Chapter 125 Tank Destroyer 1
During the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Czech Republic became an important economic base of the empire due to its good location and rich mineral resources. The Austro-Hungarian Empire invested a lot of resources in the Czech region, which greatly promoted the industrial development of the Czech Republic, especially the military industry.
Its industrialization level reached an astonishing 100%. What does this mean? In addition to industry, Czech Republic has nothing else, such as agriculture. All the food needed by Czech Republic is provided by Britain and France. Although Slovakia is an undeveloped agricultural area, the Czech government has not taken many measures to develop Slovakia.
It is mainly engaged in machinery manufacturing, various machine tools, power equipment, ships, automobiles, electric locomotives, rolling equipment, military industry, light textile, and chemical and glass industries are also relatively developed.
In the first half of the 20th century, the achievements of Czech military production were obvious to all. At that time, Czech Republic had the Skoda Factory, which was one of the best arsenals in Europe.
The predecessor of the Skoda Arsenal was a machinery factory established in a western Czech city. In 1868, an Austrian count named Skoda spent a lot of money to buy it. Therefore, since 1869, the factory has been renamed Skoda Arsenal, located in Brno, the second largest city in the Czech Republic.
Its arms industry can produce 20,000 heavy machine guns, 60,000 light machine guns, 2,500 cannons, 1.6 million rifles, more than 80,000 grenades, and 500-600 tanks every year. In addition to meeting the needs of the country's own army, all weapons produced by the Czech Republic are exported. Its arms exports once accounted for 30-40% of the world's total, and it has been the world's largest arms production and exporter for many years.
The output of artillery at the Skoda Arsenal in 1937 was almost the total output of the British domestic arsenal. In addition, the arsenal also operates machine tools, thermal power equipment, and produces various heavy industrial products such as small cars, large cars, trucks, trams and trolleybuses, electric locomotives, etc. It can be said that it is the pillar of Czechoslovakia's industry.
The Czech machine guns in various war movies that I watched when I was a child are representatives of Czech military products.
After the end of World War II, the Czech Republic joined the Warsaw Pact. During the entire Cold War, the Czech military industry was still quite powerful. In the late 1980s, the output value of the Czech military industry accounted for 8-10% of the total value of the machinery manufacturing industry. From 1984 to 1988, the Czech Republic exported arms worth 2.7 billion US dollars, accounting for 1/3 of the export volume during the same period, ranking 7th among the 16 major arms exporters in the world.
However, the huge military industry could not stop the impact of the historical trend.
In the 1980s, the world's third industrial revolution began, and Western developed countries vigorously developed high-tech industries such as electronic technology, information technology, and new energy, and their economic strength was growing day by day. At this time, the Czech Republic was still proud of its traditional machinery and heavy industry, which was already "backward production capacity" in the eyes of developed countries. Therefore, compared with the rapidly developing high-tech industries in Western countries, the Czech industry naturally lagged behind.
In addition, as the Cold War came to an end, some hot spots cooled down, the disarmament process of various countries accelerated, and the world situation eased, the Czech military production was greatly affected. At the same time, with the collapse of the Warsaw Pact-CMEA system, Czechoslovakia could no longer obtain resources from the Soviet Union. Its limited national strength and tight finances could no longer support its huge military production.
The gradually declining Czechoslovakia finally became an exporter of fallen women to the West. Later, the United States made a bloody horror film "Hostel", which was originally planned to take place in Thailand, but was afraid of offending Thailand, so it was changed to Czechoslovakia. Those who have seen this movie know the plot, and those who have not seen it can also search it. The box office of this movie was not bad at the time. The Czech Republic was so badly blackened, but there was no complaint.
Yannick's first stop was the Skoda Arsenal.
Although the Czech Republic has been torn apart, the Czech people still live as before, and the same is true in this arsenal. The workers still go to work and work on time.
There are just some new faces in the factory. Some engineers from Germany joined the Skoda Arsenal. They evaluated the products of the Skoda Arsenal and analyzed which aspects needed improvement and transformation.
Yannick first came to the tank workshop. Seeing the current flagship products of Skoda Arsenal, the LT-35 light tank and the LT-38 light tank.
The LT-38 light tank is probably similar to the performance of the historical No. 3 tank. After obtaining these tanks, Germany in history was also like a treasure, incorporated them into its own army, and renamed them fw38t tanks. After all, the number of Germany's No. 3 tanks was also seriously insufficient at that time.
For Skoda, this tank is their pride, and now, the jackal tanks produced in Germany are far more advanced than the LT-38 light tanks in all aspects. In the eyes of German engineers, this tank is a product that they don't even look at.
After taking the evaluation report compiled by the engineers and taking a look at it, Yannick ordered very straightforwardly. "Stop the production of these two tanks immediately. They can't meet the needs of our army at all!"
The company leaders and Skoda engineers who were traveling with them looked a little embarrassed. After all, the LT-38 light tank is the most advanced tank in the Czech Republic, and it's not a good feeling to be disliked.
Any product is soaked with the engineers' hard work. For these Skoda engineers, their tanks are like their children, and they are eager to produce all of their tanks.
But they also knew that this was impossible. Compared with the German tanks, their tanks were already backward. For example, the armor was still riveted. When the enemy's shells came and knocked the rivets off, the flying rivets were the greatest damage to the tank crew.
But Yannick's next words made them ecstatic. "But the chassis of this LT-38 light tank is good, don't waste it. Keep the existing production line to continue to produce this chassis. Of course, the parts need to be modified, and at least 75% of them are common with the Jackal tank."
Yannick's words were equivalent to acknowledging the excellence of the LT-38, which made the designers present feel flattered. You know, this prince is almost omnipotent, and no one can match him in terms of weapon attainments. The German weapons that made a big splash in the Spanish Civil War came from his hands.
However, what's the use of just making a chassis?
"..." Seeing the puzzled expressions of everyone, Yannick asked the secretary to take out the design drawings that had been prepared long ago and handed them to the person in charge of the company. "Use this chassis to build a tank destroyer. You will have one year to produce 1,000 tank destroyers per month."
The person in charge, who had not had time to look at the design drawings carefully, was shocked by the number. "1,000?!" You know, the current monthly production is just over 100, 1,000, that would have to be eight or nine times more?
"Don't worry, the structure of this tank destroyer is very simple. Even if you are asked to produce 300 or 400 per month now, it will be no problem. Once Speer integrates the factories here, a monthly production of 1,000 can be achieved." You know, this tank destroyer could be produced under the Allied bombing at the end of the war, let alone now.