readx; "This is the 1932 model 105 mm self-propelled howitzer designed and developed by Wuhu Heavy Machinery Company, and the site is the use of the T6 series tank site, equipped with a 105 mm howitzer, this 105 mm howitzer is based on the 1930 model 105 mm howitzer modification. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info”

A major general under the armament department walked beside Chen Jingyun and accompanied him, and his mouth was also explaining the equipment, and Chen Jingyun was also accompanied by a large group of high-level military generals, several generals, and a large group of lieutenant generals.

However, the major general in front of him is not an ordinary major general, this person's name is Luo An, and he serves as the director of the Armored Division under the Equipment Department, of course, this Armored Division of the Equipment Department is not the Armored Division in the General Staff. The position of the director of the armored division in the staff is considered to be a hurdle that the generals of the armored faction must go through, and it is possible to serve as the commander of the armored army only after serving as the director of the armored division. The lieutenant generals who have been in the limelight in the domestic army have all served as directors of the Operations Department.

And the armored division of this equipment department is naturally not as glamorous as the armored division in the general staff, although the rank and rank of the chief officer are the same, but the important surnames cannot be said together. The task of the Armored Division of the Equipment Department is the same as that of the Gun Department, the Military Horse Division, the Engineering and Armament Department and other departments in the Equipment Department, which are specifically responsible for the research and development and equipment of various new equipment of the army, and the core task is to develop new equipment. The surname of the equipment department in the five major military departments is somewhat special, and it is somewhat like the Navy's Ship Administration Department, but it is also different, because all kinds of designs of warships in the Navy are from the hands of various shipbuilding masters in the Ship Administration Department, and the shipyard responsible for building ships actually does not have much right to speak, and can only carry out construction with the drawings of the Ship Administration Department. However, the research and development of various new equipment of the Ministry of Equipment is not the design and development of the Ministry of Equipment, it is only a competent department, which mainly issues various research and development tasks, and then judges the ability of various new technologies and equipment and whether it is large-scale equipment. The specific design and development is carried out by major defense contractors.

Because the armament department is involved in the work of professional and technical surnames, so the armament department can be regarded as a purely technical department, and the successive senior leaders of the armament department are generals with technical surnames, such as Luo An, he is a veritable army technical major general, after returning from studying in the United States, he was recruited by the army armament department, and then entered the armor section to work, and after more than ten years of mixing, he also mixed up with the rank of major general and served as the more important chief of the armor section in the armament department.

He Luo An is a very pure technical major general, although he deals with guns all day long, but he himself can't even shoot, but such a person on today's occasion has surpassed many high-ranking army bigwigs in one fell swoop and served as Chen Jingyun's commentator.

And this arrangement seems a bit absurd, but there is a reason, the current chief of the equipment department is named Wen Tongyang, also a technical lieutenant general, but he is a little old, people in their sixties are in poor health, most of the month is in the hospital, it is rumored that he is ready to hand over to the superiors, and the deputy director of the equipment department is currently in Germany for inspection, after Hitler came to power, the relationship between China and Germany has eased somewhat, Germany began to import a large number of rare minerals from China, tungsten ore, Minerals lacking in Germany, such as antimony, are showing signs of large-scale cooperation between the two countries, and the export of these rare resources naturally has some benefits, especially in the introduction of new book technology.

Although Germany during the First World War was crippled, and most of its belongings were moved away after the defeat, Germany is worthy of being a country that can provoke world wars several times, which has relieved them in just ten years, not to mention the industrial economy, Hitler is still very good at one aspect, and it is not much worse than Chen Jingyun and Roosevelt. And related to the military equipment of a variety of new technology Germany recovery is also OK, although there is no more powerful finished products, but what makes China value is not that Germany can design some powerful military equipment, in fact, China's current military equipment is not bad in the world, some aspects are still among the best, but China is lacking enough heritage, such as very simple tanks, China is not unable to design a better tank, but the design can not be built, For example, in the next generation of the army's main tank planned by the army, the data designed on paper is very good, and it doesn't seem to be difficult to build, but it can't be mass-produced, and the barely built one can't meet the design indicators, and the reason is there, or in the basic technical background, compared to the power system with the biggest problem, it stands to reason that after so many years of development, China's engine level is already good, whether it is a steam turbine for warships or a large diesel engine, Or or the aero engine used in the aircraft, or the high-power gasoline engine used by the army, these products are available in China with relevant enterprises, but the steam turbine and diesel engine for the ship are good, the surname can barely reach the first-class level, and the technology of the gasoline engine is a little poor, although the surname of the aero engine can be a step a year, but the United States and the United Kingdom develop faster, in order to supplement the lack of aero engine power, China's aircraft have made great efforts in the aerodynamic layout.

China's industrial base is still too weak, and in the early years, there was support from the United States, but with the weakening of relations with the United States, many top technology people have refused to give, such as large-caliber naval guns, if it can cooperate with the Americans, China does not have to go to the French to develop new naval guns together. If it weren't for the refusal of the United States to provide the latest technology for liquid-cooled aero engines, China would not have had to go so far to find cooperation with the Germans.

However, fortunately, although the United States is the world's largest in terms of industrial scale in recent years, it is not a monopoly in terms of technology, and there are still many countries with good technology, such as Germany, France, Britain, Italy, and even China and other countries that have some leading technologies. Therefore, if he does not cooperate with the Americans, Chen Jingyun will also turn his attention to Europe, looking for the French, looking for Italy, looking for Germany, in short, he will find whoever can provide technology.

In this case, there is a matter of the deputy director of the Ministry of Equipment going to Europe to investigate, after all, it is not all that technology is needed, and what China lacks at present is some top-level basic technology, such as better aluminum alloy, surface hardening of steel, and even excellent springs, screws made of alloy, etc., which are basically materials and material processing. On the contrary, some of the superior finished products, such as French artillery and British engines, are not what China needs the most, because the problem in China now is not that they cannot be designed.

The two bigwigs of the equipment department are not there, so the work of receiving Chen Jingyun can only be done by the directors of the departments below, and among the directors of the divisions, Luo An's qualifications are very deep, and most of the new equipment tests this time are armored vehicles and vehicles, and these equipment are also responsible for the armored department, so after such a round, the task of receiving Chen Jingyun fell on Luo An.

Luo An is a very pure technician, although he has the rank of major general, he does not have the bearing and style of a soldier at all, and he does not have the hypocritical style of those officials in the government council. So although walking beside Chen Jingyun was a little more stressful, it was not to the point where he was completely speechless, and after saying that, he saw that Chen Jingyun was not as terrible as he imagined, so he became more relaxed when he spoke.

"How can this 105-mm self-propelled howitzer use the territory of the T6 tank?" Chen Jingyun frowned slightly when he heard this, although there were some modifications to the tank turf before, but they were all sporadic modifications, and now the self-propelled howitzer he showed him is not a sporadic modification product, once approved, it will be mass-produced, and it will become a self-propelled howitzer equipped with a large number of weapons in the army, in this case, it is still the T6 tank site designed more than ten years ago, which seems to be a little unsuitable.

Although Luo An is engaged in technical surnames, he can naturally guess the thoughts of some upper-level people after staying with the big guys for a long time, and after a little pondering, he said: "The reason why the territory of the T6 tank is used is mainly because of the cost. We have also tried to use the chassis of the T9 series tanks before, but the chassis of the T9 series tanks is expensive, and the final product is unacceptable in terms of cost. Although the chassis of the T6 series tank can be slightly worse, we have been doing this chassis for more than ten years, and the accumulation of various technologies is quite rich, and the production line is also ready-made, and the previous T6 chassis has also undergone a series of modifications, and the modification effect is relatively good. Before the trade-off, the chassis of the T6 tank was adopted. However, in order to ensure that the surname can be, we have also made technical improvements on the original chassis, whether it is a stable surname or a specific surname, this chassis is not inferior to the chassis of the T9 tank series. ”

Luo An said so much, in fact, there is only one point, and that is the price. It's not that China's major defense contractors can't come up with a more advanced chassis, but the army can't afford it and there's no need for it, what the army needs is a large number of self-propelled guns, and the army's requirements for self-propelled guns are actually very simple, that is, they can keep up with the tank troops for large-scale rapid maneuvers. After all, this is not an online game in the future, but no one will directly participate in the tank duel on the front line with self-propelled guns, in practical use, these self-propelled howitzers will be safely hidden in the rear, and there are several kilometers away from the front line, and the combat method is not much different from the traditional towed artillery, just run faster.

Therefore, the army is very sensitive to the price of self-propelled guns, and the price is very tight, which leads to the fact that self-propelled guns cannot use more advanced chassis at all.

Although Chen Jingyun was a little dissatisfied, he also knew that his idea was a little unrealistic, he always wanted more advanced equipment, but for a while, advanced equipment represented an expensive price. This is the same as the army has always opposed the large-scale equipping of ordinary infantry divisions with submachine guns, for the simple reason that it cannot be bought and used.

After looking at this 105mm howitzer, Chen Jingyun looked at a 155mm self-propelled howitzer again, and then asked a few words about the surname Neng, and then passed, because these self-propelled guns are all patchwork goods, mature and old tank chassis, the army's existing artillery, and then modified and modified to make up a self-propelled artillery.

Maybe he knew that Chen Jingyun was not very interested in these, and Luo An didn't arrange too much time to explain, and soon everyone walked to another booth, which was a bit big, and there was a tank on it, but compared with the T9 tank next to it, this tank was very huge.

"This is a heavy tank developed by Wuhu Special Machinery Company! At present, it has not received the official number of the army, and the manufacturer number is Z45, which is one of the experimental models of the 45-ton tank research and development program issued by the Army's armored department. Luo An looked at Chen Jingyun's reaction as he spoke, and after seeing Chen Jingyun's obvious interest, he also raised his spirit and continued: "According to the experience of the war in 1931, the Equipment Department carried out the research and development of a new generation of tanks, and in the research and development process, I felt that the previous research and development plans of various tanks overlapped, and the tonnage size was somewhat crossed, resulting in the parts of the front and rear tanks could not be used, so the idea of a generalized chassis was proposed.

The general direction of our armored division is to divide several kinds of fixed tonnage chassis according to tonnage, and design and manufacture related armored vehicles according to these chassis, such as in the 25-ton class, it is the chassis of T9 series tanks, and all kinds of armored vehicles of this tonnage will also choose this chassis in the future. In addition, in the ten-ton class, we have chassis of the T8 series. But even with that, we still lack a 30-ton and 40-ton chassis series. And the old T7 series tanks have little potential for development due to technical limitations! So we are preparing to develop a universal chassis of 40 to 50 tons! It's still being selected! ”

The T7 series chassis lacked sufficient development potential and was abandoned, in fact, the potential of the T6 series chassis is not large, but the advantage is that the production number of T6 tanks is relatively large, and the technology is very mature, and then even if the production line is stopped, many parts can be found, coupled with his low price, this has become the chassis of the army's new self-propelled howitzer. However, the T6 series chassis has limited potential after all, and it is currently used first, but when the technology of the T9 series chassis matures and the price is reduced, the T9 series chassis will replace the T6 series chassis.

"A considerable part of the chassis of this Z45 tank can be used with the T9 tank, and there is also a lot in common with the production line, due to the use of a large number of mature technology in the T9 tank, the development cost of the Z45 is relatively low, only about one-fifth of the development cost of the T9 series of tanks!" Luo An continued.

Universal parts, universal production lines, low R & D costs These are the great advantages of this Z45 tank, and the general parts do not need to be, which will bring great convenience to the maintenance of China's armored forces, and it is also very beneficial for large-scale mass production, as for the R & D cost is lower than that of the T9 tank, that is because when developing the T9 tank, the contractors of each component almost have to carry out technical research, which can be said to be developed from scratch, and it took many years to get the T9 tank out, The Z45 tank was designed late, so a large number of mature technologies were directly used in research and development, so the research and development cost was not high.

"Because this tank is positioned as a heavy tank, the intended combat area is China's northern region, Siberia, Central Asia, etc., as for China's southern and Southeast Asian armored operations, it is undertaken by light tanks." The difference in terrain has led to the diversification of the tanks equipped by the Chinese Army, the tanks and armored vehicles of the armored forces in the southern region are very different from those of the northern troops, the armored vehicles in the northern region basically do not need to consider the weight problem, what is needed is the surname Neng, and the weight problem needs to be taken into account when fighting in the south, because if the weight is too heavy, it is impossible to fight in the area with dense water network in the south, not to mention the 45-ton Z45 tank, and even the 27-ton T9 tank army is too heavy, In the past few years, the tanks deployed by the army in the south were only T8 light tanks weighing only six tons and some T6 medium tanks weighing 20 tons, and the latest T9 medium tanks have not been deployed to the south because of their weight.

Luo An continued: "The maximum speed off-road is 35 kilometers per hour, the front armor of the hull is 80 mm and inclined 30 degrees, and it is equipped with a specially developed 105 mm tank gun with a barrel length of 40 calibers. ”

Listening to Luo An's simple listing of data, Chen Jingyun was more and more pleased to listen, because he found that the surname of this tank in all aspects seemed to be not inferior to the heavy tanks of various countries during World War II, and even surpassed, of course, the most obvious comparison is that this Z45 tank is much stronger than the latest T9 tank currently in service in the Chinese Army, and even the speed is about to catch up, the speed of the original model of the T9 tank is only 34 kilometers less than an hour, and later, after the engine upgrade, The T9C in the improved T9 series in service has only increased the speed to 36 km/h. However, now the speed of the Z45 tank is thirty-five kilometers less than an hour, you know, these two are different levels of things, the T9 tank is a twenty-seven ton medium tank, and the Z45 is a forty-five degree big guy, if the speed of the two is still about the same, then the T9 tank will not reflect the advantages of medium tanks.

The more Chen Jingyun looked, the more satisfied he became, and at this time he also called Li Jimin, who had served in Central Asia for the past two years and knew more about the latest situation in Soviet Russia.

"Tell me, if we are equipped with this tank, we should be able to completely overwhelm the armored forces of Soviet Russia!" Chen Jingyun said confidently.

Li Jimin said: "If this tank is put into service in large quantities and put into use in Siberia and Central Asia, it will undoubtedly bring great strategic advantages to our army!" ”

The development of Soviet Russia's tanks is relatively slow, and it is not until the past few years that it is slowly becoming regular, due to the hostile relationship between the two, so the Soviet Russian tanks are basically designed for China's armored forces, and they are also influenced by the style of tank design in Europe. In fact, it was the thicker and thicker tank defense of the Soviet Union that forced the Chinese Army to continuously increase the firepower of the tanks, and the medium tank was upgraded from the 57 mm tank gun of the T6 series to the 75 mm 35 times the tank gun of the T9 series, which was more powerful than the 75 mm and 30 times the tank gun of the 35-ton T7 heavy tank.

And the heavy tanks have soared directly from the 75 mm caliber of the T7 series to the 1005 mm caliber, and there is not even a transitional caliber of 80 or 85 in the middle.

The main reason for this was the desire to have more powerful tank firepower against the armored forces of Soviet Russia.

This Z45 tank surname can be superior, Chen Jingyun on the spot is given the official army equipment number of the T11 tank, and at the same time instructed the army to purchase a batch for testing first, to see if it can be equipped in large quantities, but the overall number of large-scale equipment in his mouth is actually not much, because the price of this T11 heavy tank is not generally cheap, just like the calculation of warships by tonnage, under the same technical level, a tank with a large tonnage is definitely more expensive than a tank with a small tonnage. Although Chen Jingyun does not know a specific price, it is certain that this T11 tank is expensive, even if it becomes the main heavy tank of the army in the future, the number of purchases in the first two years will be only a few dozen at most.

After looking at this T11 tank, Chen Jingyun was very interested, and then he looked at an improved model of a T9 series tank.

"Although this is said to be an improved model of the T9 series, but we have made a lot of changes in the design, except for the appearance of the T9 series tanks, in fact, the inside is completely different, we have not only improved the design of the chassis, but also replaced the more powerful engine, in addition to the more powerful 75 mm 40 times caliber tank gun. It is more compact in structure, two tons lighter than the original T9 tank, which means that the improved tank weighs only 25 tons, and more importantly, the speed has been greatly increased to 40 kilometers per hour. This series of improvements is actually no longer suitable for calling this tank a T9 series tank. Luo An said, in fact, this T9 improved model is presided over by him, and today is also the first public appearance, and only three test tests have been carried out before and after, and it will take at least two or three years before the official finalization, and it will take at least two or three years from large-scale service.

After hearing this, Chen Jingyun said: "Since it is not suitable, let's give a separate number!" T12 tank, well, that's all! "The model naming rules of the tank are not the same as other equipment, many weapons of the army are like to be named after the year, but the tank is a T letter opening followed by a number, and this number basically represents the army's several formal equipment tanks, such as T9 tanks, the specific meaning is: the ninth type of army is awarded the number of tanks, but there is no distinction between medium and heavy in the official number, but people's verbal language will say so, and the official document is T9 tank, T12 tank, etc.

Chen Jingyun said this, and this is just a matter of title, and the rest of the army naturally has no opinion, and calling T9U and T12A are similar things.

Then I looked at another tank that has been put into service, that is, the T10 tank, which is only a sixteen-ton tank, a tank specially developed for operations in the southern region, and the speed can be 40 kilometers per hour, but the protection is slightly worse, only 25 mm of inclined armor, and the tank gun is only a 57 mm 40 times the tank gun. This tank has long been developed, in 1931 during the war, just completed the research and development, but before the time of large-scale equipment in the war ended, it was not until these two years that large-scale equipment began to be equipped with armored forces in the southern region, and it will be used as the main tank of the armored forces in the southern region.

After looking at these several models of tanks, Chen Jingyun looked at some other equipment, such as new artillery, anti-tank guns and the like, but he was not too interested, but near the end, he saw a strange-looking tank, saying that it was a tank, he did not have a turret, said that it was not a tank, he used a chassis chassis and there was a gun on it.

"What is this?"

Luo An is a person from the equipment department, so he naturally knows these things, and immediately explained: "This is a new concept of armored warfare that we experimented with, equipping a tank gun with a larger caliber on the tank chassis to achieve more firepower than tanks of the same tonnage, for example, this one uses the chassis of a T9 tank, but is equipped with a 1005 mm long-barreled cannon, which is not inferior to our T11 heavy tank in terms of firepower!" ”

Seeing this, Chen Jingyun's interest came again, and he walked up to take a closer look, and the people behind him naturally followed.