and the armor-piercing bullet core made of other materials cannot be compared with our tungsten carbide, and the gap is huge. ”

Wang Chenhao nodded and said, "That's good!" ”

Wang Chenhao handed over the matter to Zhang Zizhong to deal with, and soon the Chinese Empire mass-produced the M36, M35 and M28A3 main battle tanks, the stabilized tail shelling and armor-piercing shells required for the three main battle tanks. Among them, the armor-piercing shells used in the M28A3 tank were preferentially produced and supplied to the Soviet Red Army. ╔╗

As soon as the German Tiger tank appeared, it became the most powerful tank on the European battlefield. This heavy tank artillery is powerful and has strong defensive capabilities. So. On the battlefield of the Soviet Union, the German "Tiger" heavy tanks were like a group of steel giants, with flames spewing from their barrels, and they advanced proudly, causing the Soviet troops to search for teeth all over the ground and suffer heavy losses.

By 19 December, the 57th Panzer Corps, which was part of the German 4th Panzer Army, had advanced to within 30 miles of the southern encirclement. At this time, Manstein found himself in danger of being surrounded by Soviet troops several times his size. So, he decided to ignore Hitler's orders and ordered Paulus to immediately break south to join the 4th Panzer Army. Paulus then decided to break out, but his supplies were attacked by the Soviet Air Force that night, and the fuel loss was too great to support tomorrow's breakout, so Manstein decided to delay it for a day.

Seeing that the Germans were about to break through, Stalin was unable to deal with the German Tiger tanks. At this time, the strong military production capacity of the Chinese Empire quickly produced the first batch of 20,000 rounds of stabilized tail shelling armor-piercing shells, and immediately delivered them to the Soviet front line, equipped with the M28A3 main battle tanks of the Chinese armored division units in the Soviet Army, while the Soviet Army's own T34 tanks failed to obtain such powerful armor-piercing shells.

On December 27, the skeptical Stalin decided to give it a try. So he ordered the Soviet armored forces to launch a counteroffensive.

Manstein's Panzer Army made the mistake of despising the Tiger tanks at the beginning, and the Germans thought that their Tiger tanks were invincible, so they did not pay attention to the oncoming Soviet tank clusters at all.

As a result, a fierce tank battle broke out on both sides again. The M28A3 main battle tank equipped by the Soviet Army's Chinese armored unit penetrated the armor of the German Tiger tank one after another with its powerful stabilized tail shelling armor-piercing projectiles, destroying one German tank after another on the battlefield.

The sudden turn of events caused the Germans to panic, and it was hard to believe that the invincible Tiger tank had been destroyed by a Gepard medium tank one level lower than it. ╔╗

But Manstein guessed that the Soviets must have acquired new equipment, so he ordered the Germans to retreat.

And the Soviet army was at a loss from the beginning, not knowing whether it would work if it was replaced with a new type of armor-piercing projectile. These days, the Soviet army has been frightened by the German Tiger tanks, so the Soviet troops were very careful in the initial battle and did not dare to rush, which naturally gave the Germans a chance to retreat. At the same time, the Soviets had only a small number of M28A3 tank attack groups capable of countering the German Tiger tank group, and most of the Soviet T34 tank attack groups were still weak. In this way, on the overall battlefield, the advantage is still that of the German army.

Stalin immediately ordered the Soviet army to launch a powerful counterattack to push back the 4th Panzer Army of Hort for more than 150 to 200 kilometers in one go, and finally made it retreat to its original position, forcing the German high command to finally give up the attempt to rescue the besieged group, and Stein's "winter storm" failed.

Soon. The temperature in Stalingrad again dropped to minus 45 degrees. The ice on the Volga River gradually thickened, so it was easier for the Soviets to replenish their own troops. And the German 6th Army in the encirclement had less and less air supplies, averaging less than 100 tons per day. The German 6th Army was on the verge of running out of ammunition and food, and the distribution of rations had been reduced to a standard of subsistence support; The lack of ammunition for the artillery began to be felt; Medicines, fuel, and fuel have been exhausted; Thousands of people suffer from typhoid fever and dysentery, and even more so with frostbite, and thousands of soldiers die every day from starvation, cold and malnutrition. Some officers tried to persuade Paulus to quickly break out of the siege despite Hitler's orders. But Paulus, fearing the charge of disobeying military orders, insisted on standing still.

December 29th. Paulus sent the commander of the 14th Army, Lieutenant General Hubi, out of the encirclement to meet Hitler and report the situation of the 6th Army to the Führer in person. Hitler, however, ordered the 6th Army to hold Stalingrad anyway. Until next spring.

Same. Due to Zeitzler's repeated requests, Hitler knew that after the onset of winter, the Germans would repeat the tragedy of the Battle of Moscow, so he agreed to withdraw Army Group A from the direction of the Caucasus.

In the blink of an eye, in January 1943, the Soviet Red Army took advantage of the fact that the German tanks lost their combat effectiveness in the middle of winter (and the Soviet tanks were the same), and launched another round of offensive using the crowd tactic, codenamed "Operation Jupiter". Trying to break through the Italian defenses in the Don region and capture Rostov-on-Don.

If the operation is successful. The remnants of the German Army Group South were to be completely besieged in the Caucasus. Although the Soviets never approached Rostov-on-Don, the operation forced the Germans to be more than 250 kilometers away from the German forces in the Stalingrad encirclement. As a result, the German 6th Army had completely lost reinforcements.

On 8 January, the commander of the Suton Front, Lieutenant General Rokossovsky, issued an ultimatum to the commander of the German 6th Army, Colonel-General Paulus, urging him to surrender. Paulus telegraphed to Hitler asking for permission to act on camera, which was denied.

On the 10th, Rokossovsky's Don Front launched an offensive codenamed "Ring" against the besieged German 6th Army, and the encircled German army began to shrink its defense from the outskirts of Stalingrad to the city.

On 22 January, the Soviets occupied the Gumenlak airfield, and the 6th Army's complete airlift and supply transportation and the evacuation of the wounded were completely interrupted. Despite the extreme lack of food and ammunition, the Germans resisted stubbornly, believing that the Soviets would execute the surrendered soldiers. Fierce street fighting broke out again in the city of Stalingrad. On the contrary, the Soviets, also surprised by the sheer number of German troops in the encirclement, continued to consolidate the encirclement.

On February 2, 1943, Paulus, besieged in Stalingrad, announced his surrender. At this point, the Battle of Stalingrad ended. Field Marshal Paulus, commander of the German 6th Army, Lieutenant General Pfefer, commander of the 4th Infantry Army, Lieutenant General Kurzbach, commander of the 51st Army, Major General Colfez, commander of the 295th Division, and other 23 generals, 2,000 officers below the rank of colonel and 91,000 German soldiers who were extremely hungry and tired were captured, about 140,000 people died, and only more than 30,000 wounded patients were evacuated by air in advance.

To the great surprise of the Soviets and the great disappointment of the Germans, the prisoners of war included 22 generals. Hitler was extremely disappointed with the new field marshal and openly stated that "Paulus was on the verge of entering the halls of glory, but he chose to retreat." "There is no clear evidence that the severe mistreatment of Japanese and German prisoners of war resulted in widespread deaths. However, of the 91,000 prisoners of war who were allowed, only 6,000 survived and returned to their homeland. Most of the soldiers were already malnourished and lacked medical care, and the Red Army sent them to prisoner of war camps throughout the Soviet Union for forced labor, resulting in most of them dying of overwork and malnutrition. More than a dozen high-ranking officers were taken to Moscow to be used as Soviet propaganda tools. The officers, including Paulus, made anti-Hitler manifestos and hyped up the German troops. Walter? Feng? Seydlitz? General Kurzbach even offered to form an anti-Hitler army from German prisoners of war, but the USSR did not accept this proposal.

No matter how you look at it, the Battle of Stalingrad is one of the most tragic battles in World War II and even in the history of human warfare. The entire campaign lasted 199 days. Due to the scale of the campaign, the number of casualties could not be accurately counted. In the final phase of the campaign, the Germans still inflicted a heavy blow on the Soviet army, and at the same time, the Soviets almost wiped out all of the German 6th Army Group and part of the 4th Panzer Army (4th Army), 41 German divisions were removed from the order list, and a large number of direct units were eliminated.

Scholars of the Chinese Empire estimate that the Confederate Detachment suffered 1.85 million casualties in the battle, of which 1.75 million were killed or wounded and 91,000 were captured. The Soviet estimates were 2.5 million troops a month for the elimination of Allied forces. Either way, the claim that the Germans lost a quarter of their forces on the southern flank of the Eastern Front at the Battle of Stalingrad is shared by most people.

However, the Soviet side paid an even heavier price, with more than 1.47 million killed and more than 600,000 wounded or captured, totaling more than 2 million casualties. It can be said that it injured 800 enemies and lost 1,000 self-losses, and it can be said that they suffered a big loss.

More than 40,000 Soviet citizens were killed in just one week of the German invasion of the city, and the number of civilians killed in the entire campaign is not accurately counted, but it can be said that it is far more than that. In this battle, the losses of the Soviet army still exceeded that of the German army, but the difference was that the German army was wiped out by the whole organization, its combat effectiveness ceased to exist, and the new units could not form combat effectiveness without a period of training. And the remnants of the Soviet army replenish the new recruits, with the old leading the new, can quickly form combat effectiveness.

However, on the battlefield of the Soviet Union, the strength of the Allies still had an overwhelming advantage over the Soviet Union. Although the Allied ** teams suspended their offensive on the Soviet battlefield, they did not allow the Soviet troops to move forward, and the front was in a stalemate.

And Hitler was sad with a hint of joy, because the American expeditionary force had arrived in Europe, more than 1 million American troops would be put into the Soviet battlefield in the next three months, and the Soviet Union would face even more pressure, because the American army was not as rigid as the German army, and they were very good at dealing with the Soviets. (To be continued.) If you like this work, you are welcome to come to the starting point () to vote for recommendation, monthly pass, your support, is my biggest motivation. )