Zhurong Heavy Tank/profile

## Overview

“祝融”(Zhù Róng)

(Allies:Zhurong/HT Zhurong/s.Pz Zhurong)

Designation: Heavy Tank

Designer: Northwest Ji Military Vehicle Research Institute/ 2nd Academy of Aerospace Research in Capital

Mass-Produced at: Vehicle Workshop

Key Features:

>>Fourth generation composite armor (protection performance higher than 16 reinforced steel armor)

>>4-cun (128mm) plasma cannon (caliber bigger than 125mm)

>>1800 horsepower engine (hardly waste energy, much more than 30% efficiency)

>>Autoloader

>>Standard black tea bags

### Background

At the end of the European war, British "tanks" did not completely change the situation of the western front battlefield, but inspired the Triple Entente's opponents. In the fourth year of the war, Kaiserreich Germany launched the "Caesar offensive" on the western front. The army of Kaiserreich took armored vehicles as the vanguard and attacked the Entente's positions. British "tanks" set out to support the front line, and soon encountered Kaiserreich's vehicles.

The Celestial military observer on the front line did not witness the first armored vehicle encounter in military history, when she was moving to the rear with British front-line command. But after the battle, through observation of the battlefield and interviews with the participants, she can still restore the battle process.

At the other end of the continent, Celestial strategists initially got the concept of armored warfare from this battle. In this battle, although the vehicle of Kaiserreich 's side moved slowly, it was higher than British "tank" in firepower and protection. It could destroy "tank" and almost immune to "tank" attack at a longer distance, so it successfully suppressed British "tank". But these vehicles encountered great difficulties in crossing the complex terrain, especially in the trenches, and even vehicle rollover accidents occurred, so that the crew had to give up the relatively complete vehicles.

Obviously, the main battle tank can improve the combat effectiveness most intuitively by increasing the armor thickness and gun caliber. Even though the vehicle weight will increase, as long as the vehicle is equipped with a stronger engine, it can ensure the tactical mobility and meet the actual combat needs.

However, the design of armored vehicles is not simply adding more water and flour for dough. Excessive weight and power are extra heavy burdens on the suspension and transmission system, and the treads must be widened to avoid excessive intensity of pressure on the ground. At a certain level of technology, adding 40 mm steel plate to the front of the car body may increase the weight of more than ten tons of vehicles. If the weight of larger caliber guns is included, the weight of heavy combat vehicles in the same period may be more than twice that of main battle tank.

Excessive self weight will affect the vehicle's passing performance in the field, and also affect the strategic mobility of the vehicle, making it difficult for the vehicle to transport in a large space. At the same time, it will also lead to the decline of the reliability of the vehicle in long-distance maneuvering, that is, frequent failures.

But these difficulties can not stop the actual combat demand. The deduction conducted by Celestial general staff office has proved that in the case of similar technical level it is necessary in campaign scale to deploy some vehicles with use self weight in exchange for combat effectiveness on the battlefield to suppress enemy vehicles and other enemy direct fire.

Heavy combat vehicles can be used as a powerful direct fire point, immune to most of the enemy's anti armor firepower, at the same time, it can support infantry attack and defense in the middle and close range, and can also be used as the attack spearhead of the battle group to open the gap in the enemy position more quickly with the cooperation of other armored vehicles, and easily crush the enemy's combat vehicles in the armored encounter battle.Of course, they can also counter the enemy's heavy combat vehicles.

Since there is a demand for heavy combat vehicle, it is necessary to develop it. It must be strong enough to overwhelm the enemy's main battle tank, but not too heavy to pass through bridges and roads.

Even if they are familiar with the doctrine of the mean, engineers of Celestial Empire must confirm what the truly "mean" is through actual design demonstration and experiment.

It is not easy to find the right point, which requires a lot of resources. In the research and development of heavy combat vehicles, the main problem is the lack of R & D power, in other words, the lack of revenue.

Due to the lack of funds allocated by the Celestial army, each fund is allocated to different types of weapons in strict accordance with the importance. Although Celestial Empire can maintain a large and generally advanced army, in terms of new and cutting-edge equipment, the divisions or brigade usually only purchases a small amount of new weapons to maintain the training of the army. Before the news of large-scale replacement of strategic opponent's equipment, Celestial army rarely carried out comprehensive equipment installation of advanced equipment. To some extent, this mode affects the development strategy of many design bureaus in advanced equipment. Heavy combat vehicles, called heavy tanks after entering the Celestial army, are the most affected category of equipment. The procurement quantity of these vehicles is often very small. After the army adopts the above procurement strategy, it is even more difficult for ordnance manufacturing and R & D units to recover costs within an acceptable time scale. Therefore, the equipment development of Celestial army lacks the foresight of Celestial airforce and navy in many aspects, which is criticized by many military enthusiasts, although the best among them are aware of the reasons.

And such distribution is determined by the overall strategic focus of Celestial Empire.

However, if the threat from land strategic neighbors is increasing, then such a resource tilt may change. At least it will change the plight of relative scarcity of resources.

The development of the new main battle tank was after the conflict  that changed the equipment development pattern of Celestial army.

In the border conflict, the main battle tank failed to play its expected role, while the heavy tank almost did not play any role until it arrived at the battlefield with underdeveloped infrastructure at the end stage of the battle because of the poor trafficability.

This is not a glorious page in the history of the development of Celestial tanks, but as mentioned above, this situation is reasonable under the condition of limited resources.

The difficulties encountered by Qilin and other main battle tanks also happened to the new heavy tank and its predecessors. As the development of heavy tanks is often based on the research and development of main battle tanks of the same generation, in the face of the increasing pressure of equipment renewal from strategic neighboring countries, the weaponary department has not left much time for the development of new heavy tanks.

Different from weapons and equipment, the project was directly assigned to the only military vehicle research institute with experience in the development of heavy tank.

In order to speed up the progress, in the late stage of 1A-88 project, some team members were transferred to develop a new type of heavy tank. The design of the new heavy tank is based on project 430 (the proposal date of the project is even earlier than the time of the use of the Celestial standardized numbering list). The new project is called 1A-43V2 (Allied Code: obj.432, the intelligence unit fails to obtain the first two digits, so it will keep the wrong code in the future). It basically adopts the structure similar to 1A-88, such as all electric vehicles, advanced fire control, composite armor, etc.

In terms of firepower, it is difficult to integrate the magnetic railgun which is suitable for the vehicle. Although Xuanming Battlecruiser has verified the feasibility of large caliber railgun, unlike the former, 1A-43V2 battery stack can not provide enough energy for railgun larger than 96mm. This is because the self weight of 1A-43V2 is much higher than that of 1A-88, and a lot of energy in the battery stack will be consumed on the vehicle's mobility. If the vehicle is equipped with a larger caliber railgun, the self-sustaining ability of the vehicle will be seriously affected even at the engagement level of medium and low intensity. Modifying the battery pack and vehicle wiring is another huge project.  And what the engineering team lacks is just time.

After the engineering team fed back the difficulty to the weaponary department, the relevant experts of the weaponary department integrated the current technical reserve status of weapons and equipment, and thought that the plasma weapon system of 2nd Academy of Aerospace Research in Capital could meet the design requirements of 1A-43V2. As a result, the unprecedented integration of cross service weapon systems began. Due to the high standardization of Celestial military industry system and the generalization of interfaces, the plasma weapons code named 2A-70V hardly encountered any major obstacles in the integration process.

Due to the plasma weapon and the flame has a certain relationship, when the 1A-43V2 passed the acceptance, this vehicle was given the name of "Zhurong". Soon, the first heavy tank battalion equipped with "Zhurong" equipment received the tanks, and after completing the training, went to the place where they needed them.

Many soldiers in the Celestial army pay homage to these huge and fierce vehicles: they are the unshakable fulcrum in defense and the spear point in attack. In theory, "Zhurong" should be concentrated on the combined attack of multiple arms in order to maximize its effectiveness; or when the enemy's offensive situation is declining, it should be concentrated in the counter attack. However, the battlefield is changing rapidly. When necessary, Celestial commanders will disperse  zhurong for strengthening combat group, so as to strengthen the combat effectiveness of each unit.

However, for the three operators in Zhurong, one thing is the same, that is, they always have to face extraordinary firepower on the battlefield. Even with heavy armor to protect them, the gunfire will still bring great pressure on the people in the iron shell, not to mention the fact that Zhurong's armor is not invincible, although its equivalent thickness is comparable to the heavy tanks of strategic neighboring countries.

Heavy tanks are always engaged in battles with high intensity and short duration. In terms of campaign scale, most of their deployment is based on the principle of "fast in and fast out". Commanders must protect these precious "heavy cavalry". Therefore, after carrying out combat tasks, the crew of the heavy tanks sometimes find it difficult to sleep. Therefore, it is said that black tea, which has the effect of calming nerves, has become popular in the tank battalion, which is also one of the traditions of the Celestial sitank battalion. However, unlike their colleagues driving the Baihu, they can use the equipment in their vehicle to heat the tea within the scope permitted by the regulations, so they do not need to use "Skyeye".

In principle, soldiers in the Celestial army are allowed to apply for various kinds of drinks from their superiors within the scope of permission. However, different types of drinks have different degrees of difficulty in supplying. The most easily obtained drink is green tea, followed by black tea, which is preferred by tank operators.

### Notes from the Field

Battlefield reconnaissance has revealed at least these facts about the Zhurong Heavy Tank.

**Fast and Faster** - In continuous firing, Zhurong can transfer part of the energy from the power system to the auxiliary equipment of the automatic loader, so as to improve the firing speed of the plasma cannon. But at this time, the moving speed of the vehicle will slow down, which may increase the probability of being hit by long-range fire.

**Enough is Enough** - However, if someone sees white smoke coming out of the turret of Zhurong, it means that the Zhurong crew has dissipated the heat from the auxiliary equipment, and soon the tank will return to its previous moving speed.

**Quick In and Out** - The size difference between Zhurong's and that of Celestial strategic neighboring countries is not big. The difference is that Zhurong has much higher mobility, including tactical and strategic aspects, and also has good trafficability.

**Unshakable Like Mountains** - However, high mobility does not mean that their protection is weak, the frontal armor of Zhurong can resist the firing of 125mm cannon in a very short distance.

## Notes

**This article is an unofficial translated article and may be rewritten in the future.**