The essence of tank craftsmanship, in addition to armor and artillery, the suspension system connecting the load wheels and the hull is also very critical. Their role is to support the hull, reduce the huge vibration caused by the tank when off-road, and ensure the stability of the tank gun when shooting. The quality of the suspension system is directly related to the quality of the tank.
Let's take the Soviet-German tank as an example and look at the mainstream suspension of tanks during World War II. The Soviet T-34 uses a suspension system that is famous for the Christie suspension. The inventor of this suspension system was Christie, from the United States. Its main feature is that it has an independent large load wheel, and the combination of this load wheel and spring can play a good shock absorption effect.
In the process of using the Christie suspension, the Soviet army also improved it, fixing the axle of the independent load wheel, the wheel shaft can rotate freely around the fixed point, and the other end is equipped with a coil spring device, so that the T-34 load wheel can ensure the safety of the load wheel even if it hits an obstacle. This suspension device is very reliable, and the process is simple, which is very popular with the Soviet army.
To say that the disadvantage of Christie suspension is that the number of springs is large, occupying a considerable part of the space, and the lack of specialized shock absorbers. In contrast, the main suspension system used by German tanks in the middle and late Period of World War II used the legendary torsion bar process.
Taking the German No. 4 tank as an example, this hard-working military horse actually had 16 load wheels, 8 on each side of the left and right. The distribution of the spring device is also very reasonable, and the various sets of load wheels cooperate with each other to make the tank more stable. Running through these load wheels is a torque lever that connects all the load wheels, fixed at one end and freely spiraling at the other end, using elastic force to help the load wheels of the entire tank body cooperate with each other.
This is worthy of the design from Porsche, and the twist bar process is also the embodiment of the rigorous attitude of the Germans. But on complex battlefields, the problem with the torsion bar process is that it is too complicated, increasing the workload of tank maintenance personnel in the rear. What do you think?