AdmiralTheisman

You've seen them before; poorly edited videos with an alternating loop of John Phillips Sousa and Weird Al, purporting to tell you about the various design mistakes armored fighting vehicle designers have made over the years:
 

 
But does the maker of these videos one Blacktail Defense, know shit about AFV design himself?
 
Haha, no, no he does not.
 
Because of Sturgeon's House strict hate-speech enforcement laws, I am compelled to mention that Blacktail Defense is a furry.  So know that should you click any of the links to his material, you will need to decontaminate yourself per protocol DG-12-23A with bleach.
 
Blacktail Defense is a military reformer, a storied and interesting political movement in the United States that has gone from being a force of some consequence to being a ragtag group of scoundrels.  I'm not going to say that they weren't idiots and scoundrels when they were of consequence, n.b.
 
Military reformers are at they're strongest when they're on the attack.  They're a lot like creationists that way; when they can hurl invective at (mostly imaginary) weaknesses within whatever it is they hate, they can look like concerned citizens campaigning for the taxpayer's right to have their money spent wisely and the soldier's right to have the best practical equipment.
 
But give a military reformer some lined paper and a slide rule and tell them to come up with a design, rather than tear down an existing one, and you will quickly see that these people have no idea what they're talking about.
 
Ready?
 

 
This is taken directly from Blacktail's furaffinity page.  Careful analysis shows that, no, this man has no idea what the everliving fuck he's talking about.
 
Are you ready?  No, you're not, but let's go ahead anyway.
 
"The Tigerwolf may look vaguely similar to contemporary MBTs, such as the ubiquitous M1-series Abrams, but is in fact wrapped around a lot of design features and technology that are comlpetely alien to today's tanks."
 
 
Blacktail is going to prove to you that he's a better tank designer than all those idiots at Chrysler by designing a tank using technologies that didn't exist at the time of the design of the Abrams.
 
"For starters the crew is quite large, with a Commander, Driver, Gunner, TWO loaders, and an Engineer. Many designers favor a smaller crew, usually adding an autoloader to eliminate the Loader from the crew (like in the Russian T-64 through 90, the French Leclerc, and the Chinese Type 85 through 99)."
 
 
... What?
 
"However, there are a lot of problems with a smaller crew. First, autoloaders work at a painfully slow pace (14 seconds to reload in a T-72), which gives manual-loading tanks a huge rate-of-fire advantage (just 4 seconds in the M1A1 Abrams)."
 
 

 
"There's no autoloader either, as that only slows the ROF, requires smaller, less powerful and versitile ammo to be used, adds another complex, delicate set of moving parts to break, and only serves to expand the guantlet  of things that can hurt you inside the vehicle.In fact, the Tigerwolf's main gun ammo is extremely large and heavy, and probably would break an autoloader --- it's would be an incredible feat of strength for a single Loader crewman to load in under 10 seconds."
 
 
The Leclerc uses the same ammunition as the Abrams and Leopard 2.  As for his 145mm smoothbore howitzer ammunition breaking an autoloader, does he not know that the Pz 2000 SPG has an autoloader for its 155mm gun?  Of course he doesn't know that; Blacktail doesn't know what he's talking about.
 
"The engineer is useful as well, because the large size of the Tigerwolf --- coupled with it's simple drivetrain (most modern tracked vehicles have a deceptively simple drivetrain) and small, flat engine (compred to a "Vee" or gas turbine) make for easy engine maintnance[sic] and repairs from inside the tank --- there's no need to abandon it if you lose a sparkplug while under small arms fire."
 
 
Simple drivetrains, eh?


 
Note that per the graphic, the Tigerwolf has a diesel wankel.  Does Blacktail not know that diesel engines don't have spark plugs?  Of course he doesn't know that; Blacktail doesn't know what he's talking about.

(Diesel wankels don't exist.  Three companies have tried making them; Rolls Royce, John Deere and some Japanese company I CBA to look up.  None of the three ever got them to mass production.  I'm not sure what the problem was.)
 
"As for the armor, instead of using a large amount of steel and other metals, most of the Tigerwolf's armor is made up of thick panels and blocks of woven fabric Carbon 60 and 70 --- which are genarically[sic] known as "Fullerine". [sic]
Fullerine has ove 100 times the tensile strength of steel, it's 10's of times lighter, and theoretically could be manufactured quickly and inexpensively. Essentially, the Tigerwolf has a sort of "Super Kevlar" armor, but unlike current Kevlars (which are made of polimers[sic] or composites), fullerine does not have a molecular structure that distorts or melts under heat or pressure --- a single piece of this new type of armor can withstand MANY direct hits from rounds with tank-killing power, KE and CE alike."
 
 
Ah yes, fullerenes; every hack futurist's favorite crutch.
 
Fullerenes have many interesting and useful properties, but their large-scale bulk mechanical properties may not be that amazing.  Many materials have amazing strength at small scales, but disappointing strength at macro scales.  Sapphire whiskers are an example.
 
Moreover, high tensile strength (which is what fullerenes have going for them), does not necessarily imply that a material will make good armor.  The properties that make materials effective against high-velocity threats are somewhat esoteric.  Aluminum alloys, for instance, have a better strength to weight ratio than does steel, and while several of them do protect better on a weight basis than steel against lower velocity threats like artillery fragments and small arms fire, suffer badly against high-velocity penetrators and HEAT threats due to sheer failure modes that only exist at those higher velocity ranges.
 
Also, why the fuck does Blacktail think that "Kevlars" melt under pressure?  Aramids don't melt.
 
"Even though it's much larger than an M1A1 Abrams, the Mk.75 Tigerwolf is over 30% lighter, and can swim over water obstacles, rather than slog though on the bottom. And because it floats, there are no depths that it cannot cross."
 
 
This is how big a 40 tonne boat is.
 
"Also important is it's low ground pressure, stemming from it's low 40-ton weight, super-wide tracks, low height, and enourmous horizontal size --- it has the ground pessure of a "Light Track" vehicle, like the M113 Gavin. This is important because almost half the world's surface is closed to heavy tracks (again, the M1A1 Abrams), due to thier height, ground pressure, and high centers of gravity.
The Tigerwolf can directly cut across many areas that no existing or projected MBT will ever be able to --- not to mention traverse certain terrain features, such as bridges and paved roads, without damaging them."
 
 
Is Blacktail under the impression that it's ground pressure that damages bridges?  Jesus, if that were true the last thing you'd want to get anywhere near a bridge is a car.
 
"As the Tigerwolf has 40% more power and torque than the M1, and weighs 30% less, it is 40% faster and could probably accelerate as quickly as a Humvee. This would make contemporary tanks very hard-pressed to cut-off a Tigerwolf, and no current or projected tanks could ever hope to pursue a Tigerwolf.
Other advantages offered by the powerpack include a small number of moving parts, extremely low vibration and ocillation (inherent to Wankel Rotaries; not in piston engines), low heat emissions (less than in 700+ degree piston engines, or 1500+ degrees in Gas Turbines), a very small, flat, light engine block, and stonger individual components than in any current or projected tank engine, and a 5-speed AT, to take advantage of the high engine output. "
 
 
Uh huh...
 
So this is a magical wank(el) engine that has equal SFC to a diesel, rather than falling between a diesel and a turbine as existing ones do.
 
"Other advantages offered by the powerpack include a small number of moving parts, extremely low vibration and ocillation (inherent to Wankel Rotaries; not in piston engines), low heat emissions (less than in 700+ degree piston engines, or 1500+ degrees in Gas Turbines), a very small, flat, light engine block, and stonger individual components than in any current or projected tank engine, and a 5-speed AT, to take advantage of the high engine output."
 
 
WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF TURBINE REJECTS HEAT AT 1,500 DEGREES?!  The highest turbine inlet temperature on record is 1,600C!
 
Per Honeywell, AGT-1500's exhaust temperature is 500 C, but it's unclear if that is before or after it enters the recuperator.
 
And if he's using bullshit Imperial units he's still wrong.
 
If you don't know the difference between heat rejection temperature and turbine inlet temperature, you have no business discussing turbines.
 
"All tanks require high firepower, and the Mk.75 Tigerwolf has plenty of it. The large size of the Tigerwolf's hull and turret enables a heavier-caliber howitzer to be used than on any tank currently in service --- a 145mm Smooth-Bore Howitzer. Because the German-designed M256 120mm smoothbore (M1A1, M1A2, Leopard 2, etc.) has a 40% larger punch than the British-designed M67 105mm Rifled-bore (the standard to which ALL other tank guns are judged --- used on too many tanks to list), the Tigerwolf's gun probaly has at least 20% more punch than the M256 --- enough to outrange any of today's tank guns, with enough penetration to destroy an M1A1 from well beyond it's maximum gun range."
 
 
Any fictional Main Battle Wank needs to have a smitey, terrifying weapon... I'm not sure why Blacktail has saddled his design with a howitzer.
 
Also, how many places on Earth are there where you can even see further than the engagement range of an M1's armament?
 
"The Co-Axial MachineGun (COAX) fires 7x50mm rifle rounds, which combine the low cost and recoil of the 5.56x45mm NATO round, with the accuracy and penetration of the 7.62x51mm NATO round. 7mm rounds would also have a smaller casing daimeter than a 7.62mm round, which when coupled with significantly larger magazines and canisters, means the Tigerwolf totes one hell of a lot of MG ammo. As such, it is unlikely that a Tigerwolf will have to resupply MG ammo during a battle, and may even have thousands of rounds to spare --- if it is supporting friendly troops, the Tigerwolf may be able to spare a few thousand rounds for them."
 
 
Someone doesn't know the difference between case head diameter and caliber.
 
"A smooth ride and steady aim are achieved through hydropneumatic suspension and stabilization (versus the comparatively rougher torsion and hydraulics used in current and projected tanks) . The gun, turret, and hull each have thier own stabilization. While each of these are mechanically independant, they are balanced and co-ordinated via computer (which also feeds stability data to the gunnery computer, adjusting the GPS crosshairs in real time). This is unlike current tanks, whose ballistics comuters only react indirectly to the actual stability of the vehicle."
 
 
I don't know what any of this means, except that Blacktail doesn't know how suspension and stabilization work.
 
 
That's all I can stand.  I'm done.  Go read it if you want to, or not, whatever.

Loans in butter were acceptable in 16th century Europe;
 
European history provides examples of international lending in commodities to add verisimilitude to theoretical discourse. In the 1520s Lubeck made loans to Sweden in kind, that is, in goods, and in the 1550s King Gustav Vasa made loans in both money and goods (Heckscher, 1931 [1953], pp. 213-14). The 1520s loans were repaid, as well as made, in kind, and in consumption goods including, in 1532, butter. A payment due in 1527 was postponed, as it happened, because the food gathered for the purpose in Stockholm was suspected of having become tainted (ibid.).   (A Financial History of Western Europe, pg. 260) 

I'll have to take your word for it.  I have been avoiding this thread for the past few weeks, so I haven't read all the posts here.  
 
Anyhow, here are my observations thus far.  I don't think any of these are particularly controvertial or original:
 
1)  Trump continues to be a polarizing figure, driving up voter turnout both amongst his supporters and opponents.
 
2) The historical trend of Party holding the presidency losing seats in congress holds true, although the Republicans were able to avoid trouble in the Senate due to a very favorable election map (repubs were defending far fewer senate seats than dems).  
 
3) Holding onto the Senate allows the Republicans to continue dominating high court appointments, something that has been a priority for them, and will continue to cause Dems great consternation.
 
4) Gaining control of the House allows Dems to proceed with more investigations against Trump.  Whether this tactic will ultimately hurt or help them remains to be seen.
 
5) While I haven't seen detailed breakdowns of the voting demographics, it would appear that the electorate is becoming more polarized along rural/urban lines and race and gender.  Certainly the election rhetoric was some of the most highly charged that I have seen in my lifetime.
 
6) Republicans should probably be concerned that they lost so many House seats despite the strength of the economy.  They did not seem to be able to capitalize on the economy issue as much as one would expect, although its been a weird sort of recovery in which real wages for working people have not been going up as much as overall economic growth would suggest.  Trump seemed more interested in promoting divisive social issues than in running on the strength of the economy, which probably plays well with his base but less well with the middle.
 
7) Democrats still have yet to come up with a really compelling, unified vision.  They can't just run against Trump, they need to figure out a way to stop letting Trump take up all the oxygen in the room. They also need to make sure the Clintons go away, never to be heard from again.  
 
8) There is a lot of chatter that there may be a good deal of turnover in the Whitehouse following the midterm.  Personally, I hope General's Mattis and Kelly stay onboard, they seem to provide a stabilizing influence on President's Trumps somewhat mecurial and unpredictable tendencies.  
 
9) Be prepared for a couple years of congressional gridlock.  
 
10) I have no idea how the situation at the Justice Dept and the Mueller probe will eventually play out.  Does Trump try to clean house?  If so, does it turn into a modern "Saturday Night Massacre"?  Does Mueller actually have the goods to get more indictments?  What legal powers does he even have to pursue indictments against a sitting president?  Will Trump play the pardon card if push comes to shove?  There are so many x factors regarding this stuff that I could see it going in all sorts of different directions.  
 
It's going to be an interesting couple of years.  And by interesting, I mean my consumption of Alka-Seltzer will probably keep increasing.  What times we live in....
 
 
 
 

Angela Merkel says she will not seek a fifth term as chancellor, effectively beginning the winding down of her time as German leader. Merkel says she will not be seeking any political post after her term as chancellor ends in 2021. She also says she will not stand for re-election as chairwoman of her Christian Democratic Union party when an election is held in December. Merkel's CDU party and her coalition partner in Berlin, the Social Democratic Party, saw heavy losses in the state election in Hesse this weekend.

I really wonder if he knows the definition of irony

HOT TAKE
 

Weren't people joking about Trump having a pretty small dick? Sounds like that guy is either uncomfortable with his sexuality or a wimp.

And the birth certificate thing could have been put to rest in 24 hours, or 3 business days tops.
 
But Obama WANTED the Republicans to chase that red herring for six years.

Fucking end me fam

 
 
I've never seen a Trump tweet that didn't have this moron somewhere in the top replies.

He is truly an American treasure...
 
 

Nuh uh, you do!

I believe they do.  For some bizarre reason, the chieftain and T95 were designed to have the same turret ring, and that ring diameter was kept through the M60 and M1.  If Chally 2 has the same turret ring diameter as a chieftain, then you can plop an Abrams turret on it, at least in principle.
 
 
Edit: Ogorkiewicz says chally 1 and Abrams have the same turret ring diameter.  Probably chally 2 does as well:
 

Sidebar ads from a hippie site:
 






"Harnessing Energy Lines and Geocosmos in Ancient and Modern Quito"

"Alchemy and Generating Lifeforce —Global Temples Made in the Shape of Lingams: Shaivite Bull Cult Part II"
 
I came here for info about kurgans and this is what I find?

Now that we know the Challenger 2's Life Extension Program won't include a new gun, there's news coming in that the Warrior's modernization program is highly likely to be cancelled:
Axe Hangs Over UK Warrior Upgrade.
 
 

If any of y'all want some free firearms, just head to South Carolina.
 

Yes, nukemap is an essential tool for all aspiring supervillains!

I hope that the news about this Russian nuclear powered cruise missile is fake.  The idea that the USA could have had the world-ending insanity of Project Pluto in the 1960s, then failed to build it, only to have the Russians make the same thing years later fills my capitalist heart with sadness.

We cannot allow a nuclear-powered cruise missile gap!

Hey guys, you know what is great for our tank industry? Making a tank that requires twice as much steel when our metallurgy went to shit.
 

direct ancestor of EMBT

To get this thread back on track from extreme shitposting, the inflight magazine on Delta today was the worst kind of hipster bullshit (not hippies, but close enough). There was a 12 page article about the Hamilton musical, a bunch of tripe about people "discovering" what it was like to live in a small town and open a restaurant with "simple" cuisine (protip: if your dish has five or more spices and a honey glaze on it it's not "the simplest food you can imagine" unless you're a raging moron) that probably costs $30+ a plate. And to top if it all of, an article about sustainable living, and on the facing page, "fashion suggestions" including a $450 hat, $425 sunglasses, and $400 jeans with a whole in them.
 
Fuck you, inflight Delta magazine.

Every single ton of carrier you put into a single hull gives you more capacity than the last one. It takes a lot of tonnage to be able to launch even one plane, let alone launch, maintain and arm one plane. If you compare the air wings of light carriers to supercarriers, the latter have a lot more air wing per ton because things like maintenance, seakeeping, launch facilities and deck space are amortized over more planes. Big missile batteries end up on their own platforms with their own superstructure optimized for radar and so on for very good reasons because the USN can afford the tonnage to make their carriers part of a task force. Lastly, VLS cells are a non-trivial cut in the flight deck, which is part of the strength deck and has to have four long cuts in it for catapults, as well as the cuts in the ship girder for the hangar exits onto the elevators. The cuts that already exist are only possible due to classified structural shenanigans of the deep wizardry sort. The Charles de Gaulle has to have a weak spot in her deck because the reactor needs refueling more frequently. As a result, when their new short catapult designs turned out to only work with literally neck-breaking accelerations, they had to cut down to two cats, and the island is way the hell forward, which sucks because that's prime real estate for spotting planes before launch. The Zumwalts are the first missile focused ships to not need the VLS cut to be in prime centerline real estate, and the way they talk about that development indicates that it's bigger than you'd think.

Ships haven't been tonnage critical since a little bit after WWII, instead they're volume critical. That's why a modern warship is an apartment building full of computers and coated in radars on top of a hull full of missile and engine. (Also this is a major factor in armor being obsoleted). Discounting the VLS and AEGIS is also probably a mistake. It allows very rapid engagement by a single coordinated system rather than Soviet/Russian style multiple systems, and packs a huge wad of missiles ready to go rather than having to wait for them to be readied from the magazines. You also get things like the Standard Missile being useful in offensive and defensive roles by dint of being a good long range anti-air missile with a lot of energy.
 
Also the USN is more worried than any other navy afloat about things like being able to spend as much time as possible at sea. Steaming to and from their destination is time spent with sailors and ships being used but producing none of the value that's their reason for existing. So seakeeping is a huge priority for the USN, and they tend to take it very seriously.
 
Given the proud tradition of secondary navies tending to use a greater fraction of displacement for armament and sitting in port until needed, the USN is doing pretty well.
 
 
Entirely agreed, but don't neglect to multiply those putative 'sorties' that lesser carriers manage by some fractional factor to represent how a ski jump leaves you choosing between a reasonable range or an actual weapons load (and if you take the latter by the former, multiply out by a factor to represent the fantastic odds of your carrier being close enough to be found and killed by real opponents).
 
 
It's probably worth considering that the battleship was obsoleted by the Essex class. Why, you might ask, is an evolutionary design what put the battleship out of business rather than some revolutionary new system that ? 24 hulls. By the end of that class, naval power was capable of tangling with land based air power if it was concentrated and well run. Coordinating with land based air was and is a huge help, but without that, the critical mass to just hunt and utterly destroy a battleship wasn't necessarily there and things like a guerre de course with battleships going into important areas at night (There's a reason Guadalcanal was a nightclub par excellence for surface fleets) were honestly totally viable.
 
The thing is that by 1945, the war wasn't about weaksauce raids into and out of enemy air cover, and careful island hopping, it was about "fuck you, we're the USN, and we're going to deploy the first proper integrated air defense setup on the high seas and dare you to come at us enough to make it count, which means mass attacks by guided munitions (human or otherwise)" And after the war, either you're deploying with or against that massed naval air power, or you don't matter (Sorry Argies but you got taken down by the British. The British. That's a geopolitical corgi-mauling considering what passes for a carrier over there).

Good question!  This gets into something that I call "the problem with Jane's."

Jane's source books tell you a lot of information about military hardware, and most of that information is correct (I have seen them make mistakes).  But Jane's guide books are usually limited to easily quantifiable statistics.  A lot of what makes or breaks a combat rifle isn't obviously quantifiable.
 
The axis of the bore on the M14 is much higher, relative to the shooter's shoulder, than it is on the FAL.  Both rifles jump quite a bit, but the M14 is somewhat worse in this regard.  This is something that you could reasonably determine from a picture, but it's not something that usually gets written up in a stats block.

The control layout of the FAL is significantly better.  The safety/selector can easily be manipulated with the right thumb, and the rifle taken from safe to semi to full auto without having to look down and take the sights off target or otherwise do anything unsafe.  The M14's safety is inside the trigger guard, which increases the chances of mistakes.  The M14's selector is this weird can-opener thing on the side.  The FAL has a non-reciprocating charging handle on the left side of the rifle, which allows for very quick manipulation of the rifle, at least if you're right-handed.  If you had an eye for this sort of thing, you could probably pick it out from images.  But even then, images can be misleading.  The safety and fire selector on a G3 looks very easy to use, but actually holding a G3 will thoroughly disabuse anyone of that idea.  The designers of the G3 had some very strange ideas about how human hands are proportioned.

The FAL has a few features that make it very suitable for the rough and tumble life of a service rifle.  A number of evaluations of the FAL, including the US evaluation from the early 1950s, sing the praises of how easy it is to perform basic disassembly of the FAL.  The M14 is not particularly difficult to disassemble, but it's not as easy as the FAL.  FN also thoughtfully included an adjustable gas system on the FAL.  In theory, all 7.62x51mm ammunition ought to be interchangeable, so all NATO weapons could draw from a common stockpile.  In practice, there are significant differences in propellant composition between different countries' ammunition, and the adjustable gas system allows the FAL to be tuned to whatever is being used to feed it and get optimal function.  The M14 has no similar provision.

The moving parts of the FAL are much better enclosed than the moving parts of the M14.  The raceways in which the bolt travels are very exposed in the M14, but they are entirely enclosed in the FAL.  The M14's bolt carrier to bolt mass ratio is quite low.  The FAL's isn't great either, but it's still better.  The M14's moving mass is quite far off center, hanging off the right side of the rifle.  The axis of the bore and the axis of the center of mass of the moving parts are quite far apart.  The FAL isn't great in this regard either, but it's better, and its moving mass is at least centerline.  The more enclosed moving parts raceways mean that the FAL has less chance of having shit gum up the works, and the higher bolt carrier mass ratio means that its primary moving mass has more energy reserve to push through any shit that does get in the gun.  The adjustable gas system is also a factor here; if the rifle starts to get dirty inside, a few clicks of extra adjustment will send more power to the moving parts and help the rifle power through sludge (there is some expense to rifle fatigue life if this is done, however).  By modern standards neither rifle is that reliable, but the FAL is better.

M14s can probably be made more accurate than FALs, but actually keeping M14s accurate is a chore.  I know someone who shot M14s in High Power competition.  In practice this meant keeping three rifles in rotation, as they rapidly un-tune themselves and need to be sent back to the gunsmith.  A specialized sniper or DMR variant of the M14 I would concede is probably a better weapon than an equivalent FAL variant.  However, for line infantry the accuracy advantage of the M14 will be small, if it exists at all.  By modern standards neither rifle is that accurate.

On top of that, the history of the FAL took some twists and turns, but the history of the M14 is almost unmitigated disaster.  The development of the M14 took years longer than it should have, and the final design proved difficult to mass-produce.  Early M14s had serious quality control problems as well.  The modern mythology of the M14 as this trusty, old-fashioned type of weapon that got replaced by a fancy, unproven high-tech M16 pushed by out-of-touch technocrats is made completely the fuck up.  The M14 program was an embarrassing disaster nearly from start to finish.  I say "almost" and "nearly" because, by the end, TRW had figured out how to make pretty good M14s, but the rug got pulled out from under them when the M14 was replaced wholesale with the M16.  The FAL wasn't production optimized, but plenty of countries with modest industrial bases, like Venezuela, managed to produce them under license without undue difficulty.

None of this is stuff that you could easily tell from reading a blurb in Jane's.

Reading the previous 24 hours of comments, the clear answer is for God Emperor Trump to train these refugee kids as the cadre of his new Space Marine force.
 
 
Win-Win.