N-L-M

I have just heard from Richard Ogorkiewicz's wife that he died suddenly on Sunday. As all will know, he was a brilliant writer and analyst in the field of AFVs. He was still active physically and mentally, just completing his memoirs. 
I remember all his many kindnesses, keen intelligence and his wry sense of humour. I wil miss him.
Marsh

From 20:00 shows different APS systems. From 21:00 - Drozd. 22:45 - Arena.
 
   APS system from 1960s, placed on T-55.

 
 
   Arena was designed for T-80U. Arena's munitions were fired upwards in order to hit incoming projectile with fragments and then ground will "catch" all of them in specific area around the tank, to decrease danger for other troops in formation. Design work were completed shortly before 2000s.
 
   Modernized Arena APS (from 24:00). Amount of  intercepting munitions were decreased to 8-12, but each of them is now capable of changing trajectory/rotate in flight. Each munition is equipped with impulse engines. In video Head of department of KBM claims that it gives 360 degrees protection and capable to intercept Javelins, Spikes and other top-attack ATGMs.
   
 

 
 
 

Long time no see... Here something more again. This time something about the anti-aircraft stuff. 
 
I have already mentioned that by the time of Munich there was still one battery of four ancient 8 cm light guns vz.5/8 converted into the AA role located in Prague. Also at least in theory the already mentioned 8 cm light guns vz.30 could have been used in AA role too (202 pieces available). This is the provisional AA installation of the gun vz. 5/8. 

 
And this is the vz.30 light gun showing its possible AA use.

 
it's not very well known that Škoda Plzeň was one of the founders of the AA combat. Their first (truck-mounted!) 3,7 cm AA gun was built already in 1910 (it wasn't adopted by Austro-Hungarian army though). It's no suprise that most of the following guns are of Škoda origin. 
 
9 cm AA gun vz.12/20 was originally designed for Austro-Hunngarian navy as a dual purpose gun but it was never adopted. Several guns were built and stored until they were needed in the war with Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919. All available guns (8 pieces) were moved to Slovakia along the Danube river to fight Hungarian river boats and maybe planes as well. At that time it was decided to restart the production of a modernized type. Twelve more guns were built. All 20 pieces were used up until the occupation and in 1943-1944 they were even taken by the Germans for the AA defence of the Third Reich. None of them is preserved. 

 
Shortly afterwards the Czechoslovak army started to get one of the best AA guns of that time the 8,35 cm gun vz.22. This gun could fire a 10 kg heavy round up to the altitude of 11 thousand meters. It was also one of the first designs intended for automotive traction. The carriage was pretty heavy because the MOD requested it to be able to fire directly from the transport carriage. Czechoslovakia had 144 pieces which served until the occupation and later with Slovak and German army. The Germans took 119 pieces which were used everywhere - for direct fire on the Maginotte line bunkers, defence of Baltic ports, later of Cherbourg, on the Atlantic wall etc. Several pieces were used by the Slovaks in the national uprising until it was defeated (they were used as a defence ofthe vital airfield Tri Duby near Zvolen (Sliač airbase today). 

 
Now again one sad story. The 7,5 cm light AA gun vz.37 was a pretty good design which due to the neverending MOD testing and overloaded manufacturer (and relocation of the Škoda production to much safer Dubnica nad Váhom in Slovakia) never made it to the army despite it was ordered already in March 1937 (108 pieces). Only one battery (used for testing) was in the army arsenal in the fall of 1938. This modern gun was intended for the defence of the field units. It was therefore very light (2,8 tons) and if it was actually finished it would alow also a direct fire which could have been deadly for every tank of that time (the sights for the direct fire were never produced despite being developed though). it could fire 25-30 11,5 kg heavy rounds per minute up to 9,2 km altitude. In the end the Germans let the production run and took the whole production intended for the Czechoslovak army. Another guns were produced for Romania, Finland, Yugoslavia (taken by Italy instead) and Netherlands (only 9 delivered before the occupation). the license was sold also to Soviet Union but it was likely never produced in any meaningfull numbers. The good thing about this gun is that one piece survived till today and you can find it in Lešany military muzeum near Prague. 

 
7,65 cm AA gun vz.37 was the gun which was given a priority in production and which actually was fielded. It was intended for the territorial defence and was heavier than the previous type (3,8 tons). 96 pieces were ordered but actually only 60 were delivered before Munich. This gun was the most modern AA piece which actually made to the units. It could fire 22-28 14,6 kg heavy rounds per minute up to 11 thousand meters altitude. It was used in fully motorized units and the actual transport speed with its dedicated towing truck was up to 60 km/h. In the end again the Germans took all the production and also guns intended for Yugoslavia (only a part of the order was delivered). The Germans used them through the whole war. One piece with ser.no.1 is preserved in Lešany muzeum. 

 
In 1920' the Czechoslovak army tried several automatic small calibre AA guns but none of them was fielded. One of them, the Becker 2 cm gun is preserved in Prague but to be honest I don't remmeber whether it is in Kbely aircraft muzeum or in Žižkov muzeum (currently closed due to the reconstruction). The photo is not showing the Czechoslovak army despite the first helmets of the Czechoslovak army looked like the German WW1 ones.

 
2 cm heavy AA MG vz.36 was in fact the wonderful Oerlikon gun and the only foreign AA weapon which was fielded by the Czechoslovak army. It was used by the field units with 227 pieces actually fielded before Munich (another batch was never delivered due to the later situation). It was used with fully motorized units equipped with either Tatra 82 or Tatra 85 trucks. At that time it was a deadly weapon even for nearly all Wehrmacht tanks (except some 30 Pz.IV ausf.A only Pz.I and II were available for the war with Czechoslovakia and even the Pz.IV ausf.A had only 14,5 mm armor).  As usually the Germans took the weapons (167 pieces, the rest stayed with Slovak army). It was pretty convenient for them because they actually already used this type (mainly in Luftwaffe as Oerlikon FF). One of these guns is preserved in Lešany muzeum. 

 
As a last weapon we have here the large calibre machine gun ZB-60 (Zbrojovka Brno). This 15x104 mm potent weapon was widely exported but never fielded by the Czechoslovak army (mainly due to neverending trials, teething issues and changes of the MOD requirements). First it was actually ordered by the fortification command which wanted to use it instead of the expensive anti-tank guns in a terrain which didn't allow use of heavier tanks. In the end the order was canceled. After that it was chosen as a weapon for tankette Škoda Š-I-P which was again never produced. Meanwhile the weapon was supplied to Great Britain, Yugoslavia, Spain and Iran. The Brits bought the license and produced this gun as Besa 15 mm for light tanks Mk.VI and Humber scout cars. After all the Czechoslovak MOD ordered the gun but it was too late and the whole order went directly to German navy. Alltogether some 1100-1200 guns were produced. Thanks to the very high muzzle speed up to 970 m/s this 55 kg heavy weapon (with the carriage) could also penetrate up to 28 mm of steel at 50 meters or 16 mm at 350 meters (i.e. at around 400 meters it could penetrate all Wehrmacht tanks available for Fall Grün). The rate of fire was 420 rounds per minute. 

 
And I forgot one thing... Czechoslovakia bought a license for the famous 40 mm Bofors guns in the fall of 1938 but the production was never realized. The deliveries shall have started in 1939... 

https://ir.rheinmetall.com/download/companies/rheinmetall/Presentations/191120_CMD_2019_Unterluess_CEO_online.pdf

there is a lot of other pics, strange tank imho...

Got to sneak a peak at this today:
 

 



 
 

In other news...

 

Thats the tech demonstrator for friction stir welding, IIRC.

Thats the tech demonstrator for friction stir welding, IIRC.

Merkava 1 has an external mortar.
I believe that particular mortar fitted in the Namer turret is the same one as is in use in the Merk 4, which is slightly different from the one used in the Merk 2 and 3, pictured separately in LoooSeR's post.

Heh, it appears that YaK-130 UBS have an unknown button near one of screens that was unmarked and not marked on documents for a plane, and if you press it a message appears on the screen saying "Kill all humans! Long live robots!"
   Video in the link (proof) https://diana-mihailova.livejournal.com/4077485.html

   Here is offical document asking producer to fix that.

Thanks for posting, I would appreciate it if you could kindly edit out the various video game references.
Regarding the above, the numbers for the M60 and vanilla M1 are both high, as is the number for the T-62. The rest of the Soviet numbers appear to be similarly made up, so expecting the late model (at the time) Abrams numbers to be anywhere near accurate is... hopelessly optimistic.

Towed artillery would get counterbatteried 10 ways to hell so fast it'd make your head spin. Fire systems incapable of dodging or surviving counterbattery fire will have fuckall survivability in a big boy war. Doubly so for towed guns with substantially less range than enemy artillery, such as say the M777 compared to pretty much anything modern on the opposite side.
Fire-finding radars are everywhere since the 1990s, and the gun's survivability has to be evaluated under the understanding that the enemy is going to shoot back. 
Given that, the ability to shoot and scoot before enemy fire arrives is a critical survivability measure.

Towed artillery would get counterbatteried 10 ways to hell so fast it'd make your head spin. Fire systems incapable of dodging or surviving counterbattery fire will have fuckall survivability in a big boy war. Doubly so for towed guns with substantially less range than enemy artillery, such as say the M777 compared to pretty much anything modern on the opposite side.
Fire-finding radars are everywhere since the 1990s, and the gun's survivability has to be evaluated under the understanding that the enemy is going to shoot back. 
Given that, the ability to shoot and scoot before enemy fire arrives is a critical survivability measure.

I suspect that that is entirely not the goal, for a few reasons:
1. The main difficulty in firing on the move is stabilization of the gun. Howitzers, for reasons of easy loading, have the gun out of balance with the trunnions very far aft to minimize the breech drop inside; however the recoil impulse with a good muzzle brake is not significantly in excess of that of a NATO 120mm or Russian 125mm, which have been mounted on vehicles as light as the Sprut with no brake.
Reducing recoil impulse does not help all that much with needing to keep the breech high off the floor for loading and therefore needing to keep it out of balance in the cradle.
2. The US Army for some reason still has a lot of towed howitzers in service, which I'm sure you'd agree need to be replaced with some kind of SP system cause as they are theyd get creamed in any real kind of war. Unfortunately the budget is not infinite (SAD!), and therefore replacing them all with M1299s is less than doable in any reasonable time scale. And replacing them is a much more pressing concern than firing on the move from a tracked platform. 
 
The rest of the world has either gone or is going the route of wheelyboys for various reasons, which bring with them their own host of issues, which ideally need to be worked out separately before you start full scale design and development. This is in my opinion what Brutus actually is. Brutus being FMTV based may be down to the fact that its a platform the Army has available for this kind of testing, and not due to it being intended to see service in this config. The total lack of any serious systems integration work shown so far makes me less than convinced that this platform is intended to eventually actually see service.
 

It's from Leonardo HITFACT MK2 (essentially the Centauro II turret) brochure, I suppose it is an exaple of use for the product
https://www.leonardocompany.com/documents/20142/8863233/BROCHURE_2018_HITFACT+MkII.PDF
 
While it is true the Ariete turret already has a 120mm and more armor, this wouldn't be too bad in terms of optics, the Ariete still has no thermal mode  on the commander periscope and merely a 240p resolution gunner thermal, all managed by an Intel 8086 derived processor (+ 8087 coprocessor, gotta give it that). The HITFACT II turret also has a 12 round autoloader, and the 120/45 might fire higher pressure rounds compared to the 120/44.
 
Not that it matters much anyway, this was a promotional shot and the actual Ariete upgrade program shows the same turret with minor upgrades (including, speculation, the same optics as on the HITFACT MK2 turret)

Object 640 Kaktus ERA system - interesting overlapping position of each ERA tile sure looks like more serious effort than what you see on Budget Cuts 3.

 

 
 
 http://btvtinfo.blogspot.com/2017/10/blog-post_66.html
 
   Also, according to pattent they wanted to detonate tiles in layers to increase amount of counter-actions against incoming penetrator. External ERA cover was involved in counter-action. After first layer detonates, a soft-ish material in between first and second layer of ERA was delaying damaging effects of first ERA detonation while tubes with explosives worked as detonators for second layer of ERA.
   On thise side cutaways you can see those detonation tubes between ERA tiles
 

...yet another article which has no memory of FIFV part of HFM/ASM program from late 80s

https://cloud.mail.ru/public/2ven/2jLvAJs3H in folder "IFV Task Force Study results (1978-04)", as bunch of JPEGs

Another option: M900 remanufactured.
Considering how the same contract has HEI ammo of similar vintage, its possible that it's the propellant (or in the HE rounds, perhaps also the explosive fill) which is past its use-by date, and that the projos and cases will then be available for re-loading with fresh (perhaps IM or temp-independent?) propellant.

https://www.janes.com/article/91385/royal-netherlands-army-selects-iron-fist-aps-for-cv90
Another win for Iron Fist.

So I'm late to this party, but thank you to the judges for selecting me.
I think this was the most technically challenging competition we've had so far, so I'm glad my design was able to solve at least some of the issues presented. 
 
Edit: I also wanted to say thank you to the organisers (especially @N-L-M) who helped make this possible. There's at least as much work going on in the background as gets put into making the submissions themselves, and so I'm very grateful to the folk who slogged through on this so that I could have fun designing imaginary tanks.

Took me a while to figure it out, but the vehicle that first appears at 0:57 would seem to be UDI's test rig for the Advanced Assault Amphibian Vehicle, a project that would become the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (which GDLS won the contract to further develop.)  I am surprised this thing is still around and in private hands.

Going a bit old school in Virginia over the weekend: