Traveling through the sword to engage in military industry.

Chapter 220 Tank Dream

Tanks! Li Yunlong had seen them before and knew very well how powerful they were.

Even the weakest tanks of the Japanese were difficult to kill steel monsters for the Eighth Route Army, which only had machine guns and rifles to fight with.

It is only now that weapons like the RPG rocket launcher have come out that Li Yunlong is no longer so in awe of this thing, but now that he is going to produce it himself, the feeling is completely different.

The Japanese don't have a powerful weapon like the RPG rocket launcher. Although they are equipped with some 37mm anti-tank guns, most of their infantry battalions do not have that thing. If the independent regiment is now equipped with tanks, it will be a powerful weapon to kill the Japanese infantry battalion!

There's nothing wrong with a battalion beating up a whole squadron of the Japanese!
How could Li Yunlong not be excited about this?
"When can we produce tanks?" Li Yunlong asked anxiously. "We don't have tank drivers yet. When will we be arranged to receive training?"

Looking at Li Yunlong's impatient look, Ren Zhong smiled slightly.

"We have already started mass training of tank crew members in the border areas. If nothing unexpected happens, once the tanks here are off the production line, the tank crews will be dispatched simultaneously."

Ren Zhong had nothing bad to say to Li Yunlong about anything in this plan.

After all, Lao Li now holds a position in the military sub-district and can barely be considered a marginal high-level figure in the base.

"No, this won't work." Who knew that when Old Li heard this, he shook his head like a rattle.

"Let's have our own people go and learn. We have people in our independent regiment who can send hundreds of people to learn how to drive tanks."

Lao Li is good in every way, except for one thing: he is used to eating alone and always favors his own people.

"This is not an easy task, Lao Li. Tank driving crews are technical soldiers. If they don't understand culture, can't read, and have poor comprehension and mechanical control abilities, they won't be able to learn to drive a tank."

Ren Zhong taught Li Yunlong a lot of basic knowledge about tanks, but this time Li was determined to select 200 people from the independent regiment to go to the border area tank driving class to practice driving tanks.

He even asked to attend the study class and personally take charge of the study.

The temptation of this tank is so tempting to Li Yunlong that in comparison, the Japanese soldiers now have to stand aside and behind.

Ren Zhong had planned this matter long ago. The first batch of 200 people and 50 crews in the border area had the main task of serving as the seed players for the tank units in each base. After the training in the border area, each base would be assigned 10 crews and then 10 tanks to start large-scale tank unit training, and train a tank regiment-sized tank army in the base.

Because in the near future, Ren Zhong planned that each base would be roughly the size of a tank regiment, with about 200 tanks.

With this scale, the Eighth Route Army has initially formed a steel torrent and can go out and sweep across the entire North China.

Regardless of whether the ratio between the T-34 heavy tank and the M3 light tank is 1:4 or 2:3, once the Eighth Route Army forms a cluster of thousands of heavy firepower tanks with unified 76mm large barrels, it will be a disaster for the Japanese in North China, and their doomsday will come.

With this scale, even if he faces the main force of the Kwantung Army, Ren Zhong has absolute confidence in defeating them!
Because according to the information that Ren Zhong found, although the Japanese Kwantung Army had a large number of troops, it was also the best-equipped group in the Japanese Army. Its mechanized army was also the largest armored corps in the history of Japanese military, with 675 tanks and 155 armored vehicles. Together with the other two independent tank regiments (usually an independent tank regiment has 2 tanks), the total number of tanks in the entire Kwantung Army was only about 52.

You should know that there are quite a few small tanks among them, and most of the main forces are just medium tanks, and it is difficult for them to fight against Ren Zhong’s modified M3.

If the tanks were to face off in equal numbers, Ren Zhong didn't believe that a team of tanks equipped with unified 76mm main guns would be unable to defeat the Japanese's fragile tanks with small barrels of less than 60mm.

According to the current design production capacity, there are five major tank factories, four of which are assembly plants in Jin. If the monthly production capacity is 5 vehicles, by the beginning of 4, each base will be able to gather 20 vehicles, and then directly flatten the Japanese in Jin, use their upright strength to turn around and charge into the North China Plain, and take down the Japanese North China Front Army in one fell swoop!
This is the reason why Ren Zhong suggested that the border areas and base areas temporarily maintain the status quo.

If I can just endure for a few months, I can defeat you, so there is no need to waste these few months with you.

The current situation is that no one knows that an industrial booster like Ren Zhong has appeared on the Eighth Route Army side, and after just a few years he has built up a preliminary heavy industry system.

Compared with Yan Laoxi's industrialization, Ren Zhong's industrialization is not only more comprehensive in types, but also more than one era ahead of him in terms of technological level. Some things are even more than ten or twenty years ahead.

There are many things that outsiders cannot understand, and even people like Li Yunlong, who are close to Ren Zhong, cannot see clearly.

This is a strange product of the collision of thinking from two completely different eras. The Japanese could never have dreamed of the impact that the less than a year given to the Eighth Route Army would have.

If the Japanese knew what Ren Zhong was doing in the base, they would launch a full-scale attack even if they had to sell everything they had and would not wait even a second. Lao Li looked like he would not give up until he achieved his goal.

Ren Zhong smiled.

"Drink, drink! What is your current status, Old Li? Can the brigade commander give you a chance to leave the leadership position?" Ren Zhong said.

"Brother Ren, so there is no problem on your side?" Li Yunlong said happily. "As long as there is no problem on your side, I will take care of the brigade commander's side."

"Cheers! Let's enjoy this wine today. Brother Ren, you didn't prepare only one bottle, did you? This is enough to fill our stomachs."

Li Yunlong seemed to have obtained a pass to go to the border area to study tanks, and now he was ready to drink to his heart's content.

Ren Zhong knew this guy's drinking capacity and character, so of course he wouldn't just have one bottle of wine.

However, after finishing the second bottle, Ren Zhong refused to take out any more.

Just kidding, most of the two bottles of wine went into Lao Li's stomach. Although this guy drinks very fast, his alcohol tolerance is still okay, but it's only less than two kilograms. If more, he will be drunk.

The current state is just right. Old Li is just eight parts drunk. Listening to him talking about the old days with Kong Jie, Ding Wei and Zhang Wanhe, Ren Zhong, who is six parts drunk, feels very cordial. He especially envy Li Yunlong and his old comrades-in-arms who remained loyal to each other despite the hardships.

It's a messy matter that can't be sorted out who saved whom, but when the situation really happens, these people can use their bodies to block bullets for each other without hesitation.

For some unknown reason, the brigade commander agreed to Li Yunlong's request and selected 200 people from the independent regiment system to go to the border area.

Perhaps the brigade commander wanted to prevent Li Yunlong from causing trouble due to his idleness, so he took this opportunity to send Li Yunlong, an unstable element, directly to the border area.

Just as the electrolytic aluminum plant had come to an end, Ren Zhong followed Li Yunlong northward, bypassing the Japanese hinterland near Taiyuan and directly crossing the Zhengtai Line and Tongpu Line to return to the border area.

On the bank of the Yellow River, three ferry crossings have begun to build permanent bridges. Looking back now, these three bridges are still a bit crude. They use a combination of wooden piles and armored floating boats to build iron plate bridges on both sides of the river bank. In the middle part with deep water, there are no conditions to lay concrete piers, so armored floating boats are still used to lock the river surface of two or three hundred meters through a combination of floating boats and iron plates.

Although it is still a bit shaky for trucks to pass through and the speed cannot be fast, according to the standards set by Renzhong for bridges, the G506 is qualified if it can tow a 2-ton 105mm howitzer.

After all, at this stage, the heaviest weapon for transportation between the border area and northwest Shanxi is the 105mm howitzer. As for tanks, Ren Zhong does not plan to transport them through the Yellow River Bridge. Except for Jiuyuan outside the Great Wall, he plans to transport them to Jiuyuan after the pontoons are frozen solid in winter, lay steel plates and let tanks pass through them, and export the tanks from the border area to Jiuyuan, and equip Jiuyuan with a tank battalion.

Li Yunlong led his men into the third tank class, and he began to learn how to drive tanks and fight day and night.

The border region's first tank factory has achieved a monthly production capacity of 3 M20 tanks, and is rapidly expanding new production lines. As the top priority of the border region's military industry in the near future, the mature M3 tank production line will be expanded to 5 or 6 new production lines within the next year, achieving a monthly production capacity of more than 120 vehicles!
In terms of distribution, the border area is of course the main production base, and at least two or even three production lines must be formed.

On the border side, the three important bases of Luliang, Wutai and Taihang Taiyue are going to build a tank production line respectively. However, these three places mainly produce the tank shell and main structure. Communication equipment, power equipment, and even artillery parts now have to be provided by the border area. After all, the production of artillery steel is not something that can be accomplished by ordinary steel mills.

Dozens of tanks produced in the border area in the early stage are now being ravaged by three tank shifts almost around the clock. All the minor problems in various aspects are exposed under the high-intensity operation, forcing the Mechanical Equipment Research Center to work with engineers from the Red Star No. 1 Armored Factory and the Red Star Engine Factory in the border area to conduct research and modifications day and night.

After more than two months of improvements, the performance of the M2 tank has now become stable. At least it can allow a new and violent driver like Li Yunlong to drive safely for thousands of kilometers without breaking down.

For Li Yunlong, facing this new world in his life, he was completely attracted to the border area and did not want to leave.

During the day he was busy studying and driving, and at night he would often take the initiative to ask Ren Zhong to discuss how to use this completely new type of troops. This illiterate man who could read less than 500 words now finally realized the importance of culture and began to work hard to cultivate culture.

Although Ren Zhong didn't know much about tank combat, one should know that there was a world behind him. When Ren Zhong encountered a problem that he didn't understand, he would travel back to the main world and soon come up with an idea after crazy searches and phishing-style inquiries online. Compared with a pure peasant like Li Yunlong, he was on a completely different level.

When Staff Officer Ye was free and came to see Ren Zhong, he also enthusiastically participated in the tank tactics discussion between Ren Zhong and Li Yunlong.

Li Yunlong, who had driven a tank and even went to the airport to touch the P51D Mustang fighter, seemed to have opened a window to a new world. He began to look forward to the day when the independent regiment would have a tank battalion and a flying squadron to form a three-dimensional combat system.

Suddenly I feel that the days of being a division commander are not so good. Only when Shanghai has all the land and air forces are fully equipped can it be a real good life!

Second update, please recommend and give me monthly votes!


(End of this chapter)