The decisive battle against the Third Reich

"Cannonball?!" Conrad shook his head.

Although Qin Chuan's suggestions have always been constructive, such as rocket launchers, ME163, etc., this time... Conrad believed that Qin Chuan was simply a layman on tanks.

Because the German military industry has studied various artillery shells, and even played with them over and over, but in the end they failed to play any tricks.

"Yes, artillery shells!" Qin Chuan explained while drawing on the paper: "This kind of artillery shell is fired from a smoothbore cannon. Its body is in the shape of a slender rod. We know...the artillery shell is only affected by Due to the effects of gravity and air resistance, the slender rod shape can minimize its resistance, and firing it with a smoothbore cannon can increase its initial velocity so that it can gain as much kinetic energy as possible. At the same time, because the warhead is sharp and has a small force area, so It has great penetrating power when hitting tank armor!”

Hearing this, Conrad immediately showed a cautious look on his face, because Qin Chuan's simple words had proved that he knew nothing about tanks or at least artillery shells.

Conrad glanced at Qin Chuan in surprise, and then said to the drawing: "But such a slender rod-shaped shell...how can we use artillery to launch it?"

"We can make a bullet holder for it!" Qin Chuan replied: "The bullet holder is divided into two halves, the size is consistent with the caliber of the artillery, and the long projectile body is sandwiched in the middle. Due to air resistance after launch, the bullet holder It will automatically separate from the long rod projectile!”

Conrad's eyes lit up when he heard: "Lieutenant Colonel, but a long-rod projectile like this cannot maintain its own stability during flight..."

Before Conrad could finish speaking, Qin Chuan added a few more strokes to the body of the long-rod projectile and said, "This is simple, we can add four cross tail fins to it!"

This kind of armor-piercing projectile will shed its shell and can fly stably in the air with its tail fin, so it is called tail-stabilized shelling and sabot-piercing projectile.

Conrad couldn't help but be stunned when he looked at the drawings on the paper. He sometimes looked up at Qin Chuan and sometimes looked at the drawings. He said in disbelief: "Lieutenant Colonel, are you sure such a shell can work?"

"Why don't you give it a try?" Qin Chuan said.

"In principle... it seems feasible!" Conrad nodded as he looked at it: "Why didn't we think of using this method? It's like an arrow, Lieutenant Colonel... you made the cannonball An arrow, but this arrow is an iron arrow, and it is fired from a cannon. It will shoot at the enemy tank and then punch a hole in the tank armor..."

Then Conrad turned his attention to the sharp arrow and continued: "It is conceivable that after the smoothbore cannon launches it, all the kinetic energy will be applied to the arrow, and its ability to penetrate the armor of enemy tanks will be ineffective. Lumby!”

Conrad is right. Modern fin-stabilized discarding sabots can penetrate hundreds of millimeters casually. Modern German 120MM tank guns can also penetrate 600MM of homogeneous armor at a distance of 2 kilometers.

At this time, the front armor of the "Tiger" was only 102MM, and even the heaviest "Maus" had only 240MM of armor. These armor thicknesses were scum under the "tail-stabilized discarding sabot".

"This kind of cannonball needs a very hard material, right?" Conrad asked.

"Yes!" Qin Chuan replied: "Of course, and because it penetrates the target armor at an extremely high speed, it must be able to withstand high temperatures!"

"Tungsten core armor-piercing bullet!" Conrad replied.

This is technically not difficult for Germany at all, because German tanks are generally equipped with tungsten-core armor-piercing projectiles. As mentioned before, the HS129 fighter jet is specially developed for enemy tanks...in order to improve the penetration of its anti-tank guns. It is penetrating and equipped with tungsten core armor-piercing bullets.

The problem is that tungsten is a mineral in short supply in Germany. Coupled with the Allied blockade, Germany cannot obtain much tungsten, mainly imported from Spain.

"But!" Conrad said, "If it really works, it's worth it!"

Of course it is worth it, an armor-piercing projectile that can penetrate any enemy tank, and has a long range and extremely high accuracy... This allows German tanks to destroy almost all opponents.

Finally, Colonel Conrad sighed and said: "You have convinced me, Lieutenant Colonel. If this shell... can easily penetrate hundreds of millimeters of armor, then there is really no point in developing tanks with thicker armor. , because they will be like what we said before: under its attack, there will be no difference between thickly armored heavy tanks and thinly armored light tanks!”

"That's what I want to say!" Qin Chuan said, "So..."

"I know, Lieutenant Colonel!" Conrad raised the drawing drawn by Qin Chuan and said: "If this artillery shell is proven to be effective, then all heavy tanks will stop researching. We will not be stupid. Instead of piling resources on some meaningless projects, we need resources now!”

"That's good!" Qin Chuan couldn't help but breathed a sigh of relief after hearing this.

"I have a question, Lieutenant Colonel!"

"what is the problem?"

"If you keep thinking about this idea..." Conrad raised his head towards the drawing: "I mean, if you keep it in your heart instead of saying it out loud, what will happen in the end?"

Qin Chuan knew what Conrad meant:

If Qinchuan doesn't tell it, then Germany will not produce it. If it cannot produce it, it will not be put into use on the battlefield. Failure to put it into use means that the enemy does not know the existence of this thing and of course cannot imitate it.

Therefore, in the end, Germany does not need to worry about the problem of "tail-stabilized discarding sabots".

"I don't know, Colonel!" Qin Chuan said: "Maybe one day the enemy will think of it and use it on the battlefield first. Then we will regret it!"

Conrad nodded in agreement.

Qinchuan did not lie, because the British first used armor-piercing discarding sabots (APDS) on the 6-pound anti-tank gun in October 1944, and then successively used it on the 17-pound anti-tank gun and the "Firefly" tank.

The difference is that (APDS) is fired from a rifled gun, so the accuracy and penetration will be much different.

But even so, it could still penetrate 192MM armor at a distance of 1,000 meters. The German "King Tiger" had no advantage at that time.

But Qin Chuan has changed this, so none of this will happen.

At least Qin Chuan believes that the "Rat" tank, which cannot function in actual combat at all, will never appear again.

At the same time, if the German military industry can really change the "Leopard" tank's artillery to a smoothbore gun and equip it with "tail stabilized discarding sabots" as Qinchuan thinks, then the "Leopard" tank will suddenly become the most powerful on the battlefield. Tanks, not even the "Tiger" tank, could match it.