Munitions Empire-Chapter 921 - Type 844 Main Battle Tank

Chapter 921: Type 844 Main Battle Tank Chapter 921: Type 844 Main Battle Tank To be frank, the Panther Tank was not the best World War II tank, as it had many drawbacks and was no more famous than its contemporaries.

In terms of fame, the Tiger Tank was clearly superior; in terms of overall performance, it didn’t have a significant advantage over the Sherman or T-34 tanks.

On paper, its performance was slightly better than that of the Sherman and T-34 tanks, but the marginal improvement was entirely offset by its complex manufacturing and costly price.

In fact, it was chosen as Tang Country’s main battle tank because of its balanced performance and comparatively strong armor protection.

Tang Mo placed great importance on the safety of the personnel in the Armored Corps of Tang Country, preferring to lay the problems at the feet of the tank manufacturers and the logistic maintenance troops rather than sending his ace crews to the front line only to be sacrificed in vain.

Thus, the Panther Tank became the main battle tank of Tang Country, turning into a sharp blade in the hands of the Armored Corps during moments of acute external conflicts.

Now, however, the war had ended, and Tang Country had more time to perfect its weaponry, so many of the shortcomings of the Panther Tank were singled out and included in the list of improvements to be made.

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Among the most complained about by soldiers was the Panther Tank’s complex running gear. It was quite troublesome to repair when it malfunctioned at the front line, significantly affecting the efficiency of the Armored Corps in deploying forces.

This feedback clearly showed how a weapon’s flaws were communicated to the leadership: if only the soldiers complained, the issue was unlikely to be resolved.

Only when the middle-level commanders felt that such a weapon affected combat efficiency would the problem be rectified—this approach to resolution seems to be universal among countries.

The dual-row running gear was more prone to failure, and at the same time, the engine’s connecting shaft inside the vehicle’s body also caused the Panther Tank’s body to be abnormally tall, prompting the research and development department to be determined to produce a completely new tank chassis to eliminate all troubles once and for all.

Even though most Panther Tanks were fitted with diesel engines, this was only a temporary improvement. The new Tang Country tank chassis had to be confirmed from the outset to use diesel engines.

Simultaneously, the Panther Tank’s turret began to show many problems, gradually becoming ill-suited to the demands of new combat environments.

The issues were focused on the tank’s turret front shield, which significantly impaired the gun’s elevation and depression speed, increasingly becoming a fatal flaw as technology advanced.

Although the overall gun shield ensured the protection of the turret’s front, the increasingly thick gun shield evidently overwhelmed the gun’s elevation mechanism.

Having to move an entire chunk of the turret front armor up and down was too much for the elevation mechanism, which also started to restrict the thickness of the tank’s frontal armor.

To use thicker armor, it was clear that the outdated design of an integral gun shield had to be abandoned in favor of bolstering the turret’s front protection.

Another reason for dispensing with the heavy gun shield was the arrival of new gun-aiming technologies: Great Tang Group had been continually testing their gun stabilization systems, a mechanical stabilization device that could significantly improve the tank gun’s aiming efficiency.

This thing was essentially a primitive form of a two-axis gun stabilizer, capable of notably reducing aiming time, and even foreseeably allowing firing on the move in the near future.

With such a device, coupled with night vision devices and ballistic computers, tank technology could truly evolve generations ahead, thoroughly leaving other empires’ tanks in the dust.

To implement these new technologies, the entire turret also had to be redesigned. Tang Country’s Panther Tank, which had shone brightly in the Dahua Empire war, now faced the fate of being completely phased out.

Who would have thought that the advanced tank that other countries aspired to but could not obtain, Tang Empire was already contemplating its comprehensive retirement?

In its place, the new tank adopted a revolutionary design: a hemispherical turret, five pairs of road wheels… the most familiar and legendary generation of tanks to Tang Mo.

Yes, the retired Model 59, which remained robust after half a century of service, was endearingly nostalgic—the Model 59!

Huaxia produced over 10,000 Model 59 main battle tanks, making it a truly legendary generation of tanks.

In every respect, the Model 59 main battle tank could be said to be flawless: at that time, it perfectly balanced various performance indicators of a tank, and could be considered a work of art.

Its prototype was the Soviet T54 medium tank, a design concept proven time and again through World War II, unquestionably correct, and a core part of the Soviet steel torrent of the time.

Tang Mo did not plan to directly use the Type 59, because it also had its own weaknesses and shortcomings.

Compared to the Panther Tank, the T-54 had really terrible ergonomics in its design and its low profile was not as comfortable as that of the Panther Tank.

Its running gear comfort could almost be described as rudimentary, with hardly any consideration given to it – this tank was designed purely for expendability.

But Tang Mo knew, or rather he had access to schematics of Western tanks that were extremely poor on this technical level: around the 1950s, the design of Western nations’ tanks were essentially unrestrained, with hardly any worthy of mention.

By contrast, the Type 59 main battle tank appeared much more superior, it was just rough in workmanship due to Soviet industrial influence, making it less comfortable for the crew.

Thus, Tang Mo made a series of improvements to this tank: first, he introduced a more advanced and powerful main gun, using a 105mm caliber for Tang Country’s new main battle tanks.

Additionally, Tang Mo installed a fume extraction system on this main gun, which significantly improved the combat comfort inside the tank for the crew.

The new tank increased the height of the hull slightly to enhance comfort, improve internal space, and allow the crew to fight within the tank for longer periods of time.

At the same time, such improvements also increased the weight of the tank, so the tracks were slightly widened as well.

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The completely redesigned tank hull increased the weight, but approximately 38 tons did not severely impact the tank’s primary combat performance.

The frontal armor thickness of the new tank’s hull was still an impressive 120 millimeters, with equally formidable 80-millimeter armor on both sides of the hull.

The frontal armor of the turret was even more exaggerated, at a full 200 millimeters, offering protection comparable to that of the Tiger Tank.

Inheriting the exaggerated reliability of the Type 59 series, the new tank had a lower failure rate than the Panther Tank and was relatively easier to repair.

The low profile of the Type 59 tank made it lighter than the Panther Tank, even after all-around strengthened protection. Therefore, even with only 520 horsepower from its diesel engine, its speed was still comparable to that of the Panther Tank.

The advantage of the diesel engine was its high torque, making the new tank’s maneuverability theoretically no worse than the Panther Tank. With additional fuel tanks, the Type 59 tank could achieve a maximum range close to 500 kilometers, more than double that of the Panther Tank.

However, the new tank had a gun stabilizer for both elevation and traverse, a rangefinder, and could be fitted with infrared night vision devices, allowing for night-time combat operations.

Another significant progress was that due to the maturing radio communications systems, the Tang Army officially decided to abolish the dedicated role of the electromechanical operator on tanks, reducing the crew size to four.

This reduction could decrease the personnel numbers in the Armored Corps, allowing the formation of more Armored Divisions with fewer people. The discharged radio operators, who all had a certain level of education and most with combat experience, could immediately form new armored units.

Because the electromechanical operator was abolished, the hull machine gun was also removed – this further improved the frontal armor protection of the hull and provided an increase in defensive capabilities.

Although it may not seem like a significant upgrade, the improvements in protective levels would further safeguard the members of Tang Country’s tanks. And the all-new tank design also made it possible to add new equipment later on.

These unseen changes in design philosophy were the real progression: Tang Country’s tanks were gradually breaking away from WWII influences and moving toward Cold War-era tank design philosophies.

Soon, more advanced ballistic calculators, crosswind sensors, laser rangefinders… would all be incorporated into the tanks, truly leaving competitors behind and establishing an absolute technological barrier.

It was even more gratifying that Tang Country’s tanks simplified complexity and returned to a path that allowed large-scale mass production: although the Panther Tank was excellent, the Type 59 was clearly more logistical friendly.

After starting the manufacture of the Type 59 main battle tank’s chassis, the tank factory in Tongcheng immediately fell in love with this brand-new tank chassis.

Compared to the Panther Tank’s dual-row road wheel design, the Type 59 tank’s five-pair road wheel configuration was refreshingly straightforward. Every time the workers at the tank factory saw the new tank’s road wheels, intentionally designed with cutouts to reduce weight, they felt comfortable.

The few logistics troops who had seen the new tanks also breathed a sigh of relief. The nightmare of the Panther Tanks was finally over, and they had less work on their hands: other than shouting long live His Majesty The Emperor, they could not think of any other way to express their inner joy.

The brand-new tank had not yet been equipped with troops on a large scale and was still in the experimental testing phase. However, the production of Panther Tanks was already drastically decreasing, which was quite telling.

If nothing went wrong, the future main battle tank for the Armored Corps of the Great Tang Empire was almost certainly finalized as the model that had long haunted the dreams of His Majesty The Emperor of the Great Tang… the Type 59 main battle tank.