Domestic tank development began in 1923. The earliest development started with the introduction of the British "Vickers" light tank. Later, the French Renault FT-17 and the American "Christie" were introduced for imitation.
Due to the development of a single turret tank, it soon reached the forefront of the world in technology.
Limited by domestic engine technology, the earliest Type 28 light tank designed by the Republic of China weighed only 10.8 tons and was equipped with a 37mm cannon with a caliber of 32 times. Although it was larger than the American "Christie" tank of the same period, its firepower and protection
Both are inferior to the T26 light tank equipped by Soviet Russia at the same time.
The Type 28 tank began to be equipped with troops in 1930. It was first used for testing and training armored troops. It uses an improved American "Christie" suspension system. The power unit is a 110-horsepower gasoline engine. The road speed can reach 52 kilometers and the cross-country speed can reach 52 kilometers.
is 37 kilometers.
The Type 28 tank has excellent maneuverability, but its off-road performance is average, and the power problem of the engine greatly limits its passing ability.
Although the emergence of the Type 28 tank was favored by the military, its weak armor and weak firepower made the president dislike it and vetoed the Army's plan to equip it on a large scale.
Initially, only 280 Type 28 tanks and armored vehicles were planned to be produced for the training of the newly formed armored forces. However, due to the sudden "Northeast Incident" in 1931, this type of tanks and armored vehicles began to be equipped with the army on a large scale as emergency equipment. By 1934
In 2007, the Republican Army equipped a total of 4,879 Type 28 tanks and almost as many armored vehicles.
In this way, the Type 28 tank became the first-generation main armored fighting vehicle equipped on a large scale by the Republican Army.
While equipping the Type 28 tanks on a large scale, the General Armament Department issued design standards for the development of a new generation of tanks to the four major domestic tank factories.
In the new design bidding plan, the military proposed that the performance requirements of the new generation of main combat vehicles are: armor thickness is not less than 50 mm, the vehicle weight is 25 tons to 32 tons, and the mobility requirements are 55 kilometers on the road and 55 kilometers on the off-road speed.
40 kilometers, equipped with a new 75mm/L45 cannon.
These performance indicators were almost very demanding for the industrial technology level in 1932, so by the end of 1935, major military industrial enterprises produced qualified prototypes for the new tanks designed in accordance with military requirements.
At the Army Equipment Testing Ground located in the Daqingshan area of Inner Mongolia, accompanied by the roar of the huge diesel engine, between the melting mountains of ice and snow, three huge Type 35C tanks were galloping over the muddy fields, emitting black smoke.
Make some flexible tactical maneuvers.
On one side of the test field, most of the army officers who came to watch the test had satisfied smiles on their faces.
The Type 35C tank is an improved tank redesigned to enhance firepower based on the Type 35A tank that was earlier equipped with the Army. This type of tank has a total combat weight of 37 tons, a length of 8.2 meters, a width of 3.2 meters, and a height of
2.65 meters, 4 passengers, rear engine layout,
Equipped with a 90mm/L56 tank gun improved from the Army's anti-aircraft anti-aircraft gun. It is slightly different from the 35A type in that the turret was changed from the front to the middle of the vehicle body, and a larger caliber turret base with a diameter of 1.8 meters was used.
Quanhe redesigned a larger turret to accommodate an 88mm tank gun.
The armor protection of this vehicle is still welded by rolled armor steel. The front armor thickness of the new turret reaches 120 mm, and its shape is an inclined and curved twelve-sided prism, which has good bulletproof capabilities.
This type of tank uses a 560-horsepower ZZJC-150LV12 diesel engine developed and produced by Zhangjiakou Heavy Machinery Factory as the main power unit. There is also a 12-horsepower electric motor used to drive the turret when the main engine is shut down. It adopts two starting methods: electric starter and air compressor.
method, and is equipped with an electric heating system used in alpine areas. Its walking system has abandoned the one used by the 35A type
The more complex torsion bar suspension system is replaced by a relatively simple semi-torsion bar suspension system based on coil springs, which facilitates its mass production. It is still the same as the 35A type, using 5 pairs of surfaces
The rubber-coated double rim is a large-diameter forged steel road wheel, the driving wheel is rear-driven, and the track is made of 52 cm wide forged alloy steel, which has strong passability.
Zhangjiakou Heavy Machinery Factory was founded when the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway was opened to traffic. Zhan Tianyou, the then General Manager of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway, founded this rolling stock factory. In the early days, it was mainly engaged in the maintenance of railway locomotives of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway Bureau, and then gradually began to manufacture power equipment.
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When Lin Shuo was in charge of the northwest, he carried out large-scale renovation and expansion of the Zhangjiakou Locomotive Factory, making the company an important heavy machinery manufacturer in the north. Its main products include railway locomotives, mining equipment, high-horsepower bulldozers, and large agricultural machinery.
Steam turbines in thermal power plants, large hydroelectric generating units, etc.
Zhangjiakou Heavy Locomotive Factory currently has more than 46,000 employees, including more than 1,600 engineering and technical personnel. In terms of enterprise scale and technical strength, it is actually larger than the main suppliers of northern military armored vehicles, Northern Heavy Industry and Taiyuan.
Heavy industry is bigger.
The 135-horsepower diesel engine equipped with the Zhanggong 135 bulldozer is the most powerful civilian construction machinery in China. What Cheng Hui did not expect was that this factory actually already had the technology to manufacture high-power diesel engines.
In the laboratory of the company's engine factory, he saw for the first time a sample of the ZNC-420E diesel engine with a power of up to 420 horsepower.
"Zhangchai 420 diesel engine is a V-type 12-cylinder liquid-cooled diesel internal combustion engine with a cylinder volume of 3.6 liters and a rated power of 420 horsepower. After installing a new turbine exhaust gas supercharging device, its maximum output power can reach 560 horsepower. It was originally used for
Engine designed for inland shipping, this project is due to
The development of an 820-horsepower diesel engine with larger volume and power ended." Zhang Chai's chief engineer Yang Zhicheng personally explained to Cheng Hui, "This type of diesel engine is small in size and is enough to be assembled on the high-horsepower bulldozers produced by our factory. However,
Due to its excess power and high fuel consumption, it was eventually abandoned by users."
Cheng Hui nodded. Zhang Chai's diesel engine has greater power than the equivalent gasoline engine in terms of thrust-to-weight ratio. It is actually very suitable for use on tanks. However, the military currently uses gasoline engines. Can this be accepted?
It is a big problem. If a diesel engine is used on an armored vehicle, it will undoubtedly increase logistical difficulties. In addition, the black smoke emitted by the diesel engine after starting is a big problem for the concealment of the armored vehicle.
Cheng Hui wrote an evaluation report on this issue and submitted it. This issue was not something he could solve. It was originally a headache for the generals in the General Armament Department.
What he didn't expect was that this report actually received the president's personal instructions: Diesel engines have greater torque, are less likely to be hit and catch fire on the battlefield, and are more suitable as power units for armored vehicles. He ordered the General Armament Department to cooperate with relevant departments.
Start resolving the matter immediately.
The predecessor of Northern Heavy Industry Group is Baotou Heavy Machinery Factory. It was first designed and constructed as more than 30 supporting factories for the Baotou Iron and Steel Factory master plan project founded in 1923. Domestic heavy machinery factories are generally configured with shipyards and steel plants.
Together, this is mainly due to the consideration of saving raw material transportation costs.
Baotou Heavy Machinery Factory initially mainly produced mining machinery and mechanical equipment supporting steel plants. Due to the large-scale construction of railways, highways and water conservancy facilities during the northwest military reclamation period, this heavy machinery factory cooperated with Zhangjiakou Heavy Machinery, Taiyuan Heavy Machinery, Wuhan Heavy Industry, Wuhu Heavy Machinery
Heavy Industry and others became the first major manufacturers of heavy engineering machinery and large agricultural machinery in China, gradually expanded their scale, and later became the largest heavy industry group.
As the two major manufacturing factories of northern crawler tractors and military armored vehicles, Northern Heavy Industry and Taiyuan Heavy Industry have naturally been responsible for the development and production of armored vehicles for the Republic of China.
The news brought by Cheng Hui made Gao Hansheng, the chief designer of the armored vehicle department of Northern Heavy Industries Group, very excited. In view of the gradual trend of tanks in various countries to be equipped with large-caliber artillery and heavy armor, Gao Hansheng said in the BZT-1035 tank
The improvement project adopts a very avant-garde design concept of heavy armor. The thickness of the front armor of the tank reaches an unprecedented 95 mm, and even the rear armor of the vehicle body reaches 60 mm. In addition, the sloped armor concept is adopted, making it
The protective performance has been greatly improved.
The BZT-1035 tank turret is made of welded homogeneous armor steel with 80 mm in the front and 60 mm in the side and rear. In order to improve the maneuverability of the turret and increase the ammunition load, its three-person turret is designed to be much larger than the tank turrets of this era.
However, the heavy armor also made this type of tank pay the price of weight. The total combat weight of the entire vehicle reached 35 tons, exceeding the weight limit required by the military.
The price of being overweight is that it has never been able to find an engine with enough power. The maximum speed of the BZT-1032 tank prototype is only 38 kilometers per hour, which is really far away from the military's 55 kilometers per hour highway speed. Moreover, due to insufficient engine power, the vehicle has a maximum speed of only 38 kilometers per hour.
During walking tests, the tall BZT-1032 tank often suffers from various mechanical failures.
Gao Hansheng had a headache about this. Just when he was frustrated and ready to give up the project, Cheng Hui from the Army Equipment Department brought him good news. This was the ZNC-420E with a power of up to 560 horsepower developed by Zhangjiakou Heavy Machinery.
type diesel engine.
The military's design requirements never seem to raise the issue of using gasoline or diesel engines. It seems that the problem of black smoke from diesel engines is not a big problem for armored forces. Just do it, Gao Hansheng personally went to the assembly workshop
Direct the workers to remove the original gasoline engine and replace it with this new high-horsepower diesel engine.
The mobility performance of the BZT-1032 tank prototype that was replaced with power finally met the requirements of the military. However, during the test, it was found that the new torsion bar suspension system designed was not reliable enough and mechanical failures often occurred. Later, Northern Heavy Industries provided 3 more
A prototype car using the relatively mature "Christie" suspension system.
The BZT-1032 tank eventually won praise from the military for its strong protective performance and firepower, and was eventually recognized by the army as the main equipment of the armored forces, although its 75mm cannon and heavy armor seemed a bit wasteful in this era.
The BZT-1032 tank was officially included in the production plan, which became the most famous Type 35 medium tank in later generations.