Behind, the fourth tank, the commander of the tank company, Nikolai, just as the first tank was destroyed, already understood what was happening, he quickly got back inside, covered the hatch above his head, and then, while pressing the turret rotation pedal with his foot, he shouted to the gun commander next to him: "Cobra, ready!" ”

In the T-64 tank, there is also a Cobra, and this is not Nikolai's joke, this is their most advanced artillery-launched missile system, which NATO countries call the "Songbird" missile, and the United States calls it the АТ-8.

Artillery-launched missiles, this is an ideal and plump weapon system.

For tanks, the firing range is limited, the hit rate is not high, in the absence of advanced electronic equipment, the range of a thousand meters is already the limit, although the tank gun can hit farther, but the hit rate will be greatly reduced.

And in the fifties, anti-tank missiles had already begun to rise, and at this time, it had already occurred to some people that if anti-tank missiles were adopted on tanks, the combat capabilities of tanks could be greatly improved!

After all, the missile has a fire control system, which has higher accuracy and a longer range, which can just make up for the lack of firepower of the tank itself!

It was a hot topic at the time, and the first to take action was the French, who used tank guns to launch anti-tank missiles directly, which became known as the "Accra" missile.

Ordinary missiles, which fly under their own power, will inevitably lead to a reduction in range, and the take-off engine will consume a lot of energy.

This missile adopts laser beam guidance, the flight speed reaches 500m/s, the maximum range is 3800m, and the probability of a single hit is close to 100%.

It seems that a new era has arrived, but unfortunately, these are data on paper, and the electronic technology of the fifties was still backward, and a large number of discrete components were used, which led to the fact that this missile was technically complex and expensive, and finally failed to be officially put into production.

In addition to France, the United States has also made an attempt and successfully equipped the "Sheridan" tank with the "Oak Stick" missile, but this missile has not been used on a large scale in the Vietnam War, and many problems have been exposed.

It was the Soviet Union that really brought artillery missiles to fruition.

The Soviet Union was not too late to study, as early as around 1957, the Soviet Union began to study the issue of the use of anti-tank missiles in tanks. Early research focused on how the Т-54, Т-55, Т-10M tanks and ПТ-76Б light tanks used the АТ-3 anti-tank missile. Later, the "Dragon" missile, the "Lotus" missile, the "Typhoon" missile, and the "Ruby" missile were developed successively. However, these projects did not go well, and only the "Dragon" missiles were officially put into production around 1968 and equipped with a small number of troops.

In the early stage of the project, no substantial progress was made, but the Soviets were not discouraged, their advantage was in their strong integration ability, the previous barrels were too thin, and now, finally have a suitable barrel.

The new tank, using a 125 mm caliber smoothbore gun, this gun barrel is thick enough to make the design of the missile easier, after many failures, finally, the famous 9K112 artillery missile system, successfully installed!

In the Soviet Union, this kind of artillery-launched missile was a top-secret existence, so that no one in the outside world knew about it at all, and most of the views could not be handled even by the West, which was technologically advanced in electronic technology, and the Soviets, who were still clinging to the electron tube, could overcome all kinds of difficulties in artillery-launched missiles?

It is generally assumed that the Soviets have long since given up.

Even in later generations, when its existence was known, no one knew the specific principle, and it was not until the collapse of the Soviet Union that the West could get hold of this weapon and study it carefully.

And now, this terrible missile, has begun its first live firing!

At Nikolai's command, the gun commander Negrasov pressed the ammunition selection button in front of him, and with his press, the T-64's automatic loader began to move.

The T-64 is expensive to build and is only equipped with elite troops, compared to the T-72, which is inexpensive and can be equipped in large quantities, one of the important reasons is the problem of automatic loaders.

The T-64's automatic loader is "hung" on the turret basket by means of a bearing, and its inner side is machined with a ring gear, which can be rotated under control, and the first step of automatic loading is to select ammunition.

Four 9K112 missiles, placed in it, which, if specified, is the non-mention part of the missile, codenamed 9M43.

At this time, the warhead is selected first, and with the assistance of the bullet grabber, the ammunition is stuffed into the gun chamber, all of which is automatic, and only needs to manually select the type of bullet.

Therefore, the speed is very fast, the reload speed is fast, the rate of fire is fast, and at the same time, it also leads to technical complications, and the people inside the turret have to be extra careful, if they are brought in by the automatic loader, the person will be crippled.

The warhead is placed vertically, in a turntable, and when loading, the warhead is loaded horizontally, so this leads to the fact that fixed ammunition cannot be used, because it is too long to be deployed.

The shell is divided into warhead and propellant, if the two are connected, it is fixed, if the warhead and propellant are separated, it is divided, Soviet tanks, in order to be low, resulting in a rather narrow space in the body, which means that only small tankmen can be used.

Small people, the strength is also small, if the 125 mm shells are still reloaded as a whole, then their physical strength is not enough to support, so they can only use automatic loaders, and this automatic loader can only be solved by separate loading.

Now it seems that there is not much defect, and in later generations, this defect is becoming more and more obvious, the main type of ammunition in the tank is the armor-piercing projectile, and for the armor-piercing projectile, the length-to-diameter ratio is a very important data, the ratio of length to diameter, the larger the data, the stronger the armor-piercing ability, so the warhead of the armor-piercing projectile is thin and long.

Western 120-mm guns are loaded in one piece, so the warhead goes directly into the cartridge, the length is very long, it is enough, and the Soviet one is not good, because it is separated.

Now, the warhead is stuffed in, and this black warhead, bulging, is very different from an ordinary warhead.

Then, there is the cartridge, the cartridge codenamed 9B447 is stuffed in, although it looks the same, but it is still different from the cartridge of ordinary shells, it contains take-off propellant and the bottom plate.

There are electronic components in the warhead, which cannot withstand the acceleration caused by the tremendous pressure of an ordinary artillery projectile, and it is more like a booster engine of an ordinary missile.