Chapter 637: The Dragon of the Ming Dynasty (3rd update, please subscribe)

What is a tank?

He is the king of land. Who is the most powerful king of land warfare in modern times?

It doesn’t matter whether he is a German or a wizard, the eternal god in everyone’s heart must be the tank!

Tanks are steel giants on land. The impact they bring to infantry on the battlefield is unimaginable to ordinary people. When they roar and rush towards infantry, even the most tenacious people will be scared to death. It's like primitive people facing those prehistoric giants.

However, this armored steel behemoth is more lethal and shocking.

However, it is true that tanks are steel behemoths.

This steel behemoth seems extremely ferocious, indestructible and unstoppable, but it needs the advantage in numbers to fully demonstrate its power. Otherwise, it... is just that.

There are only dozens or hundreds of tanks, and even if they are deployed on the battlefield, the effect is just that. At most, it is just a temporary shock.

Why did tanks show their power on the battlefield between the Soviet Union and Germany? Because both countries had a large number of tanks! Maybe the German III had first-class tanks and first-class crews, but what about the Soviet Union? In the end, relying on the advantage of numbers, the German III was completely crushed. When thousands of tanks appeared on the battlefield, all resistance would collapse.

Quantity itself is a kind of quality.

If you want to have a large number of tanks, the tanks must be simple enough, cheap enough, and...

Only in this way can there be sufficient quantities.

That’s right—it’s definitely not the T34 tank.

It's the T60 light tank.

Compared with the T34, this light tank is simply not worth mentioning. It was born in August 1941, one month after the invasion of Japan, and its basic design work was completed in only 15 days!

As a light tank for emergency use, it doesn't even have many special parts, except for the body... Although welding a bunch of steel plates together is quite a test of technology, what is the most technically demanding thing?

Its designers built a tank out of a bunch of off-the-shelf parts - car parts.

What is the biggest feature of the T60 light tank?

This is because it uses a large number of automobile parts. Its engine is a GAZ-5 engine, and its gearbox is also a GAZ-5. In a word, it is basically equivalent to a truck version with a different shell and tracks. As for the tank's road wheels, they are also from a tractor. The T-60 does not even have a radio installed, and internal communications mainly rely on simple light indicators.

Such an emergency and even extremely crude tank became the most likely tank for the Soviet army in the early stages of the war. In the early stages of the war, it was thousands of T60 tanks that supported the Soviet army's front line. The T-60 tank was so important to the Soviet army that Steel personally participated in the testing of the second model of the T-60.

It was such an awesome existence even in World War II, let alone now.

Besides, Ming Dynasty also has its own trucks!

Jiefang trucks are ready-made trucks.

We can completely learn from the idea of ​​the T60 light tank and use the Ming Dynasty's Jiefang truck to make a Ming Dynasty T60!

So under the personal guidance of Emperor Zhu, the Chollima Automobile Company began their tank journey.

I have to say that Soviet engineers are pretty awesome. They took 15 days to develop something that took the Ming Dynasty... two years.

Moreover, compared with the T60 light tank, the Ming Dynasty's tank armor is thinner and has less horsepower. These were fatal flaws on the Eastern Front of World War II, but they do not exist at all for the Ming Dynasty today. On the contrary, the mobility of this light tank is a huge advantage.

It is fast enough, much faster than a horse!

Therefore, after two years of research and development by dozens of technicians from Qianlima Automobile Company.

Finally, in October 1873, the Ming Dynasty finally got the world's first tank - the "Tiger" tank!

The tank was finally born.

"Dragon" tank!

Just like he named the armored vehicle "Tiger" at the beginning, Emperor Zhu directly named it "Dragon".

Now, when this "Dragon" tank, which was only one meter high, roared into the training ground, Emperor Zhu could not help but stand up. The only sound in his ears was the roar of the tank engine.

This is my tank!

“Da…da…da…”

Just then, a burst of crisp machine gun fire was heard on the training ground.

Is that the sound of a Gatling gun?

Why does it sound a little different?

No, it's Gatlin.

However, it is not a Gatling gun with a firing rate of more than 3,000 rounds. According to combat experience in France, machine guns do not need such a fast firing rate.

Even Wang Youling once said, "The sound of machine guns on the battlefield is never the sound of gunfire, but the sound of silver splashing on water!"

There's no other reason, the firing rate of 3,000 rounds is just too expensive.

If you hold the trigger and keep firing, it will cost more than 100 yuan per minute. The speed at which machine guns burn money is absolutely amazing. Moreover, the bullets are consumed so quickly that logistics can't keep up!

So, as soon as they returned from France, the military took the initiative to request a "slowdown".

In the past decade, under the attention of Emperor Zhu, the Ming Dynasty has attached great importance to the Gatling gun, and the Gatling gun now has several improved models. Since the electric motor was combined with the Gatling gun three years ago, no matter how fast the weapon iteration is, the electric Gatling gun has always been the king of the Ming Dynasty.

Even the Gatling guns sold to Britain and France, sorry, are also manual.

Who doesn't keep a few toys at home? Besides, the electric Gatling gun is also a powerful weapon for the Ming Navy to wash the deck! How can such a weapon be shown to others lightly?

However, although the electric Gatling gun is good, its firing speed is too fast!

The "Dragon" tank uses a three-barrel Gatling machine gun that was improved from a 10-barrel Gatling. The number of barrels has been reduced by 7, and the firing rate has been directly reduced to less than 1,000 rounds.

In the past, the Ming military was wary of using Gatling guns because of their huge ammunition consumption. It wasn’t because they were stingy with the money, but because... the logistics couldn’t keep up!

Now that the Gatling gun has been reduced to less than a thousand rounds, it has naturally become the favorite of the military. Although it has various shortcomings, its firing rate of 800-900 is really great!

Especially when used in Africa to quell the rebellion of the natives, the Gatling gun was like the sword of God. Wherever it pointed, there were corpses everywhere!

Compared to the past when the bullet consumption would cost you 3,000 lives per minute, now it’s really good!

After all, ammunition consumption has been reduced by 30%. Don't underestimate this number. After a battle, the ammunition saved is definitely a considerable number.

Therefore, in addition to the "Dragon" light tank, the "Dragon" light self-propelled artillery is also under development.

In fact, it is just a 100mm mortar installed on the basis of the Dragon light tank. This light mortar with a range of four kilometers has always been the favorite of the Ming army.

However, it is unlikely to install other artillery. After all, the "Dragon" tank weighs only 2 tons. With such a weight, it can barely install a small artillery with a caliber of 20 mm.

However, there is no need to install 20mm Gatling guns on tanks at the moment. As for other artillery, Ming Dynasty also has no need for it at the moment. After all, actual combat has proved that machine guns can meet the needs. What's more, when the recoil gun is not mature, it is really technically immature to put cannons on tanks!

However, as an important military product in the second five-year plan, the barrel-recoil rapid-fire gun is still under intensive development. When the artillery technology like "Miss France" matures, the cannon will be mature on the tank.

By that time, of course, we will need tanks with larger tonnage.

Today, the only tank that was reviewed by His Majesty the Emperor was the "Dragon" ultra-light assault tank. Rather than looking like a dragon, it looked more like a spirit. It just drove across the wasteland, constantly firing machine guns at targets in the distance...

(End of this chapter)