The Rise of the Empire

"Is this the tank killer we prepared for the Japanese? Except for the artillery, this thing is definitely not powerful." In the Renault factory, Xiafei pointed to a newly assembled tank in the distance. Said somewhat jokingly.

"We are businessmen now, and businessmen only need to produce products that meet the standards according to the requirements of customers. The Japanese's requirements for this anti-tank combat vehicle are very simple. First, it can penetrate any active U.S. military at normal combat distances. The armor of the tank. Secondly, the tank should be as cheap as possible and as low as possible. According to the requirements of the Japanese, the Renault FT30 we are currently producing is definitely the best choice." Louis Renault said.

If the Japanese navy and air force, with the help of the British, can still ensure that their equipment level is the same as that of the U.S. Navy, or even exceed it in some areas. Then the equipment level of the Japanese Army and the Americans is at least one and a half grades behind. Even the so-called elite divisions of Japan that participated in the war were still far behind the U.S. Army. Perhaps on paper, after acquiring a large number of machine guns and artillery from the United Kingdom and France, the elite divisions of the Japanese Army were on paper The surface vitality may be about the same, but in the field of tanks, armored strength and trucks for logistics transportation, the Japanese are not even a little bit worse than the Americans!

It can be said that because of the strong industrial strength of the United States and the relatively small military, the number of armored units and logistics vehicles of the US front-line troops is definitely the first in the world! The Americans can even assign independent regiment-level armored units to each infantry division, and the total number of various vehicles in each division has even reached more than 2,000. During the war, this was impossible even for the most elite Bavarian Army. imagination.

If in the battle on the New Ireland Island, the Japanese were able to barely deal with the US Army by relying on the rugged terrain and a large number of pre-set positions, then when they arrived on the Island of New Guinea. Although the terrain is still not comparable to the Great Plains of Europe, it is still much better than New Ireland. Therefore, the U.S. Army's armor and firepower advantages can be brought into play. How to deal with American tanks and armored vehicles becomes the Japanese Army's task. Top question.

As a traditional army power in Europe, the French naturally had their own tank research and development plans after the war. Two tanks appeared in the French Army Equipment Plan for the next ten years formulated by Xiafei. The first tank was the Renault The FT20 tank produced by the company can be regarded as a Wolf tank using French components. The second type of tank is a tank destroyer similar to Hu Feng. It is called the A19 plan designed by Schneider Company. It weighs more than 23 tons and is equipped with a 90MML40 cannon. The chassis is an enhanced version using the FT20 chassis and adding a pair of road wheels.

From the perspective of equally sharing R\u0026D and manufacturing costs, the French originally planned to sell these two vehicles to Japan. After the evaluation and trial by the Japanese delegation, the Japanese are quite satisfied with the French products. After all, the French have their industrial base there and have rich experience in designing and testing tanks. The products produced are inferior to those of the Germans, but they are far beyond the imagination of the Japanese.

Then the tanks from both sides successfully entered the final stage - the price issue! And on this issue,

The biggest disagreement between the two sides emerged. Even though the French thought they had given a very favorable price and said that they could use mineral resources to offset part of the payment, the Japanese still said that the price was too high and they could not afford it...

The French were very unhappy that their finished products were not sold, but after the Japanese said that as long as the price was reasonable, the future purchase quantity would be at least 500, Renault still bit the bullet and designed a new tank according to the Japanese requirements. , so a tank destroyer called the FT30 finally came off the production line from the drawing board!

Why would a similar turretless tank destroyer be produced by Renault instead of Schneider, which already has a finished A19? The reason is very simple. Considering the larger and heavier chassis in the A19 plan, the weight and cost of this tank will not be cheap. It is also economically inappropriate for Schneider to prepare two production lines and produce two types of tank destroyers at the same time. Therefore, Schneider decided to be responsible for the artillery and armor of the FT30 program. The chassis was left to Renault, and Renault's approach was very simple. They directly modified a tank destroyer based on the FT20, called the FT30...

Considering that the Japanese require an artillery that can penetrate all active US tanks, the firepower cannot be weak. After all, there are many Wolf tanks in the US Army. Therefore, the 90MML40 artillery in the A19 plan was retained. However, everyone knows that it is obviously difficult to install such a large artillery on a Wolf tank. And considering the harsh usage environment of New Guinea, the weapon system must have a certain degree of redundancy. Therefore, this is not a simple problem of not having a turret. The entire tank is even designed to be open-top.

However, even with such continuous weight reduction, the internal space of this tank was still a bit tight due to the installation of an overly large artillery. In order to meet the ammunition reserve required by the Japanese Army, the French racked their brains and finally came up with a way. They installed the artillery gun on the right side of the tank, which saves more space. Although there may be some problems with the horizontal firing range, at least the hard targets are met.

What? How about armor protection, you ask? How should I put it? The armor on the front and front of the car body can block the American 37MM artillery and shrapnel attacks. It is unrealistic to expect to block the 75MM. However, in the eyes of the French, this tank, which in addition to its powerful firepower, average mobility, and what can only be described as a tragic defense, was favored by the Japanese! Then after field testing, the Japanese placed an order for 150 vehicles at once!

What was even more surprising to the French was that the Japanese said they could also make the steel plate at the back of the fighting room detachable, which would leave a gun mantlet and limited defense space on the sides. The back could be opened to facilitate the replenishment of shells and reduce weight. , and this operation really convinced the French!

In addition to a 90MML40 artillery piece, this tank that can seat 4 people also has the firepower of two machine guns. One of the machine guns hit the left side of the combat room. From the outside, it looks like a hemispherical machine gun tower. There are 1800 rounds of ammunition. The other machine gun is placed on the top of the front armor. This is a movable gun rack that can be disassembled at any time. The self-defense firepower is also quite satisfactory.

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