The tank is an ensemble of machinery and equipment that relies heavily on systems engineering, or integration capabilities.

If the integration is not good, then there may be no good equipment technology, and the cobbled together will end up with a pile of industrial waste; The ability to integrate depends on experience, needs, and the designer's subjective initiative.

With the exception of the Soviet Union and Germany, the tanks equipped by the major powers at the beginning of the war were not satisfactory, and they could only be said to be barely usable. It wasn't until the middle and late stages that the tanks of each family finally became decent.

A machine company can now come up with such a design, in Zhou Changfeng's view, it can also be called qualified.

After all, this is just entering the 40s, and there is plenty of time to optimize the prototype.

Despite the advantages and disadvantages in other aspects, the Daming tank was quite advanced in the general layout - the driving wheels were rear-mounted, and the corresponding gearbox was placed at the rear of the hull along with the engine.

The driving wheels are placed in front and are more likely to be destroyed by frontal fire; At the same time, the gearbox is in the front of the car body, and the power needs to be transmitted to the gearbox through a propeller shaft that runs through the car body, which will lead to the height of the car body if it is not properly designed.

The rear of the driving wheel is the mainstream after the war, but at today's technical level, there are also shortcomings such as difficulty in shifting, and the operation is laborious, frustrating, and delayed.

The A plan designed by the first machine company is 5.8 meters long, 2.62 meters wide, 2.65 meters high, and has a total combat weight of 21.1 tons.

It is the first time that the welding process has been applied to the manufacturing, but it is said that the defective rate is high?

The vertical armor on the front of the hull is 70mm thick, and the sides of the hull are 24mm thick; The turret is hexagonal, the gun shield is 70mm, the front is 60mm, the front left and right front are 38mm, and the left rear and right rear are 24mm.

Plan B is basically the same, except that the front of the hull is changed to inclined armor - 45° relative to the normal, and the thickness is reduced to 50mm.

Correspondingly, the weight savings have been strengthened to the sides, which have been increased from 24 mm to 38 mm.

If the cosine formula is simply used, the equivalent of the inclined armor of scheme B is 50÷cos45°≈70.71mm.

However, the actual situation is more complicated, the caliber, mass, and velocity of the shell will affect the effect of penetrating the inclined armor, and the more commonly used parameter is the T/D value, that is, the ratio of the thickness of the hit armor to the caliber of the incoming shell.

If the incoming shell is a 75mm armor-piercing shell fired by the M4 Sherman, and the hit armor is tilted 45°, then the T/D value is 0.66, and the empirical chart shows that the equivalent coefficient is 1.6.

In other words, the 50mm inclined armor can actually exert the effectiveness of about 80mm of vertical armor.

After listening to the eloquent introduction of the design team, Zhou Changfeng and several army generals were quite satisfied.

Under this icy and snowy ground, the former, who had forgotten his form, reached out and touched the prototype, and the result was ......

The fine sweat on the skin instantly condensed, and his right hand froze directly on the steel plate, and the others hurriedly poured a cup of warm tea to thaw.

Zhou Changfeng awkwardly diverted the topic, "The effect of the inclined arrangement is really good, but why don't you increase the angle again?" I've heard that large tilt angles work better. ”

The previous engineer smiled and nodded, "What Zhou Beizhao said is extremely true, but then you have to move the driver's seat back a bit, the space in the car is too tight, it's not appropriate." ”

In order to facilitate transportation, the trial Type 40 tank made a trade-off in size, and it looked slightly smaller, especially since the hull width was about 20 centimeters narrower than that of Western tanks.

The interior space is limited, so in order to ensure the comfort of the crew members and carry enough shells, even the use of inclined armor is not too extreme.

As for the Christie suspension, which would squeeze the interior space, it was eliminated at the beginning, and the old-fashioned balanced suspension continued to be used - good shock absorption, mature technology, and sufficient production experience.

To Zhou Changfeng's surprise, the first machine company specially commissioned the Shenyang Army Artillery Factory to develop a new trial production of 80mm tank guns and supporting ammunition.

This is completely different from the previous style of taking a ready-made artillery and replacing it with a tank.

The barrel of the tank is 36 times diameter, with a total of 24 right-handed rifling, and a semi-automatic wedge-shaped bolt.

When firing an 80×350mm cap-piercing shell, it is possible to penetrate a vertically placed 76mm nickel-manganese armor plate at a distance of 500m, and 1000mm at 69m.

And the anti-explosive bomb it is equipped with is very eye-catching, this thing is actually loaded with 722g of Han's explosives, and the killing effect on soft targets is very good.

Han's explosives are a kind of mixed explosives, composed of 45% TNT and 55% Teqer, which are widely used by the Ming military industry to fill various anti-explosive bombs.

As for maneuverability, the leaf spring balance suspension that has been used for more than ten years has nothing to stand out about, it is very mediocre, and the ten-cylinder V-shaped air-cooled gasoline engine can output a maximum of 280 horsepower, and the maneuverability is decent.

How to comprehensively evaluate a type of tank? In addition to the three basic elements of firepower, protection and mobility, it is also necessary to consider the efficacy of man and machine, as well as ease of production.

What comforted Zhou was the turret gondola, which had been featured in the technical demonstration vehicle many years ago, but had not been followed.

Now, the trial production of the Type 40 tank is also the first time that Daming intends to officially use the turret gondola.

This allows the commander, gunner, and loader to rotate with the turret, so the turret doesn't have to stop to wait for the loader or worry about the loader's turret seat pinching while reloading.

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It is worth mentioning that at the beginning of last year, Zhou proposed a simple but effective improvement to the Ordnance Bureau of the Ministry of War-ammunition rack water jacket, also known as wet ammunition rack.

As the name suggests, this is to add a hollow closed shell to the ammunition rack, which is filled with water, which can significantly reduce the risk of shells exploding.

Historically, after the M4 Sherman applied a wet ammunition rack, the probability of being hit by a bullet and catching fire plummeted to 15%, which greatly increased the probability of survival of the crew members.

As a result, the Type 38 tank armor, which was finalized and mass-produced in April last year, adopted this improvement measure.

Needless to say, this good idea is still being used today.

"Come on, I'll try it on."

Zhou Changfeng, who was very interested, planned to take a test drive himself, so several technicians from the Laizhou test site who were in charge of the test drive climbed out of the tank one after another.

The girth straightened through his bloated winter coat and slipped inside, with a well-proportioned engineer seated in the heading gunner slot to the right of the pilot's seat.

The person outside cranked the handle to start the engine, and Zhou on the inside stepped on the clutch pedal and pulled the gear lever hard to try to hang the gear.

Because the gearbox is at the rear of the body, the gear knob is connected to the gearbox through a long cable, even with the characteristic pneumatic auxiliary gear shift device of the Ming Dynasty, it is a little difficult.

As the throttle is pressed, petrol is injected into the cylinders, and the V10 naturally aspirated engine emits an elegant whistling sound, and the crank rotates rapidly to drive the drive wheels.

In terms of experience, the prototype Type 40 tank with vertical armor can be said to be quite good, and the internal space is enough to stretch your hands and feet slightly.

Later, Zhou tried the B scheme of inclined armor again, and the space was indeed reduced a lot, and he could clearly feel cramped.

After turning over and getting off the tank, Zhou Changfeng shook his hand and exhaled a breath of white steam, "What is the approximate price after mass production, and how much is it?" ”

An official of the Ordnance Bureau pondered for two seconds, and replied: "If the order is confirmed, the first purchase price is tentatively set at 84,000, and if the quantity is large, it is estimated that it can be lowered to 77,000." ”

The purchase price of Type 38 Type A is 65,600 yuan, and the trial production of Type 40 has improved significantly after all, and it is reasonable to be more expensive than 20%.

At present, only three enterprises in Daming, namely Yanjing No. 1 Heavy Machinery Company, Yanjing Xunjie Automobile Company, and Hangzhou Huifeng Tractor Manufacturing Plant, manufacture tracked armored vehicles, and it is estimated that they can produce more than 3,000 vehicles per year in wartime.

If more resources are poured into expanding production capacity, it will not be difficult to complete the annual output of more than 4,000 vehicles.

However, the Ming Army's demand for tanks is not large, and it even accounts for less than the current annual production capacity of more than 3,000 vehicles.

Demand determines supply, and it can be said that the characteristics of today's Pacific War have made the Daming tank embark on a more paranoid development path.

Under the premise of being able to destroy enemy tanks and resist medium-power artillery, it is as light and convenient as possible.

It is not easy to transport tanks to the islands across the ocean, and naturally the more sophisticated the better, and the quality is greater than the quantity.

Therefore, the Ming manufacturers have the leisure to choose to use the time-consuming but high-quality cold rolling process to manufacture armor steel plates, and the actual bullet resistance of the same thickness is about 10% stronger than the cast steel armor beloved by the Americans.

Moreover, the personnel of the Ordnance Bureau of the Ministry of War often like to be high-minded in the acceptance process, and they are required to return to the factory for rework if they are slightly unqualified.

"Give up case A, case B will definitely be more promising, tilting armor is the general trend." Zhou Changfeng finally gave his opinion.

Then he asked, "If this car is going to be mass-produced, when will it have to wait?" ”

The design team of the first machine company whispered for a while, and finally said that it would take at least four months.

The 104 V10 air-cooled gasoline engine had a number of problems, such as large tremors and easy overheating, and the tank itself had many details that needed to be modified little by little.

Zhou Changfeng, who was thoughtful, stared at the barrel of the second prototype, and suddenly said: "By the way, I'm afraid this cannon will not be used in the future, you ask the Shenyang Artillery Factory to make a new gun, let alone more than forty times the diameter, and the armor-piercing index has to be raised." ”

Although he did not understand the protective capabilities of the Sherman tank, he recalled the length of the barrel of the German tank in the old photos, which can be roughly corroborated from the side.

Anyway, this one in front of me looks a little short, and it's definitely not enough!

A stout lieutenant colonel casually proposed, "Just three inches, I think it is quite strong to be able to penetrate three inches of steel plate." ”

"Hmm...... How about setting it as a 1,000-meter-100-millimeter vertical target? The official of the Ordnance Bureau pushed his glasses, "It is estimated that it will increase to forty-two or forty-four times the diameter, and then more propellants can be inserted." ”

Zhou has no objection to this, he thinks that this indicator should be enough, not to mention that the tungsten core sub-caliber armor-piercing bullets of the Ming army can generally be supplied in sufficient quantities, which can well relieve the pressure of anti-tank.

Last year, he urged the Ordnance Bureau several times to start the research and development of the next generation of anti-tank guns as soon as possible.

The people in the Ordnance Bureau are not in a hurry, and after a few months of grinding, they are finally on the right track, and I hope to see results this year.

Goal: Grilled steamed buns on skewers!

"It's cold today, and the test behind is not interesting, just run around in a circle, go back to the hotel, let's order a stove, get a mutton pot to eat, and wait for the edict to reward the face?"

In addition to the trial production of the Type 40 medium tank, the test mission this time also includes the wheeled assault gun that was tendered last year.

After half a year, the prototype of the wheeled assault gun is about to be tested, but that will be tomorrow.

The north wind is howling, the snow is falling, and the wind around the perimeter is so cold that the hands and feet are cold, and I really can't resist the temptation of shabu-shabu in the warm room.

While a few of them were talking and laughing and enjoying the mutton stove, half a world away......

In the middle of the west coast of Africa, at the mouth of the Congo River.

A Tsarist flagged merchant ship slowly sailed into the estuary and a few hours later arrived near the port docks of Boma.

Boma is an important port city and commercial center of the Congo, and was the capital of the Congo Free State a few decades ago.

More than a dozen Japanese sailors came and went on the deck, and they were making preparations for landing.

In the bridge, Captain Valery was talking to several Akito beside him.

One of them looked at the serious middle-aged man and said in a deep voice: "This time it's the same, according to the previous method, he is more clever, I can't spare him if something goes wrong!" ”

In this way, the merchant ship slowly docked, throwing the cable and mooring.

The second officer got off the ship with a few people and broke up with a few lazy people from the port maritime bureau.

The Belgians, who were the leader, smiled as they took out their pencils and said: "You may not know at sea that your civil war is still going on, and the radio says that millions of troops are fighting. ”

The second officer, who was silent and didn't say much, just replied flatly: "I don't care, no matter who succeeds, my profession is on the ship." ”

The self-deprecating Belgian laughed a little embarrassed, then took a pencil and began to register the incoming ships.

"Jekabrina, registered in Russia, displacement 6,000 long tons......"

The Jecabrina was an unremarkable Russian merchant ship, which generally traveled to Odessa, Singapore, Guangzhou, and Tokyo after delivery, and the sailors were mostly Japanese and Malays hired at low prices.

After Tsarist Russia fell into civil strife, the captain was stranded in Tokyo on the orders of the shipping company to wait for the situation to improve, and never received the task.

Two months earlier, the merchant ship had been bought by an Annam trading company, which had dismissed the captain and half of the sailors at a high price, and then welcomed a number of Annam and Ming people.

This was the plan of the Daming Special Crop Research and Development Association - after learning that the Belgian colony of Hinkolobwe was rich in uranium, everyone pondered how to get a ship back from there.

At first, the imperial court hoped to negotiate peace with Britain alone, or a temporary ceasefire, after all, British merchant ships suffered heavy losses in the Atlantic, and they were also tossed by the submarine forces of the Ming navy in the Indo-Du Ocean.

However, London rejected the proposal, and the wartime cabinet, headed by Winston, claimed that the British Empire could never be surrendered unless the Ming were willing to evacuate Singapore and Dutch East Indo.

Since there is no play in the temporary ceasefire, then you can only take the dark road.

That's why the Jecabrina came to Boma thousands of miles away, to make a secret move!

(End of chapter)