Chapter 1293 The Legend of the Black Panther

"The situation does not allow it, and time is very tight. I'm sorry, Comrade General, we didn't get the wreckage or real car of the strange black panther of the Germans. But we destroyed a few, and the troops that arrived later should accept the investigation. Maybe we can contact them to ask about the situation."

The final answer is undoubtedly frustrating, but Malashenko's performance is pretty good.

Some things may not be remembered suddenly for a while, but it doesn't matter. As long as you spend a little time thinking, you can always think of it, such as Comrade Lao Ma now.

A more powerful black panther? Mainly because the armor protection has been strengthened? 122 guns can't penetrate the upper front?

Based on these known most basic elements, Malashenko roughly came to two possible conclusions after some recollection and thinking.

The first one is also the one that seems to be more likely at present: Peskov may have made a mistake.

The news that the King Tiger heavy tank was deployed to the Cherkasy theater has been confirmed from the captured documents, but there is a detail that is quite easy to miss, which is what model the King Tiger heavy tank currently deployed is.

Others may think this question is a mystery, but Malashenko, a time traveler in the future, would know it.

In the existing historical timeline, the Tiger King heavy tank is divided into two different sub-models: the Henschel Tiger King and the Porsche Tiger King.

Both Tiger Kings are equipped with the Long 88, and the body structure layout is exactly the same, but there are obvious differences in the turret.

The front of the turret of the Henschel Tiger King is a typical pancake face, with a small inclination angle and welded with a whole piece of rolled homogeneous steel armor. It is also the most produced one among the well-known Tiger King heavy tanks.

In sharp contrast to this is the Porsche Tiger King heavy tank, the front of the turret of this sub-model uses a semi-arc cast turret armor, which is somewhat similar to the turret front armor configuration of the T34 to a certain extent.

Compared with the two turrets, the Henschel turret is more excellent in actual combat performance. The whole piece of welded armor with a physical thickness of 180 mm has extraordinary defensive performance. The big pig nose gun shield in front of the turret armor is also very strong, so it is not easy to penetrate the turret. Even if it is replaced with a 122 heirloom, it can only be done by shooting at close range.

In comparison, the Porsche turret is relatively poor. The physical thickness of the armor in front of the turret is only 100 mm. Although it is indeed protected by a semi-arc and can cause some ricochet effects when the angle of incidence is not correct , sometimes even ricochets are not a good thing for the Porsche Tiger King. Ye Yan

The Porsche Tiger King, which adopts a mid-turret layout, has a body armor directly below its head. The armor-piercing bullets that hit the arc armor in the lower part of the turret have a certain probability of being bounced off and rebounding downwards.

The armor-piercing projectile that has hit the armor once and caused a ricochet does have kinetic energy loss, but at the end of World War II, when high-initial-velocity, high-kinetic-energy armor-piercing projectiles were basically universal, the remaining penetration of the armor-piercing projectile that had bounced once and had kinetic energy loss was still enough to break the extremely fragile body armor of the Tiger King heavy tank.

The result that followed was that the Porsche Tiger King was directly killed by the armor-piercing projectile that ricocheted into the body of the car, or the ammunition exploded on the spot and flames were everywhere.

No matter which result, it was not good.

In Malashenko's impression, this Porsche Tiger King with inherent design defects and very weak production was announced to be discontinued after only about 100 vehicles were produced.

Among the Tiger King heavy tanks, which had a small total production, the production of the Porsche Tiger King was completely rare, which is why the Tiger Kings seen in old photos of World War II are mostly the big-faced Henschel Tiger Kings.

However, what Malashenko is concerned about is not the comparison between the Henschel Tiger and the Porsche Tiger, but the Porsche Tiger looks a bit like a black panther.

The large face protruding outward in a semi-arc shape and the large angled upper body layout, if you only look at the front, the Porsche Tiger and the Black Panther really look a bit similar! After all, they are made in the same country, so it is normal for them to have mixed tastes.

Malashenko speculated whether Peskov had made a mistake and mistook the Porsche Tiger, which had been deployed, for a "new Black Panther".

If you think about it carefully, this possibility is not impossible. After all, in the Battle of Kursk just half a year ago, there was a strange joke that the front-line troops mistook the No. 4, which was equipped with additional armor plates and was larger in size, for a Tiger.

If the Porsche Tiger was really mistaken for a Black Panther, Malashenko felt that he would not be surprised. After all, the 122 Heirloom cannot penetrate the upper armor of the Tiger King, but it can penetrate the front of the Porsche Tiger King's turret. These details that have been verified by later generations can match Peskov's description, and it seems quite likely at present.

Then there is the second possibility, which Malashenko thinks is "unlikely".

In the existing historical timeline, in 1944, the last year before the collapse of the German edifice, the German Army launched a new round of bidding plans, aiming to upgrade the existing Panther medium tanks.

The focus of the project was defined as strengthening the armor protection of the Panther medium tank. It was necessary to solve the embarrassing situation that the Panther's side armor was too weak and could be penetrated by any enemy tank at a long distance. In addition, in order to counter the enemy's increasingly strong anti-armor firepower, the main armor protection belt on the front of the Panther's body must also be upgraded and strengthened.

The final winning bid was still the Panther tank's mother-in-law: MAN Company. The new reinforced body designed by the company fully met the index requirements of the German Army in terms of armor protection. However, because the German Army did not propose indicators for the Panther's firepower upgrade plan, MAN Company planned to directly connect the head of the Panther F type to the new body with a "head replacement technique".

The main gun firepower remained unchanged, and the old version of the long 75 gun continued to be used. Anyway, there was nothing on the battlefield that the Panther could not bite from the front. If there was no demand, it would be temporarily shelved and production would be increased first.

It seemed very feasible and everything was beautiful, but by the time the first prototype, called "Black Panther 2", was actually built, it was already 1945, when the empire was destroyed.

The body, which had not even had time to install the head, was eventually seized by the US military in the warehouse.

The curious US Empire transported this headless Black Panther 2 body back to the country for testing, installed a Black Panther G head and played a "skunk head replacement". After repeated testing several times, the surplus value was squeezed out, and it was finally thrown to the US Army Aberdeen Weapons Proving Ground as one of the exhibits. This is also the only evidence in the 21st century that can prove the real existence of Black Panther 2.