The number of German armored units has been increasing, thanks to the fact that the Germans have always been able to find a large amount of equipment to arm themselves with their opponents: from the French B1 tank to the Soviet T-26 tank, it has become the armament of the German army.

About 1,000 captured Soviet T-26 tanks were assigned to second-line German units for training and daily vigilance duties, while General Hawke had about 300 of these disposable weapons in the hands of Army Group J. The Germans did not intend to use these weapons for a long time, in fact another 100 tanks were distributed to the troops as parts, and if they were used up, the tanks would be scrapped as scheduled. The Germans used the T-26 as an armored reconnaissance vehicle, including against some partisans who did not have heavy firepower.

At the same time, about 500 other tanks were sent to Poland for modification, and these light T-26 tanks eventually had to remove the turret and armor from it, creating an open environment where the German 105 howitzer could be installed, which became the self-propelled howitzer that the German army urgently needed to distribute to the troops. The Germans found a good home for these 500 self-propelled howitzers, that is, Army Group J, which also applied to the T-26.

The German army's own self-propelled howitzers are divided into two types, one is the 105 mm caliber self-propelled howitzer on the chassis of the No. 3 tank, and the other is the 150 mm caliber self-propelled howitzer with the most advanced Leopard tank chassis. These two types of artillery are now in short supply in the armored forces, and everyone is waiting in line for the equipment to be distributed to the troops.

Especially self-propelled howitzers of 150 mm caliber, because the Leopard tank did not stop production, so the production capacity simply could not meet the requirements of the army. The production of the chassis of the Leopard tank has increased three times, but the production of the Leopard tank is declining. There is no other reason than the fact that the various self-propelled guns of the German army occupy a large amount of production resources.

There are many weapon systems that have been developed on the chassis of the Leopard tank, such as the Leopard bridge-building vehicle, the Leopard repair vehicle, the Leopard command vehicle, the Leopard 4-in-1 40 mm caliber self-propelled anti-aircraft gun, the Leopard 75 mm caliber assault gun, the Leopard 150 mm caliber howitzer, and the Leopard 130 mm caliber rocket launcher -- if you add the front and rear 3 Leopard tanks with different armor thicknesses, no less than 10 types of deformation vehicles have been derived from one chassis.

Suffice it to say that the chassis of the Leopard tank has now become the carrier of the second largest series of weapons in Germany. Some of the German armored forces did not have Tiger tanks, some did not have No. 3 tanks, and those modified captured materials were even rarer, but only the Leopard tank, which can be said to be seen wherever there are German tank troops.

The extensive use of mature technology has made the improvement and use of the Leopard tank chassis a great success, and the mature technology has made the failure rate of the German armored forces always in a low state, and the repair speed is also faster because of the universal equipment. Now any mechanic in the German armored forces can solve more than half of the technical problems of the Leopard tank.

But the production of Leopard tanks is indeed decreasing, at its peak, the German army produced 3,000 Leopard tanks a year, but now German records show that the German army's production of Leopard tanks in the coming year will drop to about 1,700 units. The main reason for this was that the Leopard A tank, with a thinner front armor, had been discontinued, and the chassis for the Leopard 150 mm howitzer had begun to be fully supplied. And part of the chassis of the thickened Leopard B tank was also appropriated to the Leopard 75 mm caliber assault gun.

On the contrary, the production of German Tiger tanks is steadily increasing, and according to the current production line capacity, the German army will add 2,700 Tiger tanks in the next year, and these new Tiger tanks are all improved versions with thickened front armor. The Germans are reducing the proportion of their Leopard tanks in the army's equipment, and their production capacity is gradually tilting towards the more advanced Tiger tanks.

The chassis of the King Tiger tank completely won over the German tank experts and designers after being tested, and this kind of low-profile tank with some slightly asymmetrical wheels suspended from the rear engine transmission with some slightly asymmetrical torsion bars simply drove everyone crazy. Almost all the design concepts of modern tanks are reflected in the King Tiger tank, such as 6 pairs of wide load wheels and better bulletproof shape, and even Accardo thought that this was definitely the T-64 tank chassis after reading it. And the weight between the two is also relatively close, the German King Tiger tank is expected to weigh about 38 tons, and the total weight of the T-64 tank is also around 40 tons.

However, the German tank designers eventually persuaded Führer Accardo to force the Führer of the "stubborn favorite medium tank" to compromise and allow the German King Tiger to increase its combat weight to an unprecedented 45 tons. However, several designers, including Colonel Demont, were confident in Germany's current engine technology, and they privately felt that they could increase the weight of the King Tiger tank appropriately, and 48 tons was definitely a weight that everyone agreed.

These German tank designers did not understand Führer Accardo's inconsistent statement on tank design: in 1925, the German future tank, which had been secretly developed, was originally only a measly 5 tons, but the Führer rejected this design, and he proposed that a heavier and larger tank must be designed.

As a result, when the German tank designers came up with the No. 2 tank weighing 8 tons, the Führer was still not satisfied, and even just to train the troops in advance, after symbolically ordering a batch of No. 2 tanks, he ordered the production of heavier No. 3 tanks. As a result, the weight of German tanks began to leap forward - from 5 tons to more than 20 tons in the shortest possible time.

The subsequent Leopard tank can be called a classic of the world's tank design, and the German tank is completely proud, with a weight of about 30 tons to complete the balance of armor protection, mobility and superior firepower, becoming the number one hero of the German armored forces sweeping across Europe. Wren, the number one tank ace at the time, even played an amazing record of destroying 22 tanks with one tank in the Battle of Stone.

Everyone saw the Führer's foresight, everyone saw the footsteps of the arrival of heavy tanks, so when the Führer gave the order to start producing Tiger tanks, no one felt strange, and Krupp even felt that this order was given a little late, and his factory was already ready to help the German army maintain the title of the world's first tank quality.

However, after the design of the King Tiger tank began, the Führer changed his previous habit of requiring the tank to be as large and heavy as possible, and instead asked to limit the weight of the tank. He ordered that the armor protection level of the King Tiger tank should be improved compared with that of the Tiger tank, and there was no need to deliberately pursue a qualitative leap. Instead, Accardo became keen to develop a 105-caliber tank gun to deal with the increasingly thickly armored new Soviet tanks.

He ordered to carry out research on the improvement of artillery power in three directions at the same time, one was to improve the new type of artillery shells based on the development of new materials, the other was to improve the caliber and barrel length of the artillery, and the other was to simply and rudely increase the caliber of the artillery to achieve the purpose of enhancing the power of the artillery. In the end, based on cost considerations, Accardo chose the first shell modification and the third caliber upgrade to improve the anti-tank capabilities of the German armored forces.

Now the evaluation and improvement of the King Tiger tank has reached the final stage, the entire chassis can be said to be seamless, Accardo knows that this shape will not be outdated even if it is used in the 70s, it can be said that the birth of this chassis has made the German tank invincible in the chassis.

Next, his designers had only two research directions - more advanced composite armor and more advanced fire control systems, both of which, combined with the powerful 105 mm smoothbore gun, did not have to think about replacing tanks until at least 1970.

The long-term accumulation seems to have no effect, and the German tanks and planes are showing signs of being pulled into the gap by the opponent, but Accardo knows better than anyone in his heart that it seems that the distance is constantly being drawn, but in fact German technology is slowly entering a leap stage, and the opponent's barely catching up with outdated technology will show fatigue in the next year.

Some technologies can be replaced with outdated technologies, which may not be seen in a short period of time, and even backward technologies can be better performed. However, as time passes, the gap will gradually be revealed, and when the lagging side wants to catch up again, it will fall into the embarrassing situation of complete collapse because of the lack of technology accumulation process.

A simple example is that in the 70s, the Soviet Union used outdated electronic components to develop a new fighter, and the performance of the MiG-25 for a long time caused panic in the Western world. However, when the new generation of fighter jets of the United States began to enter service, the Soviet Union's technological lag was exposed, which also directly led to the backwardness of the Soviet Union's weaponry and electronic equipment in the following decades.

Accardo now has a very strong scientific and technological reserve in his hands, he just needs a year to two years to develop these immature technologies in his hands into more reliable mature technologies, and at that time, some epoch-making monsters will appear on the battlefield, once again changing the appearance of the entire battlefield, so that the German army can once again lead the world - and this time, no one will be able to close the distance in a short time, because the technological reserves of other countries have been exhausted.

Once the German King Tiger tank appears on the battlefield, relying on the night vision system of infrared technology, the German army will achieve absolute superiority at night on the land battlefield, and the German army will be able to annihilate the opponent's living forces in hundreds or thousands at night, and then withdraw from the battle safely before dawn comes. Accardo wondered what tanks the Soviets could rely on to turn the tables in the face of such an invincible German armored force fighting at night.