Transmigrated as the Crown Prince

Yannick knew that there were three types of airborne tanks in the 1940s and 1950s.

The first is the ASU-57 airborne tank destroyer. This is an ultra-light self-propelled artillery developed by the Soviet Union for its paratroopers in the early 1950s after World War II. At that time, the carrying capacity of Soviet transport aircraft was insufficient. The design focus of the ASU-57 was to be as small and light as possible. , weight is 4 tons. This vehicle has no turret and uses an open fighting room. The front armor is 6 mm thick and the side and rear armor is 4 mm thick. It is equipped with a CH-51 57 mm anti-tank gun (a development model of the ZIS-2 anti-tank gun during World War II). The power unit is an M-20E 4-cylinder water-cooled gasoline engine. Although the vehicle can be said to be small and exquisite, it has many shortcomings. First, the armor is too thin and can only withstand rifle bullets and fragments. Second, the open fighting room is vulnerable to attack.

However, the biggest advantage of this thing is that it can be airdropped. When it is airdropped, it is fixed on a platform. This platform is connected to a pull-out umbrella and four main parachutes with a diameter of 30 meters. And because of its compact body, it can even be stuffed into a Mi-6 helicopter for air transport.

The second model is the M22 Cicada tank.

It is a type of airborne tank developed by the United States in the 1940s. At that time, it was temporarily suspended because there was no suitable transport aircraft. After the British learned about this, they actively promoted it, and finally the U.S. military changed its mind and continued the development work. The American Marmon Wellington Company produced the first prototype vehicle in May 1941, called the T9 light airborne tank. It was later named the M22 "Cicada" airborne tank.

As the world's first specially designed airborne tank, the American M22 "Cicada" Locust is very suitable for the needs of airborne operations in terms of firepower, mobility and protection. It has important reference value for the subsequent development of airborne tanks by other countries around the world.

Its total combat weight is 72 tons, with a crew of 3, a length of 94 meters, a width of 25 meters, and a height of 84 meters. It can be considered small and exquisite. The turret is a cast homogeneous steel armored turret with a surrounding armor thickness of 25 mm; the car body is a rolled steel armor welded structure, with the thickest part of the frontal armor being 25 mm and the remaining parts being 10 to 13 mm. In order to ensure that the mass of the entire vehicle does not exceed 5 tons, designers had to do everything possible to reduce the thickness of the armor. It can be said that the weak protection is the Achilles' heel of the M22.

Generally speaking, the M22 "Cicada" light airborne tank has good maneuverability, but its firepower is obviously insufficient, its armor protection is also poor, and air transportation is troublesome (the turret needs to be removed). Various congenital defects limit its use in actual combat. use. However, compared with the Soviet Union, Germany, Britain and other countries (their airborne tanks were all improved from ordinary light tanks), the M22 "Cicada" is the world's first specially designed airborne tank. In terms of firepower, mobility and armor protection, the needs of airborne operations have been fully considered. This has important reference value for the future development of airborne tanks in various countries around the world and has had a profound impact.

The third model is Germany's own Type 1 C tank, with a combat weight of 8 tons. It is equipped with a 20mm 60-caliber gun and a 92mm machine gun. Its frontal armor reaches 30mm, and its side armor is about 5mm, the highest The speed can reach 75 kilometers per hour.

As for the British "Lord" airborne tank, Yannick simply rejected it.

In Normandy, the mission of the "Lord" tank from beginning to end is to perform what is called "囧". Some were lost during the landing, and some were damaged by mines. They were even more unable to move forward when encountering the German Panzer IV and Panzer III tank destroyers. The most competent job of the "Lord" tank is to provide fire support that is better than nothing during the infantry battle between the British and German armies.

In August 1944, most of the "Lord" tanks in the British Airborne Forces were replaced by "Cromwell" cruise tanks. In November, the remaining Overlords were replaced with American-made M22 Cicada airborne tanks.

Yannick wanted to airdrop a Jackal tank or a Stalker destroyer, but this was just a fantasy.

Even in later generations, the United States and Russia, which have the most thorough research on heavy equipment airdrop technology, the most advanced equipment technology, and the most practical operations, only have an airdrop limit weight of 18 tons. The largest manned airdrop (man-vehicle integrated airdrop) weighs 5 tons. This is the only Russian airborne force that can conduct integrated manned and vehicle airdrop operations, and is unique in the world.

Heavy equipment airdrop technology has developed from the 1940s to later generations. After more than 70 years of development, the latest progress is nothing more than precise airdrop and rocket buffer landing using fully automatic computer control. There is no major breakthrough in terms of airdrop weight. It can be said that, 18 tons (the largest single-piece airdrop capability of the U.S. military) is already the limit weight for the world's top heavy-duty airdrops in later generations. If it is a manned airdrop, it will have to be lowered. The United States has no idea of ​​manned airdrops exceeding 15 tons. For example, Russia does not dare to drop it - it is very simple. If the equipment is dropped, the result will be a pile of scrap metal. Russia and the United States have experienced countless failed airdrops of heavy equipment. It is really not technically allowed. Otherwise, Russia would have gone there long ago. Airdrops of light tanks with man and vehicle were carried out.

Therefore, it is impossible to airdrop larger tanks with current technology. If you want to transport tanks, paratroopers must seize the enemy airport to expand the defense line, and then transport the tanks to the airport. And even if the enemy airport is captured, there are no transport aircraft large enough to transport the main tanks.

There are currently two large transport aircraft in Germany. The first is the Me323F "Giant" transport aircraft.

It has a wingspan of 2 meters and a length of 46 meters. It uses six 1350-horsepower Yumo 211R engines and has a maximum carrying capacity of 3 tons.

Although this large transport aircraft developed from a glider has become the best prey for fighter jets due to its heavy body and slow speed, its large volume, low floor cargo hold, openable nose door and multi-wheel landing gear design have been Considered the originator of modern military transport aircraft.

The other is the Bv222 Viking seaplane, which was the largest military seaplane in World War II. It has a wingspan of 46 meters, a fuselage height of 9 meters, and a fuselage length of 37 meters. The length is one and a half times that of the B-29. The engines are six 1,000-horsepower coaxial diesel engines with a maximum carrying capacity of 5 tons.

Therefore, even if a tank is transported by air, it will not exceed the 20-ton level.

The Zeppelin Company of the original time and space cooperated with the French SNCOSO company to develop the ZSO523 "Super Giant". "ZSO" is the combination of the initials of the two companies. It has a wingspan of 70 meters, a length of 25 meters, a full aircraft weight of over 50 tons, and is planned to carry 35 tons of cargo. Powered by six Grom-Rhone 14R engines with a power of 2,100 horsepower, the maximum speed is 340 kilometers per hour at an altitude of 3,800 meters, and the cruising range at a speed of 310 kilometers per hour is scheduled to be 2,000 kilometers. When the German army fled Paris, ZSO523 was in the stage of making a wooden model of the same size.