In general, the Type 29 heavy tank and the Type 26 light tank were still very combative, and in the armored battle in northern Italy, these two tanks defeated the Germans No. 4 and No. 3 tanks at a numerical disadvantage, and their strong firepower and solid armor left a deep impression on the Allies and the Central Powers. So much so that after the war, there were rumors in the British War Office that they would replace British tanks with Chinese tanks, of course, this was just talk, whether from the perspective of national defense autonomy or economy, it was impossible for the British to replace all the tanks under their command with foreign tanks. Even after the fall of the empire in history, the British still conscientiously developed a series of tanks such as the Centurion, the Chieftain and the Challenger, and stubbornly used rifled guns until the end of the Cold War! So Xu Jie didn't care about this rumor.

Although the internal industry of the army is full of trust and praise for both tanks. But Xu Jieke, as a traverser, did not relax his attention to the construction of army equipment, because he knew that the Germans could quickly make up for the technological gap over time, and in history, how long did it take to go from the 75mml24 gun of the No. 4 tank to the 88mml56 gun of the Tiger type in the Soviet-German war? Now the technical competition between the two sides has only just begun, and it is far from exhausting its potential, and the gun of the Type 29 tank is only 75mmL40. On performance, inferior to the historical German 75mmL48 gun. And the latter was just the standard of big road goods in the late stage of World War II. The more powerful 75mml70 and 88mml56 and 88mml71 are sure to appear, and from a defensive point of view, the thickness of the armor in front of the Tiger King is excessive, but the leopard's inclined 55 degrees thick 80mm upper armor is still a sad hurdle! No matter what the United States and Britain think, China absolutely cannot relax the research and development of army equipment anyway. In particular, the opponent of China in this war was the German Army, which was the strongest in World War I.

Needless to say, the German Army, which has always pursued quality superiority, is definitely developing new tanks. The development of a new generation of tanks in Huaxia will also kick off. In terms of the design requirements of the new generation of heavy tanks in Huaxia, Xu Jie clearly required that it could be equipped with at least 90mmL50 level guns, and at the same time had the hull protection that was not inferior to the historical leopard and the frontal protection of the turret of the Panxing tank. And the thickness of the side armor should also reach more than 60mm. If it does not compress the crew space too much, such a tank even uses the transmission and engine rear, referencing the historical Panstar tank. This weight will also reach about 45 tons, which will undoubtedly have high requirements for the performance and stability of the subsystem of this tank. Xu Jie doesn't want this tank to have the power output of the Maybach 230 overclocked version of the Leopard in history, at least 500 horsepower, right? And the stability should be a little higher!

As for why you don't copy the historical T44 tank? This tank is very good on paper. The reason is very simple, although this tank is not too late, but the man-machine effect is too much coffee table, and the stability problem has not been solved, although the engine is used transversely to reduce the weight, but the stability of this thing has been very sad. After Maozi came up with a better T54, the stability of the 44 was finally solved, and the American Patton also came out. In terms of performance, except for the IS7 and T64 (the first time composite armor was used), the Russians had a big advantage, and at other times because of the problems of subsystems and man-machine effects, the IS2 was not better than Pan Xing, and the T54 was not stronger than Barton.

Considering that this tank will serve as the pillar of Huaxia's armor power in the next 2 years and mid-World War II, Xu Jie does not require this tank to be developed quickly, but it must be stable and durable, and it must have a large upgrade potential. It was required to reserve a large enough gun ring to accommodate future 90mmL70 or L52 guns. At the same time, it was required to have a certain margin on the load so that additional armor could be added, as in the case of the historical Dumbo tank. …

But obviously. The performance of such a tank clearly exceeds the current state of technology, and equipment such as engines, transmissions and other equipment needs to be redesigned, and considering the experimentation and test drives, as well as a large amount of equipment, the process will definitely be relatively long. In this case, how to make full use of existing resources to tap potential has become a problem that the General Armament Department of the Chinese Army needs on paper. The Type 29 tank was actually successful as a mass-produced medium tank, and its weight of more than 30 tons was neither high nor low. If it can be replaced with a new subsystem, it will not be a problem at all for Zhongtan, as the main force of armored warfare, to survive the early stage of World War 2. As a result, a series of vigorous improvement plans began.

The first improvement, of course, was to increase the firepower of the Type 29 tank, and it was only expedient for a tank of more than 30 tons to be equipped with a 75mml40 level gun. Look at the German tank No. 4 of World War 2 with a 75mml48 gun. The Soviet T34 mounted an 85mm gun. The Sherman also had a long 75mm gun. Therefore, in this firepower upgrade plan, the Type 29 tank will be replaced with a new 75mmL60 gun. Of course, for now this is just a plan. This gun has not yet been developed, and it will take more than 1 year in peacetime to design the corresponding turret and finally enter the production stage of equipment test run after the gun comes out. In order to balance the increased weight of the gun, the magazine in the rear of the turret of the Type 29 tank was rear-mounted. At the same time, it will also consider replacing it with a new diesel engine to increase the horsepower. As for protection? There is no plan to improve for the time being, after all, with the emergence of a new heavy tank, this tank will be demoted from a heavy tank to a medium tank, and there must be some faster tanks in a tank unit, how will they fight in the future if they are all made into iron turtles?

The second modification is, of course, various derivatives of the Type 29 tank, and anti-tank destroyers made from the chassis of the Type 29 tank are naturally indispensable. The performance of the chassis that can load more than 30 tons is not low. Based on historical experience, it doesn't matter if you are not afraid of the protests of the tankers, it doesn't matter if you plug a D54.5T of the L10 level. However, considering that the current opponent is far from being so ferocious. At the same time, the artillery ammunition is too large, it is difficult to reload, and the amount of ammunition is relatively small, so Xu Jie believes that it is better to consider equipping 75mml70 guns or 90mml50 guns. In the subsequent bidding, the former was finally eliminated from the L70 artillery for several reasons, first of all, Huaxia already planned to equip the 75mml60 level artillery, and then the same caliber artillery did not have much need for logistics supply and military production. The 90mmL50 class gun is the weapon to be equipped with heavy tanks in the future. So by the way, it was also used for tank destroyers, which was easy and trouble-free. Another reason is that the 90mm gun has a larger grenade. It is more effective against bunkers (for example, the grenade weight of the M3 90mmL50 gun in the United States is 19kg, while the grenade weight of the M3 76mm gun is only 10kg). ）

The artillery problem was solved, and then the armor was introduced, and after removing the turret, the weight saved was not only to place a more powerful gun, but also to strengthen the frontal armor. After a trade-off, the thickness of the frontal armor was increased to 80 mm with an angle of inclination of 55 degrees, while the thickness of the lower part was 65 mm, and the angle of inclination remained the same as before. In addition to power and weapons, the engine will also be upgraded.

Although the tank destroyer is the earliest Type 29 tank derivative vehicle in service, it is not the most popular unit Phantom derivative vehicle in the entire Type 29 tank series. It's not that this tank doesn't perform well and doesn't perform well on the battlefield. Rather, it's because the vehicle below performs better, is more produced, and has the widest coverage of use! According to the reaction of the grassroots of the army later, this tank can take on almost all tasks from fighting tanks to anti-infantry and even long-range fire suppression!

The vehicle, known as the Type 29 assault gun, was armed with an L35 howitzer. It was designed to deal with all kinds of bunkers and infantry. At that time, there were some twists and turns in the selection of artillery, and at the beginning, howitzers were the most popular artillery. In particular, howitzers with full ammunition are even more expected. But then an outrageous order from above forced the entire plan to be completely changed! A certain big guy above really can't stand a combat vehicle weighing more than 30 tons with only one howitzer! In desperation, the Chinese Army could only study a new artillery. And it is precisely because of this arrogant plan that the Type 29 assault gun will go down in history.

"The weight of the howitzer's projectile is too light, only about 10 kilograms. And the class artillery projectile weighs up to almost 20kg. The weight difference between the two sides is doubled! As an infantry support unit, the power of high-explosive shells is particularly important. At the same time, it is not necessary to have a high rate of fire. Therefore, it will not be too much of a problem to use separate ammunition for artillery, although the whole ammunition is easy to load, but because of the large volume, it is difficult to store it in a closed fighting room, unlike artillery shells that can be stored separately from the cartridge. Of course, the use of shells will still eventually lead to a decrease in the amount of ammunition available, but on the whole, this gun is still better than the howitzer. Xu Jie explained his decision like this afterwards.

Thus, with its powerful grenades, the Type 29 assault gun was able to deal with almost any non-reinforced fortification. The huge artillery can also penetrate ordinary medium tanks when equipped with armor-piercing shells, and when armor-piercing shells are available, they can also fight against heavy tanks. So on the battlefield received the title of a panacea!

Thanks to the book friends hukaikaka and zhouyu1976 for the tip ~~~~~. (To be continued)