Chapter 272 A Greater Name

"After reading the report submitted by General Zhukov, another part of our comrades thought it was very far-sighted. They thought it was only a matter of time before the Germans put the 88 gun on the tank."

"After discussion, these comrades agreed that we must redesign a subversive heavy tank far beyond the KV. The minimum design indicator is to be able to withstand the attack of the German 88 gun at a distance of 500 meters. In terms of firepower, we must use our existing KV heavy tanks as the target and equip them with a powerful main gun that is enough to destroy the KV heavy tank from the front at a conventional combat distance."

"In addition, these Comrade also suggested that our new heavy tanks should improve the maneuverability and combat mobility of the existing KV heavy tanks. The entire transmission system and gearbox must be replaced from the original Red Flag tractor kit to a system designed and manufactured specifically for the new tanks. The negative feedback reports submitted by the front-line troops mainly revolve around the criticism of mobility, and the general response is that the KV heavy tank is too difficult to operate in actual combat. "

King Kotin naturally knows how bad the mobility of the KV series heavy tanks fighting on the front line of the Great Patriotic War is.

In October 1939, Comrade Stalin personally observed and accepted the SMK and T100 multi-turret heavy tanks, and their performance in the test was extremely poor. The weaknesses exposed include but are not limited to difficulties in crossing obstacles, slow travel speed, and steering performance that is even worse than that of an old cow pulling a broken car, which is so serious that it is unbearable.

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

Kotin, who has a very keen intuition about the future design of heavy tanks, has actually long realized that multi-turret heavy tanks cannot actually achieve their original design concept of "all-round and universal". This is entirely based on the inevitable result of the level of industrial foundation at that time. There is no other possibility at all.

Kotin, who is quite foresighted, knew that multi-turret heavy tanks were useless, but he still pretended to be obsessed with their design on the surface. His purpose was to confuse the Borosov Tank Factory, which was Kotin's main competitor at the time, so that the T100 heavy tanks used to compete with Kotin for the Red Army's future heavy tank project would go further and further on the wrong road of multi-turrets until they could not turn back.

As expected, the Borosov Tank Factory, which fell into the trap carefully woven by Kotin, 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. In the end, under the guidance of the idea of ​​"must surpass Kotin's design plan", they produced a T100 that was completely unusable.

After hearing Stalin's angry rejection of multi-turret heavy tanks at the summary meeting, Kotin was overjoyed. Realizing that the time was ripe, Kotin immediately took out the single-turret version of the SMK multi-turret heavy tank that he had prepared and submitted it to Stalin for review.

At the same time, in order to get his design plan approved and better win over the upper-level relationship and Stalin's preferences, Kotin, who was prepared for both, personally named this single-turret improved version of the SMK heavy tank the Kotin-Voroshilov heavy tank, which is the name of Kotin's father-in-law Marshal Voroshilov.

As expected, the SMK heavy tank scheme with a single turret has gotten rid of the heavy and useless extra turret weight burden, and the removal of the secondary turret has also reduced the length of the original bus-like body.

After careful design and calculation by Kokin and his design team, the surplus tank weight was reduced, and the SMK heavy tank single turret scheme was equipped with heavier armor than the multi-turret version on the basis of weight reduction, and the tank's mobility was also improved because it was heavier than the turret version.

As expected, the single turret version of the SMK heavy tank design, which was planned and prepared by Kokin, was a treasure for Comrade Stalin, who loved heavy tanks and large-caliber heavy artillery. The mobility and off-road passability of the prototype in actual testing were much higher than the original multi-turret version.

Comrade Stalin, who was quite satisfied with this, immediately signed and approved Kotin's improved design plan. 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 with the Red Army's front-line tank units. The T100 heavy tanks, which were killed by Kotin's tricks, were swept into the garbage dump of history and no one cared about them anymore.

Although the KV heavy tank, as the epitome of the early first-generation heavy tanks, was considered the best heavy tank in the world in terms of comprehensive combat performance at that time.

However, in a hurry, in order to make his design plan finally win the bid, Kotin directly applied a lot of existing mature technologies to speed up the research and development progress while ensuring the reliability of the tank. The entire transmission system of the Red Flag tractor was just one of them.

The potential disaster buried by the original focus on winning the bid for the design plan finally became clear after the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War. Compared with the German tanks, the KV series heavy tanks had extremely poor off-road steering and overloaded transmission systems, which became the culprit for its widespread criticism by the front-line Red Army tank units.

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 moment, 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 exciting 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!”