Imperial Overlord

"Attention! You are the first crew to drive this kind of tank. Everyone must understand the performance characteristics of the tank itself! Feel it! Do you understand? Feel it with your body!" Standing next to the tank, a technician from the factory The engineer was shouting loudly.

Beside him, a Panther No. 5 tank is slowly advancing, the torsion bar is suspended on the undulating road in the training area, and the driver of the tank is carefully manipulating this big guy that Germany has never seen before.

The Panther tank weighs 41 tons, ten tons more than the Panzer 4. Controlling such a tank requires skill, but it is much more difficult than driving a truck.

Wittmann, who was sitting on the commander's seat in the turret, hadn't figured out why he had become the sergeant major and the commander of this Panther tank so inexplicably.

His body swayed with the tank on the artificially built bumpy road, feeling the vibration of the tank.

The six pairs of road wheels in the medium size are combined with the torsion bar suspension commonly used in modern tanks, so that the stability of the new tank is slightly smoother than that of No. 3 and No. 4 when it is off-road.

But Wittmann didn't feel comfortable, because all the seats in the tank were made of wooden boards, and there was no shock absorption function at all.

It's like sitting on a hard spring, and the constant vibration gives people a sour feeling that relaxes the muscles and activates the blood.

In order to alleviate this problem, everyone piles some clothes and other things on the seats and uses them as cushions. The most popular is the winter cotton coat, the effect is very good.

Anyway, inside the sweltering tank, the crew members will not feel the cold, so the cotton-padded coats distributed become the seat cushions of course.

"There is an obstacle ahead! You were stuck in that place yesterday! Be careful this time!" Wittmann pressed the throat communicator on the tank and reminded his driver.

"I know! I know! Heck! Don't interfere with me!" The driver manipulated the tank's gearbox and adjusted the gear down a position.

Downshifting, adding torque, he wanted to make his tank more powerful so he could dash up that concrete pier, over this seemingly uncomplicated obstacle.

During yesterday's training, at least half of the tank crew was finally blocked by this concrete pier, which everyone affectionately called "Roadmaster".

Yesterday, this Roadhog simulated what the enemy can do with a blocking force of about a thousand people. It successfully forced more than 20 tanks to stop.

The track of the "Dang Clap Dang Clap" tank made a metallic sound as it collided and rubbed with continuous circulation. After the Panther tank slowed down, the front guide wheel finally hit the concrete pier.

In fact, the cement pier is not high, but everyone just got a new tank, and they are not familiar with the operation and performance of the tank, so the problem of being stuck by the cement pier appeared.

"Accelerate! Accelerate! We're going to rush over!" Wittmann felt that his tank had slowed down, and reminded his driver.

"Shut up! I'm adjusting! Don't interfere with me!" The driver pulled the gear lever on the gearbox again, and the front end of the Panther tank began to rise slowly.

Before he was ready, Wittmann felt his body begin to lean back. He reached out and grabbed the "handrail" of the rope on one side to stabilize his body.

Although this handrail looks a bit shabby, the effect is still acceptable, similar to the function of the steel handrail, and it does not make Wittmann feel uncomfortable.

"I knew you could do it!" Wittmann shouted loudly to the driver through the intercom while feeling that his tank had been raised to a considerable angle.

The driver didn't make a sound. It seemed that he was driving his tank with all his attention, and he had no time to pay attention to Wittman's ridicule.

You know, Wittmann is an old driver. Before he went to Poland to participate in the war, he drove an armored vehicle. In fact, he was an armored soldier who was a driver.

With such an experience, it is not difficult to understand why Wittmann likes to ridicule his driver so much. Old drivers have a bad habit, that is, when sitting in the co-pilot, they will often "kindly" remind them that they are driving. the driver of...

Of course, this is actually a bad habit, or at least one that shouldn't be encouraged. Wittmann is trying to correct his own problems, because he also knows it is not good to do so.

Why does he realize this problem? Because in the afternoon he was going to attend the command teaching course of the tank commander alone.

This course is taught by true tank tacticians and battle-hardened tank commanders.

The tactical system of German tanks is very dependent on the command of the commander, so in general combat situations, the commander does not have time to waste saliva with his driver.

Before Wittmann could return to reality from his memories, the tank he was in drove past the concrete pier because of its center of gravity, and the front of the car suddenly fell from the sky.

As if on a roller coaster, Wittmann quickly turned from leaning back to leaning forward.

He pulled hard into the rope handrail beside him, and nearly hit his face on the front-view periscope of the commander in front of him.

Fortunately, when he was fighting in front of him, there should be a gunner who controls the artillery, otherwise there really isn't that much space for him to move back and forth.

Because the front of the car is quite heavy, and the two upper and lower protective steel plates with a thickness of 100 mm are not light, so the way this tank changes its front up is very rough.

With a muffled sound, the front of the tank's tracks fell back to the ground again, hitting a piece of dust. And this Leopard tank actually maintained its forward state and continued to drive forward.

"Oh! Yay!" the tank driver, a 21-year-old named Duke, yelled in his headphones.

Originally, Li Le hoped to really gather the dream Tiger tank crew for Wittmann, but unfortunately, three people in the crew were only 16 years old in 1940...

Therefore, Wittmann's current driver is not named Ramel, but replaced by this sergeant named Duke.

"What a good baby! I love you! Darling!" While praising his tank, the driver Duke followed the route and began to adjust the direction of his tank.

He kept the joystick on one side still, then pushed the joystick on the other side to move the tank along a prescribed course.

There is a slight difference in the speed of the crawler on both sides, so in the process of driving, it no longer walks in a straight line, and soon turns the head in the prescribed direction.

"Very good! Park! Park!" After driving to the corresponding parking space, the engineering and technical personnel who had been waiting there for a long time instructed the Panther tank to stop at the corresponding position.

"How do you feel?" When Wittman climbed out of the tank and jumped to the ground, a few engineers walked up to him with a statistics book and began to ask.

"It's quite a lot of power... It's really fun to cross obstacles." Wittmann looked at the tank beside him and replied.

"The armrest on the left needs to be adapted. When you grab it, you will be frightened by the soft feeling, and you will subconsciously think that you have not grabbed the armrest." Then, he mentioned a situation he encountered just now and gave it to the other party as an opinion.

The two staff members are quickly recording the improvement plans that Wittmann provided to them. The Panther tank is still in the stage of modification and production, and any usage advice is very valuable.

Because it is fundamentally different from the German tanks in the past, the Panther No. 5 tank and the Stalker tank destroyer have a more advanced overall thinking mode.

This weapon has created a new era of German industrial products, and it can be regarded as a new model of military production in this time and space.

As a qualified weapon system, these two weapons began to think about the problem from design to manufacture, and then to use and perfect a series of links, rather than just developing for users.

The weapon thus born is a product of a comprehensive balance, including the compromise of raw materials, the production of industrial organizations, transportation and maintenance, and the combat use of front-line troops.

"Hello! Sergeant Major Wittmann! Nice to meet you!" A soldier with a simple luggage walked in, burly looking like a bear.

He stood there angrily, gave Wittmann a military salute, and then introduced himself: "My name is Homan, and I'm your loader!"

"Hello!" Wittman smiled and returned a casual military salute, and then asked, "Have you served in a tank unit before?"

"I worked as a loader on the No. 4 tank for 5 months~www.wuxiaspot.com~ participated in the French campaign." Homann answered Wittmann's question.

Wittmann nodded. He knew that most of the people who could come to this secret base outside Berlin for training were elites with actual combat experience.

At least in his opinion, the commanders and drivers of the tanks that are still passing through obstacles in the distance are equally powerful characters.

Many of them participated in the Polish war, and some even participated in the military operation to annex Czechoslovakia in the early days.

These sergeants are all battle-hardened, and they are here to learn how to use the latest Panther tanks to fight, efficiently kill enemy tanks, and tear down enemy defenses.

"Then, let's get here first today." The two engineers and technicians who were in charge of recording the improvement proposals smiled and nodded to Wittmann, then turned and left.

Wittman glanced at Homan next to him, and then instructed Duke, who had just jumped off the tank behind him, "Duke! Take our loader to his dormitory."