Chapter 716: Brain-Opening Weapons
Berlin Palace.
Yannick received the information that the Americans had failed to test the ice aircraft carrier, and couldn't help laughing. "How interesting."
In order to reverse the increasingly defeated situation in World War II, Germany spared no effort to develop various brain-opening doomsday weapons, such as the new generation of Tiger tanks, V series missiles, and the atomic egg project. However, it was precisely because Germany developed new weapons at all costs that it objectively accelerated its failure.
In fact, Germany was not obsessed with such brain-opening weapons from the beginning, but only started to invest heavily in research at the end of World War II.
During the Soviet-German War, the performance of the Tiger tank far exceeded that of the Soviet tanks of the same period, but the Soviet tanks crushed the performance advantage of the German tanks with their numerical advantage.
Soviet tanks are simple, easy to make, durable, and making tanks is as endless as making toys. On the other hand, German tanks are so precise that they look like works of art. German tank designers seem to have forgotten that those things are used on the battlefield. They strive for perfection in every part of the tank and invest a lot of manpower, material resources and financial resources. As a result, the production of each tank consumes a huge amount of man-hours, which makes the tank production unable to keep up with the needs of the war. If a small part is damaged, the whole vehicle needs to be overhauled, and it is difficult to repair it on the front line and needs to be sent to a special maintenance site. The precise design makes it fragile in the cold weather of the Soviet Union, and it is difficult to start the car during the war.
This also reminds Germany that it is good to be advanced, but it is more important to focus on actual combat.
In this regard, Germany adopted the method of casting a wide net to catch more fish to develop various new weapons. But this requires a lot of money. When there is no money, they will make up for it here and there. They also use the funds used to study the atomic egg to study other weapons. This has become a secondary reason why Germany failed to make the atomic egg; sometimes even the combat funds on the front line are transferred to weapons research and development.
With such crazy spending, the weapons developed are varied, but few of them are really practical. The large amount of military expenditure has caused the German economy to be unable to make ends meet, which has accelerated the demise of Germany.
Is it the turn of the United States and the Soviet Union to be so crazy now? Not long ago, the Soviet army sent anti-tank dogs to attack its own tanks. Before that, they also built the Maus tank and Gustav cannon that he "provided". I wonder what kind of brain-opening weapons they will develop next.
Yannick hopes that their imaginations will be as big as possible, and they will produce fewer serious airplanes, tanks, cannons and warships. And he is also happy to help them expand their brains.
After thinking for a while, he took paper and pen and wrote down the "flying tank" (introduced in Chapter 410).
The second weapon is the "spherical tank". It is rumored that in 1941, Soviet tank engineer Fotrisov submitted a development plan called "spherical tank" to the Central Committee. This design is very novel. The body is spherical, and the suspension system is two elastic chains made of metal and rubber with spikes on them to increase grip. Fotresov envisioned installing a 76mm main gun on the top of the body, and the power comes from the M-17 gasoline engine, similar to the BT-7 light tank.
Somehow the "spherical tank" plan was approved. Due to its peculiar shape, the major Soviet factories did not participate in the plan. Fotresov personally led the working group in Vyksa to complete this design.
This working group completed the design of 2 spherical tanks, namely SHT-1A and SHT-2T.
Actual tests have confirmed that the spherical tank has good off-road performance. It is easy to control, and it can rotate on the spot like a gyroscope, and it can easily cross depressions or trenches. When accelerating at full speed, the tank can jump over a 2-meter-high section.
The spherical tank even engaged in a battle with the German army. The appearance of this strange guy confused the German army, and at one point they even forgot to open fire until the tank began to accelerate and charge towards the German infantry, accompanied by two T-34 tanks. When they were 50 meters away from the German army, they did not have time to deploy anti-tank guns, which caught the German army off guard. In the process of hasty retreat, a Type IV tank was even blown up by the SHT-2T.
The German army, which came to its senses, used various firepower to attack the tank, but it basically had no effect. The spherical tank cooperated with other friendly forces to quickly destroy the position.
The above story is the "World War II Soviet SHT-1A and SHT-2T spherical tanks" that have been widely circulated on the Internet. In fact, it was an April Fool's joke by Yuri Pasholok, a historical consultant of Wargaming Company, in 2013 (this person later simply published a related "research book", but the content in it is really hard to tell whether it is true or false). He solemnly compiled a long article with both development process and actual combat experience, and ruthlessly teased many "World of Tanks senior players" who are committed to "restoring history".
In the Soviet archives, there is indeed a spherical tank data similar to the SHT series, which looks like that, but there is only one painting and two sketches. However, judging from its structure, this thing has no stability at all, and it is very likely to roll around on the ground after rolling over.
Yuri clearly stated at the end of the article that this was an April Fool's joke, which is like fishing with a straight hook, but there are still many "senior players" and "military self-media practitioners" who are happy to take the bait, which is really laughable.
In addition, there is the "Big Leader Roller" designed by the British. It is actually an obstacle-breaking device, planned to be released from a landing craft to clear the anti-landing obstacles arranged by Germany on the beachhead of the "Atlantic Line of Defense". It adopts a parallel wheel layout, the wheels are made of wood, and the cylindrical cabin between the two wheels is used to hold explosives. This object itself has no power and is propelled by a rocket fixed on the wheel. The test was carried out on a beach crowded with tourists. In full view of the public, the rocket detached from the wheel and then began to run around uncontrollably until it overturned. Increasing the number of wheels to three did not help - the test was obviously a failure.
After memorizing these three brain-opening weapons in one breath, Yannick asked Reinhard to pass them to Natasha.
As for the Soviet anti-tank dogs, Yannick didn't care at all. After Germany encountered the Soviet anti-tank dogs in World War II, it quickly came up with a countermeasure, which was to equip the vanguard of the armored column with flamethrowers. Because fear of fire is an animal's instinct, no matter how hungry an animal is, it is unlikely to go looking for food under the flames. Although there are still some crazy dogs that will rush towards the German tanks at the risk of being burned, they are a minority after all and do not pose a big threat.
In addition, you can use a loud speaker to play the roar of tigers and leopards to scare those dogs. Dogs are afraid of tigers because it is a conditioned reflex engraved in their genes, a nature inherited from their wolf ancestors. Not to mention training for a few months or years, even training for several generations may not necessarily eliminate this reaction.