Chapter 1003: Tank Gun

In the noisy factory, workers toiled with all their might. Just as England’s sailors were all over the streets, Germany’s workers were as numerous as ox-hairs. Every worker here was a master technician with around ten years of experience; their every movement, honed by time, was the picture of meticulous precision.

On one hand, Germany’s foundation of skilled labor was deep. On the other, Germany’s super-factories were also trying every means to replace human labor with machines. Germany had begun advocating for mechanical automation several years ago, but progress had been limited due to hardware deficiencies and lag.

However, with the progress of the times and ever-increasing investment in automation, the Germans, with their reverence for precision manufacturing, had finally managed to create a whole set of semi-automated production lines for all kinds of parts. Among these, the British computing master, Turing, who had been brought into Germany’s fold a year ago, had provided many suggestions, allowing Germany to move to the forefront of the world in this important field.

What was even more terrifying was that Germany’s industrial foundation had been unleashed by the German high command, including Speer. In a Europe undamaged by the flames of war, its industrial manufacturing capacity was even showing a trend of surpassing the United States. Although there might still be gaps in other areas, in terms of military production, the Germans had already improved by leaps and bounds compared to the other timeline.

“Get those parts over there onto the conveyor belt! Faster!” a workshop supervisor shouted at a group of apprentices, pointing at the exquisite parts that had just been delivered, processed by a French factory.

And so these students, who had just graduated from technical school, swarmed up with a laugh and, with a flurry of hands, began to neatly arrange the parts, which were engraved with the manufacturer’s name, production date, and inspector’s number, in a row on the conveyor belt.

Then these parts, under the pull of the conveyor belt, moved towards the assembly machine in the distance. The skilled worker over there then proficiently welded the parts that had been sent over to a protruding position on a steel plate. Their movements were very simple, just a touch of the welding torch, and the parts, which were already spaced at the right distance, arrived at their position.

Soon, this part was welded, and then it was pushed by a cart to another conveyor belt, to be sent to the next processing position. Each of these manual welding links had eight groups of personnel working in rotation. Each group only worked for three hours a day, to ensure that there were no mistakes in the manual links.

The steel plates produced in this workshop would be welded into floor panels in the next, to be used as the floor inside the tank. This was a relatively late process in the chassis processing. Generally, after these floor parts were installed, the chassis of this tank was almost completely finished.

On the other side of a high wall, not far from here, was the German tank gun production workshop. In the experimental warehouse there, a new type of tank gun, with a long, slender barrel, was being slowly hoisted onto a strange, welded turret. This turret was very different from the one-piece mantlet turret that Germany had always used. It adopted a split mantlet installation.

Similar to a modern tank, the frontal armor of this turret was welded to the sides of the turret and did not move up and down with the tank gun. This structure compromised the integrity of the frontal armor. However, this structure was easier to weld and produce, and its other benefits were more obvious.

For example, this structure could give the gun itself better mobility. After all, to carry a whole armor plate, and to carry a third of an armor plate, were completely incomparable in terms of weight. With the reduction in weight, the elevation and depression of the gun system would become much more convenient.

This new type of turret was the latest turret for the King Tiger tank, developed by German technicians. It used the 105mm anti-tank gun that Akado and all the frontline armored forces had been looking forward to for a long time. Although its caliber was slightly smaller than the 122mm cannon used on the Soviet Stalin tank, its armor-piercing power was a whole lot greater.

In order to install this gun, the King Tiger had been fitted with thicker side armor skirts, and its hull armor thickness had also been increased by 5mm. The frontal armor thickness was to be increased by a full 30mm, giving this future main tank of Germany an even more terrifying ability to withstand hits.

The added weight was to allow the tank to have a stable firing capability at any angle. Although these weight increases had reduced the King Tiger’s mobility by 5 kilometers per hour, everyone felt that the price paid in speed was very worthwhile.

The 105mm main gun version of the King Tiger surpassed the Soviet’s prized Stalin tank in every aspect. Whether in terms of speed, armor thickness, or firepower, the King Tiger was far stronger than its opponent. In terms of its aiming system and reliability, it was the benchmark of industrial products of this era. The German industrial system, after its integration, had finally shown its technical advantages, and had once again steadily surpassed its opponents on the weapon platform.

The hoisting work was quickly completed, and then this entire turret was slowly lifted by the same crane. In the center of this workshop was a huge concrete base, specially used for testing the King Tiger’s turret. The installation work was quickly completed. All that was left was to test the power of this 105mm cannon.

A lot of instruments and equipment were connected to this turret. Because the experiment was not just to test the accuracy and power of the gun, but also to test many other values such as the recoil. No weapon is as simple as it looks on the surface. Even for a rifle, the complete design blueprints could probably fill a small box.

“Aim at the steel plate!” a German technician in a white lab coat, holding a clipboard, shouted to the several workers who were operating the turret. “Be careful. We must ensure the safety of the turret! Be as gentle as possible, gentlemen!”

Those workers were indeed very carefully operating this brand-new experimental turret. After all, this turret was to be used as a sample for the production of tens of thousands in the future. And the German King Tiger, after being re-equipped with this new type of turret, would also be able to truly leverage the advantages of its aiming system.

“Target acquired!” a worker completed the aiming action with great ease. He had been testing turrets here for many years, so he had very easily completed the simple operation, aiming the turret, which was installed on a concrete base, at the bullseye of the steel plate in the distance.

“Fire!” With a command, this mighty 105mm tank gun also let out a roar. A loud boom echoed back and forth in the workshop. The workers nearby who were not on the production line put down their work and looked up in the direction from which the roar had come.

“Observation post, report on the target hit situation!” a staff member, with a telephone receiver pressed to his face, asked the observation post near the target for a report on the penetration situation.

“At a distance of 1,100 meters, it can easily penetrate the frontal armor of a Stalin tank. The penetration was very easy… Maybe we should directly test the effect at a distance of 1,500 meters,” the observation post staff replied. The content was very encouraging.

“The gun’s recoil exceeded the expected value… I think we should add a muzzle brake to offset a portion of the recoil,” a technician said, turning around to his colleagues and aides, scribbling on a piece of paper. The powerful shot just now had clearly exceeded the King Tiger’s load-bearing capacity. They had to use a pre-prepared plan to add a muzzle brake to alleviate the recoil impact on the entire vehicle.

“The aiming accuracy performed well. The shell, due to the effect of the wind, deviated slightly to the right, but it was completely within an acceptable range,” another technician said as he looked at the stopwatch in his hand. He then nodded in approval. “The aiming speed is not bad, nearly 0.6 seconds less than the original turret.”

“Are there any other problems?” the head of the technical team asked, looking at the other test groups. These groups came from various departments. Some were from materials, some from metallurgy, some were even experts in the field of chemistry, and there were also some representatives from the German military.

“Nothing,” the others shook their heads one after another. After all, this test had been going on for several weeks. For wartime weapon production, such a strict technical inspection was already very thorough. There had been some problems at the beginning, but after so many solutions, most of the teams could not come up with any new problems.

The opinion on the muzzle brake was a new problem that had only been discovered yesterday, after a discussion with the chassis experts of the King Tiger. After all, the King Tiger in this timeline was not a 70-ton monster, and it needed to be careful in dealing with the recoil from its cannon.

“Then, rush to produce a muzzle brake at the fastest possible speed, and then test out the latest data… The added weight on the cannon, especially near the muzzle, is a very serious problem. We need to recalculate the aiming time, as well as the impact on other aspects,” the person in charge said, looking at the various groups and then summarizing. “Now, go and solve your respective problems immediately. If possible, let the latest model of the turret enter mass production as soon as possible.”

Everyone began to disperse. A few military officers were standing in a corner, discussing the power of the new tank turret and other issues. It seemed they were very interested in this weapon. After all, they had heard that the King Tiger’s performance at the front was very good.

Four days later, after being signed off by Akado and Speer, the latest King Tiger II tank began mass production. The German armored forces were once again at the forefront of the world, and in terms of equipment, they had once again completely surpassed their opponents.

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