Chapter 646: German-Soviet War (3)

What the Americans were worried about was that the M3 light tanks and M3 "Grant/Lee" medium tanks they had just started producing were no match for the German tanks.

In fact, the Americans had long known that the performance of the German tanks sweeping across Europe was far superior to their weak M2 light and medium tanks. So they were in a hurry to develop new tanks, but as the saying goes, you have to eat one bite at a time and walk one step at a time, and it was impossible to make a heavy tank all at once, so there was the M3 Grant with a 75mm gun that was stronger than the M2 tank.

During World War II, a considerable number of M3 "Grant/Lee" medium tanks were sent to North Africa for use by the British army. Its 75mm gun and 51mm front armor were a very disgusting existence facing the early German No. 3 and No. 4, so the M3 medium tank won the reputation of the British army in North Africa.

But the M3 medium tank was ultimately an emergency product, and the Americans were also very clear about this, so when developing the M3, the development of the M4 Sherman also began simultaneously.

The Sherman of 1942 was one of the best tanks at the time, but subsequent improvements were delayed due to the success in North Africa and the misjudgment of the speed of the Panther's deployment. (The US military once thought that the Panther was a heavy tank produced in small quantities like the Tiger, and there were even reports that the Panther was not difficult to hit head-on, and the US military only wanted to curse after landing in France) The armored battle after Normandy became a turning point in the reputation of the Sherman on the battlefield, especially in the Battle of the Ardennes, the report that the 75-gun Sherman failed to penetrate the side of the Tiger King at zero distance made Eisenhower furious, and ordered that no 75-gun Sherman would be sent to Europe in the future. However, this veteran still had the upper hand against the T-34/85 during the Korean War after replacing the 76-gun, and the Israeli super Sherman played a role in the Middle East War. It was a glorious old age.

"Maybe we need some heavy tanks, big guys that can easily destroy German tanks!"

"Don't we have a heavy tank plan? And we already have a prototype, right?"

Marshall said helplessly. "There is a heavy tank project numbered T1, but this project is not very mature."

The T1 heavy tank project, which is the future M6/M6A1, is funny because it was originally a multi-turret tank with four turrets, and two main turrets each equipped with a 75mm T6 tank gun.

It was not until the practical experiment of the T1 tank test vehicle not long ago that it showed that multi-turret tanks were not practical, and then it returned to the single-turret design. The main gun uses the M7 2mm tank gun, and the M6 ​​37mm gun is coaxial with the M7 gun, with a coaxial machine gun under the 37mm gun. A 62mm machine gun is installed on the commander's tower; on the front of the vehicle body, on the movable bracket, there are twin 7mm machine guns and a 62mm fixed machine gun controlled by the driver.

"However, the M4 medium tank that will soon be put into service will be equipped with the M7 76mm gun (the actual caliber is 2mm), and the armor-piercing shells fired can penetrate 116mm armor at a distance of 500 meters and 106mm armor at 1000 meters. It is enough to compete with the German jackal tanks."

"Then we should go all out to produce this kind of medium tank. Those light tanks are just cannon fodder in front of the German army. It is better to let the Soviets be this kind of cannon fodder."

Speaking of M4, there is another interesting thing. In World War II, the United States had a very strange tank destroyer theory.

The ideal tank destroyer believed by the US military is to accompany the troops as anti-tank support firepower during the offensive period and act as a rapid fire brigade during the defensive period. At this point, the US military will undoubtedly sacrifice the armor protection and even firepower of the tank destroyer to pursue another thing that is even greater than these two indicators-speed. In the eyes of the US military, tank destroyers are ultimately used to defend against enemy tanks and stabilize their own fronts. To explain the role of tank destroyers in a very popular word, they are fire brigades. Before their own fronts are broken by the enemy, they rush to the hotspot as quickly as possible and play a key role as fire brigades. This is the origin of the theory of the use of US tank destroyers. It is also because of this that the US military believes that the most important thing about tank destroyers is speed. When the enemy attacks, it always chooses places where its defense is weak to implement assault plans, and the tank destroyers with faster speeds can mobile defend and stop enemy tank clusters. Secondly, tank destroyers must also exceed tanks of the same level in terms of artillery caliber and power. They must have good tactical offensive capabilities, be able to attack with troops, provide fire support, and deal with enemy heavy armored targets that appear on the battlefield. In short, they must have firepower that is not inferior to tanks, speed that is faster than tanks, and give full play to the characteristics of battlefield mobile fire brigades to complete the task of defensive operations. These are the requirements and understandings of the US military for tank destroyers.

Therefore, the standard combat procedure of the US armored forces is as follows: M4 tanks accompany infantry to advance bravely. If they encounter enemy tank units, the commander of the M4 tanks will call the nearby M10 tank destroyers responsible for support to rush to destroy the enemy tanks that are causing trouble. In actual combat, the situation encountered by the Americans was like this - the M4 tanks were beaten to a pulp by German tanks. When the M10 tank destroyers arrived, the Germans had already cleaned up the battlefield and had a meal before withdrawing.

However, the record of the German army sweeping across Europe at this time and space was really impressive, and the Americans had to seriously study and learn the German army's armored use tactics, which was also regarded as a realization of the essence of mechanized warfare. There was no more strange tactics of tanks supporting infantry and destroyers destroying enemy tanks.

"Our infantry equipment also needs to be updated and improved. There are only three or four bolt-action rifles in a German squad, and the rest are automatic or semi-automatic firepower. We are not even half as good as them, and our soldiers are still using weapons from the last World War."

The famous M1 Garand, although it was adopted by the army in 1936, was in short supply until 1943. It was not until mid-1944 that the entire army basically completed the replacement of Garand, becoming the only army among the countries participating in World War II to fully replace semi-automatic rifles.

A US infantry squad has 12 people, equipped with 8 M1 Garand semi-automatic rifles, 1 Browning automatic rifle (20 rounds of ammunition), 1 M1903 Springfield sniper rifle, and the squad leader and deputy squad leader are each equipped with a Thompson submachine gun. In addition, the sniper and the squad leader and deputy squad leader each have a self-defense pistol. The firepower of a squad can be said to be quite powerful.

Now that Germany has taken away thousands of tons of US dollars, there is no more wool from Britain to be plundered. The US national finances are on the verge of crisis. In addition, the military has expanded rapidly, and the popularity of M1 Garand in the army is less than one-third; that is, there are at most two or three M1 Garands in a squad.

The remaining vacancies can only be replaced by M1903 Springfield rifles or 1917 Enfield rifles.

The M1903 Springfield rifle was put into service on June 19, 1903. The rotating rear-pull bolt is imitated from the German 98 series Mauser rifle. It was produced under the license of the German Mauser Arsenal (the US government paid patent fees to the Mauser factory). It can be regarded as a variant gun based on the Mauser rifle combined with the US military 30 caliber ammunition.

The 1917 Enfield rifle can be said to be the American version of the Lee Enfield rifle. It was successfully designed in the UK and produced in the US to equip the British army. However, it was favored by the US military for its performance and the production rights were bought out. Finally, it was equipped in large quantities by the US military.

"The Germans use their MG3 machine guns as squad machine guns, and we are still using automatic rifles with 20-round magazines as machine gun firepower. This is ridiculous."

"So we are not as good as the Germans in anything now?" Even the industrial heritage that the United States is proud of, the industrial strength of the Germans after integrating Europe is not on par with the United States, and the United States has no advantage at all.

"..."Everyone fell into silence.