After about half an hour of back-and-forth tinkering by the mechanics, the initial tank lying in the trench finally made a sudden working sound after repeated ignition attempts.

Green smoke spews out, and machinery roars. As the track rotated, the mud and sand were thrown out by the tumbling guide wheels, and the entire body returned to the previous normal operation and began to continue to move forward at a slow pace. Although its speed is still slow, it is even more difficult to sustain when it encounters climbing terrain, which is worrying; But after the experience of breaking down just now, Oliver has developed an antibody-like immunity to it. As long as this guy can get going, then even if the test is a success!

Seeing its unsightly off-road speed, Qingying couldn't help but think of the Iron King Eight car with a maximum speed of only 13Km/h that she drove in a water tank game in her previous life. In the past, I have always complained about its outrageous maneuver in the game, and I can't eat meat with the tailwind, and I can't turn the table against the wind; However, when I really understood what the 2Km/h off-road speed of this test tank was, I felt that the big turtle in the game was as fast as Cromwell and Hellcat during World War II!

Qingying retracted her gaze and no longer paid attention to the embarrassing scene on the test field; He pressed his right hand against his chin, and his heart had already begun to silently calculate.

There is no doubt that it was completely impossible to carry out a blitzkrieg-style tank penetration during World War I. Whether it's its single-digit highway speed or its high failure rate of breaking down and dropping chains at every turn, it completely closes the door to a bright future. Even if there are a few more years of accumulation of skills. The actual effectiveness of the tanks produced is at best only used as infantry support. This is already the limit of the development of technology in the current era. And on supporting the infantry. Assault guns are often much more useful than tanks!

"Mr. Oliver, how is this combat vehicle capable of attacking and defending?" Qing Ying looked at the person in charge of technical research and development next to him, and said, "The strength of this combat vehicle's strike weapons and armor protection will play a very important role in the battle. I remember when it was first developed, I put a lot of emphasis on prioritizing fire strength and armor protection, right? ”

Hearing that Qingying finally put aside the embarrassing speed and began to inquire about the firepower and protection of the chariot, Oliver's spirit couldn't help but lift. He smiled. He replied respectfully: "Returning to Your Highness, I have never forgotten your entrustment. In fact, the reason why this vehicle is equipped with only one 35-horsepower engine is precisely because I have always practiced your will and made a trade-off between the three elements. ”

In terms of firepower, it is equipped with a 37mm short-barreled rapid-fire gun improved from a naval machine gun, firing 0.8kg shells and 60 rounds of ammunition, which can effectively destroy ordinary sandstone pillboxes, machine-gun emplacements and earthen towers. The four-way rotating turret and the fairly good pitch effectively ensured the gun's firing range. It can also carry out normal firepower output in various complex and undulating terrains. Oliver gestured to the short cannon sticking out of the circular turret not far away, and then said. In addition, in order to ensure the accuracy of shooting, I also installed a set of simple aiming equipment for the artillery inside, so that the artillery can have considerable accuracy against targets hundreds of meters away. ”

"In terms of protection, I also tried to make it the best: the front of the hull and turret were sloping armor up to 15 mm thick and at an angle of 30 degrees to the horizon, while the rear of the side was 8 mm of vertical protection. According to the tests we conducted at the test site, the 15mm armor with a 60-degree angle is not only completely immune to our heavy machine gun fire at 0 distance, but even the shells of the 37mm gun have a high chance of bouncing off! While it's still hard to survive larger caliber guns, it's still an exciting achievement! At this, Oliver's words carried a hint of irrepressible excitement; He turned his head and said to Qingying in a tone full of admiration, "Your Highness, this inclined armor defense mode you proposed has an amazing defense against direct fire shells; In the test, this piece of inclined armor deflected more than half of the 37-mm shells fired from 100 meters away! ”

Hearing the tone of amazement in Oliver's words, Qingying couldn't help but show a smug look. As a BB member who had been diving in the forum for a long time in his previous life, he already had a deep understanding of inclined armor.

In later generations, as long as the ordinary enthusiast who dabbled in military affairs and physics had a little dabbling, he would know that the inclined armor of the Langdao would have better protection against direct shells than vertical armor of the same thickness. However, how many times the thickness of the inclined armor can be equivalent to the protection of its own thickness is a relatively correct conclusion.

In line with the consideration that simplicity is justice, SerB, the famous science fiction author of Bai Maozi, adopted the simplest and crudest algorithm in the tank game he developed: cosine equivalence. Through a simple junior high school mathematical model, the file master pieced together the thickness and inclination angle in a stiff way, forming a set of "science fiction physics laws" that belonged to him. In reality, however, the enhanced protective effect of inclined armor is not at all something that can be concluded by a simple triangular cosine; In addition to the angle, small thicknesses such as inclined armor have a close relationship with the caliber of incoming shells.

According to the diagram of the tilt effect drawn by the Americans, the 15 mm thick 60-degree inclined armor had an equivalent thickness increase of about 2.4 times in the face of 37 mm shells, which means that the front of the hull of this vehicle is 36 mm thick, which is obviously a big improvement over the simple triangular cosine. Therefore, the current immature armor-piercing bullet has a high chance of being bounced off, which is what Qingying expected!

"The idea of inclined armor was inspired by it on naval warships. It was only because of the high trajectory of the ballistic projectile in naval warfare that it was difficult to achieve a balance in the height of protection, so this idea was abandoned. Qingying smiled and spoke, saying the excuse she had prepared for a long time. He paused, and then added: "Although the defensive performance of this tank is already good, it can only barely defend against 37mm shells; Once faced with the opponent's larger-caliber artillery, its protection is still difficult to guarantee. In addition, the power of the 37mm gun it is equipped with is also somewhat low, and it is necessary to increase its caliber. ”

Oliver looked embarrassed and said, "Your Highness, this is already the limit of what I can do at the moment. If the firepower and armor are further improved, the tonnage of the combat vehicle will inevitably increase further; As a result, both load-bearing systems and mechanical stability will face more severe tests than they currently do, and mobility and reliability will no longer be guaranteed. Although I will follow your will and work hard to develop it, the end result is likely to be difficult to meet your requirements. As you can see, even this 9-ton guy still needs to be more reliable. ”

"If you abandon the turret, you should be able to increase its firepower and defense performance while the combat tonnage is basically the same, right?" Through some foreshadowing, Qingying finally led to the idea of assault gun in his heart.

"Abandon the turret? So how should such a tank be designed? Oliver couldn't turn a corner for a moment.

"Abandoning the turret structure and fixing the gun to the front of the hull and maintaining its ability to rotate in a small area on the left and right can save a lot of weight. In addition, the engine can also be replaced by a diesel engine with more power per unit weight, and the latest submarines of the Navy have begun to adopt this new type of machinery. In this way, the cost of increasing firepower and enhancing protection is saved. Qingying simply pointed out the biggest feature of the assault gun, and then said, "After using these two means, we can try to equip the combat vehicle with a 50 mm gun and increase the thickness of the armor on the front of the hull to 35 mm; And once this kind of chariot appears on the battlefield, it will definitely greatly help the advance of the infantry! ”

After listening to Qingying's description, Oliver's eyes couldn't help but light up. Due to its independent and rotational characteristics on top of the hull, the turret requires a rather complex internal mechanism to support it; However, if it is only placed inside the hull like the gun profile on a battleship, both weight and space will be effectively saved. However, there are obvious drawbacks: for targets beyond the firing angle of the gun itself, the hull needs to be rotated to aim them, which is undoubtedly a big test for primitive vehicles that are prone to lying on their stomachs; But compared to the increase in firepower and protection, this price is well worth trying!

"In addition to this, we should equip each vehicle with a machine gun to make up for the gap in their firepower under a single gun and avoid being easily approached by enemy infantry." Qingying thought for a moment, and then said. Historically, because there was no machine gun in the early stage, the German Ferdinand tank was blown up by the opposing infantry in close quarters in the Battle of Kursk and suffered huge abnormal losses. As a traverser, he naturally wants to avoid this possible battlefield risk.

Oliver pondered for a moment, then said yes. Adding a machine gun is not a difficult task for a tank, and with only a few modifications to it, you can satisfy the crown prince's bizarre need for such a strange weapon.

As they were communicating, the sound of the humming engine not far away gradually subsided; Qingying turned her head to see that the off-road test had ended unconsciously. (To be continued......)

PS: Thank you for the monthly ticket support of book friend Ming Jian, Tianxia Langqing, Long Fengpo and Brother Xu, and book friend Why am I so bad~~~ Although the author went to the construction site on a business trip, he will still work hard to write~