Rebirth of the 1980s: The Military Industry Empire

Ah San, Chennai.

Located on the Coromandel Coast in the southeast, it is a beautiful coastal city and the fourth largest city in Ah San. Known as Madras after '96, it is a famous tourist attraction and also home to the Ah San Defence Research and Development Organisation.

This organization was established in March 1975 with the aim of bringing together a large number of engineers to develop domestic tanks. It is the professional center for the research and development of armored fighting vehicles in Ah San.

That morning, ammunition expert Saksh had just arrived at his unit when he was summoned to the conference room.

Walking to the door of the conference room, he saw more than a dozen engineers in suits and several soldiers in military uniforms sitting inside, all with serious expressions. The head of the unit, Diwari, was sitting on the podium, muttering something with a military leader.

When Diwari looked up, he saw Saksh and immediately shouted, "Saksh, come in quickly, we've been waiting for you."

Saksh came in and sat in the central position in the first row. The military leader on the podium, Dala, then spoke: "After we equipped ourselves with T-72 tanks, the guys on the other side became very uneasy, so they ran to the East to request the purchase of advanced tanks. Recently, a foreign trade tank code-named Type 85 is about to be shipped over for testing."

"What Type 85 tank? It's just a modification of the Type 59 tank, nothing to be afraid of."

"That's right, this tank's performance is terrible. Even if it uses a 125mm gun, it's definitely not as good as our T-72 tank!"

The people below discussed, very contemptuous of Eastern weapons.

"That's right, we are not afraid of this tank, but we have just received intelligence that this tank gun has a penetration depth of 400mm, far exceeding the level of our imported T-72 tank gun."

"That's impossible!"

"That's right, Eastern technology cannot reach such a high level, they must be bragging!"

Diwari looked down and then focused his gaze on Saksh: "Saksh, what do you think?"

Saksh frowned: "Eastern armor-piercing projectile technology is indeed very advanced. Even the British spent a huge price to obtain liquid phase sintering technology from the East. I heard that with the blessing of this technology, the armor-piercing ability of tank shells has been greatly improved."

"Saksh is right," Diwari said, "The Eastern armor-piercing projectiles use the most advanced liquid phase sintered tungsten alloy penetrator, while the armor-piercing projectiles we imported from the old Maozi only use ordinary alloy steel penetrators. They are indeed not as good as the Easterners' armor-piercing projectiles."

The faces of the people below continued to show disdain: "What liquid phase sintering? It's purely bragging. Even if it's stronger than the armor-piercing projectiles exported by the Soviet Union, it's not as good as our own developed 120mm gun! If they can penetrate 400mm, then we can penetrate 500mm."

They may not be good at other things, but they have never lost at bragging. Everyone is very proud. Especially since there are military representatives above, they absolutely cannot say that they are not good enough.

"Does our intelligence only have this technical data?" Saksh remained clear-headed.

"The Easterners helped Iraq improve their shells and increase their armor-piercing ability. We have all the information on this modified shell," Diwari said.

Saksh stood up: "Where is it?"

"It's in my hands," Diwari said, "Next, we need to use this technical data to improve our armor-piercing projectiles! We need someone to be responsible for this project."

"I'll take responsibility!" Saksh excitedly strode forward, wanting to take the data.

Eastern armor-piercing projectile technology is indeed outstanding. The penetration depth of the exported 105mm gun is already surprising. It is not surprising that their 125mm gun can penetrate 400mm. Now, with this data, they, Ah San, can also manufacture the same shells and achieve a penetration depth of 400mm.

Dala continued, "The data is on microfilm, turn on the projector."

On the projector, a structural diagram of the warhead of the armor-piercing projectile appeared.

Western shells are unitary ammunition, from the warhead all the way to the primer at the rear, they are all integrated. However, as the caliber of the artillery increases, the weight of this shell also increases. Therefore, when the old Maozi's tank gun developed to a 125mm caliber, they used separate loading ammunition.

The propellant at the rear is one part, and the warhead at the front is one part. For fin-stabilized discarding sabot armor-piercing projectiles, the space behind the sabot is also made into a cylindrical propellant, so that more energy can be obtained.

Everyone is an expert and recognized it at a glance: "Saddle-shaped sabot?"

The penetrator of a discarding sabot armor-piercing projectile is very thin, only a few tens of millimeters, while the barrel is more than one hundred millimeters, so it is necessary to add a sabot to seal the propellant behind it. The old Maozi used the most ordinary disc, and only used this saddle-shaped sabot in the 3BM44. The West had already popularized this technology.

3BM42, the sabot is in front of the black thing, the white thing is the penetrator

"There is a problem with the length, the penetrator of this shell has been lengthened!" Saksh saw something different from others.

For long-rod penetrators, an important factor affecting penetration depth is the length-to-diameter ratio, that is, the ratio of the length of the penetrator to its own diameter. The larger this ratio, the stronger the penetration depth. Take their most advanced 3BM17 as an example, the length of the penetrator is 430mm, the diameter is 31mm, and the length-to-diameter ratio is less than 14, while the Western armor-piercing projectiles, with the blessing of liquid phase sintering technology, have reached 20, and the armor-piercing ability is of course not on the same order of magnitude.

Now, the penetrator of this armor-piercing projectile on the design drawing has been lengthened to 690mm! Looking at the numbers marked on it, Saksh felt his heart pounding.

The penetrator and the core are different. A fairing and other things have to be added in front of the penetrator, so the total length of the penetrator of their 3BM17 armor-piercing projectile is 548mm, and now the total length has reached 690mm. In this way, it has increased by 152mm. Of course, the increased things are placed on the penetrator, and the penetrator has also increased to 582mm! The length-to-diameter ratio is also close to 19!

Wait, how did they do it?

He continued to look at the design drawing and couldn't help but admire: "It cut off the penetrator of our armor-piercing projectile from the middle, and then added a section of tungsten alloy core in front! The front and rear are covered with steel sleeves, exactly in the middle of this saddle-shaped sabot. The sabot is moved forward, and more propellant is added behind."

This is a multi-pronged approach: increasing the length of the penetrator, increasing the material of the penetrator, increasing the propellant, and using a saddle-shaped sabot for better sealing. With these solutions, increasing the penetration depth to 400mm is completely no problem!

"But, we don't have the production technology for tungsten alloy!" Someone worried.

"We have also obtained technical data, including various material ratios and processing techniques," Dala continued, "Since you all think there is no problem, then next, let's build it according to this technology! If there is no problem, modify all our shells!"