North German-Finnish Joint Research (Secret)

[Kaiser Martens]

Some time ago, during the German Crisis, a mid-rank military commander had an idea for a new type of vehicle, a vehicle to take advantage of older technologies in order to overcome the advantages of new ones. A special type of tank destroyer. The idea was analyzed by German researchers and although promising, did not materialize.

Now that Germany is again properly developing, the idea has sparked Martens' interest and the Finnish were contacted in order to jointly-research this weapon, in order to make things more efficient while decreasing costs. Both would surely benefit. After some time, this project, codenamed "Goldchain" by the Northern Germans, has received the Finnish Approval too.

A team of German engineers and scientists have been shipped to the secret site KAJ.4, in a way in which they will not be aware of where the location actually is as to preserve its secrecy further to work jointly with the Finnish team in order to make this new weapon of war. Preliminary sketches and calculations are, of course, carried with them, as well as a detailed description of the concept. They would be arriving by Underwater Carrier, again for further secrecy. With them there was the aid of a Finnish-Nordlandic interpreter, which will be needed.

[i]The team arrives.[/i]

[Uberstein]

The covered trucks drove for at least 5 hours from the port, chances are they doubled back at least once to artificially change the time between the port and the facility. There was still some paranoia from the Finnish High Command about letting North Germans into an active, top-secret research facility. While not allowed to see anything outside the trucks, they could hear it being loaded onto a ferry, crossing rather calm waters, and soon driving off again, pulling into an underground garage. The back was opened, standing in front of them was a rather unimposing man in a gray trench coat with a black peaked cap, the Finnish Republican Army Engineers symbol on the front of it. He gives a brief salute, speaking in...nordlandic,
"Gentlemen, welcome to KAJ-Four. I am Colonel Veli-Matti Yli-Sirniö. I will apologize in advance, but your luggage has been thoroughly searched, so clothing and other belongings may be out of place. I am glad to say that nothing objectionable was found, except for one digital camera, which we have incinerated. You may acquaint yourself with the rules in your free time, but I can assure you I run a clean, secure operation here. You are allowed within Compound C, you cannot leave Compound C without approved escort. Compound C contains everything you will require, and if it does not, we will have such equipment shipped in. On weekends you may visit the shared facility gym. We have several luxuries here, such as a heated swimming pool and indoor tennis courts. This is not a prison, you may leave to your home country at any time under the agreement that you will not share what you have seen here. Questions?" He pauses, watching them, he had given variants on this speech several times, it was almost routine for him. If anyone noticed the small gold pin on his lapel, it was the symbol of Finnish Army Intelligence, a radio antenna over a small globe, with "lukupää", or "student" written across in a diagonal.

Edited April 13, 2010 by BaronUberstein

[Kaiser Martens]

They were all visibly surprised that anyone on this region would speak Nordlandic. Some of the less naive ones figured out precisely why this happened. After all, the nations had been enemies for a fairly long time. They salute briefly too and then the Intepreter steps up, to inform them that he will be present as he is able to speak Finnish as well when necessary.

Later, they would inspect the compound and facilities, and would determine everything to be suitable. After getting used to the new environment, they would have a meeting with the Finnish Team in order to discuss, face to face, the project itself and to possibly come up with a working schedule.

[Uberstein]

The interpreter would be much more useful with the Finnish team, none of them spoke a word of Nordlandic or German. It was a 5 man team, assembled partly from the Republican Guard Army Engineers, 2 full-time Government scientists, and one Professor from the University of Helsinki:
[quote]Prof. of Physics Esa Nyyssönen [2nd Language: Russian][Leader of Finnish Team]

Dr. Of Engineering Olavi Tallberg [2nd Language: Russian]

Dr. Of Engineering Samppa Paasivirta [2nd Language: Norwegian]

Army Engineer Corporal Kaarlo Päivinen [2nd Language: Swedish]

Army Engineer Captain Raimo Hietamäki [2nd Language: Swedish][/quote]

Nyyssönen steps up, holding out his hand, speaking in Finnish, "Welcome to Compound C. I must say, I've always admired German engineering and pioneering, will be interesting at the very least to see how you work. I will let Dr. Tallberg explain our plans, unless you want to get settled in to the housing first."

[Kaiser Martens]

"We certainly have no hurry, and it is a pleasure to meet you all. The most famous aspect of the Finnish, in Germany, is their actions against the ancient Soviet Union. Even if such a long time has passed...so we'll be glad to work alongside people who have determination, among other things. What are the plans, and, have you been informed of the basic concept of what we hope to create?"

[Uberstein]

He laughs, "Ah, yes, you're speaking of Sisu. Some say such determination only happened because we lived by angry Russians for so long." The group starts to walk, "We were thinking of basing it off an an existing tank chassis, I have heard that you Germans have expressed interest in the Steinhammer-G, and it's chassis is certainly large enough to base a large anti-tank gun on, given it's 9 meter length. We were thinking of experimenting with a smoothbore cannon, possibly even gun-missile technology. But now I'm simply cribbing notes from my fellow scientists, I'm here for the fine tuning, the physics of the operation. You'll have to speak with the others about equipment."

[Kaiser Martens]

"The Steinhammer chassis, from what we know, is quite resilient and also mechanically reliable. It is everything that a tank should be, but for a Tank Destroyer we have a different idea. The Steimhammer is large. We want to create a vehicle with a very, very low profile. I do not think that this is possible with the Steinhammer chassis. Though, in the end, we can have more than simply one variant."

"Using pre-existing chassis is much cheaper. Therefore we can create a "TD pack" which can be adapted to a number of existing chassis in a sort of makeshift, prefabricate manner. And separately we can create a chassis dedicated specifically to this project, which would be better, although at a higher price."

"We are thinking of a very, very low chassis in which the weapon is fitted in the back, similar to the Stridsvagn superficially, the engine on the front and the crew in the middle. It may be possible to use the special suspension system invented long ago by Korea to allow the tank to have a higher and lower profile as it sees fit. Then, combined with its special feature, we would have an assasin: A very fast, relatively lightly armored vehicle which is able to fire upon an enemy while showing only very, very tiny - much tinier than any other designs - part of itself in order to destroy. If used in the right conditions, it would be able to outperform tanks while being much cheaper."

[Uberstein]

Captain Raimo Hietamäki speaks up, "Come with me, we have been thinking of using the existing Mannerheim Chassis, so I had one delivered from the factory, we have the equipment here to disassemble it if need be."

They turn a corner, and parked under a tarp was a Mannerheim main battle tank, though it was missing a few things that it usually had during combat and military parades, such as cage armor and NERA blocks. The turret was striped down to the most basic form it could be, having only the RHS component.
[img]http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh108/BaronUberstein/MTAMannerheimBasic.png[/img]

"I'm sure we can work with this."

[Kaiser Martens]

"Yes indeed. Hmm. First we need to remove the turret and then the gun from the turret...then I guess that analyzing the blueprints will tell us how to better plan everything. Once we make measurements, we can start designing the lift mechanism."

[Uberstein]

[quote name='Kaiser Martens' date='18 April 2010 - 07:02 PM' timestamp='1271642558' post='2265661']
"Yes indeed. Hmm. First we need to remove the turret and then the gun from the turret...then I guess that analyzing the blueprints will tell us how to better plan everything. Once we make measurements, we can start designing the lift mechanism."
[/quote]
"We were actually thinking of using the 150mm gun of the Steinhammer-G, possibly even a 152, though we'd have to engineer that one from the ground up. If the 150 can fire artillery shells long distances, it can certainly kill a tank."

[Kaiser Martens]

"Alright. We will be shipping a few of our own tanks for testing purposes as well, if you do not mind. We'll bring one of our old Leopard 2 and 1s and separately a 155mm Antitank-and-artillery Gun, the most common things that we deal with at home. Though, all in all, what matters is proving that the concept itself is able to work."

As such, in the prototype stages there'd be several models:

NTD-1 Steinhammer (NTD as an interim name, new tank destroyer)
NTD-2 Leopard 2
NTD-3 Leopard 1 with 155 A/ATG

Once that these were complete, if the initial designs have sufficient potential, a brand-new dedicated chassis model may be built: NTD-4