Life_In_Black

I don't think it's all that thick either, as everything I've seen seems to indicate it's relying on the slope of the armor much more than the thickness of the armor. Like here for instance:

 
That's why I named this thread the way I did, because the Merkava really seems like a further ev olution of the Chieftain, which makes sense given the Merkava's origins. My personal tinfoil hat theory is that the reason the armor is still technically classified is because the armor is really much thinner than they want to let on.

Interesting, my friend left that out about the basalt being used to make the dust stick to the paint. Then again, he probably didn't know all things considered. This explains the look of the paint on most Merkavas.

So, two days ago on Status Report it was mentioned that the top speed of the Action X Centurion was historical, that it was based on the South African Olifant (no relation to that BabyOlifant fellow from the WoT forums):
 
 
Naturally, this made me curious and so I started digging into the history of the Olifant and the upgrades South Africa made to their Centurions.
 
Project Skokiaan began in 1972, with the goal being to replace the always unreliable 650hp Meteor engine. The replacement was the 810hp V-12 AV-1790 gasoline engine, which had seen service in the early variants of the M48 Patton, which was coupled to a new three speeed automatic transmission. In 1974, Project Semel was undertaken to further improve both the engine and tranmission, and it was under Project Semel that the Centurion reached a power to weight ratio of 16.5 hp/ton and a top speed of 50km/h, up from the 35km/h it got with the 650hp Meteor engine, and effectively doubling the vehicle's range.
 
Now here's where it gets interesting. Under Project Olifant in 1976, the engine was replaced with a 750hp V-12 AVDS-1790 (used on the M60, and Israeli Centurions and M48s) and possibly a new transmission, which lowered the power to weight ratio to 13.4hp ton, and the top speed down to 45km/h, however the range further increased due to the diesel engine and fuel efficiency. With some other improvements, this became the Olifant Mk. 1
 
Near as I can tell, it took the Olifant Mk. 1A to finally replace the 20-pdr with the 105mm L7, but it's the Mk. 1B that's interesting. The engine on the Mk. 1B was repalced again with a 900hp engine, but apparently this was later superceded by a V12 950hp engine, possibly an American engine by way of Israel. In addition, the entire suspension was comprehensively rebuilt with individual torsion bars for the roadwheels rather than the outdated Horstmann suspension.
 
So having researched all of that, I went back and looked at the engines of the Centurion Mk. I and Centurion Mk. 7/1 in-game, of which the elite form of the Centurion Mk. I is the Centurion Mk. III, and the elite form of the Centurion Mk. 7/1 is the Mk. 9. The Centurion 1 starts out with a 600hp Rolls-Royce Meteor engine, upgrades to a 650hp Rolls-Royce Meteor engine, which near as I can tell pretty much all of the Centurions in British service used for the entirety of their service, and finally as an elite engine it gets a 750hp Meteor engine that may or may not have existed, and certainly wasn't mounted on any mark of Centurion even close to a Centurion Mk. III, which with its historical 650hp engine, went a whopping 35km/h. In-game however, the top speed of the Centurion Mk. I is 40km/h,
 
The Centurion 7/1 on the other hand, starts out with the 650hp Meteor engine, gets the aforementioned (and possibly fictional) 750hp version, and then gets a 950hp Rolls-Royce Griffon engine, that I can only find a single source as to ever being fitted to a Centurion. What's incredible however, is that the top speed of the Centurion 7/1 in-game is still 40km/h, even though the South Africans managed to get 50km/h with the 810hp AV-1790, and 45km/h with the 750hp AVDS-1790 and a lower power to weight ratio.
 
However, it doesn't end there, as I came across something very interesting along the way. Namely that the Olifant Mk. 2 has a 1040hp diesel engine, also possibly of US origins via Israel. I even found an article from 2005 detailing that BAE had won the contract to upgrade more of the Olifant Mk. IBs to Mk. 2 standard, which includes 1040hp engine. So having found this, I decided to go back and look at the stats for the Action X Centurion on Status Report and something jumped out at me:
 
 
Makes you wonder just what was meant by that statement regarding the Action X and Olifant, huh?
 
Sources:
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=9088.235
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,9088.240.html
http://www.pmulcahy.com/tanks/south_african_tanks.html
 
Anyway, I figured this could be a thread for instances like this, effort posts detailing just what Wargaming got wrong or might be fucking up in some way, either knowingly (as I believe to be the case here with the Action X being given some South African upgrades to make it competitive), or ignorantly, because they couldn't be bothered to do basic research. Hell, maybe I should try sending this into Status Report, get my name in all the papers or some shit.

Maybe. Like I said, I found mention of it possibly being something for India (which wouldn't surprise me given India's military being a hodgepodge of almost everything), but I also found something on it possibly being a proposal by GIAT in France of upgrading older tanks with T-72 turrets. Hell, I don't even know if it's real or anything.
 
EDIT: Now I've found something about it possibly being for Malaysia. Seriously, this is getting ridiculous.
 
EDIT 2: Found slightly more about it possibly being Malaysian, apparently Malaysia trialled the Leopard 1A5 but ended up going with the Polish PT-91. In a last ditch effort, the Germans tried changing their minds by giving them the best of both worlds. (cue Van Halen). Of course whether this is actually true or internet hearsay, is beyond me. I've found three different stories at this point.

Having thought about it earlier, who on earth is such a conversion trying to appeal to? To my knowledge, nobody ever operated both the Leopard 1 and the T-72, and anybody who had access to one of those certainly didn't need the other one. I think this can be chalked up to "Germany" again.
 
EDIT: I found something that it may have been a German project for India back in the '90s, but as to whether that's true or not I haven't a clue either. We do have color now though!

 
Oh, and on a related note, Colli will be happy to know that Romania did indeed develop a stretched T-72 because reasons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TR-125

Maybe. Like I said, I found mention of it possibly being something for India (which wouldn't surprise me given India's military being a hodgepodge of almost everything), but I also found something on it possibly being a proposal by GIAT in France of upgrading older tanks with T-72 turrets. Hell, I don't even know if it's real or anything.
 
EDIT: Now I've found something about it possibly being for Malaysia. Seriously, this is getting ridiculous.
 
EDIT 2: Found slightly more about it possibly being Malaysian, apparently Malaysia trialled the Leopard 1A5 but ended up going with the Polish PT-91. In a last ditch effort, the Germans tried changing their minds by giving them the best of both worlds. (cue Van Halen). Of course whether this is actually true or internet hearsay, is beyond me. I've found three different stories at this point.

Figured you guys would enjoy these:

I haven't posted in this thread in a while, so have some photos I found the other day on fresh.co.il, of the wooden mockup:







 
And here's that same section of the glascis attached to a jeep:

 
And some photos of the wooden model taken at the Batey ha-Osef Museum in Tel Aviv:


 
Of note is the Sholef wooden mockup in the background which dates those last two as being sometime much later than the other photos. ANd while we're on the subject of Batey ha-Osef Museum, here's a photo of a Merkava prototype chassis there (among some other Merkava prototypes/variants IIRC):

 
And here are what appear to be stills from a video of a Merkava prototype moving under its own power, probably sometime in 1974 or 1975:



 
And I found better versions of some already available photos, this time of the Magach turret mounted on a Merkava prototype chassis:


 
And lastly, we come full circle with pictures of the Merkava's official unveiling in 1978:


 
Just an FYI, I haven't posted these to my Israeli tech tree thread over on the WoT forums yet, so I would appreciate not sharing them around too much until I get around to doing that.I mean, I know they're available online since I found them, but near as I can tell, most of these probably haven't seen the light of day in ages outside of some Israeli sites.

http://defense-update.com/20150519_israel_ordnance.html#.VWlPfEYufh0
 
Big orders of bombs and missiles to replenish IAF stocks. 14500 JDAM kits, 12000 bombs, 4100 SDBs, 50 5000lb deep penetration bombs, 1500 Paveway Kits, 3000 Hellfires, and 250 AIM-120Cs.
 
 
That's a lot of freaking bombs and missiles.
 

Don't worry, drowning in pussy is a valid excuse.

Some interesting stuff there. Like the information plate for the M-51:

 
How on earth did they stuff 55 105mm rounds into a Sherman and keep a 5 man crew?
 
 
Near as I can tell having looked at various pictures and what I could find, the only thing filling that space is the armored fuel tanks filled with diesel.


 
More pictures here. I honestly don't think that's changed at all from the Mk. 1 up through now. Could really use someone who's good at this sort of thing to chime in at how good diesel is at stopping tank rounds.

Here's the Aberdeen document on the T24 Light Machine Gun: http://www.forgottenweapons.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/t24%20report.pdf

Here's the Aberdeen document on the T24 Light Machine Gun: http://www.forgottenweapons.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/t24%20report.pdf

OH MY GOD YOU'RE RIGHT




Is there some secret Music Illuminati that reaches out and grasps decent bands in their metaphorical fists, and then crushes them until they're absolutely dull mass market shit?

Is this like how MBAs keep ruining my favorite restaurants?

Having seen Halestorm live a few years ago, they're not bad live. Hell, I even liked a number of songs off of the first album, despite it being much more pop than I usually listen to. But their second album was abysmal and had nothing really interesting on it at all. The third album is even worse than the second, which is actually quite impressive in its own way. The truly sad thing of all of this is that Halestorm's cover of Skid Row's Slave to the Grind was actually pretty damn good in my opinion, and Lzzy Hale (yes, that's actually how her name is spelled. Because reasons.) would have been perfect as the new singer of Skid Row since they got rid of Johnny Solinger and won't bring back Sebastian Bach. Instead Skid Row went with Tony Harnell formerly (several times now) of TNT, who while a phenomenal singer and much better than Sebastian Bach and Johnny Solinger could ever hope to be, is most definitely taking a step back career wise with this decision. I don't know, I keep hoping Halestorm will get better eventually, but all they've done is get worse.
 
 
You're acting like this is a bad thing.

For something different, this recently popped up in TS;
 

I think a lot of people start thinking in the wrong direction when they read the title of the article.  What he's describing is not a pattern unique to the labyrinthine and inscrutable Oriental mind.  Compare the sorts of political considerations he describes to, say, Nazi Germany and you see the same patterns.  Duplication of military services because the government distrusts them?  Check.  Political loyalty, independent of competence a major factor in promotions?  Check.  Paranoid leader who tries to play underlings off each other because they're afraid they might be plotting a coup?  Check.

One thing that immediately comes to mind having read the article is that the author barely mentions Jordan in regards to most of his points, and even when Jordan is mentioned, it's almost never in regards to ability, training, or combat history. This despite the author mentioning having been on a combat operation with Jordanian forces against the PLO in 1970. I wish I knew more about this because while I believe he's left out Jordan because Jordan disproves the overall point of the article, I don't know enough to definitevely say as such. Even if Jordan does disprove the points he's making, including them would have been beneficial as it provides a contrast against the other examples he provides, thereby making the article seem less biased. I don't know, my $0.02 on the matter.

One thing that immediately comes to mind having read the article is that the author barely mentions Jordan in regards to most of his points, and even when Jordan is mentioned, it's almost never in regards to ability, training, or combat history. This despite the author mentioning having been on a combat operation with Jordanian forces against the PLO in 1970. I wish I knew more about this because while I believe he's left out Jordan because Jordan disproves the overall point of the article, I don't know enough to definitevely say as such. Even if Jordan does disprove the points he's making, including them would have been beneficial as it provides a contrast against the other examples he provides, thereby making the article seem less biased. I don't know, my $0.02 on the matter.

http://www.meforum.org/441/why-arabs-lose-wars
 
There's been some discussion on TS about this article, so thought it would be beneficial if the discussion was continued here.

Nope, definitely not for me. Last time I was on a bike, I'm pretty sure Bush Sr. was president of the United States.

http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/saudis-fear-iranian-control-of-yemen-due-to-this-strate-1694709328
 
 
Rundown of the strategic reasons why the Saudis are flipping out about Yemen.

http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/second-air-war-erupts-in-middle-east-with-wide-ranging-1694268668

http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/how-the-marines-cheaply-and-quickly-built-precision-com-1577979656
 
That's a gadget I did not know about. Pretty badass.
 
 

Still not as manly as this:
 

 
Many horses died to bring you this movie.