The first systematic large-area inclined armor design idea on the T34 medium tank undoubtedly pioneered a brand-new tank protection design. Regarding this point, just by relying on the large numbers of later generations such as Leopard 2A6, 1 Abrams,
t80\90, and even the appearance of advanced main battle tanks such as our 96b and 99a, you can see the extremely high superiority and undoubted actual combat protection performance of inclined armor.
From the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War to the present, in countless large and small tank battles, the power and reliability of sloped armor protection have been fully realized. Although they are two different medium and heavy tank design bureaus, they work under the same banner.
Some people in the engineering team of the Second Tank Design Bureau under Beijing adhere to the principle of borrowing and directly borrowed the design ideas of the T34 medium tank, which is currently the most successful.
The next prototype vehicle that appeared in front of Lavrinenko in the second position was equipped with a prototype test turret that could almost be seen as an enlarged version of the T3476 tank.
The prototype turret is angular but has rounded edges. It adopts four-sided tilted armor layout for defense. The physical armor thickness of the turret front with the largest tilt angle of up to 60 degrees reaches 60 mm, and can be as high as 120 mm on the horizontal incoming trajectory.
mm of equivalent armor defense.
The armor on the sides and rear of the turret, which has a slightly weaker defensive weight than the front of the turret, is tilted at 35 degrees. The physical armor thickness is also a rolled homogeneous steel plate of 60 mm.
The equivalent armor defense is obviously much better than the previous vertical armored turret, which means that the protective performance of this prototype turret in most combat situations is far superior to the former.
But correspondingly, this type of turret, which adopts the design idea of systematically deploying inclined armor defense over a large area, is far inferior to the turret in terms of human-machine efficiency and the ammunition capacity of the first ammunition rack built into the turret.
former.
The internal movement space of the turret, which is only slightly larger than the T3476 turret, requires an extra commander to squeeze in three large men. The capacity of the first ammunition rack built into the turret, which has been forcibly compressed, is only
A pitiful 8 rounds, and this is based on the situation where the loader needs to turn around and go to the rear end of the turret to extract the shell with difficulty, and then turn around and perform poor loading.
Lavrinenko, who could imagine how "beautiful" that picture would be just by relying on his imagination, looked at the 85mm main gun, which was more than one circle larger than the 76 gun, with the huge breech pressed against his ear.
The scene where the gun is fired is really too hard to accept.
"Isn't there a slightly more balanced design? Why are there such extreme turret shapes?"
Lavrinenko, who was extremely upset, rejected the second prototype car and then moved towards the third one. At the same time, Marashin had already arrived in the car and was ready in their respective combat positions.
The car team is working hard to familiarize themselves with all aspects of their future new car.
"Oh, look at this joystick and pedals, Nikolai, I can swear to Comrade Lenin that this is definitely the best driving equipment I have ever used! There is no oil stain or old mark at all. It just looks like it.
It’s very exciting, this is simply a surprise gift!”
From the corner of his eye, he glanced at Seryosha who was too excited in the driver's seat next to him. Nikolai, the electromechanical engineer who was sitting in the co-pilot position of the chassis and was fiddling with the heading machine gun in his hand, then said with disdain.
.
"That's what I remember you saying last time when we took over the new car in Yelniya. Can't you change the line?"
After hearing Nikolai's words beside him, the driver Seryosha couldn't help but stop what he was doing and was stunned for a moment. Then he blurted out words that were obviously unexpected.
"How can this be compared to before? I guarantee this time it will be really different!"
"Yes, you said that last time."
""
Turning a deaf ear to the bickering between the two people in the chassis of the car, Malashenko wiped the slightly dusty periscope with a new rag and then spoke uncontrollably.
"Can you still get used to the new main gun sight? When the car first arrived, I took a quick look and found that the gun sight scale was completely different from the original one. It is best not to use this 85 gun as the original 76 gun.
"
Hearing Malashenko's words ringing in his ears, the gunner Iushkin, who was leaning forward next to the gun breech and checking the main gun sight, immediately responded.
"It's barely possible, it's not too difficult. The density scale is just a little denser than before. There's no reason why replacing it with a better main gun won't give it its due combat effectiveness. I'll let those German fascists see this
What is the Red Army's iron fist? Comrade commander, just don't worry."
Malashenko, who had expected Iushkin's answer, was not too surprised. After wiping the commander's periscope in front of him, he threw the rag in the storage box aside and turned around.
Malashenko then asked Kirill, who was inspecting the first ammunition rack built into the turret behind him.
"How is it? Is it much better than the original car?"
"Not only is it much better, Comrade Commander! It's hard to imagine that the ammunition rack capacity can be continued to be increased when the shells are expanded from 76 mm to 85 mm. This new turret is simply great! The total number of the first ammunition rack
The ammunition reserve is a full 20 rounds! This is a full 15 rounds more than the original car! This will avoid many situations of carrying artillery shells in the chassis of the car during a long-term battle. I think this will be beneficial to our battle.
The reloading speed will help a lot!”
Just like what the slightly excited loader Kirill said at this moment.
The interior of the new turret, which was commonly used on the later Stalin 12 heavy tanks, is not a little bigger than the original KV1 heavy tank turret. Even 122mm sub-loaded warheads can be filled to the brim with a pile of 85mm in the first ammunition rack of the turret.
Custom-installed integrated artillery shells are of course a piece of cake.
In previous protracted battles on the front line, we have been troubled by insufficient capacity of the first ammunition rack. Once all 10 rounds of the first ammunition rack in the turret of the original KV1 heavy tank are used up, we have to keep bending down like the original T34 tank.
Kirill, who had to go back and forth between the chassis and the turret to carry the shells and reload them, was already miserable.
This kind of front-line protracted battle, where forty or fifty guns are fired at every turn, is commonplace after a battle. For the Red Army tank loaders, it is undoubtedly a hundred times more exciting than any later gymnasium. Even those arms are better than those of girls.
Even the loader, a big Slavic man with thick legs, could not withstand this extremely tiring work. For Kirill, who was studying at the Music Department of Moscow State University a few months ago, it was like training from the devil in hell.