Jump to content
Please support this forum by joining the SH Patreon ×
Sturgeon's House

N-L-M

Forum Nobility
  • Posts

    732
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    19

Reputation Activity

  1. Tank You
    N-L-M reacted to Jeeps_Guns_Tanks in The M4 Sherman Tank Epic Information Thread.. (work in progress)   
    New A57 image and fixed the older one. 
     
    Here, you can see the belt driven water pumps and generator. The Generator was moved to the fighting compartment, run from a the drive shaft. 
     
     
     
  2. Funny
    N-L-M reacted to ADC411 in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    Guys, I've gotta be honest, I'm starting to feel a bit bad about the dogpile going on here. Therefore, I've decided to play Devil's advocate and jump into the discussion as part of team of Wehraboo. I've put together a carefully crafted list of evidence to help convince you all.
     
    Exhibit A:
     
     
    I think that speaks for itself, but if somehow that objective assessment by a SME doesn't have you convinced, then please take a look at Exhibit B:
     

     
    According to most sources, Panther tanks maintained an average readiness rate of anywhere from 30-35% for the first two years after their introduction, AND YET, in the picture I have provided, you can clearly see no less than TWELVE Panther tanks, all of which appear to be running perfectly. Let me remind you that 30% of 12 is ~4, NOT 12. This clearly and definitively debunks all of these claims as nothing more than exaggerated, baseless lies that rely on cherry picked, if not completely fabricated, data sets from Allied reports desperately trying to save face.
     
    Finally, Exhibit C:
     

     
    Here you can clearly see a column of the "super reliable" T-34. Oh, but what's this? It appears that in actuality, NONE of them are in working condition. That's a readiness rate of 0%. Another thing to point out is that Allied shitbox apologists always point to the Panther's dependence on railway transportation to arrive at the front. But, what's this we see?
     
     

     
    Could that be... a rail? That's right, yet another of the Panther-haters' claims proven to be nothing but projection. 
     
    Check and mate, haters. I'd delete the thread at this point if I were you, because this is just embarrassing.
     
  3. Tank You
    N-L-M reacted to Toxn in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    So another side note: this game also works really well in reverse...
     
    Discussing, let's call it the A42 "Cataphract", as developed by the British in 1943:
     
    Designer: "Overall its dimensions were comparable to Tiger 1, but about 60cm longer and 30cm narrower. For all that, the turret ring diameter was 160cm. The vehicle weighed around 45 tonnes, ten tonnes less than Tiger, but had a lopsided armour scheme with equivalent (or better) frontal protection and about half the armour everywhere else."
     
    Wehraboo: "Typical poor British design: over-emphasising some aspects at the expense of others. This reminds one of Churchill, which paid a heavy tank's bill on weight and mobility (not to mention an over-long hull which makes turning difficult), but only has good protection from the front for the trouble."
     
    D: "The tank carried a high-velocity gun in the 75-76mm class, with good armour penetration (able to knock out all but the heaviest tanks). On the other hand, it had a less powerful HE round than existing 75mm guns like KwK40 and M3."
     
    W: "This is also typically British. They put can-openers on their tanks and then forgot the most common mission for them: infantry support! It is less of an issue for specialist vehicles such as Archer, but for a mass-production tank it's a crippling defect."
     
    D: "The drivetrain was complex, bulky and very unreliable, but provided nice-to-have capabilities like neutral steering and good gun stability over rough terrain. The engine was underdeveloped and needed a massive amount of work (including derating) before it could be used for any length of time successfully. Overall, the time-to-failure was something like a few hundred kilometres, and they didn't foresee being able to improve this (although the lifespan of individual components could have been improved)."
     
    W: "This is Covenanter all over again - a bunch of 'clever' ideas that amounted to a mess. At least then they had the good sense to keep it as a training vehicle instead of sending it into battle. They should have stuck to well-proven transmission and suspension components, and used a surplus aero-engine or something rather than bodging it."
     
    D: "Due to the issues with the suspension, drivetrain, turret ring diameter and turret design, the vehicle had almost no upgrade potential. The armour could not be thickened appreciably without causing even worse reliability problems, and the gun could not be replaced by a larger-bore weapon without designing an entirely new turret (and even then it would have been a squeeze for the crew)."
     
    W: "This was the problem with Cromwell too - forcing the British to make iterative new vehicles when it should have been upgrading existing ones. The Germans, Russians and Americans all realised this with PzIV, T-34 and M4. Each was able to be reworked with new weapons, turrets, armour, and even engines without stopping the whole production line to produce a completely new vehicle."
     
    D: "Speaking of the turret, there were technically two hatches (a commander's hatch and an escape hatch directly in the rear), but the placement made it so that only the loader could use the rear hatch and only the commander and gunner could use the commander's hatch. The hatches were very small (around 40cm diameter), but the commander's hatch was well-appointed with periscopes, a mounting for a scissors periscope and a geared azimuth indicator to show the turret's rotation in relation to the hull. The gunner had a single coaxial sight with a single level of magnification (2.5x), but later production was slated to have a selectable 2.5/5x sight. The FoV was around 28' for the 2.5x, and 14' for the 5x."  
     
    W: "Again, the British talent for wonky engineering on show. The hatch is a mix of good ideas (they cottoned on to the use of periscopes quickly, after all), dubious ones (a simple ring indicator would have worked just as well) and terrible ones (Comet hatch syndrome strikes again). The gunner's sights were good and workmanlike (3x and 21' FoV is more typical for the British), but the Americans had already introduced modern conveniences such as a second unity/fixed magnification sight mounted to the roof at that point. This tank should have had these, it would made the gunner's life much easier!"
     
    D: "The tank used almost no components common to other models besides the engine (which, again, needed massive reworking), and was difficult to service in almost every respect due to the complexities and placement of the drivetrain and suspension components. This, along with a chronic shortage of spare parts (because production of vehicles was prioritised over the production of spares) meant that commanders in the field would have to rely heavily on rail to move the tanks up to the front. There were no road transporters large enough to carry them, and next to no engineering vehicles able to unditch them."
     
    W: "This is madness from the perspective of fighting a mobile war - something that the Germans excelled at but the allies had to painfully learn. A tank is only useful when it's moving under its own power. More than that - when winning an industrial war, it is rational production that counts. Look at the effort the Germans made under Speer to rationalise production of aircraft and tanks. This rationalisation probably prolonged the war by a year, giving the Wehrmacht the material to push back against the hordes of Russian vehicles being thrown at it."
     
    D: "It was made by Germans."
     
    W: "Oh its amazing! A wonder weapon! The ancestor of all modern tanks!"
     
  4. Funny
    N-L-M reacted to Toxn in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    I occasionally play this mental game where I imagine describing, let's call it the Schwer-mittel panzerkampfwagen 44 "Cougar", to the typical wehraboo.
     
    "It had a low profile, only 10cm taller than the PzIV. But the vehicle is much more heavily armed and armoured (equivalent or better to a Tiger frontally, only a little thinner on the side)."
    "Fantastic. Really good, compact design. The Germans were known to be good at efficient layouts."
     
    "The drivetrain was extremely compact and reliable, with a better power-to-weight ratio than PzIV, as well as a slick automatic gearbox that reduced workload on the driver and improved offroad mobility."
    "Wonderful, truly a vehicle for mobile warfare. Didn't Guderian say, after all, that the principle weapon of the tank was its engine and radio?"
     
    "The vehicle had lots of vision devices, a large, roomy interior and nice-to-haves like panoramic gunner's sights and an azimuth indicator in the commander's cupola."
    "Brilliant. We know that the crew which sees the target and fires first usually wins. This all adds up to an improvement in firepower!"
     
    "Over 2000 were produced in less than a year, making it a relatively common sight on the battlefield when compared to older heavies such as Tiger."
    "That's great! Wars are won by industrial production as much as by feats of arms - look at the miracles that Speer accomplished."
     
    "It had lots of upgrade potential. Prototypes were produced with guns and armour equivalent to Tiger II, but without completely sacrificing either mobility or reliability."
    "This is what made the Germans so formidable during the second world war - their ingenuity and ability to improve on existing designs. If only it had been fielded for longer, it would have had the potential to turn the tide of the war."
     
    "It was made by Americans."
    "Oh, it's absolute shit then."
  5. Tank You
    N-L-M got a reaction from Beer in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    There were a few reasons why heavy tanks were considered to be more difficult to deal with, but none of those were strictly speaking enough to disqualify the concept; more so, the inability of the heavy tank projects to bring a product considered sufficiently better than a medium tank (or indeed uparmored mediums like the Jumbo) to justify all the hassle.
  6. Tank You
    N-L-M got a reaction from DogDodger in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    There were a few reasons why heavy tanks were considered to be more difficult to deal with, but none of those were strictly speaking enough to disqualify the concept; more so, the inability of the heavy tank projects to bring a product considered sufficiently better than a medium tank (or indeed uparmored mediums like the Jumbo) to justify all the hassle.
  7. Tank You
    N-L-M got a reaction from Jeeps_Guns_Tanks in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    There were a few reasons why heavy tanks were considered to be more difficult to deal with, but none of those were strictly speaking enough to disqualify the concept; more so, the inability of the heavy tank projects to bring a product considered sufficiently better than a medium tank (or indeed uparmored mediums like the Jumbo) to justify all the hassle.
  8. Metal
    N-L-M got a reaction from Dragonstriker in BlackTailDefense Doesn't Know Shit About Tank Design   
    Why are you wasting time on giving Sparky the time of day
  9. Funny
    N-L-M reacted to David Moyes in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    ...this thread over the past pages:
     
     
  10. Tank You
    N-L-M reacted to Jeeps_Guns_Tanks in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    What had better mobility Panther or Pershing over a month of steady use.  
     
    Probably the Pershing in both cases, because American Vehicles don't break in catastrophic ways that take a long time to fix.
     
    You can swap a whole M26 power pack in a few hours. That's a day at least on a Panther, since the hull roof and a bunch of road wheels have to come off to pull the Panthers Final Drives and Tranny. The engine wasn't super easy either. 
     
    Pershing was 12.8 psi versus Panther G 12.65. Close enough to be negligible.  Pershing was running 450 HP for 46 tons. The Panther had between 500 and 600, (no one lists what the governed rating was) for 44 tons. It only made its 700 HP rating when it could be spun to 3000RPM, but it was governed to 2500 RPM. Call it 550, giving the Panther the edge on paper, but I just read through Panther Wank, the quest for Combat supremacy by Jentz, and the whole book is a listing off all the shit that was wrong with these tanks and how they kind of a fixed them, but never really did.  They Never fixed the HL230 of blowing head gaskets and throwing rods. Though, the horrible cooling system could have aggravated this, overheating blows head gaskets. 
     
    After reading through the Jentz book, reliability goes to the Pershing.  Pershing, a History of the T20 series documents far LESS problems than the Panther.  
     
    Final Note, I had not looked through the Boo Bibles for years, and having read so many Hunnicutt books, I'm spoiled. They are just so much better than this Jentz and Spielburger garbage. They couldn't be bothered to put spec sheets in for the models. Trash, utter trash, but the pictures are nice.  
  11. Tank You
    N-L-M got a reaction from Jeeps_Guns_Tanks in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    Likely, the kill claims are taken as a confession. In many court systems, a confession means the defendant accepts the validity of the charge, and therefore the substance of the charge does not need to be proven, only the guilt of the defendant. 
     
  12. Tank You
    N-L-M got a reaction from Beer in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    Likely, the kill claims are taken as a confession. In many court systems, a confession means the defendant accepts the validity of the charge, and therefore the substance of the charge does not need to be proven, only the guilt of the defendant. 
     
  13. Tank You
    N-L-M reacted to DogDodger in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    Depends on what military leaders and which doctrinal publications one reads, I suppose. In October 1941 Armored Force commander Major General Jacob Devers was on the record saying the desired defense to have versus enemy tanks was more tanks, which echoed the viewpoint of the previous Armored Force commander, Major General Adna Chaffee. US medium tanks M2 and M3 and light tanks M2A4/M3/M5 were all topped by extant 37 mm antitank guns, and it was intended to arm the M4s (along with the 75 mm gun and 105 mm howitzer thanks to its interchangeable turret front plate) with the 3" antitank gun later found in the GMC M10 and heavy tank M6 (which was armed with both 37 mm and 3" antitank guns). The 3", of course, turned out to be too unwieldy for the medium tank turret, hence the 76 mm gun's genesis. But on the subject of doctrine, Armored Force field manuals consistently listed enemy tanks as potential targets for friendly medium tanks. In March 1942, FM 17-10 Armored Force Field Manual: Tactics and Technique directed, "Medium tanks...protect the light tanks against the attack of hostile tanks. When the enemy is composed of mechanized troops, a large medium tank component, if available, is held in the reserve." Referring to GHQ tank battalions, this manual advised, "[Medium tanks] are used offensively against hostile tanks...During the course of an attack GHQ tank units may be used offensively, in conjunction with other available antitank measures, to attack hostile mechanized forces threatening to break up or disorganize the main effort...GHQ tank units attached to army corps or divisions may be used in large numbers to break up hostile mechanized formations." The September 1942 edition of FM 17-33 Armored Force Field Manual: The Armored Battalion, Light and Medium included the "support by fire [of] the advance of light tanks, other medium tanks, or infantry in tank versus tank action" among the uses of medium tanks. The December 1944 revision of FM 17-33 asserted that medium tanks may be used "[w]hen necessary, against enemy tanks", and indeed one purpose specifically assigned to 76mm gun medium tanks was to "reinforce the antitank defense of a supported infantry unit." Similarly, technical manuals for the Sherman also evinced the intention of taking on enemy armor with both 75mm and 76mm guns. TM 9-731B Medium Tank M4A2 from January 1943 suggested that fully 40% of the 75 mm ammunition loadout should be armor-piercing, and TM 9-759 Tank, Medium M4A3 from September 1944 alleged that both the 75 mm and 76 mm guns were "employed chiefly against enemy tanks and other ground objectives." So while not all FMs said tanks were the primary antitank weapon, taking on enemy armor was a main mission listed in others. Indeed even the Tank Destroyers themselves recognized this: FM 18-5 Tank Destroyer Field Manual Organization and Tactics of Tank Destroyer Units from June 1942 says of TD battalions attached to armored divisions or GHQ tank groups: "Tank destroyer battalions with armored divisions are not the only units fitted for offensive engagement against hostile tanks as is the case with other types of divisions..." The July 1944 edition of FM 18-5 Tactical Employment Tank Destroyer Unit noted in the section describing TD attachment to armored divisions, "Since the armored division can meet strong armored attacks with effective organic weapons, tank destroyers may execute secondary missions on rare occasions, even when a hostile armored attack or counterattack is imminent."
     
    During study and the extractions of lessons directly after WW2, the General Board of the European Theater explicitly stated in its postwar studies that "[t]he European campaign demonstrated that tanks fight tanks," and also that the "current thought is that the medium tank is the best anti-tank weapon." The January 1946 report by the War Department Equipment Board agreed with the General Board, saying, "The best antitank weapon is a better tank."
     
    Re: the other mechanization proponents listed, there seems to be agreement that tanks are an important, if not primary, antitank weapon. In Tanks in the Great War, Fuller describes his view of future war: "The tank fleets under the cover of dense clouds of smoke, or at nighttime, move forward, not against the body of the enemy's army but against his brains...What is the answer to this type of brain warfare? The answer is the tank; the brains will get into metal skulls or boxes, the bodies will get into the same, and land fleet will maneuver against land fleet...If the enemy will not accept peace terms forthwith, then, wars in the air and on the earth will take place between machines to gain superiority. Tank will meet tank and, commanded from the air, fleets of these machines will maneuvre between the defended ports seeking each other out and exterminating each other in orthodox naval fashion." In Armoured Warfare, he says, "...the art of attacking will largely consist in establishing moveable strong points from which carefully directed fire can be brought to bear on the enemy's machines, whilst other forces of moving machines drive him towards them...In these battle tactics there is one minor point that requires examination, and that is--how wil tank engage tank? I think the eventual answer to this question is likely to be that normally tank will not engage tank, but instead that tank unit will engage tank unit." Indeed, Holden Reid says of Fuller: "Fuller's view of mechanized battles was...[t]he decisive act of battle would be the tank versus tank encounter or, depending on conditions, the tank verus anti-tank gun. Tanks should be armed, then, with small calibre armour piercing guns which could destroy their own kind."
     
    In the Christopher Duffy translation of Achtung--Panzer!, Guderian says of tank-versus-tank combat: "Military literature tends to steer clear of this subject, invoking as an excuse our lack of experience. This attitude cannot be sustained over the long term. We will unfailingly be presented with the reality of tank versus tank action in the future, as we have already established, and the outcome of the battle will depend on the issue of that combat, irrespective of whether or not we are cast in the role of attackers or defenders...The tank's most dangerous enemy is another tank. As soon as a tank force identifies enemy machines, and is in a state to do battle with them, that force is duty bound to drop all its other missions and engage in combat. This also happens to be the best service we can render to our own infantry, since they will be in as much danger as our tanks if the enemy manage to break through with an armoured counter-attack...We cannot be content with training for individual combats of tank against tank. We must reckon on the appearance of large forces of tanks, and it is much more useful to work out how to manage combat on this scale." In Constantine Fitzgibbon's translation of Panzer Leader, he says of the equipment being discussed for the German armored forces, "Our opinion then was that for the eventual equipment of the Panzer Divisions we would need two types of tank: a light tank with an armour-piercing gun and two machine-guns, one in the turret and the other in the body; and a medium tank with a large caliber gun, and two machine-guns as before...We had differences of opinion on the subject of gun calibre with the Chief of the Ordnance Office and with the Inspector of Artillery. Both these gentlemen were of the opinion that a 37 mm. gun would suffice for the light tanks, while I was anxious that they be equipped with a 50 mm. weapon since this would give them the advantage over the heavier armour plate which we expected soon to see incorporated in the construction of foreign tanks."
     
    Simpkin and Erickson quote Tukhachevsky's New Question of War: "...Decisive success in battle will go to the formation which has more gun tanks capable of destroying enemy tanks.
     
    "Thus, for conflict with armies which have mechanised formations, our mechanised formations must be equipped not only with armoured personnel carriers and engineer and other specialist tanks, but with gun tanks--despite the fact that this is an unnecessary luxury for combat with infantry forces."
    Once they became scared of German tanks they happily did, but this took until the invasion of France to occur. As above, tanks were more than cleared to engage enemy armor per Armored Force doctrine, and this was acknowledged in TD doctrine. In June 1944 it was intended to field 75 mm and 76 mm gun tanks in a two-thirds to one-third ratio, and they weren't employed at all until late July. By the time of the Rhine crossings in March 1945, however, experience had swayed this opinion so that approximately 40% of the Shermans in European Theater stocks were armed with the 76 mm gun. Indeed, production of 75 mm gun tanks totally ceased that quarter. Internecine politics may also have played a role in the 76 not being fielded until Cobra: Baily, for example, asserts that, contrary to the enthusiasm it showed for the idea in 1942, the Ordnance Department may have been opposed to the 76 mm Sherman in 1944 since it had the potential for interfering with the procurement of the T23...
  14. Tank You
    N-L-M got a reaction from Stimpy75 in Tanks guns and ammunition.   
    If you are talking about plain steel armor, the answer is the penetration area is cleaned, edges are chamfered, and a plug is inserted and welded in place. 
    See page 30 here, for a quick description of steel armor repair processes. And indeed the rest of the paper for details on fused silica armor.
    A note for the above: Austenitic welds are softer and more ductile than ferritic welds, but do not require the extensive and precise preheating that ferritic welds do to prevent cracking in the weld. This does however leave the weld as a somewhat weak spot in the repair.
  15. Tank You
    N-L-M got a reaction from Lord_James in Tanks guns and ammunition.   
    If you are talking about plain steel armor, the answer is the penetration area is cleaned, edges are chamfered, and a plug is inserted and welded in place. 
    See page 30 here, for a quick description of steel armor repair processes. And indeed the rest of the paper for details on fused silica armor.
    A note for the above: Austenitic welds are softer and more ductile than ferritic welds, but do not require the extensive and precise preheating that ferritic welds do to prevent cracking in the weld. This does however leave the weld as a somewhat weak spot in the repair.
  16. Funny
    N-L-M reacted to LoooSeR in The Soviet Tank Thread: Transversely Mounted 1000hp Engines   
    None of UVZ attempts in BMPT under Object 199 designations made much sense. If BMPT was a jet fighter, it would be an F-22 without a radar, armed with 2 gun pods, 1 AA missile mounted on externally on one wing and crew of 4 for some reason.
  17. Tank You
    N-L-M reacted to DogDodger in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    Indeed, during ODS crews found that the engine air filters of the Abrams required cleaning after as little as 6 hours of desert operation, and daily even when the engine was not started. As a result, 2/2 ACR, for example, went to battle with three times the normal stock of engine air filters.
     
    While we're on the subject, TM 9-759 for the M4A3 from September 1944 says of dusty conditions: "Even when the above precautions [avoiding other vehicles' dust clouds as much as possible and not exceeding speed specified for whatever gear being used] are taken, it may be necessary to clean the carburetor air cleaners and the air cleaner on the filter pipe as often as every two hours. If the air cleaners are kept clean and their oil level is maintained, little damage to the engine will result. It is possible to wear out the engine in one hour or less if the air cleaners are neglected." TM 9-731B from January 1943 for the M4A2 says, "The frequency of servicing air cleaners depends on the dust and sand conditions encountered. Under extreme dust and sand conditions, service air cleaners every eight hours to prevent premature engine wear." TM 9-754 from January 1943 for the M4A4 also advises, "The air cleaners should be cleaned daily when the vehicle is operated over dusty terrains..." TM 9-731A from December 1943 for the M4 and M4A1 says the air cleaners should be drained, cleaned and refilled "[d]aily, when operating on dirt roads or cross country, or every 250 miles, when operating on paved roads or during wet weather..." And for completeness's sake, TM 9-756 from December 1943 for the M4A6 instructs that air cleaners are serviced "[e]very 5 to 60 hours of operation, depending on dust conditions..." and that they are to be drained, cleaned, and refilled daily. Also, "Every 100 miles, remove air cleaners, wash all parts, and reoil."
     
    So for the CIA engineers to complain that the T-34-85's oil bath air cleaners needed to be serviced daily in dusty conditions to provide decent protection seems strange. When the report says of the subject's "wholly inadequate engine intake air cleaners", "Several hundred miles in very dusty operation would probably be accompanied by severe engine power loss" or "The cleaners were of such low efficiency and low dirt capacity that, in dusty operation, they should have been cleaned at least once each day and preferably several times if any appreciable engine protection were to be obtained", one wonders if they had read manuals for their own country's vehicles. The T-34-85's air cleaners may well have been inefficient and of low dirt capacity, but the fact that they needed servicing at least daily in dusty conditions does not per se seem to be good supporting evidence. Some type of quantification would have gone far in supporting that assertion.
  18. Funny
  19. Funny
    N-L-M reacted to LoooSeR in Britons are in trouble   
    Everybody knows that Abrahamanus is the worst tank in the world, but Challenged 2 is best because it have rifled gun and fire HESH! Very Strong! 
  20. Tank You
    N-L-M got a reaction from Kal in CV-90, why so much love ?   
    Precisely the type of MLU needed to keep IFVs relevant for the upcoming decade or so. 
    I do wonder if Iron Fist is capable of dealing with drones and diving munitions which are the latest hotness or if that will require another system later on.
  21. Tank You
    N-L-M reacted to Marsh in New book by the late Richard Ogorkiewicz   
    Hi,
    Just a head's up of a new book just published by the Tank Museum at Bovington. It is Richard Ogorkiewicz's autobiography which he had just completed before his death and which was brought to publication thorough the determination of David Willey, Curator of the museum. I received the book out of the blue  as a gift, through I think, the good offices of 
    Richard's wife. The book is entitled "Observer of Cold War tank development", it is 78 pages long and richly illustrated and is full of interesting facts and personal anecdotes. 
    Once available for general sale, it looks likes it will be a purchase well made.
    Cheers
    Marsh
  22. Tank You
    N-L-M reacted to SH_MM in The Leopard 2 Thread   
    In the past days, there have been a lot of discussions and news regarding the integration of the Trophy active protection system into the Leopard 2 tank. The short version:
    The purchase and integration of Trophy has been approved by the German parliament (as the contract has a volume above €25 million, approval was required). The price of the systems (including spares, training equipment, dummy rounds, etc.) is supposedly €40 million, total cost (including integration into the tanks) is more than €100 million. Trophy is purchased for 18 tanks (one testbed and 17 tanks). Rumors say that the system weighs more than 3,5 tonnes, which seems quite plausible given the weight increase of the M1A2 SEP v2 Abrams when fitted with Trophy. Trophy has passed a number of German tests including performance in cold environments, resistance to shock and vibrations, and safety tests. Firing trials are still to be made. Also it has been stated, that Germany has no access to the source code and algorithms used by Trophy, which is deemed as bad. German companies are required to disclose the source code of their systems (not only APS, but in general) and to meet certain ISO norms (with certification). Trophy is purchased as a "black box". Trophy will not be integrated into the Leopard 2A7(V) tank, but instead into the Leopard 2A7A1 tank. These are based on the Leopard 2A6A3 turret with newly-made hulls, as the old Leopard 2A6 hulls are unfit for Trophy (e.g. they lack an APU and thus have very limited electrical energy, but it seems that there might be other modifications required). There seem to be two options here: either the Leopard 2A6A3 was chosen in order to free the Leopard 2A7V tanks for the VJTF 2023 or Trophy requires so many/deep changes, that the Leopard 2A7V hull would not be suited for Trophy (which would mean no future purchases of Trophy for Germany). One side effect is that Germany will have 17 more Leopard 2A7 tanks. No Leopard 2 tank with Trophy will be ready for the VJTF 2023, i.e. the only reason why Trophy was purchased at all. Delays in the program will result in a delivery between 2024 and 2025. Instead of 17 Leopard 2 tanks with Trophy, Germany will send 30 Leopard 2A7V tanks for its participation to the VJTF 2023. There are apparently voices in Germany arguing (following the issues with Trophy) that the government should declare (active) protection systems a "national key technology", which would lead to more money being invested into homegrown systems and national solutions being prefered to foreign offers. https://soldat-und-technik.de/2021/01/mobilitaet/25410/entscheidung-fuer-trophy-bleiben-abstandsaktive-schutzsysteme-nationale-schluesseltechnologie/
    https://soldat-und-technik.de/2021/01/mobilitaet/25620/abstandsaktives-schutzsystem-trophy-fuer-leopard-2-erst-ab-2024/
     
     
    It seems that Trophy really isn't suited for fast integration into further platforms.
  23. Tank You
    N-L-M got a reaction from Lord_James in T-80 Megathread: Astronomical speed and price!   
    It's worth remembering that steel beasts is a game available to the general public. I'm led to understand the professional version of it allows one to plug in values of their own, so presumably militaries which use it on a professional basis have what they consider to be accurate values, the open source version, being based on unclassified data, cannot be taken as an authoritative source.
  24. Tank You
    N-L-M reacted to 2805662 in Land 400 Phase 3: Australian IFV   
    More detail pics of the Redback. 
     

     
    With Spike LR2.
     

     
    Can’t link the tweet. 
  25. Tank You
    N-L-M got a reaction from Adraste in Israeli AFVs   
×
×
  • Create New...