Steel Soviet Union

"Another group of our comrades thought it was very far-sighted after reading the report submitted by General Zhukov. In their opinion, it was only a matter of time before the Germans put the 88-gun on tanks."

"After discussion, these comrades agreed that we must redesign a subversive heavy tank based on the KV. The minimum design indicator is to be able to withstand the German 88-gun at a distance of 500 meters. In terms of attack and firepower, we must target our army's existing KV heavy tanks and equip them with a powerful main gun capable of destroying KV heavy tanks from the front within a conventional combat range."

“In addition, these comrades also suggested that our new heavy tank should improve the maneuverability and actual combat power of the existing KV heavy tank. The entire transmission system and gearbox must be replaced from the original Hongqi tractor kit to one specially designed and manufactured for the new tank. System, the negative reports submitted by front-line troops mainly focus on criticisms of mobility, and the general response is that KV heavy tanks are too difficult to maneuver in actual combat. "

He should be very clear about the weaknesses of the heavy tanks he designed himself. At this moment, Kojin naturally understood how poor the mobility of the KV series heavy tanks currently fighting on the front line of the Great Patriotic War was.

In October 1939, Comrade Stalin personally observed and accepted the SMK and T100 multi-turret heavy tanks. Their performance in the test was extremely poor. The exposed weaknesses include, but are not limited to, difficulty in crossing obstacles, slow travel speed, steering performance that is simply worse than an old ox pulling a broken cart, and other serious and intolerable problems.

Comrade Stalin, who personally observed the entire acceptance test process, was very unhappy with this. At the acceptance summary meeting, he angrily criticized "These useless things will only make our Red Army a target for the enemy!".

Kogin, who has a very keen intuition about the future design of heavy tanks, has actually already realized that the multi-turret heavy tank cannot actually achieve its original design concept of "all-purpose and universal". This was entirely based on the level of the industrial base at that time. It's just the inevitable result, there are no other possibilities at all.

Kotin, who was quite foresight, knew that the multi-turret heavy tank was useless but still pretended to be obsessed with its design. His purpose was to confuse the Borosov Tank Factory, which was Kotin's main competitor at the time, and make it used for Heko. Beijing's T100 heavy tank, which is competing for the Red Army's future heavy tank project, has gone further and further down the wrong path of multiple turrets until it cannot turn back.

As expected, the Borosov Tank Factory, which fell into the trap of Kotin's carefully woven network, was unaware of Kotin's plan and mistakenly believed that the design team led by Kotin was also working hard to develop a multi-turret heavy tank, and eventually Under the guidance of the big idea of ​​"must surpass Kejing's design plan", the T100 was created, which was useless at all.

After hearing Stalin's angry rejection of the multi-turret heavy tank at the summary meeting, Kotin was immediately overjoyed. Realizing that the time had come, Kotin immediately came up with the single-turret version design of the SMK multi-turret heavy tank that he had already prepared. The plan was submitted to Stalin for review.

At the same time, Kotin, who was prepared with both hands, personally named the single-turret modified heavy tank of this SMK heavy tank Kotin-Volo in order to get his design approved and better win over the upper-level relations and Stalin's preferences. The Shilov heavy tank is the name of Marshal Voroshilov, Kotin’s father-in-law.

As expected, the improved version of the SMK heavy tank with a single turret has thrown away the heavy and useless additional weight burden of the turret. At the same time, the removal of the secondary turret has reduced the length of the original bus-like body.

The weight of these remaining tanks was carefully designed and calculated by the design team led by Kojing. On the basis of weight reduction, the SMK heavy tank single turret solution was equipped with thicker armor than the multi-turret version, and the tank itself was Mobility is also greatly improved due to the fact that its heavier turret version is lighter.

As expected, the design of the single-turret version of the SMK heavy tank, planned by Kogin and fully prepared, made Comrade Stalin, who loves heavy tanks and large-caliber heavy artillery, a treasure. The mobility and cross-country passability of the prototype demonstrated in actual tests were countless Wallaces higher than the original multi-turret version.

Comrade Stalin, who was quite satisfied with this, immediately signed and approved Kotin's improved design plan with a wave of his hand. The KV series heavy tanks, which were given the name "Kotin-Voroshilov", were officially finalized and put into production and began to be widely equipped. The Red Army's first-line tank unit, and the T100 heavy tank that was played to death by Kogin's tricks was swept into the garbage heap of history and no one cared about it again.

Although the KV heavy tank, as the culmination of the early first-generation heavy tanks, was considered the heavy tank with the best overall combat performance in the world at the time.

However, in order to make his design plan win the bid in a hurry, Kejing directly applied many existing mature technologies to ensure the reliability of the tank while speeding up the research and development progress. The complete transmission system of the Hongqi tractor is just one of them. Just one.

The potential disasters laid by focusing only on winning the design plan were finally revealed after the outbreak of the Patriotic War. Compared with German tanks, the KV series heavy tanks had extremely poor off-road steering and overloaded transmission systems. The main culprit for the criticism of the front-line Red Army tank troops.

Kotin, who has long been familiar with this situation, has actually made up his mind to completely solve this bad problem on the next generation heavy tank he designed. The report of his deputy Yakozov is just a reminder for Kotin now. Just a function.

After thinking deeply for a while, Ke Jin finally raised his head again with his hands clasped together and resting on his chin.

"I think the conclusions given by these few comrades are more in line with the long-term design plan of our Red Army's heavy tanks. You and I both know that some of the inherent design flaws in the KV series heavy tanks must be fundamentally solved. Rather than focusing on this set of heavy tanks, it seems now Instead of proposing an improvement plan that lacks fundamental innovation on a design that is already riddled with shortcomings, it is better to design and develop a brand new heavy tank. Blindly following the old path of KV heavy tanks will not defeat that cunning guy Morozov."

He had already roughly guessed that Kogin, who had always dared to make bold and innovative attempts, would make such a decision. After thinking for a moment, Yaksov lowered his head and then raised his head again.

"Now that you have made your decision, I will naturally follow your order, Comrade Kejin, but do you have any specific ideas and instructions for this new heavy tank? Our design team comrades still need your leadership."

Ke Jin, who had completely lost the angry expression just now and felt that his thoughts were becoming clearer, simply stood up from his chair, clasping his hands behind his back like a candidate who had learned the answers to the exam in advance, and pacing back and forth in front of the window with an excited expression. The words he spoke when he suddenly stopped a few minutes later seemed so excited and happy to Yaksov.

"I thought of it! Yaksov! Our new heavy tank design has been made clear! I want to get the greatest name to name it, a name even greater than Marshal Voroshilov! This must be It will make our design famous in history, I promise you!”