The original intention of the half-track design is to balance speed and off-road type, and in terms of off-road performance, it is between tracked ground and wheeled. In terms of speed, it is also not high, not low. At the same time, there is also an advantage that it is more resistant to damage, for example, if a load-bearing wheel is knocked in battle, it may be able to make do with it, if it is a wheeled chariot, one of the four wheels will be completely kneeled. The biggest advantage of wheeled armored vehicles is that they are fast, fuel-efficient, long-range, and cheap. (Of course, I think that the cost of the 34 series armored vehicles in the later period of Germany will be higher because of the complex 8*8 chassis, but unfortunately the author has no dry goods-!) And another problem is that the half-track can be built very large, such as the 18-ton half-track of the Germans in history. And the final appearance of wheeled armored vehicles is about 1 ton. (34 series.) ）

In addition to the battle over the chassis, the Germans were also entangled in the positioning of wheeled armored vehicles, that is, as a simple infantry carrier? Or as a useful supplementary force in the event of a tank attack? The former emphasizes the carrying capacity of the infantry, while the latter can be left without infantry, emphasizing firepower and protection. Germany had ready-made armored carriers, but they were all open-topped. And the firepower is only a general-purpose machine gun, and this bit of firepower does not play much role in the offensive at all. The Germans saw Huaxia equip the armored car with a powerful 3mm cannon. So the Germans also wanted to install one on the original foundation, but then they found that the gun was too big for the original vehicle! Counting the weight of almost kilograms of the gun mount. And ammunition. Coupled with the necessary protection or something, it directly squeezed the infantry riding space behind ..........

If it's just a matter of space, it's okay to bear, but it's fast. The Germans believed that a vehicle armed with rapid-fire guns was not enough to defend against shrapnel and machine-gun fire. The Germans did not know what level of protection the infantry fighting vehicles in China had, but the Germans believed that their tanks had to be able to defend themselves against the enemy's machine gun fire. From a cost point of view, you have an expensive chassis and a machine gun for this car, plus an operator or so. It would be too much to let the opponent sweep away in one round.

But then the Germans found it difficult to set the standard of defense. Want to protect against a 3mm cannon design? The Germans compared the 3mm rapid-fire cannon they were designing. As a result, I was shocked that the 3mm tungsten alloy armor-piercing projectile fired by this artillery could penetrate nearly 4mm of armor at a 3-degree impact angle at a distance of about 7 meters! If it's not much of a problem to resist head-on, what about the side? If you wrap it around with armor, the weight will go up!

The weight of the new infantry fighting vehicle had to be controlled around 14 tons. The maximum off-road speed should be at least 3 kilometers per hour, and the maximum road speed should be 1 kilometer. This meant that the vehicle needed an engine with at least horsepower. Of course. This is in the case of the use of a half-track chassis. If you use a wheeled armored vehicle, the speed will increase. The Germans finally decided to maintain the standard of protection of 3mm inclination 4 degrees on the front of the halftrack. On the side, it can at least resist armor-piercing shells from large-caliber machine guns. The reason for this decision was that there was generally a gap between large-caliber machine guns and artillery in the composition of the weapons of the Entente and the Chinese, and judging by the intelligence available to the Germans, judging by the power of the Chinese weapons. Huaxia had only machine guns and 3mm machine guns. Even if the side protection is strengthened, it is difficult to block the attack of the 3mm machine gun, so it is better to directly set the defense standard at the level of defense against large-caliber machine guns.........

The protection standards were finalized, and then the weapons were met, and the Germans finally decided to introduce ready-made 3mm guns from the Air Force after considering the amount of ammunition and the amount of material to make the transition! Then look at the actual situation and make improvements. But soon, the artillery was finalized, and the question of the type of shell came up again, not that the Germans' 3mm machine guns did not have armor-piercing shells or high-explosive shells, but the question of how to replace the shells in real combat! To put it simply, it is. For example, if a No. 4 tank hits an armored target, the loader can simply load an armor-piercing shell, and if it hits a bunker or infantry, it will use a high-explosive shell. But the machine guns are fed with chains. How do you change high-explosive and armor-piercing shells? Is it a temporary replacement of the elastic chain? Apparently unlikely. The 3mm guns of the Air Force generally perform anti-armor tasks, so they are armor-piercing shells. And the armored vehicles of the Germans, apparently, also had to take into account anti-infantry capabilities, so how can this problem be solved? …。

It's not impossible to use a complex ammunition feeder, but the cost and reliability are really a bit difficult. So the Germans opted for a cruder solution, which was to match each high-explosive round with an armor-piercing round on the chain. In any case, the machine gun has a fast rate of fire, and the rate of fire of several hundred rounds per minute is enough for this gun to fire enough ammunition against targets of any nature within the effective range. And the choice of secondary weapons. The Germans armed the tank with two caliber machine guns at the same time, one coaxial to the cannon. The other is a 1mm large-caliber machine gun ......... located at the top of the turret.

In the end, the vehicle, known as the Jaguar, compensated for the lack of direct firepower for the German armored spearhead. However, unlike later infantry fighting vehicles, this vehicle does not carry infantry, but is a purely auxiliary vehicle based on machine guns. Compared to the mighty Tiger series and the No. 3 series, which had many derivatives, the Puma was not well known, but it was one of the favorite direct-aim support weapons of the German infantry.

As with other models, as the war progressed, so did the need for anti-armor firepower in Germany. In the case of insufficient production capacity at site 3, the Jaguar fighting vehicle was also used to carry 7mm anti-tank guns. However, because of the weaker defense. The number of such variant vehicles is not very large. The rating is not very high either.

In addition to the half-tracks, the Germans also engaged in a number of wheeled armored reconnaissance vehicles. Taking into account the situation of operations in the Middle East and India, the geography is too vast, and both tracked and semi-tracked reconnaissance vehicles have the problem of insufficient travel and speed. For this reason, the Germans specially created the Weasel-type reconnaissance vehicle, although it is called the Weasel, but it definitely does not mean that this kind of combat vehicle has poor firepower and small weight. This one weighs up to 14 tons. The combat vehicle with a 1 horsepower engine, as well as an 8*8 chassis, had the largest range and the highest speed in the arsenal of the German army. It can run at 9 km/h on the road and 6 km/h in off-road, and the distance is 6 km/h on road and 4 km off-road! …。

Relative to its speed, the Weasel's weapons are sharper, and the Weasel infantry fighting vehicle can be equipped with almost all weapons weighing less than 1.0 tons in the German Army, such as 7mm anti-tank guns, 3mm machine guns, and heavy mortars. It can also be equipped with a triple MM Erley anti-aircraft gun cameo anti-aircraft vehicle. You can even hang a rocket launch box on the side of the hull to make a cameo appearance as a rocket launcher. Of course, the direct result of equipping so many weapons under a weight of 1 ton is the lack of armor protection, this tank has 3mm inclined armor on the front, and the sides can only resist the attack of ordinary large-caliber machine guns, and it depends on the character when it comes to M machine guns that use armor-piercing shells. It's a very uneven weapon.

If this weapon is placed on a frontal battlefield, then the most likely result is that it will be beaten into a sieve by the opponent's strong firepower. But if you use it another way, then it's different. The high mobility and powerful firepower of the Weasel series of vehicles greatly helped to intersperse and operate behind enemy lines, and these units specially equipped with Weasel vehicles to carry out sabotage and interspersing tasks behind enemy lines were known as wolf packs in Germany.

The most glorious time for the wolves was in the early stage of the war, when they often slipped into the breach after the main force opened a gap, and before the other side was trying to plug the gap, they had already penetrated behind enemy lines, avoiding the opponent's heavy troops, and specifically looking for key places such as military stations, supply points, airfields, etc., to attack, and make a mess of the opponent's rear. This was partly due to the excellent mobility of the Weasel, but partly due to the lack of troops of the Allies at the beginning of the launch. Before the United States and Britain fully exert their strength, the density of troops to maintain the frontal defense line is enough, and the rear defense will naturally be empty ..........

And with the finalization of the Jaguar and Weasel series of battlefields, the German Army has finally completed a new renewal plan from beginning to end. This defeat in Italy allowed the Germans to learn a lot, see the gap between themselves and the Chinese armored forces, and have a certain understanding of the opponents they may encounter in the future. When German armored forces reappeared a few years later, the British, Americans, and French were taken aback by these monsters of the Second Reich. Even Xu Jie admitted that the speed and level of evolution of the German armored forces exceeded his imagination. However, because China entered the war late, and at the same time there is the biggest plug-in of the traverser, so although the German armored forces are very strong, everything is also within the acceptable range!

On the one hand, the Austro-Hungarian troops, which had lost their strongest armored force, were surrounded by the British and Chinese allied forces that attacked from the north and south, and in addition to some people who escaped from the encirclement, the Entente and the Chinese troops captured at least about 10,000 prisoners. As for the operation on the southern front, the US and French teams did not expect that a catastrophe was brewing.........

Thanks to the book friend zhouyu1976 for the tip~~~, and the book friend f6636 monthly pass support ~~~. (To be continued).