After visiting the factory where the tanks were being assembled, the director of the factory took everyone to the place where the tanks were parked, pointed to the rows of neatly parked tanks, and proudly said: "Comrades, you see, these are the products produced by our workers day and night. It won't be long before these tanks will be sent to the front line to strike hard at the fascist invaders. As soon as his words fell, warm applause suddenly rang out all around.

While applauding, Rokossovsky carefully looked at the caliber of the guns of these tanks and found that it was still the common caliber of 76.2 mm, and he couldn't help but be secretly disappointed. In the Battle of Kharkov, this tank of the Soviet army was not at all a match for the German Tiger tank and the improved No. 4 tank, and if the Soviet army still used this tank in the Kursk tank Armageddon soon after, it would have paid a huge price.

Seeing Rokossovsky standing in front of the tank in a daze, Ustinov came over and asked curiously: "Comrade Rokossovsky, what's wrong with you?" I see you've been standing here for a long time without moving, do you have any new ideas? ”

Rokossovsky looked to the side and saw that only Ustinov was standing beside him, while Borisova, the factory director, and other visitors were elsewhere looking at the freshly assembled tanks. Since those people were far away from themselves, even if they said anything, no one but Ustinov would hear them.

Thinking of this, he pointed to these new tanks in front of him and said to Ustinov: "Comrade People's Commissar, I think you may have heard about the tank combat between our army and the Germans in the Battle of Kharkov. ”

"Yes, I did." Ustinov nodded and said: "From the battle reports I have seen, I can know that the tank losses of our army are very serious. ”

Seeing that Ustinov knew something about this matter, Rokossovsky patted a tank next to him and said confidently and boldly: "As far as I know, the 76.2 mm tank gun equipped with our tanks is not only unable to penetrate the 102 mm thick frontal armor of the Tiger tank, but even the frontal armor of the No. 4 tank, which has strengthened the protection of the German army, is almost helpless at a distance of 400 meters. However, the 56 times diameter 88 mm gun of the German Tiger tank and the long-barreled 75 mm gun of the improved No. 4 tank can easily punch holes in the frontal armor of our T-34 tank at a distance of 1,000 meters and 500 meters respectively. ”

When Borisova was whispering to the director of the plant about work, Ponomarenko suddenly ran over and asked: "This comrade, have you seen Rokossovsky?" He was still here, and he was gone in the blink of an eye. ”

Borisova looked around for a long time, and finally saw Rokossovsky, who was chatting with Ustinov, pointed with her hand to that side, and said: "General, you see, he and Comrade Ustinov are there. ”

After confirming Rokossovsky's place, Ponomarenko trotted all the way over, shouting loudly from afar: "Comrade commander, it turns out that you are here, I have been looking for you for a long time." ”

When he came to the two of them, he asked curiously, "What are you talking about?" ”

Rokossovsky nodded at the tank next to him and said to Ponomarenko: "I am telling Comrade Ustinov that the caliber of this tank gun is too small, and in the future, when fighting German tanks, it may suffer a big loss." ”

"Comrade General," the director of the plant, who came with Borisova, immediately interjected after hearing Rokossovsky's words: "We are working on an improved version of the T-34/76 and are preparing to change the tank gun to 85 mm caliber, so that our tanks will not be at an absolute disadvantage when competing with the German Tiger tanks." ”

"This is not the place to talk, let's go to the factory director's office to talk." Seeing that the director of the plant was preparing to make a high-level statement to Rokossovsky and them here, Borisova hurriedly stopped him: "So as not to cause unnecessary leaks." ”

The director of the factory went over to say hello to the other comrades in the factory and asked him to continue to lead the people on the tour, while he came back and took Rokossovsky and the four of them to his office.

After arriving at the office, the director of the plant, having received authorization from Ustinov, put the drawings of the improved T-34 tank on the conference table and introduced them to Rokossovsky: "...... For the new and improved tank, we only increased the caliber of the gun, and as for the thickness of the armor, it is still the same as the original model......"

After the introduction of the factory director, Ustinov looked at Rokossovsky and said with a smile on his face: "Comrade General, yesterday you gave us a very good proposal at the small arms factory, I wonder if you can give a lecture to the tank factory today?" ”

"I can't say anything about advice, but I have a little bit of immature advice." Rokossovsky modestly said: "I feel that the radio communication facilities of the T-34 tank also need to be improved. ”

Hearing Rokossovsky's statement, Ustinov was silent for a moment, and then said: "Comrade Rokossovsky, I won't hide it from you, at the time of the original design, the T-34 tank did consider installing radio communication facilities, but due to the insufficient production capacity of our country's electronics industry, and the output of T-34 tanks in the past two years has exceeded 10,000, resulting in only a small number of combat vehicles can be equipped with radio communication facilities. ”

"Comrade People's Commissar, if we want to give our tank units the maximum potential in battle, it is absolutely necessary to have radio communication facilities." Rokossovsky saw that Ustinov was a little unimpressed with the fact that all the T-34s were equipped with radio communication facilities, so he emphasized: "In previous battles, due to the lack of radio, the T-34 tanks were almost unable to form an effective command when fighting in formation, and the vehicles could only communicate with each other in flag language. You must know that on the battlefield where the artillery is blazing, the billowing smoke of gunpowder obscures the view of the tank crews, so that our tank crews cannot observe the signals sent by the command vehicles. It is precisely because of the poor inter-vehicle communication that the combat methods of the T-34 tank formation are very rigid, and they can only act according to the actions of the command tanks, and their flexibility is extremely poor. ”

Seeing that Ustinov was a little unmoved, Rokossovsky continued: "In particular, when our tanks were ambushed or encountered, due to the lack of sufficient radio communication, those tanks that found targets or were attacked could not report the situation to the entire formation in time, resulting in our T-34 tank formation, which was broken by the Germans. ”

After listening to Rokossovsky's account, Ustinov nodded and said thoughtfully: "Comrade Rokossovsky, you have a very reasonable point, I will report this matter to Comrade Stalin in detail, and strive to equip all T-34 tanks with radio communication facilities in the shortest possible time." ”