Malashenko, who stood stunned like a scarecrow in a wheat field, never imagined that the latest supply tank Zhukov promised to deliver to him would actually be as rare as diamonds in the T34 family, which is famous for its massive quantities. The world-famous T34-57 medium tank!
Due to Zhukov's blunt remonstrance to Stalin and his strong demands, Stalin's original plan to form a Guards independent tank brigade was abandoned. A total of 42 brand-new T34-57s that had just come off the production line were all loaded onto pallets. , and quickly transported supplies by rail to Malashenko to prepare for the subsequent support battle in Tula.
The funny reality of being forced to fight with these medium-sized tanks in the name of the Guards' first heavy tank breakthrough regiment is no longer important to Malashenko, who is a little confused at this moment.
The important thing is that this precious T34-57 tank, which can be pierced even by the Tiger tank as easily as it can pierce A4 printing paper, is used in the absolute main force of my own army, which has to scrap half of its tanks every time it fights. Will there be some waste?
Compared with Malashenko, who was a little confused and temporarily at a loss, he accompanied Malashenko to come with curiosity to see what those so-called new tanks looked like. They were attracted by these long barrels. Iushkin, who was deeply attracted by the jaw-dropping new T34 tank, was obviously much more active than Malashenko, who was silent at the moment.
"I swear, Comrade Commander, I have never seen a tank with such a long barrel. Even our latest KV85-seater vehicle does not have the barrel length of this guy. This thing looks like a fishing rod. This is incredible!”
Compared with the admiration and surprise of Iushkin next to him, Malashenko, who is well aware of the advantages and disadvantages of t34-57, could not help but frown.
Although the performance of the first batch of T34-57 medium tanks that came off the production line at the end of 1941 was as reliable as ever, the problem lay precisely with this 57mm tank gun with an extra-long 73 times caliber barrel.
The 57mm tank gun, which is capable of penetrating 82mm vertically homogeneous steel armor at a distance of 2,000 meters, has a serious excess penetration, and the unreliable fuze sensitivity problem exacerbates the problem of excess penetration of armor-piercing projectiles.
In the original history, the T34-57's armor penetration depth could directly ignore the defense of even the Tiger tank. Annoying over-penetration problems often occurred when facing the weakly armored German Panzer III and Panzer IV tanks.
After penetrating the armor, the 57mm hooded armor-piercing projectile often failed to detonate the projectile charge smoothly and turned into a pure iron mass, or it penetrated the front armor directly into the engine compartment of the German tank before detonating the charge.
This problem is even more serious when flanking German tanks. In the original history, it even happened that the T34-57 attacked the side armor of the No. 3 tank by bypassing the side. The bad problem of side armor piercing and passing through harmlessly.
The T34-57, whose ultra-high armor penetration value showed no advantage at all when facing the fragile German tanks, had a mediocre performance in the defense of Moscow at the end of 1941 and there was nothing remarkable about it.
It was not until 1942 that the German Tiger tank, which was completely immune to the armor-piercing firepower of the Soviet T3476, appeared. The rather troublesome Soviet army finally remembered the T34-57 medium tank, which had been used by frontline tank soldiers and received many bad reviews, and subsequently
In 1943, the production line was restarted again in an attempt to resume trial production, but it ended in vain due to the proposal to put the T3485 and S plans into production and the extremely high production difficulty of the 57mm tank gun.
To be precise based on the original trend of history, it can be said that the T34-57, which was born at the wrong time, was not suitable for use in armored confrontation operations at the end of 1941. The ultra-high armor-piercing firepower output is currently only the crispy No. 3 and No. 4.
The German armored troops showed no advantage at all. Malashenko, who knew this but had no choice but to make do with it, was helpless.
"Forget it, as the saying goes, some use is better than no use at all, so just make do with it."
Malashenko, who was secretly complaining in his heart, shook his head helplessly and then waved an order, asking the unavailable crews behind him who were waiting on the train platform to go forward and drive the tanks off the platform.
subway.
A large part of these unavailable Red Army tank soldiers who were first assigned by Zhukov to Malashenko's command were Red Army tank soldiers who originally drove KV1 and KV2 heavy tanks.
The Soviet army's poor decline in successive defeats forced these Red Army tank crews, who lacked dexterity and mobility and sufficient fuel, to abandon their vehicles and become ordinary infantry without vehicles.
According to common sense, the Soviet tank crews who voluntarily abandoned their tanks during the battle would find it difficult to obtain higher-weight heavy tanks. At most, they would be thrown into ordinary troops to drive T34 or even completely naked T fast tanks and T26 light tanks.
tank.
After all, those who can abandon a valuable heavy tank once are likely to abandon it a second time. The distrustful attitude based on this principle is the best reason why these abandoned vehicle crews cannot get heavy tanks again.
But the current head-scratching war situation gave these Red Army tank crews who voluntarily abandoned their tanks a second chance. Zhukov, who had no one available, was forced to gather these scattered tank crews with rich combat experience.
It was dispatched to Malashenko's headquarters and used as a supplementary vehicle crew to enter the battle.
Looking at the newly arrived tank crews who were busy going up and down on the flatbed train in front of him, Malashenko raised his hand and glanced at the hands of the watch on his wrist. He immediately turned his head and asked Lavrinenko beside him.
"How's it going? Is there any news from Karamov? He hasn't tinkered with those German guys' Panzer III tanks yet, okay?"
The batch of German Type III J1 tanks captured by Malashenko in the previous battle in the village did not have much use value, but in the current situation where more than half of them were damaged in the battle, there is really no horse-drawn vehicle available.
Schenko then ordered Karamov to repair as many of these German Panzer III tanks that had been severely frozen as possible, and integrate them into his own Guards regiment as supplementary strength.
Hearing the question from Malashenko's mouth, Lavrinenko, who had just come to the platform less than a minute after saying goodbye to Karamov, immediately opened his mouth to answer.
"The situation is not very optimistic. Karamov told me that many of the German Panzer III tanks had frozen oil pipes and even engine cylinders. We do not have suitable spare parts on hand to replace these things."
"Karamov is currently removing parts from those German tanks that are completely hopeless and replacing them with those tanks that can still be repaired. The excess parts that are not used temporarily are directly stored as spare parts, Karamov
Tell me that there are only about ten German tanks that can be incorporated into our regiment in combat condition to replenish the battle losses."