How to Fight the Darkness (5)
Tanks, at their core, run on tracks, are clad in armor, and have a single turret mounting a main gun that spins around and blasts the enemy—boom, boom, boom. That's the truth.
But to arrive at that "truth," countless engineers, developers, and theorists had to bang their heads against the wall from World War I through the interwar period.
Multi-turret designs are, in fact, the easy and quick option.
Rather than figuring out how to rOotate a turret 360 degrees, it's simpler to just slap several on. You can mount a big, thick anti-infantry gun and a slimmer, high-velocity anti-tank gun—one of each type—and how convenient would that be? Add machine guns all around, and it's practically paradise.
But once you consider that each turret requires at least two crew members—a gunner and a loader—you quickly realize how inefficient multi-turret designs are. Instead of turning a tank into a department store, you'd be far better off just deploying two tanks together.
Of course, the real reason such monstrosities exist at this stage is because the technology still sucks…
"Whose idea was this, anyway?"
"No clue."
"Where did the main gun go? Why are there just two ugly machine guns stuck on it?"
"No clue."
"Why do the two turrets block each other's firing angles?"
"No clue."
"Then what do you actually know?"
"I know we're screwed."
Creighton Abrams Chaffee let out a long sigh, clearly unable to bear the sight, and kept downing drink after drink. George S. Patton opened his mouth as if to say something, then shut it again.
Give me a drink too, damn it.
Honestly, something like the M3 Lee would be far better.
Sure, it's technically classified as a multi-turret design, but that's only because it didn't have a turret capable of handling a thick, powerful 75mm main gun—so they just shoved it into the hull. Sure, firing without a turret is inconvenient, but if your main gun is weak, you won't deal any damage even if you do fire.
People in later generations might mock it as a "trash tank," but if you asked them, "Do you want a tank that can't kill anything even if it shoots, or a tank that's just inconvenient to aim?"—every single one of them would quietly climb into the M3.
Anyway, back to reality.
"Is this really the only option?"
"This one's a Light Tank candidate. It's meant to suppress enemy infantry with machine guns."
"I feel like mounting a machine gun on a bullock cart would be better than this."
"At least with the Medium Tank, we managed to push our ideas through. Want to take a look?"
Swearing to myself that I'd never allow something like that to be mass-produced as long as I lived, I moved on to inspect the next prototype.
"This one's… at least decent."
If this one had also been multi-turreted, I might've chosen death—but at least, visually, it was acceptable.
"A 37mm anti-tank gun, a fully rOotating turret, decent speed, decent armor. Solid all around."
"It still needs improvement, though."
"Of course it does."
If there was any silver lining, it was that these grotesque abominations weren't made by our Ford Tractor Company, but were government-driven projects. If engineers on my payroll had proposed this garbage, I'd have happily used their unnecessary skulls as target practice.
Chaffee, on the verge of tears, left behind something that sounded suspiciously like a last will—
"Please, just make sure these things never get supplied to my unit…"—
and returned to his post with the 1st Cavalry Division.
Seriously… I step away for a year, and things turn into this? How? How does that even happen?
***
"Where should I even start?"
"From the beginning."
"My routine never changed. Kicking dumb brats into shape, training them, field-testing tanks, writing reports and submitting them."
This guy… does paperwork?
For a moment, I just blinked in disbelief—but then I accepted it.
Patton isn't just a mad dog. He knows when he can go crazy and when he has to restrain himself—and only goes wild when he's sure it won't cost him his career. A remarkably irritating kind of self-awareness.
"But then the economy went to hell! Suddenly it's all about disarmament, and our already tight budget—barely enough to fuel tanks—gets completely wrecked! Does that make any sense?!"
"Well… not much we can do about it."
"Not much we can do?! What happens if a war breaks out?! Imagine the United States being invaded by enemies armed with powerful tanks, while our boys have to ride those disgusting piles of garbage! For the future of this nation and the safe return of our soldiers, we need more budget—right now!"
Look at this guy—suddenly smooth-talking only when it suits him. Irritating.
I kind of want to throw him into the swamp of paperwork hell. If he spends three years buried in documents like a cotton-field slave, cut off from the world, maybe this medieval knight born in the wrong era might finally become a functional member of society.
Wasn't it a priest who reformed Jean Valjean? Then surely, to turn Patton into a proper human being, someone of equal virtue—like me, Yujin Kim—must step in. First, I'll need a silver candlestick to smash his head with—
"Are you even listening, junior?!"
"Ah—yes, yes."
"Right! So anyway! Instead of the mobile warfare doctrine we've been pushing—the idea of tanks as fast-moving spearhead units replacing cavalry—they've gone back to that damn trench-warfare pillbox logic!"
Wait, if it's meant for trench warfare like a pillbox, shouldn't that be a Heavy Tank, not a Light Tank?
"You mean like the British Mark tanks?"
"Well, at least that would be logically consistent. But they say they can't build those because there's no money. Can you believe that? I feel like I'm dreaming! What the hell!"
Alright. I get the situation now.
At a deeper, more intimate level, I'd probably have to go all the way to Washington, D.C. to really understand what was going on—but for now, this was about as much as I could grasp here.
Not long after, I headed to Detroit with Patton.
Thanks to the chaos I stirred up last time—going as far as testifying before Congress during that tank debate—defense contractors like Ford had secured a fair amount of autonomy in research and development.
Of course, exporting was still out of the question thanks to that damned isolationism. But people were already finding ways around it—like that bizarre "Chosun Mitsubishi" workaround. Even J. Walter Christie had sold tanks to the Soviets. At that point, wasn't that practically going red?
Lately, I'd come to a realization:
If there are regulations, submitting to them makes you third-rate. The real elite—the aristocrats of the underworld—find ways around them, no matter what.
From that perspective, Ford—armed with my rough knowledge of the future and real combat data being accumulated in Japan—should have been capable of developing even better tanks.
But making a good product and selling it are two completely different problems.
If, by some ridiculous chance, an article ever came out saying:
"Shocking military corruption! Colonel Kim purchases large quantities of tanks from his own company using taxpayer money!"
…well, that'd be the day I'd have to turn into a full-blown gangster.
***
"Colonel Kim, isn't it?!"
"Today I'm here as a soldier, not a shareholder. Could I see the prototype you're working on?"
"Y-yes, of course! We're currently revising the design—"
"That's fine. Show me the actual machine first."
We headed straight to the test grounds. The moment Patton saw the real thing, his grin spread wide.
"Ohh… not bad."
"Looks acceptable, at least."
Yeah. That was a tank. Finally, something worth looking at.
"According to evaluations from the Japanese Army, tanks are most effective when they can rapidly break through the battlefield under any conditions, quickly collapsing enemy defenses. They also excel at neutralizing fortifications and supporting infantry advances. Taking that into account, we—"
"Hold it."
Before I could say anything, Patton stepped toward a nearby staff member.
"Isn't that based on those Japs running around fighting bandits in the Manchurian plains?"
"Pardon? Ah—yes, that's correct."
"The enemies we'll be facing won't be some Mexican bandits! We have to assume they'll have tanks too—and situations where we'll need to smash those tanks!"
"Well… developing tanks specifically for anti-tank combat would require a separate line. And… would that really be meaningful? The sales volume wouldn't be very high, after all."
A perfectly corporate answer.
This wasn't the 21st century, where a single main gun could fire both high-explosive shells for bunkers and armor-piercing rounds for tanks. Back now, roles tended to be split…
I had to make a call.
"We should focus on anti-tank warfare."
"If you provide your recommendation, I'll pass it on to management."
"That's because anti-infantry tanks will probably be supplied by the Army's own arsenals anyway."
He nodded without objection.
Right. That's corporate logic. No need to over-explain.
***
"Jin! Long time no see!"
"You're… looking refreshed. Yeah… really refreshed…"
Why was our good boy Ike's hairline becoming more and more refreshed?
As I kept glancing at his head, his expression darkened.
"You want to get punched?"
"Sorry."
"Just wait. Think your hair's safe?"
"You know, in old Joseon, there was a hairstyle called Sang-tu. They didn't cut their hair—they tied it up. Which means… there were no bald people in Joseon."
"That's ridiculous! That's not fair!"
"Life's already unfair enough living as a 'yellow.' Imagine losing your hair on top of that."
Believe it or not, Ike seemed to genuinely buy it.
Then again, the 1930s were an era where people believed in everything—kung fu mysticism, occult nonsense…
Come to think of it, even in the 21st century, people still believe in things like negative-ion gadgets and germanium energy stones. Maybe nothing really changes.
"Anyway, the fact that you rushed back here the moment you were assigned… I take it things aren't going well?"
"Why the hell did that bastard Drum pick a fight over tanks?!"
"Well… tanks right now are mainly for infantry support, aren't they?"
"Then tell them to build heavy tanks! Not those freakish twin-turret abominations!"
Taking it out on poor Ike wasn't going to help, but honestly, just looking at those things made my blood boil.
There were limits to what I could do about technological constraints—but within those limits, I wanted to avoid disasters like that at all costs.
"Since I'm already locked into the armored branch, I'm thinking of taking direct control of tank development. What do you think?"
"If a guy who owns a tank factory starts leading development, that could cause… serious issues."
"Hey. Go take a look at those monstrosities first, then talk. I usually keep my hands off, but this? This is what real waste of taxpayer money looks like."
"There's that issue too."
Ike let out a long sigh.
"General Fox Conner is strongly pushing for mechanization, but… there's no budget. You've heard that plenty of times already, right?"
"Yeah. Who in the military hasn't?"
"I hate to say it, but every department—from aviation onward—is begging for funding right now. That bizarre design Drum proposed… it passed because it was the cheapest."
Of course it's cheap when you replace a cannon with two machine guns!
I grabbed the back of my neck, feeling the tension surge, and collapsed into a chair.
Wasn't the U.S. military supposed to be the land of show me the money?
So why does it always feel like we're scraping by like beggars?
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