Steel Soviet Union

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 a diamond in the T34 family, which is famous for its massive quantity. The most famous T34-57 medium tank in the world!

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 in preparation for the subsequent Tula support battle.

The funny reality of being forced to fight with these medium tanks in the name of the Guards' first heavy tank breakthrough regiment is no longer important to Malashenko, who is a little confused at the moment.

The important thing is that this kind of Tiger tank can be used by the precious T34-57 tank, which can be used in the absolute main force of our own army, which will scrap half of the tanks every time it fights, just like piercing A4 printing paper. Will there be some waste in it?

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 in front of them. 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 this guy's barrel length. 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, whose armor penetration was so deep that even the Tiger tank could directly ignore the defense, would often suffer from annoying over-penetration problems 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 attacking German tanks from the side. In the original history, it even happened that the T34-57 attacked the side armor of the Panzer III 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 German crispy 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 negative reviews, and subsequently In 1943, the production line was restarted again in an attempt to resume trial production and mass production, but it ended in vain due to the proposal to put the T3485 and IS 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 his order, asking the unavailable crews behind him who were waiting on the train platform to go forward and drive these tanks off. Flatbed rail car.

A large part of these unavailable Red Army tank soldiers who were first assigned by Zhukov to Malashenko's headquarters 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 actively 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 BT fast tanks and T26 light tanks. tank.

After all, those who can abandon valuable heavy tanks once are likely to abandon them a second time. The distrustful attitude based on this principle is the best reason why these abandoning crews cannot get heavy tanks again.

But the current head-scratching war situation gave the Red Army tank crews who had voluntarily abandoned their tanks a second chance. Zhukov, who had no one available, was forced to gather these scattered tanks 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 the Germans' Panzer III tank yet, okay?"

The batch of German Type III J1 tanks captured by Malashenko in the previous village battle 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 severely frozen German Panzer III tanks as possible, and integrate them into his own Guards regiment as supplementary strength.

Hearing Malashenko's question, Lavrinenko, who had just been on the platform for less than a minute after saying goodbye to Karamov, immediately answered.

"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 He told me that only about ten German tanks can be incorporated into our regiment in combat condition to replenish the battle losses."