Chapter 1958 The choice of main gun

Type 72-K 25mm anti-aircraft gun. Just by looking at the caliber, you will know that this is definitely a rapid-fire braided barrage anti-aircraft gun.

It was developed in 1939 and put into production in 1940. Its iconic features are the long main gun barrel and

The excellent ballistic performance it brings has a good effect against any low-altitude raiding enemy aircraft.

After all, the aircraft these days are all fixed-wing electric fans, and jets have not yet spread to the battlefield. Low-altitude and low-speed targets are the targets that small-caliber rapid-fire anti-aircraft cannons are best at dealing with.

The 72K actually delivered to the Red Army was assigned the mission of regimental-level low-altitude defense. In most cases, it was equipped to the infantry regiments of the Red Army as towed anti-aircraft guns. A small number of them were loaded into the back of the GAZ truck, and equipped with a mobile anti-aircraft gun group, which is a simple self-propelled anti-aircraft gun, and the Middle East green uncle pickup truck that will ride the yellow sand in the 21st century. Quite similar.

Now, this anti-aircraft gun with excellent ballistic performance and simple and reliable structural design has been selected by Kogin as the main weapon of the new concept infantry fighting vehicle and mounted on the newly designed turret to prepare for testing.

Being able to choose such a small-caliber anti-aircraft gun, which seems to be a new approach now, as the main weapon is not like the traditional medium and heavy armored vehicles, which directly mount a single large-caliber artillery on a small car, horse-drawn Shenke's role in it and his opinions on Kejing can be said to be indispensable.

At the beginning of the design, according to Kogin's idea, a low-pressure artillery with low magnification but large caliber may be the most suitable for this kind of infantry fighting vehicle. After all, according to the design expectations, the mission of the infantry fighting vehicle is to transport and provide fire cover for the infantry on board, and to provide fire suppression during the attack.

Since it is suppressing the enemy with firepower, it is natural that large-caliber artillery is great.

Furthermore, there is no need to place too much emphasis on the range anyway. Basically, you don’t need to care too much about the accuracy of combat within visual range. Therefore, a relatively compact, low-magnification, large-caliber, low-pressure main gun is simply the most suitable choice. The designers under Kojing also feel that this design direction is reliable. For suppressing the enemy, what weapon is more exciting and effective than a large-caliber artillery?

When Kogin relayed this design idea to Malashenko and said that he planned to equip the new infantry fighting vehicle with a 76 mm low-pressure and low-magnification main gun, Comrade Ma immediately felt the smell when he heard this. , so damn familiar!

The first-generation infantry fighting vehicle is equipped with a large-caliber main gun with "double low" characteristics. What is it doing here? Is it BMP1, the ancestor of the BMP family? The entire weapon system lacks a baby anti-tank missile. Isn't it too fateful that Ke Jing can restore the BMP1 weapon system design to the "Youth Edition" so many years in advance?

Leaving aside the current dual low-characteristics main guns, they are still not up to the level of the BMP1 that can fire tail-stabilized armor-piercing projectiles. Even if they are against hard targets with armor protection, they will not be unable to fight back. Some of the bad shortcomings that can be predicted now are enough to cause headaches. Malashenko feels it is necessary to let Comrade Kotin know how bad this design idea is.

"No, no, no, this matter is not that simple, Comrade Kogin."

"You have to consider several issues. First of all, the design we made is to accommodate people, and it has to accommodate an entire infantry squad. Moreover, our body and chassis are not a new design, they are modified from the chassis of a medium tank. , Even the power system has not changed, just the layout has been changed.”

"The front part is a longitudinally arranged power compartment, the middle part also contains the turret fighting room and the gunner and the commander who is a part-time loader, and the rear part is a special infantry cabin. This layout is already quite cramped and very crowded. Especially for a medium tank originally. The designed power system already takes up a lot of space, but the reality is that we can’t redesign it, we can only use it universally.”

"Think about it carefully, Comrade Kogin. Based on what I said above, let's think about the problem of large-caliber artillery shells and ammunition racks that take up a lot of space. To give a simple example, do you think there are too many people stuffed into a T3476? After removing a squad of infantry, everything else including the original vehicle crew and internal structure remains unchanged. Is there still room for artillery shells? Even if you forcefully stuff them in, how much can you do about the continuity of firepower on the battlefield? ? Once the firepower is continuously interrupted, there will be big problems. "

""

Malashenko raised a very simple and straightforward question: bomb load.

Yes, the space inside the T43's body and chassis is almost the same as that of the T3476. Strictly speaking, it is even smaller. After all, the height of the vehicle is deliberately lowered in order to reduce the front projection area and the chance of being shot.

In this way, it means that you have to put an entire infantry squad into a chassis that has a smaller internal volume than the T3476, and the things that are already there remain intact and unchanged. Calculate how much ammunition it can hold - 76mm main gun ammunition and coaxial machine gun ammunition.

Ke Jing, who was very close to me, really didn't consider this issue. He was suddenly asked on the spot by Comrade Ma, and he was a little confused.

He wanted to refute it, but Kogin thought carefully about what Malashenko just said, hey! It seems to really make sense, this is the situation.

As far as Malashenko is concerned, Comrade Lao Ma clearly knows that the makeshift designs of the T43 are no better than professional infantry fighting vehicles like the BMP1. At best, this thing was easy to produce during the war years. The design was compromised in order to finalize it and put it into production and quickly increase production. Its actual battlefield role is limited to a makeshift thing that "some uses are better than pounding it with human flesh."

The BMP1 has a custom-designed body with a reasonable layout, but your T43 does not have that.

BMP1 has a specially custom-designed power system that is compact but powerful, and your T43 modified version doesn’t have that either.

The length, width, height, height and internal layout of the BMP1's body and chassis are all optimal configurations based on the premise of a professional infantry fighting vehicle. You still don't have a T43 that has been modified, and the whole body is full of "make do" atmosphere.

In short, it is simply unrealistic to have this large-caliber main gun on an emergency infantry combat vehicle modified from the T43. In addition, Malashenko has not talked about high-rate fire suppression, suppression fire accuracy, and effective suppression distance. There are many other problems, which are difficult to achieve under the current fire control equipment and technical conditions. It is simply not feasible for the previous "double low" artillery to be used as the main gun.

It may look ideal and awesome on paper, but Malashenko can completely guess how bloody this thing will be on the battlefield and how big of a problem it will expose.

It is no exaggeration to say that it is trivial to make people cry without tears, but to make people die without a burial place is the basic daily routine.