The attacking Dahua army has not yet fully formed its formation. According to their experience, there is a distance of about 1,000 meters to 500 meters before hitting the enemy's defense.
This distance is the normal combat distance. At this distance, the hit rate of the tank gun can be greatly improved.
But this time, they were stunned by a sudden artillery shell when they were about 1,500 meters away from the village.
The shell penetrated the front armor of the Dahua 1 tank with great force, penetrated the entire turret of the tank, and then cut an infantryman into two pieces.
Yes, in full view of the public, the unlucky soldier was hit directly by the shell that penetrated the armor and changed its path. The huge impact directly split him into two parts, with his two legs staying in place and his upper body flying away. It's a long way out.
Everyone was stunned for a moment. Officer Dahua, who was still supervising the troops and telling his men that they were about to enter the enemy's attack range, looked at the wreckage of the tank paralyzed in place with wide eyes, and for a moment he forgot about himself. What to say.
You must know that tanks of this era, including the No. 4 tanks heavily equipped by the Tang Army, all used short-barreled tank guns with low bore pressure.
Low chamber pressure has the advantage of low chamber pressure. The recoil of the gun is small, and the tank does not need to be too heavy. The tank turret does not need too high structural strength.
However, such artillery is not without its shortcomings. The shells of such artillery are small and have an average range. The most important thing is that its trajectory is curved.
The curved trajectory is not conducive to long-distance firing attacks, and the requirements for sights are also higher, so even the Tang Army's No. 4 tank can only fire at a distance of 500 to 1,000 meters to ensure hit accuracy.
But the Leopard tank's high-bore pressure, long-barreled 75mm tank gun is completely different: it has high bore pressure and a straight trajectory, so its hit accuracy at long distances is much higher than that of the No. 4 tank.
This change is enough to support the Tang Kingdom's tank troops to fire calmly at a combat distance of more than 1,000 meters, attacking Dahua tanks that have little armor defense at all.
Frankly speaking, the tanks of the Dahua Empire are not without improvement. When they were first born, their armor was basically at the level of the Japanese Type 97 tanks during World War II.
In other words, its actual protection capability is slightly weaker than that of the No. 4 tank, and its sides and rear can only withstand attacks from 12.7 mm caliber machine guns.
However, in actual use, the Dahua Armored Forces still reported the problem of insufficient armor protection of this tank, so many improvements were made to this tank in the future.
The biggest improvement is to imitate the tanks of the Tang Army, welding some steel plates on both sides of the tank, and adding thick armor to the front.
This improved type is called the Dahua Type 2 tank, but in fact it is the Type 1 tank. The internal structure is exactly the same, except that the armor at the front is 30 mm thicker.
This improvement allows this Dahua 2 tank to barely have the ability to withstand the artillery of the No. 4 tank at a distance of 1,000 meters.
Therefore, in addition to the more than 3,000 Dahua 1 tanks that were initially widely equipped, more than 1,000 of this Dahua 2 tank were also gradually equipped.
The problem is that although the armor thickness is an important indicator of a tank's defensive power, the quality of the armor itself is also equally crucial.
For example, the T-34 and IS-2 tanks from the World War II era had pretty good data on paper, but the results in actual combat were often unsatisfactory.
In the German combat records, tank commanders or commanders often mentioned that these Soviet tanks, which were not poorly armored, could be destroyed at a long distance.
The reason is actually that the pursuit of production quantity ignores the intuitive results of armor quality: the cast turret of the Soviet tank should have been better, but the result was a very poor defense level due to the presence of a large number of bubbles.
Being able to produce such a large number of tanks in a short period of time is one aspect of the Dahua Empire's industrial capabilities, and the overall quality of the tanks is generally another reason for its fast production speed.
Therefore, at a distance of 1,500 meters, the Tang Army's new tanks can easily penetrate the Dahua Type 2 tanks, or the Dahua Type 1 tanks with strengthened armor.
"Accelerate! Accelerate!" Because they were not close to the common fighting distance, the tank commanders of the Dahua Empire had not yet gotten into their tanks. This gave them a good view of the destroyed tank. For a moment, all the tank commanders were shouting to ask their tanks to increase their speed.
If you continue to advance unhurriedly, you will only become a living target for the enemy. Still not knowing why the enemy could fire at such a long distance, the unprepared commanders of the Dahua Armored Force had to use their most skilled traditional skill: "acceleration".
This is the only magic weapon for their attack. Because the tank sighting system of the Dahua Empire is extremely backward, their normal combat distance is only about two hundred meters, which seriously restricts the Dahua tanks from exerting their firepower advantage.
To put it bluntly, it is actually the 90mm caliber cannon that they worked so hard to equip with tanks. In fact, the little performance that was ahead of the Tang Army's short-barreled 75mm tank gun was wasted by the garbage sighting system. .
Soon, these Dahua tanks that were not ready for battle began to accelerate. Just as they started to charge desperately, another artillery shell hit them head-on, once again penetrating a Dahua tank. body.
The gasoline burned fiercely, and the Dahua tank crewmen in the tank were engulfed in the burning flames before they had time to get out of their tanks.
A Dahua tank passed by the wreckage of the tank. The hot flames caused the Dahua soldiers following behind to get out of the way.
Thick smoke that covered the sky was billowing continuously. On the tank turret behind, the commanders of the Dahua Empire, who had half their body stretched out, looked nervously at their burnt companions, their cheeks flushed by the flames.
People always arrive at the same destination through different routes because of their habits. After tanks are used on a large scale, it is quite common for the tank commander to stick his head out. It is also quite common among the tank troops of the Great China Empire.
Because of poor visibility and almost no communication, the tank commanders of the Dahua Empire are more accustomed to leaning out to direct the battle. This is not the exclusive possession of Tang Army tank commanders, but tank commanders all over the world do this.
The Dahua troops who still hadn't found out who was attacking them wanted to pass through the wilderness quickly, but they soon ran into trouble.
Two Stuka dive bombers rushed to the battlefield and began strafing the ground. Such an attack was simply fatal to the Dahua army, and soon they were in disarray.
As a 500-kilogram aerial bomb exploded in the open space, the Dahua army's attack was severely frustrated. The remaining tanks began to reverse, and the infantry seemed to be planning to retreat.
But soon, this retreat was stopped. More tanks of the Dahua Army pressed up. The death order given by them was: "No retreat."
At least thirty tanks continued to advance closer to the village under thick smoke that obscured their view. The grenadiers of the Tang Army defending the village opened fire first, and a sniper shot off the hat of a lucky Dahua tank commander.
The frightened commander quickly got back into the turret, and at this time, another Dahua tank was knocked off the turret by an incoming shell.
At this time, many Dahua Empire tanks had discovered the enemy in front of them: because the smoke from the muzzle was getting thicker and thicker, the hiding place of Liu Guozhu's Leopard tank was found.
In fact, he had to move his position - more and more muzzle exhaust was beginning to affect his commander's aim.
Given the choice between reversing and moving forward, Liu Guozhu chose to move forward! It's an adventure, but one with relative advantages. If he chose to reverse, he would have to back out at least far enough to avoid the muzzle smoke in front of him.
In addition, the smoke from the engine exhaust pipe behind the car body will also be swept to the front of the tank, which also needs to be considered.
It's different when moving forward. He will throw the exhaust and muzzle smoke behind him, and he can continue to fire immediately as long as he stops.
Therefore, his Panther tank rushed out of the reverse slope, smashed through the bushes in front of it, and exposed its distinctive body to the sight of all the Dahua troops.
At the same time, the Panther tank that had just stopped spewed out a puff of smoke again, and shot away the approaching Dahua tank in the distance.
It really blew up! The power of the shell was so severe that one shot penetrated the entire body of the vehicle and even caused the advancing tank to stop immediately.
Immediately afterwards, the Dahua tank exploded, and the tragic explosion affected the Dahua Empire infantry nearby, forcing the surrounding Dahua tanks to take cover.
In fact, the shock that this shot brought to the Dahua Empire tank commanders was far less huge than when the Panther tank broke through the bushes and revealed its true appearance.
Although because of the camouflage, the tank commanders of the Dahua Empire had no way to immediately identify the car body that they had never seen before, with a smooth and neat sloping armored front.
But they clearly realized at the first moment that this was a new type of tank of the Tang Army that they had never seen before! At this time, their eyes widened involuntarily.
"That's not the Tang Army's No. 4 tank!" a Dahua commander blurted out after reacting. As he shouted, the enemy tank spewed out another ball of flames, and the shells roared in and hit accurately. Got a Dahua tank.
Because he was attacking an oncoming enemy tank that was almost stationary, the veteran gunner of Liu Guozhu's crew had an astonishingly high hit rate. After all... he sacrificed his own unique hatch in exchange for what he saw in front of him. A more accurate sight with 5x magnification.
Of course, there is also the 75mm long-barreled tank gun that he loves so much!
(End of chapter)
