Before 1944, this design was a bit too radical. But Hannah considered that in the coming years, there was little chance of a war between the Soviet Union and Germany. And now is the era of technological progress and the rapid updating of armored tactics, and this radical approach of half a step ahead of the era is still acceptable.

In the development of the No. 4 tank, the German side initially used a five-person configuration out of conservative thinking, but after the No. 4B tank, it began to try the configuration of a four-person vehicle group, and conducted many exercises, and the results were very satisfactory.

The space that was originally crammed into a five-person car group has been replaced by a four-person car group, and the natural man-machine environment has been greatly improved.

And in this era, because there was no Soviet-German war, the Soviet Union did not receive large-scale American-made radio aid. Domestic tanks, although they are barely equipped with radio stations, are old-fashioned tubes, and a professional communicator must be added.

The addition of a crew member would have a huge impact on the tank designer.

After the initial crossing, Lin Han and Hannah invested a lot of capital in radio communication equipment at all costs, because they saw the many benefits brought by small transistors to the design and use of weapons in this era.

However, the production of the D series is very small. The main reason for this was the more advanced replacement, the main battle tank, which Han called "not obsolete for the next twenty years", which was the most important part of the E tank program, and the E50 tank was developed in 1945.

Another factor was the successful development of the atomic bomb, which made Germany "feel safe". Hannah was reluctant to produce too many "obsolete" tanks - the Type IV D, while still a highly advanced tank in 1945, was outdated compared to the 105mm/55x gun on the E-series, the king of the E-series, the E50. Another reason was that Germany had received information that the Soviet Union had developed the T44 with a 100-mm tank gun. This was also an important reason for Hannah's early death sentence for Tank IV.

In order to avoid the production of too many "obsolete" tanks to affect the development of new tanks, the production of the first batch of fifty tanks of the fourth tank D tank was stopped by the military.

Flowers bloom inside the walls and fragrance outside the walls, just like the Stalker tank destroyer is very popular abroad. The Type 4D, which was shot dead by the German military, was upgraded to the E50 standard and renamed E36. But here in China, it is very well received. The Chinese military did not look down on the 42-ton E50, but it had a soft spot for the E36, bought all its production lines and production drawings, and produced the first generation of China's main battle tank, the Type 47.

Like the No. 3 tank, due to the long-term "peace" between the Soviet Union and Germany, the No. 4 tank in Germany could only be left in the tank magazine, slowly rusting or obsolete with the passage of time, but the outbreak of the Middle East war. The contradictions between Jews and Arabs intensified, and this tank was given the opportunity to show its skills.

After the outbreak of the Second Middle East War, relations between Saudi Arabia and Britain went bad, and its arms procurement came to Germany. Germany took the opportunity to sell tank No. 4 in large quantities to the Saudis, and then to the Egyptians. Later, this tank made its debut in the Third Middle East Theater.

However, the "talent" of the Arabs for what to destroy was undoubtedly exposed in the later wars.

In the Third Middle East War, Israel's tank forces were dominated by the early version of the Centurion tank, which was sold by the British with 21-pounder guns (presumably 83 mm). But there were only a few hundred of them, and the rest of the tanks were still outdated No. 3 tanks. Tank No. 4, although the Israelis upgraded these tanks, still can't keep up with the times.

On the opposite side, the Arab coalition forces, the main tanks sold by the Soviet Union, the KV series, and even a large number of Stalinist tanks and some T44s, the Arab coalition forces have the upper hand in performance.

It's all tanks, no matter how good they are. After all, it has to be used by people, and the Arab armored troops, who cannot be trained, have poor logistics capabilities, and are scumbags in battlefield maintenance capabilities, have really lost the face of Soviet tanks in this war.

And another appearance of tank IV in the Middle East. It was the war that took place in 1966 between Iraq and Iran.

At that time, both the Soviet Union and Germany believed that Iran and Iraq had been selling oil for so many years and were already "too rich", and wanted to encourage them to spend money.

Although the main chariots of the two countries at that time were mainly the German E50 and the Soviet T44/48, the two families still had a large number of old tanks imported from the Soviet Union and Germany more than ten years ago, and these veterans were dragged out of the warehouse again and sent to the battlefield.

Whether it is the Persians or the Arabs, the quality of their armored troops is half a pound to eight taels, and the war quickly became a low-level bad war, whether it is the No. 4 tank, the No. 3, or the T34 and KV series exported by the Soviet Union, there is no amazing performance in the hands of both sides in this war.

Plan E Tank

The E tank program was developed in 1939 by Hannah in order to fight against the torrent of Soviet armor from the east and to simplify the production and maintenance of domestic tanks.

Due to the fact that the German tank design was still in the exploration stage in the early stage, coupled with the war factors, the implementation of this plan was delayed until the end of the war, and the German tank design department spent several years exploring and developing, and finally officially began to implement this plan in 1946.

As conceived by Hannah, taking into account the industrial situation in the German-controlled zones and "friendly allies" in Western Europe, the military decided that the future armored forces of Germany would prepare three chassis.

The first is the chassis of the main battle tank, that is, the chassis of the E105 tank, which was later armed with a 50-mm tank gun, which in addition to being used in the main battle tank, will also serve as a carrier of heavy artillery.

The second is the infantry tank chassis, which is similar to the first generation of infantry tanks developed by Germany in later generations, the Weasel infantry tank, with a planned weight of about 25 tons.

This chassis will also be used as a universal chassis as a carrier for carrying anti-aircraft guns and light artillery.

The third type of chassis is similar to the chassis of the M113 tracked armored car, which weighs between ten tons and 13 tons, and is a light chassis. The main task is to meet the transport task of carrying infantry to the front line, and at the same time it can also be used as a carrier of various types of light artillery equipment and fire support vehicles. (Note: more than seventy-five thousand units of the historically famous M113 armored transport vehicle were produced). This chassis will not only be used by Germany itself, but will also be given to the allies for its production. It is an extremely important universal chassis.

Compared with the previous two, this type of chassis has low production process requirements and will not occupy the production line of tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, which is very suitable for mass production. As Hannah envisioned, the German army even developed a tank destroyer with a swinging turret based on this chassis.

Due to the improvement of the international strategic environment around Germany. Although the prototype of the E50 was developed in 1944, it was delayed until 1946, when all mechanical problems were solved and the more advanced diesel engine was replaced, and mass production began after 1947.

From the very beginning, the tank had a 105 mm main gun, and according to Hannah's vision, this tank should be able to suppress the famous T54/55 in Soviet history on the battlefield, that is, the T44/48 and its future upgraded T55.

When this tank was first developed, it used a 105 mm rifled gun. Later, with the maturity of artillery barrel self-tightening technology and electroslag remelting technology. In addition, the tail stabilized deshelling sub-caliber armor-piercing projectile was successfully developed, and a 105-mm smoothbore gun version was later developed.

Although the requirement is to be able to fight for 20 years, in fact, even in the 21st century, in the third world countries or Middle Eastern countries, you can still see this old horse galloping. Another tank of its contemporary, the Soviet T44/48/55 series, was in a similar situation.

The successor model of the E50 was the E120 with a 75-mm tank gun, while his contemporaries were the Soviet T62 and T64. However, with the advancement of technology. The gap between the Soviet-German tanks was not large, and the German side had a certain advantage only in electronics. But in actual tank battles. The victory or defeat still depends on the personal qualities of the tank crews on both sides.

The E25 refers to the famous Weasel infantry fighting vehicle.

According to Guderian's assumption, in the face of the terrifying tank sea of the Soviet Red Army, the German armored forces blindly defended and would only be overwhelmed by the other side. The only chance is to carry out an armored counter-assault and break through to the rear of the opponent to disrupt his supply lines. According to this operational thinking. The defense of infantry fighting vehicles carrying infantry stands out. The weasel infantry fighting vehicle weighed 25 tons in the early model, and increased to 28 tons in the middle and late periods, making it one of the heaviest infantry fighting vehicles in the world.

And the E15 program, whose full name is "Universal Multifunctional Light Tracked Armored Carrier", has a standard weight of between 10 and 13 tons. The former is an amphibious type using aluminum alloy armor. The latter is to give up amphibious capabilities in exchange for slightly higher armor protection.

In addition to the development of this series of chassis for transporting infantry, another idea is to make full use of the manufacturing and production capacity of Europe to develop a chassis that can be produced by ordinary automobile factories and tractor factories, so that it can compete with the Soviet tanks when fighting for quantity.

According to Hannah and Lin Han's vision, another effective means to deal with the Soviet tanks without frantically exploding nuclear bombs is to create a large number of cheap and cheap mobile anti-tank guns. The chassis of the E15 light armored transport vehicle is an extremely cheap anti-tank vehicle.

"A tank destroyer composed of a cheap ten-ton light chassis and an 88~105 mm anti-tank gun (perhaps more suitable for a self-propelled tank gun)", in terms of price, manufacturing man-hours, and cost-effectiveness, it is still very suitable for dealing with the Soviet tank sea.

After the successful development of the E15 chassis, it is the largest production of tracked chassis, not only the entire European Union has produced or equipped, even China has introduced a full set of production technology for this chassis, and Italy and Yugoslavia have also introduced his production line, and even the United Kingdom has begun to produce similar products. Its production is so high, the world together produces up to 40,000 of them, which can only be matched by Soviet BMP infantry fighting vehicles.

In terms of combat performance, the E15's armor is extremely thin, with other armor of ten tons, and the side armor can only withstand rifle bullets and light grenade fragments, making no difference when charging on the front line of the battlefield. However, the biggest advantage of this type of armored car is that it is extremely cheap and has an excellent universal chassis, so there are more than 30 types of deformed vehicles.

Its most famous variant is the German-made "Hunter" tank destroyer with a swinging turret, which uses a swinging turret and is armed with a 105 mm anti-tank gun.

Based on its chassis, the North France developed the AMX10 and AMX15 series with a swinging turret and a 90-mm anti-tank gun and a 105-mm anti-tank gun.

However, the biggest drawback of the swinging turret is that it is extremely poorly sealed, and in the tropical jungles of Southeast Asia, the rainless hunter destroyer is simply a nightmare for tank crews here, so the series is not popular in the rainy tropics and equatorial regions.

In addition, this chassis has also been equipped with anti-aircraft anti-aircraft guns, rocket artillery, light howitzers, large-caliber heavy mortars, recoilless guns, and even changed to light tanks, reconnaissance tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, etc.

In particular, the Hunter tank destroyer is cheap in construction and has strong firepower, which is very suitable for the use of "cannon fodder" troops, but because its sword is on the wrong side, the practice of letting tank soldiers "naked" go into battle is too extreme, and this idea is not popular in many countries, so it is not as successful as the Hunter series in terms of export. Only the French, who also like to be unique, produce similar products in large quantities. Germany itself, which first developed this series, stopped producing only a small number of more than 100 vehicles for the training of armored troops, and then sealed them as technical reserves.

In addition to the E15, E25, and E15 chassis series, the German military also developed E5, E10, E36 and other series throughout the forties.

The E5 is the famous Stalker tank destroyer, and the series was developed to make the most of a bunch of off-the-shelf 75/42x tank guns and an outdated tank chassis No. 2. At the same time, it served as a "backup work" to prepare for the sudden outbreak of the Soviet-German war.

The E10 is an upgrade from the success of the E5 Stalker in the international market, improving some of the former's flaws while upgrading the main gun to 75mm/55x. Theoretically, when the E10 is on the defensive, it is perfectly possible to confront the T34-85 or the Soviet KV85 tanks head-on, but it is still not an opponent of the Stalin series.

The E36 is the product of the No. 4 tank after replacing the gun according to the E50 standard according to the Chinese opinion. Although it was not accepted by the German military, it was well received in China, and a full set of production lines was introduced. (To be continued.) )