Chapter 789 Bear Tank

Although the T-31 medium tank is already excellent enough in terms of design data, it can only be used as a regular main battle tank in the short term. It is by no means one of those daunting giants in terms of tanks.

In order to make up for the shortcomings of armored forces in attacking fortresses and frontal combat, it is necessary to design a very large heavy tank.

Australasia's design concept for heavy tanks gave up the speed it had been pursuing, and changed the main design direction to firepower and armor protection.

The T-31A heavy main battle tank is the best answer given by the Royal Ordnance Factory to the Ministry of Defense's heavy tank requirements.

Although it seems to belong to the same model as the T-31 medium tank, apart from the similar appearance, the weapons and fundamental design concepts of the two tanks are completely different.

The T-31A heavy main battle tank is known as the Bear tank within the Royal Ordnance Factory. In fact, it is easy to understand. The design concept of the T-31A heavy main battle tank is originally to have strong firepower and high protection. In this regard, it is quite similar to animals like bears.

Of course, bears are one of the few powerful wild animals in Australasia (there are Alaskan brown bears in the Alaska Territory).

For this reason, the Alaska Brown Bear also gave priority when giving codes to tanks. The T-31A heavy main battle tank also gained the reputation of being the first tank with a code name in the history of Australasian tanks.

To be honest, Arthur was also very curious about this heavy tank that the Ministry of Defense was very satisfied with.

After seeing the specific design data submitted by the Ministry of National Defense, Arthur finally understood why the generals of the Ministry of National Defense were so satisfied.

The T-31A heavy main battle tank has a total length of 41 meters, a width of 45 meters, and a height of about 93 meters.

This is currently the largest tank in Australasia, with a conventional weight of 37 tons and a fully loaded combat weight of 45 tons.

In terms of weight alone, it has already crushed the tanks of this era. The reason for such an exaggerated weight is largely due to the special steel armor covering the entire body of the T-31A heavy main battle tank and its newly upgraded firepower system.

The entire tank can be said to have almost no defensive flaws. The bottom of the vehicle, which had not received much attention to armor protection before, was also covered with a layer of steel armor exceeding 25 mm.

In the area where the tank is mainly hit, the thickest part of the armor reaches 102 mm, and the thinnest part is 82 mm, which can be said to be a key area to take care of.

The rest of the tank is still covered with a layer of 40 to 82 mm armor. The thickness of the armor varies depending on the location of the blast damage.

But what is certain is that the protective capabilities of the T-31A heavy main battle tank are definitely at least several times improved compared to the previous generation tank, and even compared to the T-31 medium tank.

In terms of the firepower of the tank, the T-31A heavy main battle tank is equipped with an 88mm rapid-fire cannon specially designed for it by the Royal Ordnance Factory. The rate of fire can reach about 12 rounds per minute, which can be said to have both power and firepower.

Of course, ordinary tanks will not be so wasteful. After all, the number of artillery shells it carries and whether the base of the tank can withstand such a high-scale recoil all limit the firing speed of tank artillery.

There are three types of shells equipped for this 88mm artillery, namely 88mm prv5 armor-piercing shells, which are specially used to shatter enemy armored forces.

The second type is an 88mm explosive shell that focuses on lethality. There are a large number of iron sheets and steel balls inside the shell, which can cause a wider range of damage after the explosion.

The third type of artillery shell is the more common 88mm artillery shell. Its armor-piercing and lethality capabilities are relatively balanced, and its overall applicability is also higher.

With these three different types of shells, the lethality of the T-31A heavy main battle tank has been greatly improved.

Coupled with the huge increase in the heavy tank's load, the 88mm shell reserve alone has reached 72 rounds, allowing this heavy tank to kill the enemy unscrupulously on the battlefield without any worries.

In terms of secondary weapons, the T-31A heavy main battle tank is completely different from previous tanks.

Most of the previous main battle tanks chose a combination of artillery and machine guns. On this basis, the T-31A heavy main battle tank is not only equipped with a secondary artillery, but also increases the number of machine guns.

At the rear of the tank, there is a 20mm cannon that can only rotate 180 degrees. This artillery is the main weapon of the Cromwell I tank, which can already prove the firepower of the T-31A heavy main battle tank.

Of course, this 20mm machine gun does not have many shell reserves, only 45 rounds. The machine gun designed at the rear of the tank is mainly used to preemptively provide fire coverage when the main gun cannot respond in time to prevent dangerous situations in some specific situations.

In addition, this machine gun can also supplement some of the shortcomings of the T-31A heavy main battle tank in terms of light power and enhance the damage to infantry units.

In addition to the two artillery pieces, one large and one small, the T-31A heavy main battle tank also has a total of three machine guns, 2 in the front and 1 in the rear, which further enhances its killing capability against infantry units.

The reserve of machine gun bullets has also been greatly improved compared to all previous tanks, reaching 5,200 rounds.

With these weapons and equipment and reserves of artillery shells and bullets, the T-31A heavy main battle tank can be said to be the tank with the most sufficient firepower at present. It can not only easily destroy enemy tanks, but also cause terrible damage to other enemy troops.

The reason why the Ministry of Defense praises the T-31A heavy main battle tank is that in addition to the excellent design data of the T-31A heavy main battle tank, the experiments of its samples are also really convincing.

Yes, long before the Ministry of Defense reported the design of the T-31A heavy main battle tank to Arthur's desk, the Ministry of Defense conducted experiments on this tank with the Royal Ordnance Factory.

However, Arthur had other things to do at the time, so he did not participate in the experiment of this tank, nor was he able to witness with his own eyes the moment when this tank exerted its excellent performance.

In fact, having said that, with its powerful artillery and thick armor, the test results of the T-31A heavy main battle tank cannot be inferior.

If there is a possible problem, it may be whether the power system of the T-31A heavy main battle tank can drive the entire tank forward stably.

But considering that the company that provides engines for the Royal Ordnance Factory's tank construction is the Diesel Engine Research Laboratory, which has the ability to build aerospace engines, the answer to this question has already been affirmative, that is, it can definitely drive it.

Of course, as mentioned before, when designing this tank, the previous concept of pursuing speed was abandoned.

This also results in the T-31A heavy main battle tank having the lowest speed among the new generation of tanks, even worse than the previous generation of main battle tanks.

According to the design data and predictions provided by the Royal Ordnance Factory, the T-31A heavy main battle tank has a maximum speed of 30 kilometers per hour and a stable traveling speed of only 20 kilometers per hour.

In preliminary tests, the maximum speed was indeed able to reach 30 kilometers per hour, and it even reached speeds of 32 kilometers per hour on extremely flat roads.

However, in the stable speed test, the performance of the T-31A heavy main battle tank was still somewhat lower than expected.

Data predicts that it can reach a stable traveling speed of 20 kilometers, but this data only appears occasionally on flatter roads.

In simulated battlefield environments and uneven roads, the stable traveling speed of the T-31A heavy main battle tank dropped to 15 kilometers per hour and 18 kilometers per hour respectively, which was still far behind the design data.

This is actually normal. After all, there is still a big gap between a flat road and a simulated battlefield environment. Cars travel at different speeds on different roads, not to mention larger and heavier tanks.

And considering the powerful firepower and excellent armor protection capabilities of the T-31A heavy main battle tank, the small shortcomings in speed can actually be ignored.

For Australasia, there may be two main battlefields in future wars. One is the location where World War II broke out in history, that is, the troubled Europe.

The other is currently Australasia's only competitor in the Pacific. It is also an island country that is also a great power and has a severely biased military strength.

In fact, it goes without saying much about the island country. The battlefields with island countries are either on islands in the Pacific or on the mainland of island countries.

Most of the time, tanks do not play much role, and they rely more on the powerful firepower of the navy and the air support of the air force.

The main battlefield for Australasian tanks remains in Europe. Europe is currently the region with the most complete infrastructure. Western Europe and Central Europe have dense and complete highway systems, which are ideal flat areas.

When the T-31A heavy main battle tank arrives in Europe, it can use these roads to travel, which can greatly reduce the time required on the road.

This can also make up for some of the shortcomings in speed of the T-31A heavy main battle tank. It is precisely because of these various reasons that the T-31A heavy main battle tank has been able to fully meet the expectations of the Ministry of Defense and Arthur for heavy main battle tanks, and Arthur naturally agreed to the Ministry of Defense's purchase plan for these tanks.

Having said that, because it was already the second half of 1931, the war in Arthur's imagination was already very close.

There is no guarantee that there will be a few more years, but there is a high probability that Australasia will not have time to develop the next generation of tanks before the war.

In other words, by the outbreak of World War II or even the middle of the war, the tanks that Australasia can rely on will most likely be three different styles of tanks of this generation.

Because of this, the Ministry of National Defense still purchases a large number of these three tanks.

In this tank purchase order signed by Arthur, the Ministry of National Defense purchased a total of 1,025 tanks.

Among them, 153 were Cromwell I tanks. These 153 light tanks will be divided into three tank divisions to form a reconnaissance tank unit for each tank division.

As the main force of tanks, the Ministry of National Defense will purchase 637 T-31 medium tanks, most of which will be used to replace the obviously backward main battle tanks in the 1st and 2nd tank divisions, and a small number will be retained as inventory.

As for the T-31A heavy main battle tank, the Ministry of Defense’s procurement quantity is 235 units. According to the plan given by Defense Secretary Thomas, the vast majority of these 235 tanks will be replaced by the 3rd Tank Division, transforming the 3rd Tank Division into Australasia's heavy tank force.

This tank force will be mainly responsible for attacking and destroying enemy tanks during war, attacking important enemy defense locations, etc.

The remaining small number of heavy tanks will be used as warehouse reserves to facilitate timely replacement if serious problems occur with the tanks in the army.

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