Steel Soviet Union

"Luck is also a part of strength." Such words can be used to describe the 88mm armor-piercing round that Malashenko's car just hit.

In actual combat, in most combat situations, the incident angle relationship between the armor-piercing projectile and the armor being hit is unlikely to be the ideal 90-degree vertical incident angle.

The location of the attacker who fired the armor-piercing projectile, whether the tank hit by the armor-piercing projectile faced the enemy with pure frontal armor, and what is the final equivalent armor defense thickness obtained by calculating the angle of entry of the tank's own tilted armor.

Any seemingly insignificant factor will cause the balance of judgment between failure to penetrate and successful penetration to swing left and right, and for this improved prototype KV1 heavy tank commanded by Malashenko, it is exactly these. After all the small and inconspicuous factors were taken into account, the car finally escaped from the German 88-gun fire at a distance of less than 100 meters.

From the perspective of the German launcher of the 88mm armor-piercing projectile just now, Malashenko's car, which was marked as the target, was roughly in the one o'clock direction of its location, less than a hundred meters away.

At this time, the direction of the car body that Malashenko's car was pointing was not directly facing the German 88mm anti-aircraft gun, but with a small half of the side projection area of ​​the car body that was "like holding a pipa half-covering the face". The projection area of ​​half the front of the car body is increased, and it appears within the field of vision of the German 88 gun gunner.

Under this relatively special target directivity situation, the German 88 gunner, who has rich experience in anti-armor combat, naturally filtered out only a small half of the projected area. The incident angle was extremely small and there was a high probability of it. The side armor part of Malashenko's vehicle that caused the ricochet, and then chose the front armor on the front of the vehicle with a larger projection area in his eyes for direct aim.

But this German 88 gun gunner never expected that the layer of external armor attached to the front armor of Malashenko's vehicle was not a thin layer of iron, but a solid layer of 25 mm Physical thickness cut homogeneous steel armor.

This layer of 25mm additional armor, together with the 75mm front armor of the KV1 heavy tank itself, is made of welded external plug-ins. The integrated defense capability it can provide has reached a physical armor thickness of 100mm, plus 31 degrees The equivalent armor defense bonus brought by the inclination of the armor on the front of the vehicle body.

The frontal defense of Malashenko's improved KV1 prototype can be said to have completely exceeded the German Tiger tank that had not yet been born at this time.

Under such premise, from the perspective of the German army, the 88mm armor-piercing projectile accurately hit the upper armor plate of Malashenko's vehicle body with a firing direction of one o'clock. Its angle of incidence was really quite large. Bad.

The 88mm armor-piercing projectile that shot into Malashenko's vehicle diagonally from the one o'clock direction hit the armor plate on the front of the vehicle that did not reveal the full projected area of ​​​​the front of the vehicle. The included angle is located behind the upper part of the car body, which is tilted at 31 degrees and has a physical thickness of 100 mm.

The equivalent armor defense thickness faced by its ballistic advance route has exceeded 140 mm. After a certain loss of velocity kinetic energy caused by the positive effect of the cap, the 88 mm armor-piercing projectile can be said to be able to face such an iron king eight-level defense. Already powerless.

After leaving a deep crater that penetrated the 25 mm thick additional armor but failed to penetrate the subsequent 75 mm armor of the car body itself, the entire armor-piercing power of this 88 mm armor-piercing projectile ultimately stopped here.

After completely recovering from the huge sound of the 88mm armor-piercing projectile hitting the front armor of the vehicle without penetrating it, Malashenko immediately returned to his normal state after confirming that all members of his crew were safe.

"Seryozha, start! The target is the German position. Cover the infantry behind and continue to advance in the second gear."

"Everyone else is at their place, the mission remains the same! Kirill loads the high-explosive bomb, and Iushkin is ready to tear a hole in the German position!"

Just when the German troops in the position after losing a precious 88 gun, felt a little sad that they had finally destroyed another Soviet heavy tank and felt a little lucky.

Due to the huge impact that was almost penetrating when the 88mm armor-piercing projectile hit, the crew members briefly lost consciousness and stopped suddenly. However, Malashenko's car started again at the moment, and the vigorous and The black diesel exhaust and the rattling sound of the tracks running over the soil looked like monsters to the German soldiers.

"Oh God! Isn't it possible that even the 88-gun can defeat this monster tank? What should we do now?"

For infantry professional position defense German soldiers, not all of them understand the concepts of incident angle and equivalent defensive armor. The only fact that he could see in his eyes was that the Ares 88 cannon that his side relied on was unable to stop this monster-like heavy tank of the Soviet army at such a close distance!

For a considerable number of German soldiers who witnessed this scene with their own eyes, this was a huge psychological impact that crushed the life-saving straw.

Faced with such a terrifying scene, not all German soldiers fell into panic and temporary helplessness. Some German soldiers, whose helmets and collar badges were marked with the SS lightning symbol, were horribly calm after seeing this scene, as if they had turned a blind eye.

"If Ivan's tank cannot be destroyed, then your courage must not be close enough to its position!"

When nearly thirty Soviet KV1 heavy tanks were lined up in a row, they used their unstoppable momentum to destroy several German 88-guns that tried to block their advance at a relatively heavy cost, and finally ran over the second German line of defense with roaring engines. At the time of the first infantry trenches in the defensive position.

Dozens of SS soldiers, who were silently reciting the pre-battle instructions from Imperial Division Commander Hausser, immediately took out the cluster grenades they had prepared and rushed to the top of their heads with an almost crazy but extremely calm attitude. Next to the Soviet heavy tank that was rumbling over. With courage that was comparable to stuffing his arm into a roaring meat grinder, he instantly raised his hand and stuffed the seven-piece M24 long-handled cluster grenade that was smoking into the tracks of the Soviet heavy tank.

By the time the Soviet infantry following their own heavy tanks realized the Germans' intentions, it was too late, although the vast majority of the SS Reich Division soldiers who were on assault missions were killed the moment after completing their missions. The Soviet infantry that followed were instantly riddled with bullet holes and killed on the spot, but the smoking M24 cluster grenades were undoubtedly stuffed into the tracks of the KV1 heavy tank.