Strategic Arms Quest 3/2: Armor Edition

[7734]

First order of buisness: find out how much cash you were working with. The answer was simple- not much. The War was sucking up R&D funds like a bored machine gunner and bullets, so you only had two-thirds the cash you did last time. There were worse problems in the world, though.

For starters, von Eberhart. Things had stagnated a lot since he'd been on the last commission, and right now getting a breakthrough to stick was a brigade-level objective. The biggest problem was fire support- the small 7.5cm and 5.5cm guns couldn't throw enough shell to really break a trench line, and the big 21cm and 15.5cm guns couldn't get into position to cover a breakthrough fast enough from their far-back firing positions. Enemy air superiority meant they frequently had an information advantage, and that made reinforcing a breakthrough incredibly difficult. Bombers, used when artillery couldn't use their pretargeted locations, just made it worse.

Next up was Folgers. The young man was a bit on the small side, but between his energetic personality and bellowing voice you couldn't tell. Aside from a laundry list of fixes he wanted for the W-2, the big three things he called for were more frontal armor, a more powerful engine, and a longer trackbase. The frontal armor was simple- anti-tank rifles were apparently becoming a threat, and this necessitated a lot of suppressing fire be dedicated before the tanks charged. Considering the tight ammunition allowences of a W-2, this was understandable. The engine was called for to get around faster, plus to add aditional power for when the tank needed to conduct trench-crossing acrobatics. The explosives-lined trenches weren't the issue they had been made out to be in official reports (the solution being for supporting infantry to throw grenades in to detonate any charges sympathetically) but the size was- a W-2 could fit in flat lengthwise, so it couldn't start digging an exit ramp. The longer trackbase was for stability, as well as for a more stable firing platform when in motion. A few minor fixes were included (more ammunition, better lighting, more fuel, headlamps) but most of it was baked into the big three requests.

Adler's acidic acceptance of the commission was unsurprising, nor his message. The trains were still the same, rolled plates were getting to about fifteen milimeters in a pinch, and cross-bracing was in like Flynn. New advances in welding helped, and rivet science had climbed to new heights too. Of especial note was a standard turret for armored trains, set to receive a 5.5cm gun and be proof against anti-armor rifles to one hundred meters. It might come in handy, he hinted, even if it did have a meter-and-change turret ring and needed an electric motor to drive it faster than a crawl.

Hans Ledwinka was theoretically next, but a series of telegrams informed you he was neck-deep in an armor project at the time and couldn't come out to help you without risking a conflict of interest lawsuit. He'd partnered with Wanderer's armor design team, though, so you had very high hopes and excused his absentee participation gracefully.

Gotha was easier to track down, thankfully, settling into his new career of demagouge and firebrand quite easily. The unions were getting nasty as hell, though, over increases in production being mandated from up top. The war effort was engulfing more than just the young populace, and there'd been some minor striking until the Emperor agreed to revise the draft around the munitions factory unions. With armor producers not being counted as munitions factories, though, things were getting tense as the next round of expanded drafts started going after some of the children of the current worker population. To you, a seventeen year old had every right to fight for his country, but you were a career officer so your opinion was void aparently. Either way, there were still a few shops your eventual contractors could farm out the work to.

With your opinion farm tilled and your beautiful wife looking like she'd swallowed a beach ball, you got ready to ride out the storm that was writing an RFQ. Time to get to it, you supposed. Not like this war was gonna last forever.

((This is a PLAN VOTE. Write what you want your darling new infantry tank to have, and specify whether past entrants can compete.))

 

[7734]

Issuing your (rather ambitious) Request For Quotes, you gave things two weeks for everyone to get back to you. The fact your mailbox was flooded at the end could be considered a good thing, you supposed.

The first designs for you were from Thryssen's new Independent Panzerwerke, and you had to scratch your head at 'em for a few minutes. Packing the 5,5 gun in a top-mounted turret and a 7,5 in the hull, it also came along with eight machine guns scattered through hull sponsons, linked to the cannons, on pintle mounts (ostenably for flak purposes) and one even dangling out the back. With two monstrous Wanderer compression-fired engines and the general shape of the AV-4, this… this KW-1 was ridiculous. With thirty millimeters of bow armor and nineteen on the sides, though, if it was anywhere near what it was claimed then it would be a ridiculous monster.

Reinhardt had naturally sent in their own designs, a GK-2 and GK-3 platform respectfully. Both were built on an enlarged GK-1 hull, but they had very different armaments. The base hull had twenty-two cumulative millimeters of bow armor and sixteen on the sides, along with a dual three-cylinder hot bulb engine from Ursus. The differences were purely in weapons. The GK-2 came armed with a cannibalized Balkh design for a rotary 3,5 cm cannon in the nose and two 5,5 guns to cover the sides, along with an additional five machine guns scattered throughout the compartmentalized hull. In addition, it could mount up to ten machine guns on pintle mounts on an optional roof as flak. The GK-3, meanwhile, had two turrets- one bow, one stern- mounting 5,5cm guns, as well as eight machine guns in the bow compartment.

Skoda, not one to miss out on what was turning out to be lucrative tank contracts, sent in their own hat for the contest: the SzW-1. Clocking in at more than ten meters long and three wide, this massive bus of a tank carried a short 10,5cm howitzer in the turret, a 3.5cm hull howitzer, and six machine guns. Relying on their Reichsmarine-given casting experience, the forward hull was a cast forty five milimeters, with the side hull segments being twenty milimeters universally.

Wanderer, of course, was coming to the competition with his latest and greatest too. The W-5/6 was a completely different tank from the W-2, shedding the hull mount in exchange for an elongated hull, turret, and fairly light armament of a 2cm automatic cannon or 3,5cm lightened tank gun. After reading your RFQ however, Wanderer put his new partners to work in designing the W-8, an enlarged version with a longer and wider hull to fit in a 5,5 shortened barrel gun on what was almost the same chassis.

Barring any changes to schedule, you could get to work writing a new testing scheme. Good thing, too- Anne-Marie had officially hit the point where you were the most evil creature in creation, for cursing her with twins that kept her from leaving the house on a regular basis. Good thing you had a cot in your office.

((This is a BY PLAN vote for how to test the tanks. For convience's sake, I'll include last testing plan below.))

[X] Plan Improvement
-[X] Advise AV-4 and GK-1 developers to improve ventilation to the crew compartments, if possible.
-[X]Request samples of armored plate from all designers/producers
--[X]Conduct controlled weapons test and post-shoot analysis on plate at various angles, utilizing bacon as potential stand-ins.
-[X] Ask for W1 design improvements.
--[X]Add geared teeth on the drive sprocket and some rollers to improve track retention during maneuvers, as well as additional center guide; potentially widen tracks, as well.
--[X]Add armor to cover the forward axel or shift the armored plating forward to cover it and prevent damage from shells, etc.
-[X]If improvements are made (W1, AV-4, GK-1), conduct revised mobility testing to see if crew and vehicle endurance is improved over the first round.
-[X]Conduct weapons testing on remaining models.
--[X]Evaluate degrees of arc and elevation of weapons, as well as visibility from gunner position
--[X]Evaluate ease of reloading while moving.
--[X]Determine if fumes from either sustained machine-gun or light artillery fire are enough to be detrimental to the crew.
--[X]Determine accuracy, both on the move over flat ground and at the halt, on flat ground and on various slopes (ties back into degrees of arc and elevation).
--[X] Determine weapon effectiveness against most likely targets, i.e. bunkers, trenches, and sandbagged positions.
--[X]If time and budget allows, conduct weapons testing against armored plate; this should be considered a low priority since we don't plan on fighting enemy armor. These are infantry support weapons.
-[X]Consult with Schwarzenegger on crew armor possibilities.

Click to shrink...

 

[7734]

As you rode the train into Ulm, you looked over the hot mess that was the full schematics of the W-5 and W-6. The W-8 didn't have a true set of specifications aside from a note on the W-6 that read "upsacale" and a few unintelligible Polski gibberish lines. What you were finding out, though, didn't look good. The thickest plates on the tank were twenty-five milimetres, with the majority only being seventeen ot ten. A good number of notes went into the fact that they were using cemented steels to increase durability and slants to increase ricochet likelyhood, but you weren't sure how that would stand up to testing. Folgers was unconvinced it would meaningfully help, but Folgers also believed that twenty five to seventeen milimetre plates would be fine on their own.

Once you got to the testing ground, you had to put your head in your hands. The conscripts for the Wanderer-tanks had figured out that a 3,5cm gun could in fact fire a properly modified potato (you used a tin cup as sabot) and had decided that the crew of the SzW-1 needed some tender love and bombardment, so the besieged had naturally decided the only way to retaliate was with vicious application of soap bullets and rocks. Once the combat was cleared up, you got right into testing.

The first test, the speed and endurance trials, was going to be flatly conducted as a race. The course was a twelve-kilometer circuit over the road, main field, entrenching field, artillery field, a shallow scree slope, and then one of the maintenance roads. Each tank had a two minute difference in start times, and it then they'd be off.

Starting with the KW-1, you had a stiff failure to complete the course as the driver got hideously lost in the entrenching field before putting the machine in a fortified ditch halfway by running parallel to it and causing the trench to collapse, eating the tank. Recovery teams got it out with only three maimed conscripts and mass closed head injuries, but it wasn't gonna finish the race. At it's fastest, it had clocked in at seven and a half kilometers per hour, and hadn't had any major terrain crossing difficulties until the accident.

The SzW-1 failed to finish for an entirely different reason, humorously enough. Equipped with an utterly massive set of two ten-cylinder radial engines by Jumond, the Skoda designers had apparently not figured out what their prototype's fuel consumption looked like since it had gone down the scree slope, trundled a few meters further, and promptly ran out of gas. While the refueling team came out, you sighed and made several angry notes in your book. Clocking in at three kilometers an hour on the road with both engines running flat out, it had tried to creep higher before a track threw itself and shredded a road wheel.

The GK-2 edged out the GK-3 by about a minute, and both had roughly the equivalent number of stoppages, mostly thrown tracks. The top speeds had been about nine kilometers per hour, and over the most broken terrain they'd kept to two and a half kilometers an hour. It had taken both tanks an hour and twenty to cross the entire course, but both had finished- without crew injury or fatalities, either!

Naturally, of course, the Wanderer tanks smoked the race section out of the park. With times of fifty four, fifty six, and sixty nine minutes for the W-5, W-6, and W-8, they all managed to cross in less than fifteen stoppages. Their top speeds were all roughly eleven kilometers an hour, and the most problematic issue that happened was the scree slope. Everyone had trouble with the scree slope, honestly, but the sight of the W-6 hitting a tree and going into a flat spin to loose both tracks had been a bit of a moment.

As you got to lunch, informal surveys went out. Remarks were varried, but not often positive. The KW-1 was a nightmare to ride in, with only three compartments and a tendancy for the exhaust system to backfeed into the cabins. The GK- series was much more peaceful, however the turret crews on the -3 felt that in combat they couldn't use their carborundum signal lamps to keep the driver's compartment informed reliably enough. The GK-2 didn't have its sister model's erratic visibility issues, but instead it had balance problems from the sponsons which might require lightening the guns. The SzW-1 was stable as a house, and caused about as many coniptions as one until it ran out of gas. Apparently, the gasoline tank gauge only connected up to one tank, not the entire network, so when the main distribution tank hit a quarter it was like the bottom fell out of the gauged tank. The W-series was universally uncomfortable, with tight sling seats and poor hatch placement requiring assistance getting into and out of, along with poor communication by the driver and gunner-commander. The W-8 also had the dubious honor of being the hardest to start without outside help, due to a sticky clutch and stingy choke.

Transportation-wise, you saw all the tanks were here, ergo they had rail transportability, somehow. You were busy writing Anne-Marie a letter, so that was that.

It was the next afternoon that weapons testing came up, much to everyone's joy. First up came accuracy from the still tank, and you sighed. For this test, there'd be two parts- a Known Range test at a hundred meters, followed by an Unknown Range test. Targets would be wooden cutouts of a W-2 broadside silhouette, since that was a fairly nice size for shooting at (and the Anti-Tank gunners that had been trained to handle the enemy's A9 tanks with them last week) and then things would get started.

Naturally, the minute you said this, things went to shit. Aside from an alternating heavy mist and heavy rain, your crews got added experiance in weapons malfunctions from wet rounds. Taking this into account in the staff car, you started tabulating results.

First up was the KW-1. On known distance, it took the 5,5cm gunner four shots to come onto target, and the 7,5 needed three. On unknown distance, the 5,5 took twelve shots to clip the target, and the 7,5 needed ten. Machine gun accuracy wasn't tested, due to the ammunition expenditure costs and the time consumption involved.

Next was the GK-2. On known distance, the 3,5cm rotary took seven shots to hit the target, while the 5,5cm guns took nine shots on the right broadside and ten on the left. On unknown distance, the 3.5cm rotary took eight shots to hit the target, while the 5,5cm guns both took an average of twelve.

The SzW-1 went after that in the thick fog. On known distance, it destroyed the target in one hit with the 10,5 via shrapnel (you doubted it hit, but the target was gone and honestly you wanted a warm furnace and so did they) and the 3,5cm took six shots to hit the target. On unknown distance, you had them perform the second shot to make sure the little wooden cutout was dead and gone even though it was Swiss cheese after the first shot, and the 3,5cm took fifteen shells to hit the damn thing. At this point, you called off for the day due to low light and dinner.

With a new dawning day and agravating drizzles and more fucking fog, you got on with the GK-3. The fore 5,5cm took five shells to get on target, and the aft took six on the known distance range. On the unknown range, though, the tank commander requested some additional time. Within five minutes, both guns opened fire and hit the target. When asked, it turned out that the officer in question was a budding engineer, and had done the trigonometry to figure out how to determine the distance from a target the tank was perfectly broadside to by determining the angle of his two different turrets to come in line to the target. After giving the boy a slap on the back and writing his name down in your notebook (Adrian Handel) you told him to go back to blind shooting without some excellent math backing him up. After he'd shifted the tank around to get a new fire vector, it took seven and eight shots from the front and rear guns to successfully hit the unknown distance target.

Next up came the W-5, armed with the 2cm autocannon. A gas-operated tilt-locking open bolt design, it fed off a gravity pan to the gun's right, and was loaded via feed strip. On the known distance target, it only took a short burst to destroy the W-2 wooden model- maybe five rounds. On the unknown distance, it was about four short bursts, probably about thirty rounds total. Considering the tray only held fifteen rounds, it was a good showing.

The W-6 with the short 3,5 came up next, with the weather starting to hail for some reason and much shouting being done about it. On the known distance range, it only took two shots for the short gun to hit the target. On the unknown distance range, however, things became far murkier. After twenty shots without confirmed hit, you were ready to call it quits. Still, they persisted until the last round in the magazine of the tank, expending forty shells attempting to hit the unknown distance sheet. Damage assessment couldn't tell if the damage was shrapnel or the hail, so everyone drove back to the mess for lunch.

Post-lunch with the hail changing itself for pounding rain and occasional lightning, you had the W-8 driven out. The known distance target took twelve shots to engage accurately, but you were willing to forgive some lax marksmanship due to the fact both the W-8 and your staff car were rocking like mad. The unknown distance shoot was much harder, taking twenty-five rounds, but at the end it was destroyed by shellfire or lightning strike. Either way, it was time to leave the range.

Before dinner came around, you got a rather irate telegram from High Command. Your funding had been slashed, and the Ulm Prooving Ground needed to serve as the muster point for the 57. Erstazregiment to serve as a training area for anti-armor and anti-fortification options. The High Command needed advice and a possible purchase recommendation now, before the realities of a tightening financial crisis hit.

((This is a PLAN VOTE. You need to present a formation, a unit buy, or a comprehensive recommendation to High Command or else your test unit may very well be shut down.))

 

[7734]

Once you were safely ensconced back in Luneburg, out came the typewriter. Your report to High Command was first on the docket, and it was a doozy. Once you got the normal bureaucratic shenanigans and memoese out of the way, you bit the bullet and said that none of the infantry designs were ready for adoption yet. Without armor testing, you couldn't be certain, but all the tanks seemed reasonably well protected and could be expected to operate on the tactical level with the infantry in assault without too many problems. Each model had their strengths and weaknesses, and you were sure to point that out. The SzW-1 would be an amazing fortress buster, and in a pinch a mobile artillery battery piece- but its slow speed would cripple it in digging through the thick defenses in deapth on certain fronts. The GK-3 would likewise be an excellent line-breaker, and potentially cheaper too for better effectiveness in more open terrain. The W-5 and related were all excellent considerations for cavalry tanks, and should most likely be formally adopted as such when an appropriate time came around. Most importantly, though, was that the GW-1 was an utter flop and needed to get thrown in a garbage pile. Any future testing was going to just be the SzW-1 and GK-3, which should assure the accountants you weren't gonna start asking for money.

The letters to the manufacturers started out with a general header, and then got more detailed. Ventelation, crew comfort, and ergonomics were all big factors, along with crew communication. Poor driver placement meant everyone had to send information, which in turn meant it needed to get there. Other notes included less machine guns we're not made of money here, along with the mandatory question of 'how much does this cost exactly?' which was a question you honestly should have thrown in the opening quote.

News back from High Command was promising. Your program wasn't cancled since you were showing progress, unlike the Motor Gun Carriage disaster zone which had gotten shitcanned at the speed of light. Rumors had been circulating that you were next in line to head it, once this was done. The fact you'd narrowed it down to just two was amazing to them, aparently, and you could in fact continue working with the manufacturers. More testing was right out, though, because the budget for R&D had been slashed. Again. At least you still had an office!

Getting back to you, Thryssen was screaming into letters that were going straight into the fireplace, while Skoda was happy to talk to you about making the tank faster. After some negotiations with Wanderer, they got manufacturing rights to the 2cm autocannon to replace the 3,5cm gun. Skoda being Skoda, they then replaced all six machine guns with four autocannons, and said it was perfectly fine. To get the speed up, aside from lightening things with the autocannons (somehow) they decided the new plan was to rework the internals. Instead of two less than sane ten cylinder radial engines, the new plan was four seven-cylinder diesel engines tied together around a common drive train. When your secretary finished prying the whisky bottle out of your hands, you forced yourself to remember Skoda built battleships. This was perfectly normal for them, making a twelve-man colosus.

Wanderer wasn't surprised by the news they were cut, but the company rep was interested in talking to Procurement to get the contract changed for the new W-5 and variant tanks. Gotha was screaming warnings about new hires, through- a lot of the wrong sort had gotten into the unions lately, and that meant a lot more violent striking than usual. Once the information was passed on, everyone had to breath a sigh of relief. The war was having enough troubles, even without home front issues.

Reindhardt wasn't too upset about getting told to drop the GK-2, although they were sad the 3,5cm rotary hadn't drawn much attention. The decision to lighten the machine gun armament confused them, though, until you expained it was a weight issue and more broadside armor was perferable. The response, that it would take forge-welded plates and that would cost something north of ten thalers a plate, made you shrink back in your chair with dread. The average tank plate, by comparison, was one thaler to make unless you were Skoda and could cast most anything via applications of Czechnology. The communications issue needed to be fixed, and they were more than happy to promise to deliver the new tank in two weeks.

Naturally, things hit a little snag when the Kubachan Free State sued for peace ten days into the schedule, and the War Economic Department said that the country was running out of money, period. While the Kaiser wasn't exactly feeling like hopping on the peace train yet until he'd squeezed some concessions out of the Kubachians, things were certainly shifting gears in the War Offices. The cavalry tank upgrade deal went through, and your recommendations got bucked up out of your pay grade to the General Staff.

That was a little bit of a problem, since it put you at loose ends. You'd need to grab onto something, or risk getting shaken off the promotion ladder and doomed to shuffling papers forever. Time to move!

[] Commit takeover of the Motor Gun Carriage Program, and get back to your artillery roots. Time to see if the old nags were still old nags.
[] Go back into the field, and get yourself in charge of some tanks. Plus side, got you out of the house for the last bits of this blasted pregnancy!
[] Mooch your way into a general officer's personal staff, and embrace your future as a desk jockey and office-flavored officer career.
[] Something Else? (Write-In)

 

[7734]

Moving quickly, literally and figuratively as you checked your service dirk and briefcase, you burst into the Artillery Branch Development headquarters and smiled very widely at the secretary. You had orders fresh from the head of Artillery Procurement with your name on them, and that the Motor Gun Carriage Project director's office was yours now.

The fact this project was technically a project under Logistics Proccurement, and had been seconded to Artillery Testing, well that was small potatoes. The fact this project was being run by comittee helped- High Command realized that those tended to turn into circular pork barrels, so your cowboying in to take over wouldn't be criticised… if you could bring this mess in on budget. A quick scan of the books told you three things that were gonna make this real damn hard, though.

One, the books were more cooked than canned rations left in the desert on the Equator for a year.

Two, there were about five hundred thalers left in the bank, plus staff pay allotments. That would pay for the mail, and maybe three or four test vehicles for one testing day, so most of this was gonna be off book specs. Hoo boy.

Three, the rolls were bloated as hell. You were dripping in hangers-on and cowardly Junkers who needed an infantry command and a pair of balls. That would be easy enough to handle, at least.

For actual work related to the job, your 'predecessors' had it neatly ready for porkbarreling by dividing the job up in two halfs: Assault Guns, which were a gun of limited traverse on a motorized and tracked chassis; and Artillery Tractors, which would haul around support guns so that the Assault Guns were organic to the infantry (and therefore resulted in more pork via tools and maintenance and shit) and had tentatively recommended the Thryssen KTW-2, built off the treadbase of the AV-4 and carrying a self-defense machine gun and a 7,5cm/50 standard field gun. If the paper reports were to be believed (and they were stamped by the head of Ravensburg Proving Ground) then the KTW-2 made an average of 12 kph, took one minute to come to battery, and carried three hundred shells internally. The prime mover tractors were more competious, with bids from Lambda, Ursus, Kubota, Wanderer, Ebro, and Fendt each kicking in multiple designs and weights of trailer. You'd need to clear that up with a proper RFQ right quick… which meant you'd need to dig out your tables on the field artillery.

God, you hadn't touched those in almost a year. Time to brush off the dust from that old book…

FIELD GUN MANUAL M.898

3,5cm/50 Field Cannon
-Weight: 130 Kilos
-Elevation: -5 to 20
-Carriage: M.880 single-trail, M.885 split-trail, or M.895 split-trail
-Shell Weight: .645 kilos
-War Load: 120 shells in 20-shell cases on the ammunition cart, 80 shells in shell cases on the limber
-Movement: One Horse or Two Men

5,5cm/50 Field Cannon
-Weight: 1200 Kilos
-Elevation: -3 to 25
-Carriage: M.880 single-trail, M.885 split-trail, or M.896 split-trail
-Shell Weight: 3.2 Kilos
-War Load: 80 shells in 10-shell cases on the ammunition cart, 10 shells in shell case on the limber
-Movement: Two horses or One Oxen

7,5/50 Field Cannon
-Weight: 1600 Kilos
-Elevation: 0 to 30
-Carriage: M.886 single-trail, M.890 split-trail, or M.898 split-trail
-Shell Weight: 7 kilos
-War Load: 60 shells in 6-shell cases on the ammunition cart, 12 shells in shell cases on the limber
-Movement: Six horses or Two oxen

10,5/40 Field Howitzer
-Weight: 2,500 Kilos
-Elevation: 0 to 30 (0 to 60 on M.890 and later)
-Carriage: M.881 single-trail, M.886 split trail, M.890 split trail, or M.895 split trail
-Shell Weight: 19 kilos
-War Load: 60 shells on ammunition cart in two-shell boxes, up to four shell carts per gun organically.
-Movement: Eight horses or four oxen, two horses per ammunition cart.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, this was gonna be a nightmare. At least you only needed to babel out some specifications for a tractor. You hoped.


((Vote is By Plan. You need a rough idea for your tractors, a decision on the Thryssen SPG, and what to do about your Staff Issues. Your old Board is on hand to help. Good Luck.))

 

[7734]

The minute you got your good staff ready to roll, you started hitting roadblocks. For starters, actually getting a good staff was a headache and a half. Nobody had actually planned on this project working, so it had been the shuffle-off of every moron in the entire Landwere. Fotunatly, you had a way to get rid of them- just sit down with a few of Dad's friends in charge of Erstazregiments, who got them pulled.

The fact they spent half of it ogling how mamoth Anne-Marie had gotten with children was only half of it. The other half, naturally, was alcohol and some of your steadily disappearing stash of tobacco. Damn the blockade- you needed a smoke to get through this garbage project. Pulling in new hands took all your time, so much so you couldn't really get along a testing slot in at the prooving grounds. You barely got time to inspect the vehicle and interview the crew, and the results were enlightening.

To start, the vehicle was quite literally the rhombus tracks of the AV-4 and engine systems, but instead it totally lacked sponsons in exchange for a aquward-looking tower sticking out of the back over the engine with the self-defense machine gun. Inside, there was as promised three hundred round of munitions in the sidewalls, the 7,5cm gun, and room for the gunner in a bucket seat with a gyrocompass, elevation indicator, plumb, and a couple of tables scratched into the metal of the tank by hand of round drop. You recognized those tables- they were just normal gunnery ones. The commander's position had some other notes on the metal, and a set of speaking tubes to the communication tower. It appeared they were to use semaphore for most things, apparently.

According to the crew, it worked beautifully. They could last for about a week of simulated fire missions, reloading the massive internal magazines wasn't too much of a headache (Only sixty shells were kept in a ready rack; the rest were stored in cases in the floor and sidewalls) and as far as tracked vehicles went it wasn't actually based off the AV-4 like you'd suspected- rather, it was built off the AV-12 design, the same hull with a massive internal improvement in… almost everything. It appeared the Wersers were more than willing to innovate and redesign, even if Thryssen was hidebound to the old ways.

For tractors, your much-diminished staff got to work sorting out the offers before they hit a snag. Only three of them were actually tracked fully- the Ursus G.240, the G.260, and G.300. Coincidentally, the only one that could haul three thousand kilos solo was the G.300, and it had no armor what to speak of, or even any place to put it. Each one would run sixty Thalers one hundred ten kreutzers, but a military contract should bring the costs down significantly, and production was still ongoing due to the need for tractors in other parts of the war effort like bulk supply hauling.

The only catch? It was slow as the oxen at a blistering five kilometers an hour when under load. A company rep from Kubota acridly informed you they had a half-track design that could hit ten kilometers an hour under the load, but they were understanding of the need to prioritize rough terrain… if these were getting used for rough terrain.

Which they probably weren't, because neck deep in documents and paper trails you'd lost and forgotten in the high seas boarding action of a takeover you'd done, there was a crystal clear requirement from the Artillery that they wanted two prime movers- a large tractor for the 15,5cm and 10,5cm guns, and a smaller one for everything else. The G.300 would work for the former, but you were gonna need to find something else to haul… four… thousand… kilos… of gun.

Yeah, coming in with a broom in one hand and bleach in the other, you shouldn't have expected this much progress before you ran out of money. Well, time to find where you kept the last of the whiskey-

-make that champagne, because you just got a telegram that Anne-Marie just had her water break. Now you had to rush to the general hospital and think of boy's names and holy shit this was a big day ahh!

((This is a PLAN VOTE; you need an RFQ for a heavy trailer and maybe a new RFQ or buy order for the G.300 since it's as good as you're going to get off the shelf.))
((Also, you're almost out of cash))
((And you need to think of names for your new two sons.))

 

[7734]

After handling the birth of your boys and firing off some vague acceptance of the KTW-2 and G.300 models, you braced for the fact you had kids. Ahhh, kids. Yay.

Of course, that's when about the Carrigians decided to dissolve in revolt, with the rebel faction agreeing to a very generous peace deal that would probably tick off the Wessers. While this freed up a number of divisions for the existent fronts, High Command was worried about making sure production was acceptable. As such, the Artillery Branch had accepted your decision to buy the G.300, called your job done, and dismissed your entire office. You kept your rank, of course, but now you were a General Officer, attached to a clerical department.

It was another year before the Wessers negotiated peace with the Balkhs, and since you weren't exactly sharing a land border with them that meant you were signing the peace deal too. With the war ended and the General Staff de-inflated, you found yourself doing more clerical work on the newly-emerging art of Operational Research, making a few friends of your younger officers in the process. The fact Anne-Marie loved playing matchmaker didn't hurt, and things were fairly fine in the marriage with little Oskar and Klaus growing up (Frederik getting shot down as a name by the wife) until such point you thought life couldn't get any better.

Naturally, that's when your footloose and fancy-free brother came back to the Empire, with one wife and far too many mistresses in tow, along with the resulting company of children. He'd done well for himself, apparently, and wanted to share the joy. Anne-Marie and yourself most empathetically did not want to share the joy of la Merezude cooking and spices and rice wine at all hours, and you devised a Cunning Plan to get your brother out of the house. You would need to be in Potsdam on business for a month or three, while your darling wife was luring Mother back into the city in an attempt to either bait your brother back into the family castle or into heading back to his tropical island home. Anything to get him permanently out of your apartment building!

Which developmental project do you want to request assignment to?

[] Your colonies in Schutzgebiet Volta and Nyasaland want a military atache to help them acquire the nucleus of an armored force so they can finally annex the fucking Balkh neighbors who are nominally independent and send in Fucking Cossacks to burn their shit.
[] The Seebatalions are getting real fucking tired of fighting in cities and in reinforcing colonies, so they want a tank. There's one catch, though: they barely know what a tank is, but they know that One Navy guy said you were alright.
[] In the aftermath of the war, a radical new proposal has popped up for increasing the effectiveness of heavy assault elements: give them their own mini-tank thing to perform the role of the vernerable W-2 by hauling a machine gun and maybe a light cannon around. This time, though, it'll also haul dudes too so they can get past machine gun nests and hit trench lines in the rear!

AN: After last contest, here's a bit more obvious of a Difficulty Select screen.

 

[7734]

Your name is Major Otto von Rabe, and you have made many terrible mistakes in your life. This one, however, has to probably take the cake in terms of sheer complexity of mistake. After hearing a rumor that the Seebatalions wanted to invest in armored vehicles, you had to offer your expertise as a way to get out of Luneburg and into Bremmen. They took you up on it in a flash, and you quickly found yourself migrated as fast as the boarding party could snatch you up.

En route, you had to read a rather hefty primer for Landwere units working with Seebatalion units. Each Seebatalion brigade was composed of one Seebatalion regiment, two line artillery companies, one cavalry company, one headquarters company, one signal company, logistics company, engineers company, and one specialized Maneuver company, either dedicated to maintaining the division's landing craft if shipboard or serving as additional logistics and signals staff in land campaigns. The Reichsmarine held control of the Seebatalion regiment and support companies, while the Landwere provided the artillery and cavalry arms. Units were all volunteer, served for six years, and were normally stationed in the colonies or their historical depots.

This didn't prepare you at all for Bremmen, and the noise and distraction that was constantly ongoing. The fleet had been beaten bloody a number of times in the War, and the chaff had been taken out of it viscously in the process. The Headquarters of the Reichsmarine was located here, and it was here where you'd get to work. Before you got down to the meat of the issue, though, you needed to know what the Seebatalions were looking for.

Or rather, what the individual Legion-kaptains wanted. Nominally equivalent to a Kaptain zur See, the Legion-kaptain was the highest the Seebatalion officers would go, making all six of them stubborn and tenacious as the breed of pinscher named after them.

First Seebatalion Brigade, alias the Wassertigers, was lead by Legion-kaptain Helmutt Wulff, and were currently in Bremmen reallocating arms and integrating their new depot companies into the brigade. Talking to Wulf revealed he had been doing his own research, and had looked over the previous round of tank proposals. Based on his research, he had determined that the KW-1 or closest production equivalent would be just fine, thank you, and he needed about eighteen of them for four platoons of four and spares, plus some trucks to carry around parts.

Second Seebatalion Brigade, alias the Feuervogels, was led by Legion-kaptain Gustav Fischer, and were currently deployed to the new possessions in Upper Polsna for peacekeeping purposes. While Fischer hadn't done as much reading as Wulf had, he'd still found the time to peruse the last infantry tank papers, and was firmly backing the SkW-1 for adoption due to his position relative the Skodawerke and the location of the depot town being only sixty kilometers from the factory. His proposed support company only had sixteen tanks, deleting one of the four-tank platoons of Wulf's ToE so that he could cram in more trucks.

Third Seebatalion Brigade, alias the Sumpfratten, were lead by Gunter Klingemann, and were currently deployed to Nyasaland to help fight local insurrectionists and raiders from certain protectorates of other people that weren't named for sake of having the politicians feel better. Klingermann also thought Wulf and Fischer were batshit insane, and wanted whatever you could get him to fit in a standard landing craft since the Sumpfratten had been responsible for nine of the twelve beach assaults and shore raids in the war, and five of those had managed to achieve their objectives before pulling out. Organization could be handled after some numbers were in on the new tank, although Klingermann tennatively agreed a platoon's worth of spares would be enough.

Fourth Seebatalion Brigade, alias the Brandnarbe, were lead by Herschel Rosenzweig, and were currently deployed in Schutzgebiet Volta for the same reason as the Sumpfratten. Unlike his companions, Rosenzweig believed that the armored breakthrough vehicle was just a phasic development, and not suited for mass production and issue. In his mind, artillery was still king of the battlefield, and the proper response to this attempt to bring the Seebatalions back into the foremost position required the development of a better means of artillery. To this end, he recommended purchase of the KTW-2 for an organic artillery company to the Brigade, and mechanization via standard tractor of the engineering and artillery companies.

Fifth Seebatalion Brigade, alias the Donnerkatzen, was lead by Hans Mair, and were currently busy absorbing everything that wasn't the training cadre of Sixth Seebatalion Brigade (reserve) after their horrific losses in the Battle of the Onon. Since this made Mair extremely busy, he sent a short list of requirements, as well as a staff officer if you needed help. His requirements were simple: heavy frontal armor, a 10,5cm gun or heaviest possible weapon to bear in the forward arc, and three to eight machine guns.

Sixth Seebatalion Brigade (reserve) was lead by Georg Vincke, who for some reason treated your entire operation with an air of disdain and never sent you any mail, even after you sent him a request for comment. Considering he was now in command of maybe a company's worth of guys, this was understandable.

Now it was time to round up a staff. Great. At least the Reichsmarine had coughed up a decent enough sum for this. If you skimped, you might even be able to afford two weeks of testing this time!

(THIS IS A LINE VOTE. NO PLANS.)

[] Abbot Marchevion: A Bohemian national who emigrated after a scandal in the Werser crowns forced him from home, this man is rumored to be an intelligence expert and Lithuanian sympathizer.
[] Jacob Hansonson: An infantry officer from 3/7 Luneberg, Jacob has experience in assaulting trenches and holding positions from the war. Magnus, now retired, recommends him.
[] Karl Adler: A weapons designer and structural engineer borrowed from Skoda Werke, Karl has been working so far on trains and train repair systems.
[] Frederick Kowolski: An older gentleman in the electronics industry, Frederick has dozens of underlings who are happy to tell you all about how to make an electro-mechanical doohickymabober work.
[] Conrad Fenrus: A staff officer with the 1/4 "Schlangenesser" regiment, this officer is incredibly familiar what little exists of breakthrough tactics in this day and age on the open plains of the West Irromedes, and has recently gotten promoted a handful of times too!
[] Stabshauptmen Halbricht Udst: A Seebatalion officer from the Sumpfratten injured during the Raid at Dervonport, Udst has been involved in some of the thickest fighting in the war, including a short stint "volunteering" with the Weser Crown Seebatalions.
[] Leutnat Erich Folgers: A young and somewhat distinguished armor platoon commander, Erich was involved in the retaking of Marienburg and the Battle of Oron.
[] Leutnat Gryfon Corvade: The staff officer that Mair sent you from the Donnerkatzen, Gryfon knows much about the depleted status of the Seebatalions.

 

[7734]

Corvade was at your office the first day at about nine-thirty looking like a lost puppy, so you let him in and got him a cup of coffee. In retrospect, this was a terrible mistake, as once he got warmed up his mouth was off to the races. You soon knew the names of almost every officer in the Donnerkatzen, and more than a few of the wives too. In between the walls of gossip, though, there was an air of tension- the force had been stretched to breaking point time and time again in the war, and it showed. Most of the officers were imports from the Sixth Seebatalion, and of the formation's pre-war strength barely five percent were still alive, mostly in the NCO corps. Morale was high, but the core regiment was still rump a company, and that was going to be a fact of life for a long time for all the Seebatalions. After the War, manpower was thin on the ground, so the Seebatalions Commandant had decided rather than be prepared to spend lives, it would be better to spend money. It was a good thing, too- because you'd just gotten the formal features requests from the Seebatalion Legion-kaptains.

Whatever you approved needed the following features.

-At least, but not limited to, one 5,5cm gun or rapid-fire cannon
-At least, but not limited to, one 7,5cm cannon or larger
-At least one weapon in traversing turret mount
-At least protection capable of withstanding sustained rifle and machine gun fire
-At least as fast as leg infantry on tactical scale
-AND/OR
--Ability to cross a river thirty meters wide without bridging
--Ability to cross water five meters deep
--(Aditional components may be used)
-Tactical endurance for at least 8 hours of operation

Thanking Corvade for the laundry list of requirements, you groaned into your hands. That was going to be a mess.

Meeting with Hansonson later was practically a relief in comparison. Much like Magus, he was blunt, to the point, and not willing to play games. With the innovation of the infantry grenade projectors and trench mortars, clearing a trench had gotten much easier, but machine gun proliferation and effective flares had made defense that much more dangerous too. Gas weapons had been going out of vouge, thank heavens, but more than a few artillery batteries kept them in store in case they needed to slow a massed infantry attack right now so they could lay into them with fused canister shot and shells. Improvements in supply were also changing warfare, so he'd keep you posted. At the end of it, you were happy his card went in your contacts book- he'd be useful later.

Folgers was a bit more of a problem to drag out to Bremmen, but you managed it after some yanking and hauling. Considering he'd gotten married less than two months ago, you could see the complaints, but honestly you needed a clearheaded picture. One look at the wishlist that the Seebatalions made, and he was laughing on the floor. They weren't getting it with the W-2, nor the W-5 that High Command had decided to adopt after looking over the finances of the Empire and the last war's disaster. Turns out a W-5 or W-6 could force a breakthrough just fine, if they were backed by enough artillery. After some soothing drinks, Folgers replied he'd stay around in town and honeymoon with the wife a little bit, while you got ready to call him in for testing when that finally showed up.

Your inclusion of Addler was prefunctuary at this point, but Skoda called back to inform you he'd died of stroke last month, and his son Johann Addler would be happy to come help. More importantly to you, Addler Jr. was part of the SkW-1 design team, as well as being an assistant designer for the C-class Motor Torpedo Boat and F-class Monitor. While he was occupied working on the SkW-2 design committee, he did send his regards and a promise to mail you a set of the plans for any SkW-1 modifications you'd need in the near future. You seriously considered asking for one designed as a mobile distillery, but they'd probably do it, the mad bastards.

Finding Udst was a challenge, even with Gryfon's help. The man was drinking heavily in an officer's club for the Seebatalioners, and the mere fact you knew it existed by prroxy made you a threat apparently. Still, getting him out of the building and sobbered up provided you with a wealth of information on landings and shore actions. The tanks, he revealed, weren't for while the raiding force was on the beaches- it was for once they'd cleared the first ridgelines, and gotten out of contact with the landing craft for fire support and decoy targets. Nobody sane tried to hold a beach- you couldn't fortify one well at all. As long as what you got them could punch through the light static lines, though, you'd have the raiders through the real obstruction, and then they could get it to work. He thought the guns requirement was a little overkill, but everything else was good.

Your letter to Kowolski foundered on your mention of this being a Seebatalion tank- on mention of regular exposure to salt water, the Royal Radio and Telegraph offices sent a man to inform you that they wanted nothing to do with this, thank you very much, and not to darken their doorsteps with this nonsense ever agian.

With your Advisory Pannel technically assembled, it was time to write your own Request for Quotes. The Seebatalion's own list could be incorperated into yours as you saw fit, but you were walking a tight line- they didn't have to accept what you accepted, and unlike with High Command, there really wasn't a good way to get the Commandant of the Seebatalions on your side. You'd have to step carefully.

(This is a PLAN VOTE; you don't need to include the Seebatalion's own requests. However, they can independantly fail any design, so you need to keep them collectively happy-ish.)

 

[7734]

After mailing the RFQ, you went to bed happy that the Seebatalions were proving to be cooperative. Things would go well there, right?

As it turned out, no, no it wouldn't. Wanderer had sent you an express telegram surmised as "what the fuck" with lots of exclamations and the general note that they didn't have anything that could carry more than a 5,5cm gun, much less a 7,5cm piece. Since he was backed up and his production was locked up tight, his company wouldn't be submitting for this contest.

In contrast, Thryssen would be sending out a frankly terrifying number of entrants. There was the KW-1, and as you sighed at their once again blatant ignorance of testing protocol your eyes glanced over the drawings of the KW-2. Same rhombus-shaped hull, same retarded retractable sponsons, but now with the hull cannon deleted and somehow even bigger. On top, in a blocky turret, was the 7,5cm gun, and the whole rig was bristling with machine guns and no less than three forward-mounted autocannons. For river crossing, it came equipped with a snorkel, pontoons to be bolted on under the sponsons, and a set of very nice bailout hatches on the side.

Thryssen being Thryssen, though, they had a "backup option" since the KTW-2 was pretty universally reviled as a self-propelled gun. The KTW-3 was… a brand new chassis. You needed a sip of whiskey to process it, but it seemed they'd developed a new suspension type based around a "bellcrank" device that allowed them to use coil springs and levers and some other stuff you didn't get paid to understand. What it did do, aside form use ridiculously large road wheels, was to get up to speed quickly: and this tank actually had some good speed on it- she could make a blistering thirty-five kilometers an hour! The only catch was the KTW-2 was built around an 8cm breechloading mortar- not the 7,5cm cannon. The sloped forward armor was only twenty millimeters thick, but it might be enough. The real kicker, though, was the fact it only mounted one bow machine gun and a pintle mounted backup for self-defense. Equally problematic, their fording plan was summed up with an extendable snorkel and some logs.

Reinhardt threw their hats in the ring with the GK-3 straight because why not, and the latest and greatest improvement on the GK-1 chassis: the GK-4. As per your requests, it was basically a GK-2 with the sponsons ripped out and the weight spent on a turret armed with a 7,5cm canon cut down for the purposes of recoil, as well as that bow-mounted rotary 3,5cm gun. The sides sported two autocannons apiece, and it used the traditional twin hot-bulb engines. For river crossings, it had been sealed on the bottom, and side pontoons had been mounted, along with a pair of rough-cut log skids to be added to the fore and aft to keep the tank from tipping forward or backwards.

Skoda submitted a SkW-1 with bolt-on pontoons, and requested a month's extension to finish building their SkW-2 prototype and a fully aquatized SkW-1 due to concerns with main-stage transmission issues.

You also got a few dark horse entrants, interestingly enough.

The Ghermain Brothers' Autowerke submitted their designs for a floating aquatic tank, built rather like a boat with a series of double-wheel bogeys as the basis of their track system, rather like the KTW-2's system, dodging a patent issue with the second wheel per bogey. By using a naturally boat-ish shape, they planned to float when not as a tank. Their main armament was a very cut down 7,5cm gun in a welded box turret, and a series of eight electrically-fired trench mortars bolted on top to launch smoke-screens and airburst shells.

The Commorate Casting Company submitted a design that took a standard W-5 body, sealed it shut with careful welds and cauking, and used inflatable air bladders put in the treads to make them neutrally bouyant, with propulsion being provided via a lowerable paddle-wheel run from the main drive. Weapons load was not included in their designs.

Oddly enough, the Wersers of all people had an 'aquatic' tank ready for export: the YtS-7. Using an inflated canvas raft with steel bracers, it could cross about forty meters of water before the whole system failed miserably. The tank only mounted a 6,6cm mountain howitzer, though, in a casement too no less. Plus side, it had a 3/4 turret with two machine guns in it on top for the commander to handle leakers in. The biggest issue was it didn't have a propulsion system- it needed to be towed by a shore cable or tow boat.

(Plan out who you're taking to testing and how you're testing them. Keep in mind the Seebatalions haven't seen any of these yet. Vote is by plan- and remember, a lot of these are pre-existent chassis, so old data is mostly good. Use that! Remember that funding, and vote size, is a limited resource!)

Last Test Plan (executed portions in bold)

[X]The Tank Train Has No Brakes
-[X]Include all tanks, including W-5, W-6, and W-8 variants.
--[X]Request armor specifications (thickness, etc) from Wanderer for records/testing purposes.
-[X]Conduct mobility and machine/crew endurance testing
--[X]Evaluate speed and maneuverability over flat terrain, on road surfaces (dirt, gravel, cobblestone, and metaled, if at all possible), broken terrain, in mud, and against various depths of trenches, barbed wire, etc. Record speeds for comparison.
--[X]Survey crew comfort and ease of use throughout.
---[X]Request input from Leutnat Erich Folgers on this point.
--[X]Test rate of breakdown and ability of crews to repair breakdowns that occur without outside assistance.
--[X]Evaluate ease of preparation for transport via rail, ship, etc.
---[X]Check on whether tank will actually fit on standard railcars or is transportable via railcar.
-[X]Conduct weapons testing
--[X]Evaluate accuracy of weapons, as well as effective rate of fire, from the halt and while moving.
---[X]Evaluate "ammo" endurance - i.e. how much ammo for their main weapon and machine guns (if applicable) can each tank reasonably carry and expect to have on hand without increasing risk of fire or ammo explosion.
---[X]Check for potential blind-spots.
--[X]Evaluate usefulness/effectiveness of weapons against dummy positions (sandbags, trenches, log and earth blockhouses, concrete bunkers if we have the time/funding to build one).
-[X]Armor testing after all other tests are exhausted and complete.
--[X]Evaluation will be made after each weapon-type test to see if failure point can be determined and to try to evaluate what sort of damage would have been had the vehicle been manned (use pigs as a stand-in, if budget allows). All results will be cross-checked and compared at the conclusion of armor testing.
--[X]Systemic, starting with armor piercing small arms in controlled bursts or in single shots, moving up to anti-tank rifles if we have any available, against front, side, and turret armor. This isn't to test the failure point, but rather see what the armor might reasonably deflect in combat and to determine general resistance/deflection.
--[X]Test armor against typical hand-held infantry explosives; similar procedure as above.
--[X]Test armor against shell splinters from field guns; similar procedure as above.
--[X]Test frontal armor against direct fire from light (< or equal to 5,5cm) field/infantry guns; similar procedure as above.

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