Empire Conquest-Chapter 756 - 50: Armor-Breaking Repeating Crossbow_2
As a result, high-quality fuels like gasoline and diesel had to be prioritized for the Tiaoman Army, tasked with strategic defense, and then to secure the Alliance Army, including Locke and Raleigh. In the end, the only low-quality fuel left for Eastern Luosha was kerosene.
Thus, it was necessary to equip tanks with gas turbines that could use kerosene.
To put it directly, Western Luosha couldn’t possibly equip all of its main battle tanks with diesel engines, so some had to use gas turbines.
Clearly, choosing to equip the T-80, which served as the absolute main force, with a gas turbine was a smart choice.
Firstly, aside from its high fuel consumption, the gas turbine was actually superior to the diesel engine in several aspects, particularly in terms of rapid start-up.
When designing the "ZT-99," if it hadn’t been for the successful development of the turbocharged diesel engine, the Empire Army would have equipped this type of tank with a gas turbine.
As such, it was more suitable for driving the main battle tanks that served as assault platforms.
Moreover, the T-80 was initially equipped with front-line main forces, acting as the first wave of assault forces in major battles.
The result was that most T-80s didn’t last until the day when they switched from offense to defense.
More importantly, because the cost was far higher than that of the T-64 and T-72, the likelihood of mass-producing the T-80 during wartime was actually very slim.
If considering that the West Continent group might need to switch to defense at some point, unable to achieve a decisive victory through offense, then defense weapons had to be considered.
As such, the T-80s used up after the start of the war actually mitigated the burden of combat.
Simply put, during the defensive phase, there was no longer a need to deal with this "fuel tiger."
Finally, and most critically,
the T-80 was the assault equipment for the front-line main forces, and hence, among the three types of third-generation main battle tanks of Western Luosha, they had the fewest in number!
According to data provided by the Military Intelligence Bureau, the total number of various T-80 models was still less than 5,000.
Clearly, this was pathetically few.
The production of the T-64 surpassed 8,000 units, and the famously inexpensive T-72 had produced over 20,000 units, and was still being produced at a rate of several hundred a month!
Almost all of these T-80s were given to the front-line assault forces deployed along the western banks of the Volga River!
Just in the 9th Armored Division of the First Guard Army alone, there were 364 T-80Us.
This obviously wasn’t a denial of the T-80U’s performance.
In fact, the T-80U was actually the most powerful main battle tank of Western Luosha.
Besides having a standard 125mm smoothbore cannon, the T-80U’s advancement was mainly reflected in its armor protection.
According to intelligence provided by the Military Intelligence Bureau, the frontal protection of its turret was equivalent to 800mm of homogeneous armor, and the upper front part of the hull also reached 700mm.
Crucially, this was the standard without Explosive Reactive Armor.
Once fitted with Explosive Reactive Armor, the frontal protection of the T-80U’s turret, against armor-piercing bullets, reached a strength of 1200mm!
If the intelligence was correct, then the T-80U would be the strongest protected main battle tank in the history of Western Luosha!
Actually, the design specification of the Heavy Anti-Tank Missile, codenamed "Challenger," set by the Army, which had to achieve a penetration depth, was determined by this!
While developing the "Challenger," the Military Intelligence Bureau had already received fairly reliable information that the new Western Luosha main battle tank’s armor protection would exceed 1000mm, and might even reach 1200mm, which was somewhat higher than the Empire Army’s main anti-tank missile at the time of 900mm.
As a result, the Empire Army required the piercing thickness of the "Challenger" to be no less than 1200mm.
This also led to the "Challenger’s" launching mass exceeding 45 kilograms, meaning it could only be carried by helicopters, and was fundamentally impossible for individual soldiers to use, even vehicle mounting was quite challenging.
Of course, the use of tandem warheads and such were actually later requirements.
Although according to tests, the vertical penetration depth of the "Challenger" reached 1400mm, far exceeding the design specifications, there was also intelligence indicating that the Newland Republic’s M1A1 was adopting new composite armor, and it was highly possible that it would be equipped with reactive armor in the future, its equivalent protective thickness might frighteningly reach 1600mm, even 1800mm, and surpass the penetration depth of all current anti-tank missiles.
Therefore, the Empire Army not only required the improved version of the "Challenger" to increase the armor penetration thickness to over 1800mm, but also started to develop a new type of anti-tank missile, more precisely using a completely new attack mode, though initially testing the waters with a man-portable light anti-tank missile.
This was also quite understandable; a heavy anti-tank missile carried by helicopters had less strict limitations on size and mass, allowing for larger explosive casings and more explosive material to increase armor penetration thickness, while a man-portable light anti-tank missile obviously couldn’t be as unrestricted.
As such, the new generation of light anti-tank missiles of the Empire Army for the first time adopted a "top attack" mode.
By avoiding the tank’s frontal armor and using electronic equipment to control, the missile was detonated above the tank, relying on a metal jet to penetrate the tank’s weaker top armor, thereby achieving an ideal destruction effect without increasing the missile’s mass and size.
Unfortunately, this new type of missile had not yet been successfully developed.
Of course, to deal with the T-80U, the "Lian Nu" carried by the "Z-10A" was more than sufficient, not to mention the fact that the models equipped in the front-line troops were actually the KD-28C.
This latest improved model, due to the use of smaller electronic components, could be equipped with larger-sized precursor warheads with an armor penetration depth of 1500mm.
Not to mention the T-80U, even the well-protected "Challenger" definitely couldn’t withstand it.
For the "Z-10A" traveling at a speed of 240 km/h, flying more than 10 kilometers took only about 3 minutes.
However, this time was enough to complete the preparations for the attack.
When the infrared imager on the nose of the aircraft had captured the heat signals of the tanks at a distance of about 8 kilometers, Lian Mingyang only then pulled up the helicopter. While trying to keep the helicopter stable, he unlocked the fire control system and delegated the attack authority to Jiang Shanggui.
In fact, it took less than 10 seconds for Jiang Shanggui to lock onto 8 targets.
He then fired the 8 "Lian Nu" missiles one by one from the inner side mounts of the short wings.
At the same time, Lian Mingyang controlled the helicopter to reduce the forward speed to 150 km/h.
However, he did not lower the flight altitude.
This time, without Special Forces on the frontline using Laser Indicators to guide the missiles, the guidance had to be conducted using the helicopter’s Laser Illuminator.
This was also the biggest problem with "Lian Nu."
In self-guided situations, the helicopter had to keep the targets within sight without evading until the "Lian Nu" hit the targets.
Obviously, the helicopter at that moment was just a sitting duck!
Even though the design of "Lian Nu" had already considered this issue, and the Army explicitly required the missile to have the capability of supersonic flight throughout the process, due to weight constraints, the maximum speed of "Lian Nu" was only Mach 1.4, and its average speed at a range of 8 kilometers was merely Mach 1.1.
This meant that "Lian Nu" took about 25 seconds to fly 8 kilometers!
During these 25 seconds, an air defense missile traveling at Mach 2 could cover 15 kilometers!
Even if the "Tunguska" was 7 kilometers behind the tanks, it could use missiles to counterattack the attacking armed helicopter.
If there were enemy fighters or armed helicopters nearby, the trouble would have only been greater.
However, once the next generation of "Lian Nu" came out, it would completely solve this problem.
Of course, for pilots like Lian Mingyang at this time, they certainly couldn’t pin their hopes on a new missile still in development.
"Boss, retreat!"
By the time Jiang Shanggui started shouting loudly, Lian Mingyang had already pushed down the control stick.
In the distance, 8 T-80Us had already been turned into fireballs!
From start to finish, it all took less than 3 minutes.
After the lead aircraft launched the attack, the other five "Z-10A" helicopters subsequently entered the battle and fired all their Anti-Tank Missiles.
A total of 48 Anti-Tank Missiles were launched by the 6 armed helicopters!
In reality, the enemy didn’t even have that many tanks.
However, Lian Mingyang couldn’t worry about that anymore.
With 4 more squadrons and 24 "Z-10A" behind, as a squadron leader, Lian Mingyang had to continue to search for and direct attack targets for the Plane Group.
As far as attacking tanks, it actually wasn’t that important.
As Land Air Force pilots would say, once you’re on the battlefield, anything with wheels that can move is fair game for armed helicopters.
As long as it could defeat the enemy, no one would care about using a "Lian Nu" worth 100,000 Gold Yuan to hit a military vehicle worth at most 50,000 Gold Yuan.
Additionally, the weapons carried by the helicopters also included rockets and machine guns.
As long as the battle wasn’t over, no pilot was willing to return with ammunition still onboard.
