Chapter 601: The Weapon Gap

The number of German armored units was constantly increasing, thanks to the fact that the German army was always able to find a large amount of equipment from its opponents to arm itself. From the French B1 tank to the Soviet T-26, all had become part of the German army’s arsenal.

About 1,000 captured Soviet T-26 tanks were allocated to second-line German units for training and routine guard duties. In the J Army Group, General Hoth had about 300 of these disposable pieces of equipment. The German army had no intention of using these weapons for a long time. In fact, another 100 tanks had been issued to the troops simultaneously as spare parts. If these parts were used up, then the tanks would be scrapped as scheduled. The Germans used the T-26 as an armored reconnaissance vehicle, including for dealing with partisans who lacked heavy weapons.

At the same time, about 500 other tanks were sent to Poland for modification. The turrets and upper armor of these light T-26 tanks were to be removed, creating an open-topped environment to accommodate the German 105mm howitzer, becoming the much-needed self-propelled howitzers for the troops. The German army had found a good home for these 500 self-propelled howitzers: the J Army Group, which was also using the T-26.

The German army’s own self-propelled howitzers were divided into two types: one was the 105mm self-propelled howitzer on a Panzer III chassis, and the other was the most advanced 150mm self-propelled howitzer modified from a Panther tank chassis. These two types of artillery were in high demand in the armored units, and everyone was queuing up for them to be issued.

Especially the 150mm self-propelled howitzer; because the Panther tank was still in production, its capacity was simply unable to meet the army’s requirements. The production of Panther tank chassis had been increased three times, but the production of the Panther tank itself was declining. The reason was none other than the fact that the various German self-propelled guns were occupying a large amount of production resources.

Many weapon systems had now been developed on the Panther tank’s chassis, such as the Panther bridge-laying vehicle, the Panther armored recovery vehicle, the Panther command vehicle, the Panther with a quad-mounted 40mm anti-aircraft gun, the Panther with a 75mm assault gun, the Panther with a 150mm howitzer, and the Panther with a 130mm rocket launcher. If you also included the three different models of the Panther tank with different armor thicknesses, no less than 10 variants had been derived from a single chassis.

It could be said that the Panther tank’s chassis had now become the carrier for Germany’s second-largest series of weapons. Some German panzer units had no Tigers, some had no Panzer IIIs, and those modified captured vehicles were even rarer. But the Panther tank was unique; you could see it wherever there was a German panzer unit.

The extensive use of mature technology had led to the great success of the Panther tank chassis’s modification and use. The mature technology had kept the failure rate of the German panzer forces at a low level, and the repair speed was also faster due to the commonality of equipment. Now, you could pull out any mechanic from the German panzer forces, and they could solve more than half of the technical failures of a Panther tank.

However, the production of the Panther tank was indeed decreasing. At its peak, the German army had produced 3,000 Panther tanks in a year. But now, German records showed that the production of Panther tanks in the coming year would drop to around 1,700. The main reason was that the production of the Panther A model, which had thinner frontal armor, had been halted and was now fully supplying the chassis for the 150mm Panther howitzer. And a portion of the chassis of the up-armored Panther B model had also been diverted to the 75mm Panther assault gun.

On the contrary, the production of the German Tiger tank was steadily increasing. According to the current production line capacity, the German army would add 2,700 new Tiger tanks in the coming year, and these new Tigers would all be improved models with thickened frontal armor. The German army was reducing the proportion of Panther tanks in its equipment, and its production capacity was gradually shifting towards the more advanced Tiger tank.

After testing, the chassis of the King Tiger tank had completely conquered the German tank experts and designers. This low-slung tank with its slightly asymmetrical torsion bar suspension and rear-mounted engine and transmission had driven everyone crazy. Almost all the design concepts of a modern tank were embodied in the King Tiger, such as its six pairs of wide road wheels and its better ballistic shape. Even Akado, after seeing it, felt that this was definitely the chassis of a T-64 tank. And the weight of the two was also relatively close; the estimated weight of the German King Tiger was about 38 tons, and the full weight of the T-64 was also around 40 tons.

However, the German tank designers had ultimately persuaded Führer Akado, forcing this Führer, who was “stubbornly fond of medium tanks,” to compromise and allow the combat weight of the German King Tiger to be increased to an unprecedented 45 tons. But several of the designers, including Colonel Demont, were confident in Germany’s current engine technology. They privately felt that they could appropriately increase the weight of the King Tiger; 48 tons was definitely a weight that everyone would agree on.

These German tank designers did not understand Führer Akado’s contradictory performance in tank design. In 1925, the future German tank that had been secretly developed originally weighed a pitiful 5 tons, but the Führer had directly rejected this design. He had proposed that a heavier and larger tank must be designed.

As a result, when the German tank designers came up with the 8-ton Panzer II, the Führer was still not very satisfied and, just to train the troops in advance, had only symbolically ordered a batch of Panzer IIs before ordering the production of the heavier Panzer III. And so, the weight of German tanks began to leap—in the shortest possible time, the weight of the tanks had been increased from 5 tons to over 20 tons.

The subsequent Panther tank was a classic of world tank design. The German tanks completely outclassed their rivals, achieving a balance of armor protection, mobility, and superior firepower at a weight of around 30 tons, becoming the number one contributor to the German panzer forces’ sweep across Europe. The number one tank ace at the time, Rein, had even achieved the astonishing record of destroying 22 tanks with a single tank in the Battle of Stone.

Everyone had seen the Führer’s foresight, everyone had seen the coming of the heavy tank. So when the Führer ordered the production of the Tiger tank to begin, no one was surprised. Krupp even felt that the order had been given a bit late; his factory had long been ready to help the German army maintain its title as the world’s number one in tank quality.

However, after the design of the King Tiger began, the Führer changed his previous habit of demanding that tanks be bigger and heavier, and instead began to demand that the weight of the tank be constrained. He ordered that the armor protection of the King Tiger should just be an improvement over the Tiger, and that there was no need to pursue a qualitative leap. On the contrary, Akado became keen on developing a 105mm tank gun to deal with the increasingly thick armor of the new Soviet tanks.

He ordered research into three directions for increasing the power of the cannon to be carried out simultaneously: one was the improvement of new types of shells based on the development of new materials; one was the improvement of the cannon’s caliber and barrel length; and one was the simple and crude method of increasing the caliber of the cannon to achieve the goal of enhancing its power. In the end, based on cost considerations, Akado chose the first option, improving the shells, and the third option, increasing the caliber, to improve the anti-tank capability of the German panzer forces.

Now, the evaluation and improvement of the King Tiger had reached its final stage. The entire chassis could be said to be seamless. Akado knew that this shape would not be obsolete even in the 1970s. It could be said that the birth of this chassis had already made the German tanks invincible in terms of their chassis.

Next, his designers had only two research directions left—more advanced composite armor, and a more advanced fire control system. These two things, combined with a high-power 105mm smoothbore cannon, would mean that for at least until 1970, there would be no need to consider replacing the tank.

The long accumulation of technology seemed to have had little effect. The German tanks and planes were all showing signs of the gap with their opponents being closed. But Akado knew better than anyone in his heart that although the distance seemed to be constantly narrowing, in fact, German technology was slowly entering a stage of leaping forward, while the opponent, relying on obsolete technology to barely catch up, would show signs of fatigue within the next year.

Some technologies can be replaced by obsolete ones. In the short term, this may not show any obvious signs, and there may even be the strange phenomenon of the backward technology performing better. But as time goes on, the gap will gradually be revealed. And when the backward side wants to catch up again, because it lacks the process of technological accumulation, it will fall into an embarrassing situation of complete collapse.

A simple example is that in the 1970s, the Soviet Union once used backward electronic components to develop a new type of fighter. For a considerable period of time, the performance of the MiG-25 caused panic in the Western world. But when the new generation of American fighters began to enter service, the Soviet Union’s technological lag was exposed, which also directly led to the backwardness of Soviet weapon equipment and electronic devices for the next several decades.

The scientific and technological reserves in Akado’s hands were now very strong. He just needed one to two years to develop the immature technologies in his hands into more reliable, mature technologies. At that time, some epoch-making monsters would appear on the battlefield, once again changing the face of the entire battlefield and making the German army once again lead the world. And this time, no one would be able to close the distance in a short time, because the technological reserves of other countries had already been exhausted.

Once the German King Tiger tank appeared on the battlefield, relying on the night vision system of its infrared technology, the German army would gain an absolute advantage at night on the land battlefield. During the long nights, the German army could annihilate the enemy’s effective strength by the hundreds and thousands, and then safely withdraw from the battle before dawn arrived. Akado really wanted to know, in the face of such an invincible German panzer force in night combat, what tanks could the Soviets rely on to turn the tables?

Published: 2025-09-10T05:05:32.000+00:00
Last Edited: 2026-01-17T14:14:58.000+00:00
URL: https://www.patreon.com/caleredhair/posts/mtr-c601-weapon-138560719

Advance chapters at Nightjar Reads · nightjarreads.com