Chapter 171 Playing the Storm

As an air-launched ground-to-air rocket used by the early Il-2 attack aircraft, the S82 air-launched rocket is still extremely powerful even if the launch platform is changed from the air to the land.

The Soviet rocket engineer team, pursuing firepower supremacy, "crazily" installed a relatively huge rocket rail launcher on the chassis of the petite T60 light reconnaissance tank.

On this rocket rail launcher, which is almost the same size as the chassis of the T60 light reconnaissance tank, 24 82mm ground-to-air rockets can be loaded in advance at one time, which is three times the maximum load of 8 rockets of the early Il-2 attack aircraft.

The rocket launcher is connected to the weapon operation system in the vehicle body through the electric control wire, so that the crew members of this rocket assault tank can safely complete the pitch and angle adjustment of the launcher in the vehicle space without getting off the vehicle to operate, and fire and attack at any time.

At the same time, in order to facilitate the complex practical needs of the vehicle in different combat situations in battle, the Soviet rocket engineer team also specially equipped the combat room of the vehicle with a relatively simple, but effective and sufficient to meet the actual combat needs of rocket optical sights, which can even be used to launch dense rocket barrages directly at enemy armored targets when necessary.

As a mobile carrier platform for this large rocket launcher, the chassis of the T60 light reconnaissance tank is named a light reconnaissance tank, but at the moment, in the Soviet-German battlefield just after the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War in 1941, the defense of the T60 light tank chassis is an absolute medium tank level.

In order to strengthen the armored defense of the tank as much as possible and improve battlefield survivability, the limited armored tonnage of the entire vehicle is concentrated on the front of the tank as much as possible.

Once again, the Soviet tank designers who threw the human-machine efficiency attributes of the tank crew behind their heads designed the chassis of the T60 light reconnaissance tank to be only slightly larger than an ordinary car.

After arranging the engine, fuel tank, transmission structure, ammunition rack, and suspension system in such a short and mini tank chassis, two more tank crew members were forcibly squeezed in.

It is natural to imagine how crowded the chassis combat space of the T60 light tank is. It can be said that the man-machine efficiency has long been thrown into the trash by Soviet tank designers.

The result obtained after sacrificing the body space and man-machine efficiency is extraordinary.

The upper armor part of the body of the T60 light tank chassis is arranged with a whole piece of 15 mm thick rolled homogeneous steel armor with a tilt of 73 degrees, which can provide more than 40 mm equivalent armor defense on the horizontal incoming missile route.

The lower part of the body is protected by a whole piece of 35 mm rolled homogeneous steel armor plate with a tilt angle of 24 degrees, which can also provide more than 40 mm equivalent armor defense on the horizontal incoming missile route.

In terms of armor defense alone, the T60 tank chassis, which was designed as a light reconnaissance tank, already has the same armor defense as the German Type 4C medium tank of the same period.

With the help of the tilted armor, the chassis of the T60 light reconnaissance tank is not only immune to general anti-tank rifles and large-caliber machine guns, but also can easily defend against anti-tank guns with a slightly smaller caliber, such as the main anti-tank gun with the largest number of equipment in the German infantry sequence-37 stepping brick.

Therefore, the chassis of the T60 light tank was selected as the basic platform for this new rocket assault tank. In terms of the current war situation in 1941, it can fully meet the actual war needs of the Soviet army.

This rocket assault tank, code-named BM8, is the same as the Katyusha vehicle-mounted heavy rocket launcher that has just been put into actual combat. It is also a new rocket secret weapon of the Soviet army shortly after it was put into the front-line battlefield in 1941.

In order to resolve the battle of the Yelnya salient as quickly as possible with minimal casualties and stabilize the frontline situation, Zhukov, who mobilized a large number of the Red Army's latest equipment and deployed them to the front-line battlefield, naturally did not hesitate to use the BM8 rocket assault tank.

With a wave of his hand, all these latest secret weapons of the Red Army were put into the siege battle to deal with the strong German firepower points that were resisting stubbornly.

The rocket assault tank that uses direct aiming and close shooting not only has an extremely powerful and amazing destructive power, but also has an accuracy that is beyond the reach of the Soviet field artillery group, which undoubtedly meets Zhukov's most basic requirement to ensure that the city of Yelnya is not completely destroyed as much as possible.

The thick smoke screen completely blocked all vision. The German defenders in the building had not had time to be happy after destroying the first Soviet heavy tank and repelling the enemy. Not long after, the Soviet heavy artillery bombardment only blew up a bunch of thick smoke screens that blocked the vision. This situation that was far beyond expectations made the German commander in the building feel nervous.

"Strengthen observation and pay attention to vigilance! The Russians may be mobilizing their infantry to prepare for a group charge and prepare to deal with these Ivans' human wave tactics!"

After thinking about it, the German commander could only equate the Soviet army's next strategic intention with the human wave tactics. The Soviet infantry's tactics of launching waves of intensive group charges in the offensive battle regardless of casualties were no different from the human wave tactics during World War I.

This also shocked the German army, which originally thought that the human wave tactics had been completely eliminated since World War I, and encountered huge pressure and trouble.

The sunset in the sky, which still had a long time to set, shone on the city of Yelnya shrouded in flames. The central square without any breeze was filled with smoke. The smoke that could not be quickly dissipated by the natural environment undoubtedly gave Malashenko more time to prepare.

"Quick, speed up! The target is at the two o'clock direction of the center of the square. Priority is given to deploying rocket assault tanks!"

Knowing that he had to fight for every second, Malashenko could not care too much. He directly opened the turret cover and leaned his entire upper body out of the turret. He waved his right hand vigorously and commanded the entire column to quickly deploy the offensive position.

Under the unified command and coordination of Malashenko, the narrow Soviet siege column, like a long dragon, quickly lined up outside the street square. A company of 12 BM8 rocket assault tanks had already raised their rocket launchers filled with ammunition and were ready to go.