Chapter 844: 844 main battle tank

Chapter 844: 844 main battle tank

Chapter 844 844 Main Battle Tank

To be honest, the Panther tank was not the best World War II tank. It had many shortcomings and was not as famous as its counterparts.

In terms of reputation, the Tiger tank is obviously superior. In terms of overall performance, it actually has no obvious advantages over the Sherman and T-34 tanks.

From paper data, its performance is slightly better than the Sherman and T-34 tanks, but these good qualities are completely dragged down by its complexity in technology and high price.

 In fact, it was selected as the main battle tank of the Tang Dynasty entirely because of its balanced performance and relatively strong armor protection performance.

Tang Mo attaches great importance to the safety of Tang armored personnel, so he would rather push the problem to the tank production plants and logistics maintenance troops than let his ace crews go to the front line to die in vain.

 That's why the Leopard tank was selected as the main battle tank of the Tang State. At a time when external conflicts were very acute, it became a sharp blade in the hands of the Tang State's armored forces.

 But now that the war is over, the Tang Dynasty has more time to improve its weapons, so many of the shortcomings of the Panther tank have been singled out and included in the improvement items.

One of the things that soldiers criticized the most was the complex traveling mechanism of the Panther tank. This thing broke down on the front line and was difficult to repair, which seriously affected the efficiency of the armored forces in deploying troops.

From this feedback, we can clearly understand how the defects of a weapon are communicated to the ears of leaders: if the soldiers just curse, it is actually very difficult to solve the problem.

 Only when middle-level commanders believe that this kind of weapon affects combat efficiency, the problem will be rectified - this kind of thing seems to have the same solution in every country.

The failure rate of the double-row running mechanism is higher. At the same time, the engine linkage shaft in the body also makes the body of the Panther tank pathologically high. All these have made the R&D department determined to come up with a brand-new tank chassis to completely Get rid of all your troubles.

 Although most Leopard tanks use diesel engines, this is only a temporary improvement. The new Tang tank chassis must be determined to use diesel engines from the beginning.

At the same time, the Panther tank's turret also began to have many problems, and gradually began to fail to adapt to the needs of the new combat environment.

  The problem focuses on the shield on the front of the tank turret. This huge shield seriously affects the speed of the gun's up and down adjustment, which is becoming more and more fatal with the advancement of technology.

 Although the integral mantlet ensures the protection of the turret front, the thicker mantlet obviously makes the artillery's pitch mechanism increasingly unable to meet its requirements.

Swinging up and down with a whole piece of turret frontal armor is too difficult for the pitching mechanism. At the same time, the strength of the pitching mechanism also begins to restrict the thickness of the tank's frontal armor.

 If you want to use thicker armor, obviously you can no longer use the outdated design of the integral gun mantlet. In order to increase the protection of the turret front, this is a part that must be discarded.

 Another reason to abandon the heavy gun mantlet is the birth of newer artillery aiming technology: Datang Group has been testing their artillery stabilization system. This mechanical stabilization device can greatly improve the aiming efficiency of tank artillery.

This thing is the prototype of a two-way artillery stabilizer, which can significantly reduce the aiming time and even enable firing while moving in the foreseeable future.

 With this kind of thing, coupled with night vision goggles and ballistic computers, tank technology will truly form a generational difference, completely leaving the tanks of other empires behind.

 In order to implement these new technologies, the entire turret must also be redesigned. After the Tang Dynasty's Leopard tanks shined in the war against the Great China Empire, they had to face the fate of being eliminated across the board.

Who would have thought that the Tang Empire was already considering phasing out advanced tanks that other countries could only hope for?

  The new tank that replaced it adopted an epoch-making design: hemispherical turret, five pairs of road wheels... Tang Mo was most familiar with and the most legendary car of the generation.

That’s right, the 59 that has gone down the mountain, the 59 that is still going strong after serving for half a century, the 59 that is both dear and missed...59!

  China has produced a total of more than 10,000 Type 59 main battle tanks. It can be said to be a truly famous car of the generation.

No matter from which aspect you look at it, the Type 59 main battle tank can be said to be perfect: at that time, it almost perfectly balanced the various performance indicators of the tank, and it can be called a work of art.

Its prototype is the T54 medium tank manufactured by the former Soviet Union. The design idea of ​​this tank was repeatedly verified during World War II. There is no doubt that it is correct. It was the backbone of the Soviet steel torrent at that time.

However, Tang Mo did not intend to use 59 directly, because it also has its own weaknesses and shortcomings.

 Comparing to the Panther tank, the T-54 has indeed very poor ergonomic design, and its low body is not as comfortable as the Panther tank. The comfort of the walking machine, which can almost be described as crude, has almost no consideration. This tank is completely designed for consumption.

 But what Tang Mo knew, or the Western tanks he could find blueprints for, were very poor at this technical level: around the 1950s, Western countries basically let themselves go in terms of tank design, and there were almost no tanks that could be used.

  Comparatively speaking, the Type 59 main battle tank is much better, but it was influenced by Soviet industry and its workmanship was rough, making it less comfortable for its members.

So, Tang Mo made a series of improvements to this tank: First, he came up with a higher-tech and more powerful main gun, directly allowing Tang State's new main battle tank to use the 105mm caliber.

 In addition, Tang Mo installed a pneumatic smoke extraction system on this main gun, which significantly improved the combat comfort of the members inside the tank body.

  The new tank slightly increases the height of the body to increase the comfort of the tank and improve the internal space, allowing members to fight in the tank for a longer period of time.

 At the same time, such improvements also increased the weight of the tank, so the tracks of the tank were also slightly wider.

 The newly designed tank body increases the weight of the tank, but the weight of about 38 tons does not seriously affect the main combat performance of the tank.

  The armor thickness in the front of the new tank body still maintains the unprecedented standard of 120 mm on the front, and there are also 80 mm of heavy armor protection on both sides of the tank body.

The armor on the front of the turret is even more exaggerated, with a full 200 mm. This kind of protection is enough to rival the Tiger tank.

 Inheriting the exaggerated reliability of the 59 series tanks, the new tank has a lower failure rate than the Panther tank and is relatively simpler to repair.

  The low body makes the Type 59 tank still lighter than the Panther tank after comprehensively strengthening its protection. So even though the diesel engine has only 520 horsepower, its speed is still comparable to that of a Panther tank.

 The advantage of the diesel engine is its large torque, so theoretically the new tank is no worse than the Panther tank in terms of maneuverability. The Type 59 tank can have a maximum range of nearly 500 kilometers after an external fuel tank, which is more than twice that of the Leopard tank.

However, the new tank has high and low stabilizers, a range finder, and can be equipped with infrared night vision devices, allowing it to conduct night operations.

 Another progress worthy of recognition is that due to the gradual maturity of the radio system, the Tang Army officially decided to cancel the specially designated electromechanical personnel on the tank and reduce the number of tank crew members to 4 people.

  Such reductions can reduce the number of armored personnel, allowing more armored divisions to be formed with fewer men. The laid-off radio operators all have a certain cultural foundation, and most of them also have practical experience, and can immediately form new armored units.

 Because the electromechanical crew was cancelled, the directional machine gun was also cancelled—this further improved the protective power of the front armor of the car body, which can also be regarded as a partial increase in the protection level.

Although it seems to be a small improvement, the improvement in the protection level of the 59 tank can further protect the tank crews of the Tang Dynasty. The new tank design also makes it possible to add new equipment later.

These invisible changes in design ideas are the real progress: Tang's tanks are gradually getting rid of the influence of the World War II era and moving closer to the tank design ideas of the Cold War era.

Soon, more advanced ballistic computers, crosswind sensors, laser rangefinders... will be added to the tanks, allowing Tang's tanks to truly outlast their opponents and establish absolute technical barriers.

What is even more gratifying is that the tanks of the Tang Dynasty have been simplified and returned to the path of mass production: Although the Leopard tank is excellent, the Type 59 tank is obviously more friendly to logistics.

After starting to try to manufacture the chassis of the Type 59 main battle tank, the tank manufacturer in Tongcheng immediately fell in love with this brand-new tank chassis.

 Compared with the double-row road wheel design of the Leopard tank, the five pairs of road wheels of the Type 59 tank are really refreshing. Every time they see the new tanks' road wheels that are intentionally hollowed out to reduce weight, the workers at the tank factory feel comfortable.

The few logistics troops who saw the new tanks also breathed a sigh of relief. The nightmare of the Panther tank was finally over, and part of their work was reduced: apart from shouting long live the emperor, they could not think of how to express their feelings. of joy.

 The brand-new tanks currently do not have large-scale equipment units and are still in the experimental testing stage. However, the production of Panther tanks has been reduced crazily, which is very revealing.

If nothing else, the Tang Empire’s armored forces and future main battle tanks have almost finalized their models, which is basically the Type 59 main battle tank that has haunted His Majesty the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty...

 (End of this chapter)