In the history of the United States, there was a soldier who had a weird personality and a bad temper. He was called "the toughest bastard in the Navy" by his subordinates. He often violently insults and intimidates his colleagues and subordinates mercilessly. Some people say that he "makes life difficult for everyone around him," including his own wife and children. Moreover, this guy is addicted to smoking and drinking, and he is also lustful. The woman has an extremely dissolute private life and looks like a gangster.

But such a guy with a lousy personality has become the greatest military all-rounder in the history of the U.S. Navy! Whether it is submarines, cruisers, destroyers, battleships, aircraft carriers, or naval aviation, naval logistics, and laboratory research, he can handle it well. He even accompanies the president on diplomacy around the world, and he is quite proficient in it.

This guy is one of only four five-star Navy admirals in American history: Ernest Joseph King.

During his military career, Ernest scolded countless people and ruined a lot of people. His bad temper annoyed everyone. But President Roosevelt had a keen eye for talents and thought that Ernest was talented, persevering and courageous! He was promoted to vice admiral in 1938 and appointed commander of the North Atlantic Fleet not long ago.

"Four more patrol ships have lost contact today."

The tonnage of this kind of guard ship is inherently small. Even if it is hit by a torpedo, it will sink immediately, and there is basically no time to send a distress message. In addition, the maritime defense circle has been extended to 1,500 kilometers, so it is difficult to achieve timely reinforcements. From the time they declared war on Germany to now, they have lost more than 20 ships, all of which were sunk by the opponent's submarines.

"..." Roosevelt, who was furious because of the murder of Cordell Hull and wanted to declare war on the Soviet Union immediately, gradually calmed down. The United States has already caused big trouble in Germany and cannot afford to cause another Soviet Union. "What do you think?" He secretly made up his mind to make the Soviet Union pay a heavy price after Germany was eliminated!

Ernest took out a document. "This is the battle plan I drew up. We should take the initiative and give the Germans some color."

In Berlin, Germany, Yannick came to Krupp Company to inspect the research progress of new armor.

Tank armor is classified into many categories based on its properties, materials, manufacturing methods, composition, etc. High-quality rolled homogeneous steel armor (RHA) became the mainstream product of tank armor in World War II due to its dense structure, good elasticity resistance and processing technology. RHA has become the standard for measuring armor's resilience.

As for alloy steel armor, alloy elements such as nickel, chromium, molybdenum, and manganese are added to ordinary steel armor to double the hardness and toughness of the steel armor. Take the famous nickel-chromium alloy steel armor in World War II as an example. 2% to 6% nickel, 1% to 5% chromium, 2% to 6% molybdenum, etc. are added to ordinary medium and low carbon steel, and then undergo special heat treatment. With this technology, we can make high-grade alloy steel armor that is hard and tough on the outside and tough on the inside. Its yield strength reaches 720-900 N/mm2, which is more than double that of ordinary steel armor.

But for Germany, which was short of resources during World War II, these were veritable "rare metals", and the quantity could not even meet the needs of industrial production.

Therefore, Germany's traditional technological advantages played a huge role. The armor of the Tiger tank is very different from the nickel-chromium alloy steel armor of the British, American and Soviet Union. To be precise, the Tiger tank is not alloy armor, but uses trace amounts of manganese and molybdenum. Steel armor is generally called molybdenum steel armor.

Molybdenum increases the ductility of steel, making it stronger. But there are very few molybdenum mines in Germany, only mines in Norway. Since the Norwegian molybdenum mines were bombed in the late World War II, the armor quality of German tanks has seriously declined.

In desperation, Germany could only use armor surface quenching and carburizing hardening technology to make up for the shortcomings of the armor steel element structure.

The carburizing process is now commonly known as the surface hardening process. Under normal circumstances, ordinary low carbon steel plates that have been carburized and quenched can penetrate carbon elements to a depth of 8 to 2 mm on the surface. Some carburization depths can reach 2 mm or even deeper. In theory, the deeper the better. The surface strength of low carbon steel after carburization and quenching is 20 to 30% higher than that of ordinary low carbon steel plates, which can increase the thickness of armor.

However, its performance and weight gain are not directly proportional.

For example, if the same 20 mm steel plate is made of carburized steel, its protective performance can be improved to about 26 mm, but its weight is equivalent to that of a 33 mm thick steel plate. This is also an important reason why the weight of German tanks remained high in the late World War II. If the 56-ton Tiger tank is armored with nickel-chromium alloy steel, it can reduce its weight by at least 10 tons; its mobility will be significantly improved.

Another drawback of using surface carburizing hardened armor is that while the hardness of the armor is strengthened, its armor toughness is greatly reduced. In layman's terms, it becomes brittle! Especially in the late 1944, many German tanks with degraded armor technology were not penetrated by the firepower of the Allies. Instead, the armor cracked in large areas. Records show that the front armor of a King Tiger cracked after being hit by SU-152, but it did not penetrate. This is the reason.

In addition, the surface hardening treatment process is also quite cumbersome. This is not a simple quenching. The so-called carburizing is to process the surface of the formed steel plate through low-temperature tempering, primary heating quenching, high-temperature carburizing and tempering, secondary quenching and cold treatment, etc. , which can be described as time-consuming and labor-intensive. There are also requirements for steel. The steel plate used is a low-carbon steel plate (carbon content is less than 25%). There is already enough carbon and no further carburizing and quenching can be performed.

Fortunately, this time Yannick excavation integrated resources from various European countries. Although rare resources are still rare, they can still meet the military industry needs of the German army. German armor has finally embarked on the road of alloy steel doped with rare metals such as nickel, chromium, and molybdenum.

However, Yannick is not satisfied with this and continues to improve steel smelting technology. Through vacuum smelting, electroslag remelting, etc., the sulfur, phosphorus and other impurities in the steel armor are reduced to less than 01%, and the elasticity of the steel armor is further improved. building.

Under his guidance, the scientific research department has developed aluminum alloy armor and ceramic composite armor.

Comparing aluminum alloy and steel armor of the same weight, the effect of aluminum alloy against armor-piercing bullets is slightly worse, but the effect against armor-piercing bullets is better than that of steel armor. In addition, the stiffness of aluminum alloy is higher, so reinforcements can be omitted. Structural parts such as ribs and beams are used to reduce the weight of the vehicle. Therefore, aluminum alloy armor is widely used as the main armor of light armored vehicles.

As for ceramic composite armor, it's about as structured as a buttercream sandwich. The panel layer is made of alloy steel with high hardness, the base layer is made of alloy steel with strong toughness, and the middle layer is composed of many small ceramic balls. The gaps between the balls are filled with glass fiber reinforced resin.

In this way, when a menacing armor-piercing bullet passes through the layer of the "sandwich biscuit", the warhead has become blunt and consumes a lot of energy. Then, the stronger ceramic balls in the middle layer decompose and dissipate the main impact of the warhead. Finally, when the armor-piercing projectile that has lost most of its energy hits the high-tenacity inner base plate, it has no armor-piercing ability.

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