Chapter 404: Challenge
The rolling armored torrent, like locusts, is overwhelming, and the artillery fire can swallow up the whole of Europe at any time! With a huge fleet and advanced airborne troops, even the British across the channel can't sit still!
The offensive was so powerful that the armored forces advanced 200 kilometers on the first day! This was the result of a fierce confrontation! The combat effectiveness of the Soviet ground armored forces was once again powerfully demonstrated to the West.
"General Andre, didn't you say that we can observe these tanks?" Major General George looked at the T-80 tanks more than ten meters away and couldn't help feeling a little depressed.
The three-day exercise was over. Before it ended, the Western observation group wanted to go and see the exercise troops. Andre agreed and brought them there. Unfortunately, they were stopped by the army when they were more than ten meters away from the tanks!
No, you can't get any closer!
"Major General George, I have already answered your question when I received everyone a few days ago. It is completely possible to observe our tanks at a close distance." Andre said: "Now, we are about ten meters away from the tank. Is that close enough?"
"General Andre, you are humiliating us. Our Great Britain's tanks are much better than yours!" Major General George could no longer tolerate it. It could be said that the entire exercise was a humiliation to the Western world. Now, the exercise was over, and they were not even allowed to see a tank!
Humiliation? Hearing Major General George's protest, Andre smiled: "Among your tanks, the most advanced is the Challenger 1, which weighs 64 tons and is equipped with your latest Chobham armor. However, even if your engineers have developed high-hardness alloy steel plates, expansion reaction layers, flaky alumina ceramic layers, high-hardness alloy steel back plates and aluminum-containing metal linings, which are arranged alternately and placed at a large angle, and the gaps are filled with fire-resistant buffer materials such as special rubber. This much-vaunted armor actually only increases the protection against armor-piercing shells to more than 550 mm, and the defense against armor-piercing shells to about 450 mm. Can it withstand the latest depleted uranium armor-piercing shells fired by our 125 mm tank guns? Our penetration is 1,000 mm."
Andre's words shocked Major General George. The British Challenger tank relied on Chobham armor, which was the most advanced composite armor in the Western world. Even the American M1 tank used this armor! And now, the formula, layout and performance of the armor were clearly described by the other party. Could it be that there was a spy on their side?
Humiliate you? I want to humiliate you, what can you do? Andre continued, "Also, your tanks have been guarding the rifled guns. Your 120mm tank guns will have no rifling after firing 200 rounds, right? Otherwise, let's find a place to compare your Challenger 1 with our T-80 tanks. We don't have to compare our best mobility. The Challenger 1 engine is not as good as our gas turbine. How about we just fire a round at each other at a distance of one thousand meters? To be fair, let your shells hit our tanks first."
If it weren't for his reason overcoming his anger, Major General George really wanted to agree to Andre's request. However, Major General George knew that this was impossible! The armor of our Challenger 1 tanks really couldn't withstand the attack of 125mm depleted uranium armor-piercing shells! The American M1 couldn't withstand it, and our tanks couldn't withstand it either! However, the Soviet tanks, with composite armor and reactive armor, could withstand the attack of our own shells!
"How about it? General George, do you dare?" Andre said, "We can make a bet. If we win, we will plant our sickle and hammer flag on the Houses of Parliament in London, how about that?"
Boom! Major General George felt his brain explode with a bang. Everything was blank. This was a naked, bloody threat! In this special period, the Soviet Union was issuing a declaration of war to Western Europe!
Can Western Europe rise to the challenge?
United States, White House.
"The Soviet exercise this time still did not deviate from the Soviet Union's previous combat mode, that is, the ground assault group with tanks as the core broke through the enemy's deep territory. This tactic, which has been finalized since the 1930s, has been used until now. It can be said that the core of the Soviet Army is the tank." The Assistant to the National Security Affairs analyzed the Soviet Union's West 79 military exercise in detail.
Although the US representatives were unable to participate in the exercise, after all, compared with previous exercises, the Soviet Union's exercise was highly publicized. This was the first time in history that the West was invited to observe!
Therefore, the United States can obtain a considerable amount of useful information, which even exceeds the total amount that the intelligence system has been able to obtain over the years.
"The main tanks of the Soviets are the new T-72 and T-80. Among them, the T-72 is a third-generation main battle tank developed in Nizhny Tagil. It is equipped with composite armor and a large-caliber smoothbore gun, and has good comprehensive combat performance. This tank has fought against us in the Hokkaido area, and its performance overwhelmed our M1. The T-80 tank is a new tank developed by Omsk based on the T-64B tank. It uses a gas turbine as a power unit, which greatly improves its mobility. We estimate that the combat effectiveness of this tank is 50% higher than that of the T-64."
"All Soviet weapons are designed to cooperate with tank groups. For example, their BMP series of infantry fighting vehicles are purely designed to meet the requirements of infantry-tank coordination in high-speed mechanized assaults. We can see the Soviet offensive sequence. Behind the Soviet tanks, this type of infantry fighting vehicle carries infantry to fiercely attack the enemy's high ground. The scene is very spectacular. At the same time, all artillery in the Soviet army has achieved self-propelled development. In particular, they like large-scale firepower coverage very much, and the proportion of multiple rocket launchers has further increased. And we also saw clusters of Mi-24 armed helicopters cooperating with ground forces to conduct deep operations."
"So, what is the conclusion of this exercise?" President Carter was obviously impatient. He had too many troubles recently and was overwhelmed. His subordinates had said so much, but he still didn't understand. What was the conclusion?
"The conclusion is that the Soviet army has developed to its peak, and the Soviet ground forces can be said to be the most powerful in the world. If a war breaks out and the Soviet armored forces start to attack from under the Berlin Wall, it will only take eight days for the Eiffel Tower in Paris to be hoisted with the hammer and sickle flag."