Chapter 500: The Aftermath of the Exchange
This batch of 120 Soviet-made tanks was captured by the Germans during the Battle of Kharkov in 41 and 42 and transported to North Africa to the Italians, who lacked excellent tanks. However, because the Italians lacked diesel fuel, they did not use it at all, and were later captured by the British army intact.
On the premise that it is necessary to meet its own needs and mainly to assist the Soviet Union and Britain, the number of tanks delivered to the Anti-Union has always been insufficient. The Americans handed over to the Anti-Japanese Union the Soviet-made tanks captured by the British in North Africa, thousands of miles away from the Soviet Union, along with the German artillery and tanks captured on the battlefield in North Africa.
Yang Zhen's proposal to use these T 34 tanks temporarily hoarded in Iran in exchange for German-made tanks captured by the Soviet army in the Stalingrad battlefield was a rather tempting condition for the Soviet army, which was not satisfied with the performance of the remaining tanks except for the M 4 tanks that provided aid to the United States and Britain.
In particular, this tank was designed and produced by the Soviet Union itself, and it was far more secure than the American and British tanks in terms of spare parts and maintenance. Moreover, it is also the main medium tank of the Soviet army, and the use of these tanks can be directly handed over to combat units for use, and there is no need to even convert training.
In order to prevent the Soviet army from repeating its old tricks during transportation after refusing to accept this condition, they forcibly put these tanks into their pockets without the consent of the Anti-Japanese Union. During the negotiations, Yang Zhen directly told the Soviets that he would have the recipients of the Anti-Japanese Union in Iran install high explosives on all these tanks.
If the Soviets did not agree to the exchange, but wanted to secretly attack the tanks while they were being transported through the Soviet Union, he would ask the receivers of the Anti-Japanese Federation to blow up all the tanks directly. Either these tanks were exchanged for second-hand goods captured by the Soviet army at Stalingrad, or jade was burned, and no one could think of it.
After some intrigue negotiations, the Soviets finally agreed to the exchange under pressure from the battlefield. Hundreds of German-made No. 3 and No. 4 tanks captured by Stalingrad, as well as a large number of half-track armored vehicles, armored reconnaissance vehicles, and a large number of 150 and 105 howitzers, along with steel helmets, were all transferred from the Soviet-German battlefield to the Anti-Japanese Union.
The Battle of Stalingrad, together with the surrounding battles and the subsequent Soviet offensive, saw the Germans and the armies of the client states throw in thousands of tanks. At the end of the campaign, only the No. 3 and No. 4 tanks of the German army, together with those that had some battle damage but could be repaired, were captured six or seven hundred.
Under Yang Zhen's covert stirring, the scale was much larger than the scale in the original history, and the number of armored clusters invested by the German army was also much larger, and it could even be said that 70 percent and 50 percent of the German army's armored forces on the Eastern Front were involved.
Bloody, like a meat grinder, the casualties inflicted on the Soviet and German sides participating in the war can be described as unprecedented, the German army has lost millions of people in the battle, in addition to a large number of half-tracks and armored reconnaissance vehicles, self-propelled assault guns and a large number of artillery, captured by the Soviet army.
In addition to the three Panzer Divisions of the Sixth Army, which had been invested earlier, there was also the main force of the Fourth Panzer Army, which was invested by the Germans in the later period, and one of the Panzer Corps of the First Panzer Army was completely annihilated at Stalingrad. The three German Panzer Corps and five Panzer Divisions and Panzergrenadier Divisions that had been wiped out at Stalingrad and in the surrounding areas, a total of eleven Panzer Divisions brought a large amount of booty to the Soviet Union.
This batch of tanks, plus the trophies captured by the offensive of the Soviet army on various fronts before the Battle of Kursk. By April 43, the Soviet Union had provided more than 700 German-made tanks and more than 1,000 half-tracks and armored reconnaissance vehicles to the Anti-Japanese Union.
In the Anti-Union itself, it was replaced with a Soviet-style 47-mm tank gun, or a Soviet-made 76-mm tank gun. After the lack of shells, and the fifty-mm gun on the underpowered tank No. three, and the seventy-five-mm short-barreled gun on the poorly performing tank No. four.
The No. 3 and No. 4 modified models of these tanks were used by the Anti-Japanese Federation, together with more than 200 No. 3 tanks and dozens of No. 4 tanks transferred by the Soviet Union after the end of the Battle of Moscow in early 42. As well as more than 150 German-made tanks handed over by the United States and Britain throughout '42 and the first half of '43, Yang Zhen formed three all-German tank armored divisions in '43, plus five independent tank brigades.
However, the long-barreled 75 mm tank gun on the No. 4 tank produced in the later period was retained by Yang Zhen because of its excellent performance. With the same type of tanks delivered by the Soviet Union in the later period, several independent tank regiments were formed separately to deal with the new tanks of the Japanese army.
These No. 4 tanks, equipped with amazingly powerful long-barreled tank guns, also became a sharp weapon against the Japanese army's new type one and three tanks at the end of the Anti-Japanese War. In a tank battle, hundreds of the latest Type III tanks of the Japanese army were destroyed in one fell swoop. For a type of tank that is just an improvement of the Type 97 tank, it is simply a massacre.
The No. 3 tank, which had the largest number of tanks, together with the American tanks, began in the second half of '43, and the Soviet Army subsequently provided a larger number of German-made tanks and No. 4 tanks that replaced tank guns by the Anti-Japanese Federation, as well as the T34 tank Type 76 produced and manufactured by themselves, which became the standard equipment of all armored divisions of the Anti-Japanese Federation.
If we say that in the period from the end of the Battle of Moscow to the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, the Soviets handed over more No. 3 tanks. There are even a considerable number of tanks handed over by the United States and Britain that are No. 2 and No. 4 tanks, and by the end of 43, they will only be more than 300 tanks. Then from the beginning of the fourth year to the fourth or fifth year, the transfer was mainly based on the No. 4 tank.
By the end of the war, together with the German-made tanks that had been captured by the United States and Britain. Among the anti-United Nations armored forces with a total number of 10,000 tanks, except for a quarter of the Soviet-style T-34 tanks produced by themselves, the remaining half of the total number of tanks is about 5,000 tanks aided by the United States and Britain.
In addition to the tanks of the same type of German army captured in North Africa, the Western Front, and Italy delivered by the United States and Britain one after another, one-third of the tank units of the Anti-Japanese Union were actually equipped, and even more were equipped with German tanks No. 3 and No. 4, with a total of more than 3,000 tanks.
Among them, the No. 4 tank, which had excellent performance, reached almost two thousand. It has almost become the medium tank with the most anti-United Nations equipment after the US Army's M 4 medium tank. The rest, except for more than 200 No. 2 tanks and 38T tanks, are all No. 3 tanks.
As for the half-track and armored reconnaissance vehicles, they simply accounted for half of the number of American and German ones. In other words, almost all of the German-made No. 3 and No. 4 tanks, as well as half-track armored vehicles and armored reconnaissance vehicles, captured by the Soviet Union and the United States and Britain throughout World War II, eventually fell into the hands of the Anti-Japanese Union.
As for the 150-millimeter heavy artillery, in addition to more than 100 Soviet-made D-152 howitzers produced before the end of the Anti-Japanese War, as well as the 155 howitzers that received assistance from the Americans, and the French 155 howitzers transferred by the Soviet Union before the war, they can still be used. The main heavy artillery of the Anti-United Nations equipment was gradually replaced by the previous miscellaneous artillery to the German-made 150 howitzer handed over by the Soviet side.
By the end of the war, 15 of the 23 independent heavy artillery regiments directly under the Anti-Japanese Union were using German-made 150 howitzers. Among the remaining eight regiments, four used Soviet-style D-152 howitzers imitated by the Anti-United Nations, and three used US-aided 155 howitzers.
The captured Japanese-made Type 89 150 cannon and the Canadian 120mm cannon were used. One of the 170-mm cannons of the German-made K 18 type. The German-made 150 howitzer has completely become the main large-caliber artillery of the Anti-United Nations in four or four years.
The large-caliber howitzer battalions of the howitzer regiments belonging to the 16 columns are equipped with half of the French-style 150 howitzers and half of the Japanese-made 96-type howitzers transferred by the Soviet Union before the war. In addition to being used as the main artillery, in accordance with the requirements of the central authorities, the Anti-Japanese Federation successively handed over more than 80 150-mm howitzers to the entire Guannai troops.
As for the more than 100 105 howitzers that the Americans aided, because of their relatively long range and the most important thing was their light weight, they were converted into 105-mm self-propelled howitzers by the Anti-Japanese Union using the Czech Type 38 tanks captured and left by the Germans transferred by the Soviet side, as well as the chassis of the French-made tanks among the Anti-Japanese Unions.
Each Panzer Division was equipped with a battalion, which was used as the main support firepower of the Panzer Division. and a self-propelled artillery battalion formed by a 76-mm cannon converted from the T26 tank site, as well as a self-propelled artillery battalion formed by using the irreparable No. 3 tank handed over by the Soviet Union, the chassis of the captured Japanese-made Type 97 tank, and some Type 92 cannons copied by the Anti-Japanese Union.
Each self-propelled artillery regiment has two 105-mm self-propelled howitzers of twelve vehicles and one battalion of self-propelled cannons. One seventy-six-mm self-propelled anti-tank battalion. and an eighteen-vehicle anti-aircraft artillery battalion consisting of self-propelled anti-aircraft guns converted from 23-mm twin anti-aircraft guns.
Each regiment was also equipped with an eight-vehicle anti-aircraft machine gun company consisting of the chassis of Tank No. 2 and four fourteen-mm anti-aircraft machine guns produced later. With the exception of some wheeled transporters and refueling vehicles, as well as half-tracked and wheeled armored personnel carriers, all the main battle weapons of the anti-Japanese armored divisions were replaced with all-tracked ones.
A large number of German-made artillery and tanks, coupled with the German steel helmets that have all been replaced by the Anti-Japanese Union, in the full-scale outbreak of the civil war in the four or six years after the end of the Anti-Japanese War, there were a large number of German-made equipment of the Anti-Japanese Union, and the army of the Nationalist Government in the first encounter with the Anti-Japanese Union that entered the customs in a big way at the end of April 44, when they thought that they were not encountering **, but the authentic German army.
At the same time, with the huge losses suffered by the German army in the Soviet-German battlefield, by the end of the Battle of Stalingrad in 43, the number of German-made M35 and 40 steel helmets with excellent performance transferred by the Soviet Union was enough to reequip all the main forces. The Anti-Union has successively eliminated the original French steel helmets whose performance can only be said to be general, and all of them have been converted into German steel helmets.
It may take some effort to capture tanks and artillery, but for individual equipment such as steel helmets, the Soviets captured a large number at the end of 41. By the end of the Battle of Stalingrad in the first half of April and 3, the number of German-made steel helmets captured by the Soviet Union had long exceeded the needs of the Anti-Japanese Union.
Despite these steel helmets, a significant part of them were stripped by the Soviets from the corpses of the Germans killed in battle. When they arrived, many of the steel helmets still had blood stains and brains on them, and even some remnants of human tissue. But for the Anti-United Nations, they finally got a steel helmet with excellent performance, which effectively reduced the casualties caused by shrapnel hitting the head in the battle.
As for the large number of Tony-style steel helmets that the Americans came to the aid of the British after the outbreak in the Pacific, they were handed over to the Kannai troops by the Anti-Japanese Federation as early as the beginning of the shipment, along with the captured Japanese-made steel helmets and some of the French steel helmets that had been replaced. However, the Anti-Japanese Federation itself was not equipped, but gradually replaced the French steel helmet with a German steel helmet.