Steel Soviet Union

The first systematic and large-area inclined armor design idea on the T34 medium tank undoubtedly pioneered a brand-new tank protection design. This point can only be judged by the large numbers of later generations such as the Leopard 2A6, M1 Abrams, From the appearance of advanced main battle tanks such as T80\\90, and even our 96B and 99A, we can see the extremely high superiority and undoubted actual combat protection performance of sloped armor.

From the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War to the present, in countless large and small tank battles, we have fully realized the power and reliability of sloped armor protection. Although they are two different tank design bureaus, medium and heavy, they work together under the banner of communism, following Among the engineering team of the Second Tank Design Bureau under Kojing, some people pursued the borrowing doctrine and directly borrowed the design ideas of the T34 medium tank, which is currently the most successful.

The next prototype that appeared in front of Lavrinenko in the second position was equipped with a prototype test turret that could almost be seen as an enlarged version of the T3476 tank.

The prototype turret is angular but has rounded edges. It adopts four-sided inclined armor layout for defense. The physical armor thickness of the front of the turret with the largest inclination angle of 60 degrees reaches 60 mm. On the horizontal incoming trajectory, it can provide up to Equivalent armor defense of 120 mm.

The armor on the sides and rear of the turret, which has a slightly weaker defensive weight than the front of the turret, is tilted at 35 degrees. The physical armor thickness is also 60 mm rolled homogeneous steel plate, which can be provided on the horizontal incoming trajectory. The equivalent armor defense is obviously much better than the previous vertical armored turret, which means that the protective performance of this prototype turret in most combat situations is far superior to the former. .

But correspondingly, this type of turret, which adopts the design concept of systematically laying out inclined armor defense over a large area, is far inferior to the turret in terms of human-machine efficiency and the ammunition capacity of the first ammunition rack built into the turret. former.

The internal movement space of the turret, which is only slightly larger than the T3476 turret, requires an extra commander to squeeze in three large men. The capacity of the first ammunition rack built into the turret, which has been forcibly compressed, is only a pitiful 8 rounds, and this is based on the fact that the loader needs to turn around and go to the rear end of the turret to extract the shells with difficulty, and then turn around to perform poor loading. under the circumstances.

Lavrinenko, who could imagine how "beautiful" that picture would be just by relying on his imagination, looked at the 85mm main gun, which was more than one circle larger than the 76 gun, with a huge breech pressed against his ear. The scene where the gun is fired is really too much to accept.

"Isn't there a slightly more balanced design? Why are there such extreme turret shapes?"

Lavrinenko, who was extremely annoyed, turned to the third prototype after rejecting the second prototype. At the same time, Marashin had already arrived in the car and was ready in their respective combat positions. The vehicle crew is working hard to familiarize themselves with all aspects of their future new car.

"Oh, look at this joystick and pedals, Nikolai, I can swear to Comrade Lenin that this is definitely the best driving equipment I have ever used! There is no oil stain or old mark at all. It just looks like It’s very exciting, it’s a surprise gift!”

From the corner of his eye, he glanced at Seryosha who was too excited in the driver's seat next to him. Nikolai, the electromechanical engineer who was sitting in the co-pilot position of the chassis and was fiddling with the heading machine gun in his hand, then said with disdain. .

"That's what I remember you saying last time when we took over the new car in Yelnya. Can't you change the line?"

After hearing Nikolai's words beside him, the driver Seryosha couldn't help but stop what he was doing and was stunned for a moment. Then he blurted out words that were obviously unexpected.

"How can this be compared with before? I guarantee this time it will be really different!"

"Yes, you said that last time."

""

Turning a deaf ear to the bickering between the two people in the chassis, Malashenko wiped the slightly dusty periscope with a new rag and then spoke.

"Can you still get used to the new main gun sight? When the car first arrived, I took a quick look at it. The gun sight scale was completely different from the original. It is best not to use this 85 gun as the original 76 gun. "

Hearing Malashenko's words ringing in his ears, the gunner Iushkin, who was leaning forward next to the gun breech and checking the main gun sight, immediately responded.

"It's barely possible, it's not too difficult. The density scale is just a little denser than before. There's no reason why replacing it with a better main gun won't give it its due combat effectiveness. I'll let those German fascists see this What is the Red Army’s Iron Fist, Comrade Commander, just don’t worry.”

Malashenko, who had expected Iushkin's answer, was not too surprised. After wiping the commander's periscope in front of him, he threw the rag in the storage box aside and turned around. Malashenko then asked Kirill, who was inspecting the first ammunition rack built into the turret behind him.

"How is it? Is it much better than the original car?"

"Not only is it much better, Comrade Commander! It's hard to imagine that the ammunition rack capacity can be continued to be increased when the shells are expanded from 76 mm to 85 mm. This new turret is simply great! The total number of the first ammunition rack The ammunition reserve is a full 20 rounds! This is 15 rounds more than the original car! This will avoid a lot of carrying shells in the chassis during long-term battles. I think this will be beneficial to our battle. The reloading speed will help a lot! ”

Just like what the slightly excited loader Kirill said at this moment.

The interior of the new turret, which was commonly used on later Stalin 1/2 heavy tanks, was not a little larger than the original KV1 heavy tank turret. The first ammunition rack of the turret can be filled with even 122mm sub-loaded warheads. It is natural to put a pile of 85mm custom-loaded integrated shells.

In previous protracted battles on the front line, we have been troubled by insufficient capacity of the first ammunition rack. Once all 10 rounds of the first ammunition rack in the turret of the original KV1 heavy tank are used up, we have to keep bending down like the original T34 tank. Kirill, who had to go back and forth between the chassis and the turret to carry the shells and reload them, was already miserable.

This kind of front-line protracted battle, in which forty or fifty guns are fired at every turn, is commonplace. For the Red Army tank loaders, it is undoubtedly a hundred times more exciting than any later gymnasium. Even those arms are better than those of girls. Even the loader, a big Slavic man with thick legs, could not withstand this extremely tiring work. For Kirill, who was studying in the music department of Moscow State University a few months ago, it was like training from the devil in hell.