It is not an easy task to break through the front face of King Tiger, which is 180 mm thick and has a slight inclination.
Taking into account the problem of more or less incident angle tilt that must exist in actual combat situations, and the resulting disguised enhancement of the equivalent thickness of armor. This level of defense is already very close to the limit penetration of most anti-armor firepower during World War II.
Deep. Even if it is the 122 Heirloom, the most proud of the Red Army's heavy tank, it is not as simple as talking on paper if it wants to defeat the big-faced King Tiger in actual combat.
The biggest advantage that Malashenko has here is not actually the three elements of firepower, protection, and maneuverability, but the asymmetry in mastering key intelligence information. A simple and straightforward manifestation is that Malashenko
Coe is fully aware of all of King Tiger's key properties and weaknesses.
As for the IS6 heavy tank, which has just begun mass production and has been put into the front line on a large scale, the German army still knows nothing about the core performance data and only has a few photos of the prototype in Guderian's hands.
The asymmetry of information and intelligence is a very important advantage in war, whether it is the current World War II or the future wars of distant future generations.
Not only is he familiar with the performance of his own main gun, but he also knows the opponent's defense strength and weaknesses. Malashenko, who has poor intelligence on the Germans, is betting that his IS4 is definitely strong enough. As the German tank with the strongest firepower at the moment, Malashenko
The Chang 88 is useless in front of the IS4, and its indestructible armor is Malashenko's greatest confidence in daring to approach the King Tiger head-on.
As for whether the 122 Heirloom can effectively penetrate the tiger king's big face when shooting at close range, to be honest, Malashenko, who is just talking on paper based on the publicly available data of later generations, is still in doubt now, and there is no 100% absolute.
grasp.
But the current reality that the arrow is on the string and has to be fired does not leave Malashenko with other options. Whether it can penetrate the arrow can only be known after trying it.
The final distance has been shortened to within the 300-meter straight line set in Malashenko's heart. Whether one shot can penetrate the front armor of the King Tiger turret depends on this. Iushkin, who received Malashenko's order, has already thought about it without thinking.
Take action and perform the final calibration lock before the roar of the cannon.
"Aim! Remember not to hit the gun mantlet!"
This is the final reminder from Malashenko before he speaks.
"I know, don't rush me! Give me time!"
Iushkin was calm and calm, holding his breath and as always, he didn't like anyone to interrupt and urge him at the last moment before he was looking for the opportunity to fire, even though this was a key detail that Malashenko must explain clearly.
This King Tiger, which was only 300 meters away from Malashenko's command vehicle, had not yet realized that the disaster was coming. From the perspective of Iushkin's gun scope, the deflected turret was indeed not an excellent attack angle.
, obviously aiming at other tanks.
But at this point, there is no other choice. The IS4, which is not known for its mobility, but uses almost invincible armor protection, cannot move sideways to take advantage of its shortcomings and avoid its strengths.
Attacking King Tiger's frontal armor is simply not realistic at the moment.
Seryosha accurately grasped the joystick in both hands and based on his past cooperation experience, he quickly completed the stop on the spot after estimating that Iushkin had roughly aimed for completion.
As Seryosha expected, Iushkin, who was praised by Lavrinenko as "the best gunner in our division", is indeed not a jobber. Iushkin has already mastered the realm of "unity of man and artillery".
, just when Seryosha started to decelerate, he had already completed the rough aiming of the turret direction. The height machine and the steering machine were operated simultaneously, and it was completed in one go.
The 60-ton heavy steel body with the huge inertia of rushing forward on the slippery road could hardly be stopped. The main gun, which was rising and falling with the shaking of the body, would soon be completely horizontal and stationary, leaving Iushkin to be precise.
The aiming time is only such an extremely short period of less than two seconds.
But fortunately, two seconds was enough for Iushkin.
boom--
There was no loud report of the completion of the aim, nor Malashenko's loud shouting order to fire.
Iushkin, who knew what he was supposed to do and who had to believe in himself at critical moments, pulled the firing lever of the main gun at hand at the moment he thought was most appropriate and ignited the cartridge primer.
The violently burning propellant is instantly converted into surging and spreading chemical energy. The high-energy flames in the closed barrel of the gun violently rush out through the barrel against the projectiles squeezed out of the shell. The muzzle is enveloped by violent wind and flames.
Next, it headed straight towards the target with a sound-barrier scream that ripped through the air.
The King Tiger, which was motionless, was still aiming at the target. No one knew whether the King Tiger would choose to fire in the next second, but the current reality was that the King Tiger was in danger at this second.
The shell accurately hit the King Tiger's turret with an incident angle of less than 10 degrees deflection from the left front. Iushkin, who received Malashenko's final reminder, perfectly avoided the King Tiger's pig-nosed gun mantlet and solidified the shell.
It hit the face of the big pie-faced turret armor and it was perfect.
One end smashed into pieces the armor-piercing projectile used to maintain speed and reduce wind resistance. It carried extremely strong kinetic energy. Due to the inclination of the armor itself and the incident angle of the projectile, there was an equivalent homogeneous steel with a thickness of 190 mm on the trajectory path.
Armor is blocking the advance.
But this is obviously not enough to completely resist the 122mm full-caliber hooded armor-piercing projectile that maintains a huge velocity at a firing distance of 300 meters.
The artillery shells did not completely penetrate the armor and penetrate into it as Malashenko expected, but they did not go to waste like the previous IS6 cluster fire. The final result of this accurate shot even made Malashenko.
Kedu was somewhat unexpected.
The extremely large-caliber armor-piercing projectile exhausted its kinetic energy before completely penetrating the armor and entering the vehicle, and got stuck in the severely distorted front armor of the King Tiger turret.
But very fortunately for Malashenko, the front end of the projectile that was directly stuck on the front of the King Tiger turret had actually completely penetrated the armor and penetrated into the turret. It became thicker toward the back.
The rear half of the armor is the culprit that caused the projectile to get stuck in the armor and fail to fully penetrate.
This situation has a special way of describing it in military terminology, and Malashenko also knew that he had rarely encountered it before, just like winning five million in a lottery with a very low probability!
The professional term is semi-penetration. What is the effect of semi-penetration?
Looking at the internal armor fragments that were smashed by the tip of the projectile and pushed away, and the armor-piercing delay fuse was successfully triggered, you can fully know the coming explosion of the warhead with full yield.