Chapter 910 Tank Test Site
The tank test site in East Africa is built in the Rukwa Lake Basin, which is located northwest of Mbeya City. On the one hand, it can make use of the industrial resources of Mbeya City, and on the other hand, the terrain and climate are suitable for tank experimental operations.
Lake Rukwa is also a large lake in East Africa, equivalent to half of Qinghai Lake, located between Lake Malawi and Lake Solon (Lake Tanganyika).
As a saltwater lake, the biggest difference between Lake Rukwa and Qinghai Lake is that Lake Rukwa is a seasonal lake, which will even dry up completely in the dry season.
There are a large number of wild animals such as hippos and crocodiles living in Lake Rukwa. Unlike other places, the development and utilization rate here is extremely low. After all, the two characteristics of saltwater lakes and seasonal lakes are destined that East Africa will not carry out large-scale development here for the time being. The local resources are the salt ponds in the south of the lake. East Africa has arranged a small salt material refinery here.
In addition, there is basically no human settlement around the entire Rukwa Lake. A small number of villages and towns are mainly distributed based on the rivers that flow into Lake Rukwa, which provides a good weapon and equipment experimental site for the East African Army.
After all, the sparsely populated area is not only conducive to confidentiality, but also not easily interfered by external factors. As for some blind "animals", they deserve to be killed by injuries or bombings due to weapons experiments.
In order to ensure the safety of the test site, there are special armed personnel guarding the vicinity of Lake Rukwa. In fact, they are preventing the hippos in Lake Rukwa, and crocodiles will not easily go ashore.
Hippos are absolutely "hated by people and dogs" in Africa. The "exhaust" emissions alone are unbearable.
At the beginning, in order to ensure the safety of water sources, East Africa "killed" a group of them fiercely. After all, more than a thousand hippos can pollute the entire river.
As for why the hippos in Lake Rukwa escaped, it was entirely because this is not a water source. At the same time, Lake Rukwa is an inland lake that can only enter but not exit, and the lake water cannot affect other areas.
So the hippos in Lake Rukwa were born in the right place, just like the animals on the Serengeti grasslands. Because of their range of activities, they escaped the "sanctions" of the authorities.
The Serengeti grassland is a special case. After all, Ernst does not want the famous scene of "Wildebeest Crossing the River" in the documentary of his previous life to disappear.
Lake Rukwa has temporarily escaped the clutches of East Africa entirely by relying on the harsh environment. In fact, with the development of local salt resources in East Africa in the future, it will still be affected to a certain extent. Of course, the current domestic demand for salt resources here is not large.
Because there are many saltwater lakes like Lake Rukwa in East Africa, the largest of which is Lake Turkana. Salt lakes are widely distributed in East Africa except for the Congo rainforest area, so they are very common resources.
Not to mention other places, there are many salt lakes in the Plateau Province, and it is also close to the coastal industrially developed areas. The advantage of Lake Rukwa is that it is close to Mbeya City.
However, the climate of Mbeya is very different from that of the Rukwa Lake Basin. As the basin of Lake Malawi, the precipitation in Mbeya City is very abundant, and it will not be as drought-stricken and flood-stricken as the Rukwa Lake Basin.
"The crawler chassis of the tractor is more suitable for the terrain of the Rukwa Lake Basin than wheels. It can be unimpeded in both the dry and rainy seasons. Of course, another important reason is that tires can hardly bear the bulky body of the tank, and the crawler is more durable and reliable." Philip, an East African tank research expert, said to his colleagues.
Colleague Yarske said: "Wheeled armored vehicles also have their advantages, such as the obvious advantage in speed, but the requirements for road conditions are quite high. If it is a hardened road, it may be okay, but a flat road in a battlefield environment is an ideal state that is hard to come by. What's more, the infrastructure level of many countries is not even as good as that of our country, and the road conditions are very poor."
Although it is a late-developing country, East Africa, like the United States and Germany, is a 19th-century infrastructure maniac. The United States' railways are unique in the world, and Germany has strong comprehensive capabilities, especially in terms of density, far surpassing other countries.
As for East Africa, although it started late, it has also been in a state of explosion in recent years. Roads, railways, canals, etc. have exploded across the board, rapidly catching up with other countries in the world.
It is no exaggeration to say that the current infrastructure level of one country in East Africa may be stronger than the entire continent of Africa in the past. In another 40 to 50 years, East Africa will be able to completely catch up with Europe and the United States.
In fact, in some areas, East Africa is already the world's number one in terms of scale. The most typical example is hardened road surface, which can also be called "modern highway". In order to pave the way for the automobile industry, East Africa's construction of highways, especially cement roads and asphalt roads, is the world's largest.
After all, other countries cannot foresee the demand for highways after the future explosion of the automobile industry, and the importance of railways in land transportation in various countries is still ranked first.
In the field of canal construction, it is even more exaggerated. Although Germany and Belgium are no less enthusiastic than East Africa in building domestic canals, East Africa's vast territory and inherent deficiencies in inland water transportation make the East African Grand Canal plan alone exceed the sum of other countries' national canal plans.
Therefore, East Africa's infrastructure level was absolutely first-class in the 19th century. This is also the result of being forced. Just like a test paper, other countries have a certain foundation, and East Africa starts from scratch, so East Africa naturally has the greatest room for improvement.
Of course, with the development of East Africa, not to mention compared with Europe and the United States, at least compared with the Far East, South America and other regions, it has surpassed these relatively backward regions. As for European and American countries, there is still a certain gap, but as time goes by, one day it will be able to reach the same level.
"You are right. If the infrastructure level is improved, the operability of military armored vehicles will be higher, but it will not be able to surpass tanks after all, unless the entire East Africa is a large cement field. Even so, wheeled armored vehicles still have to solve many problems, including load, stray bullets, etc."
The current tire design of military armored vehicles does not exceed the limitations of the East African automobile industry, and the tires may be directly scrapped if they encounter sharp objects or stray bullets. Of course, how to solve this problem specifically is what Philip's competitors should consider.
While Philip and Yarsk were talking, the East African "tank" had begun a new round of performances. This is an extremely bulky big guy, wrapped in heavy steel, with a medium-caliber gun barrel extending from the top, shuttling through the mud at a snail's pace.
"Crack..."
Hearing the sound, Phillips and Yarske's faces sank, and the familiar scene emerged in their minds again.
I saw that the big guy was lying directly in the mud, with billowing black smoke coming out of his buttocks, and he looked half dead.
"Expert Philip, the engine has exploded!" The tank driver climbed out of the tank's iron box and said helplessly.
Although Philip and Yarske were accustomed to this result, they couldn't help but feel uncomfortable every time they failed.
"Go and get the toolbox, let's take it apart and take a look this time, I don't believe that there will always be problems." Philip ordered.
This big guy with a complex structure is still very difficult to disassemble. Several people spent half a day to complete it, and this is only the first step. After all, the problem is the engine, which means that today's fault must not be eliminated.
"Pull the engine back to the laboratory first." Philip could only say helplessly.
After working for a long time, Philip and Yarsko no longer looked like "civilized people". They were covered in oil and dirt. They looked like clowns. The others were similar. They were working in the mud, so it was impossible for them to be spotless. This was the normal life on the test site.
The tank engine was not small, so it took more than a dozen people more than ten minutes to lift this big guy onto the rear frame of the tractor.