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StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)


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9 hours ago, Collimatrix said:

 

The Leo 1 beat the snot out of other Western MBTs in terms of practical mobility in its day. 

average techical speed of Leo1, M60A1, Chieftain squad/platoon cross-country ? 

average techical speed of Leo1, M60A1, Chieftain squad/platoon cross-country in battle formation during offensive ? 

same values during winter in snow-covered field ?

fuel consumption for each squad ? 

each squad real speed at which it can hit targets on the move at distance 2km and 1km away with a probability not lower than 60% ? 

 

i know that Chieftain engine is unrelible, read some reports, but i don't see any reports on Leo1 with real data. 

 

maybe you have 1966 report about Leo-1 test in Salisbury plain, Aldershot and Long Valley IIRC ? 

 

9 hours ago, Collimatrix said:

The Leo 1 had a total of 383-407mm of total travel of its road wheels.

and ? during 1966 test IIRC brits noted the tendency of L1 to swing when moving at high speed over rough terrain, movement on roads with maximum speed was possible only within half an hour due to the risk of overheating rubber bondage of roadwheels  at a speed of 50 km / h, overheating occurred an hour later, and to continue the movement it was required to drop the speed to 40 km / h

 

 

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Well, according to a soviet instruction for T-62 gunners (памятка экипажу обЪекта 166 по борьбе с танками леопард, центурион, м60а1 и амх-63), the average speed of the Leopard is 32km/h. For the M-60, its 24, for Centurion its 17, for AMX, its 35km/h.

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11 hours ago, TokyoMorose said:

 

To further muddle the waters, by the late 60s/early 70s, several drivetrain improvements and improved suspension components were developed for M60 that would have made up the performance gap had the army actually bought them. (Thinking of the XT-1400 and RK304 transmission options, various improvements to the engine culminating in the 1200hp versions, and the different torsion bar replacements)

 

Yep,  Teledyne Continental developed the 908 HP version of the AVDS-1790 in the hopes that it would be included in the M60A3.  They also developed their hydro suspension units as part of this upgrade.  Ultimately, the Army decided that the M60A3 would not include any mobility upgrades, just improvements to the FC and thermal sights.  Honestly, I think they were afraid that if they improved the M60A3 too much, it would endanger the XM1 program.  

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On 8/16/2018 at 12:54 AM, Wiedzmin said:

average techical speed of Leo1, M60A1, Chieftain squad/platoon cross-country ? 

average techical speed of Leo1, M60A1, Chieftain squad/platoon cross-country in battle formation during offensive ? 

same values during winter in snow-covered field ?

fuel consumption for each squad ? 

each squad real speed at which it can hit targets on the move at distance 2km and 1km away with a probability not lower than 60% ? 

 

i know that Chieftain engine is unrelible, read some reports, but i don't see any reports on Leo1 with real data. 

 

maybe you have 1966 report about Leo-1 test in Salisbury plain, Aldershot and Long Valley IIRC ? 

 

and ? during 1966 test IIRC brits noted the tendency of L1 to swing when moving at high speed over rough terrain, movement on roads with maximum speed was possible only within half an hour due to the risk of overheating rubber bondage of roadwheels  at a speed of 50 km / h, overheating occurred an hour later, and to continue the movement it was required to drop the speed to 40 km / h

 

 

 

I've never seen detailed comparative tests of those performance parameters, but it's perfectly reasonable to assume that the Leo 1 was superior across the board in terms of practical mobility.  It was much lighter than the M60 or Chieftain, and all three used diesel engines.  In theory, two-stroke diesels are more efficient, but the chieftain was so heavy and the leyland L60 was such a piece of crap that I don't believe Chieftains somehow got better mileage than a tank twelve tonnes lighter.  Track life should have been slightly better for the Leo 1 vs the M60 thanks to shorter pitch tracks, and roughly twice as good vs Chieftain thanks to double pin vs single pin tracks.  As I explained before, the technical details of the Leo 1's steering drive and suspension should give it higher speed on any terrain that doesn't slow down every vehicle to a crawl.

 

Measuring comparative ability of these early Cold War tanks to hit targets on the move is silly.  Tanks couldn't practically hit targets while moving until they had gun-follow-sight FCS in the late 1970s/early 1980s.

 

As for the rubber on the Leo 1's roadwheels delaminating, this is a very common problem.  The running gear of tanks is very highly stressed, and wears out much faster than the tires of a wheeled vehicle.  Here is a report on all the things you're not supposed to do in an M60 to avoid damaging the tracks. 

 

The swinging motion is an obvious consequence of the long-travel suspension that the Leo 1 possesses.  Chieftain's paired roadwheel suspension provides excellent resistance to pitching motion, but it's completely terrible at isolating the crew from bumps from moving over rough terrain at speed.  Leo 1's suspension is squishy at low speeds and very prone to pitching motion during starts and stops due to low spring constants, but it provides far better isolation from bumps when moving at speed.

 

Unless a suspension system can alter its spring constant while the tank is in motion (no system I know of can do this), there will always be these sorts of trade-offs in suspension design.

 

In a hypothetical World War 3 scenario, if the tanks need to be transported a long distance they won't be driven there.  No tracked vehicle would be driven great distances too the front; that's far too much wear on the vehicles.  Instead they would use wheeled transporters or trains.  In that case, the Leo 1 and AMX-30 would enjoy the advantage of being narrower and thus disrupting rail and surface traffic less.

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On 8/15/2018 at 8:31 PM, Wiedzmin said:

well, lets make it simple  

 

1 squad Chieftan 

1 squad Leo1 

1 squad M60A1

 

how fast each squad can make a march cross-country  at 300km ? 500km ? 

  

I'm not trying to argue with you or with somebody. 

 

I guess that depends on the exact circumstances of the cross country march, such as the terrain conditions and various other factors which are not that easy to predict. The Chieftain has a smaller fuel tank and an effective cross-country range of only 200 to 300 kilometres according to British writers. That would make a 300 km cross-country march rather hard to achieve. As for the Leopard 1, there is quite a bit data from the development published in various books.  During the early trials in Bourges and Satory, a Leopard 1 prototype reached an average speed of 60.5 km/h on a 269 km track - the AMX-30 prototype reached only an average speed of about 50 km/h on the same track. After the trilateral trials, the testing of the Leopard 1 prototypes continuted with the best performing one managing to drive a distance of 607 kilometres in 11 hours and 48 minutes (of which 9 hours and 12 minutes were driven, the rest of the time was used for refueling and maintenance) - it reached an average speed 65.2 km/h.

During the trials in Italy, the AMX-30 and Leopard 1 were equally fast, but the Leopard 1 had better acceleration and steering.

 

How well the off-road performance of tanks is greatly depends on the terrain. Extremely uneven, muddy or harsh terrain is harder to cross, reducing speed significantly. In hard terrain (one of) the Leopard 1 protoypes reached a speed of 24 km/h. In other off-road terrain the typical speed is 40 km/h. The Chieftain's top speed (on road) is quoted as 42.7 km/h maximum by Rob Griffin (engine is governed). Therefore I'd assume that it perform quite a bit worse in light off-road terrain than the Leopard 1, though in heavy terrain both of them will be very slow, so the difference might not matter as much.

 

 

If I am understanding the following Dutch graphic correctly, the Chieftain only worked for 35.7 in a 48 hour march during the Dutch tests, whereas the Leopard 1 worked for 44.2 out of the 48 hours. In the road travel section, the Leopard 1 drove 161% of the required distance in 6.9 hours. The Chieftain reached 106% in 5.4 hours, suggesting that it would have reached 135% in a time of 6.9 hours (if it would have managed to drive that long). This means the Leopard 1 was 19% faster, if realibility was equal. On terrain, if we account for the shorter time that the Chieftain worked (and pretend it had the same reliability as the Leopard 1), it would have reached only 84% of the required distance, the Leopard 1 reached 93% - a speed advantage of 10% for the Leopard 1.

 

1546208_1669712956626302_130275058030868

 

 

I don't think it makes sense to argue that the Chieftain's lower mobility made no difference (specifically if we keep the lower reliability in mind). Even the British miltiary was disastisifed according to authors like Simon Dunstan. The Canadian army rejected the Chieftain for its poor mobility and reliability, while Germany also rejected the Chieftain (both M60(A0) and Chieftain were tested by the Bundeswehr, but the Leopard 1 was - unsurprisingly given that it was tailor-made to meet the Bundeswehr's requirements and was made by the German industry - prefered).

 

On 8/16/2018 at 3:38 AM, Ramlaen said:

https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article180519422/Schuetzenpanzer-Puma-Soldaten-duerfen-nicht-groesser-als-1-84-Meter-sein.html

 

According to this article when the development of the Puma started the height of future Germans was underestimated and it was not designed for dismounts over 184cm tall. 

 

Already posted the actual article from the German army on the problem ealier in this discussion:

 

The army did not underestimate the height of German soldiers, but intentionally lowered the compatibility of the Puma to only 75th percentile of German men (184 cm aka ~6 ft). This decision was made to allow increasing the protection level while staying within the weight limit set by the A400M transportability requirement. Without reducing the height limit for dismounts, it was not possible to achieve the required level of protection and the A400M compatibility at the same time. Back when this decision was made, a steady supply of soldiers in the matching height was guaranteed, as Germany still had conscription.


After conscription was abolished, the German army asked for design changes to fit German soldiers with a height of up to the 97th percentile (191 cm). However it was not possible to investigate wether taller people than originally required would fit into the Puma, as developement was still underway and the ergonomics are only fully decided in the final design stages (after the type of seats, the arrangement of storage boxes, etc. had been decided). At this time it was also not really economical to make large changes to the Puma's design.

Currently the army is investigating wether changes to the interior configuration and the seats can allow taller soldiers to fit into the Puma. From what I have heard and read (though that are only rumors, haven't seen a direct confirmation of them), the actual height limit isn't directly set by any military standard, but rather by general workplace safety regulations that also apply in the civilian sector. There have been numerous news reports on how modern German military hardware and specifically the Puma have to meet regulations, that don't make much sense from the military perspective. One of the stories that gained a lot of traction three years ago was that the army supposedly had to investigate wether being in the Puma during combat conditions (i.e. noise, fumes from the gun, driving off-road at high speeds) was dangerous for pregnant women or not...

 

It is worth mentioning that only some of the seats appear to have a heigh limit of 184 cm, while other positions (driver, gunner, commander and potentially the two dismount seats at the other side of the turret) have a higher limit. It would be interesting to see how well other IFVs would fare, when rated by the same workplace safety regulations as the Puma (I don't believe that BMP-3, CV90, and a few others would allow 184 cm or 191 cm tall soldiers in such a case).

 

On 8/16/2018 at 5:19 AM, TokyoMorose said:

To further muddle the waters, by the late 60s/early 70s, several drivetrain improvements and improved suspension components were developed for M60 that would have made up the performance gap had the army actually bought them. (Thinking of the XT-1400 and RK304 transmission options, various improvements to the engine culminating in the 1200hp versions, and the different torsion bar replacements)

 

To be fair every the manufacturers or operators of every Western main battle tank of the era looked at possible improvements to mobility. The Vergoldeter Leopard project would have kept the engine, but change the transmission and cooling for better performance. In the mdi-1970s during the Leopard 2 development, several options of Leopard 1 upgrades were considered as alternative, which would have been fitted with 1,000 or 1,200 hp engines, 105 mm or 120 mm smoothbore guns and improved armor protection.

The Chieftain was offered with various engines as Chieftain 800, Chieftain 900, Chieftain 1000 and FV4030/2 Shir 1 (Khalid) tank with the same hydrogas suspension and 1,200 hp engine later fitted to the Challenger 1.

 

On 8/16/2018 at 10:56 AM, heretic88 said:

Well, according to a soviet instruction for T-62 gunners (памятка экипажу обЪекта 166 по борьбе с танками леопард, центурион, м60а1 и амх-63), the average speed of the Leopard is 32km/h. For the M-60, its 24, for Centurion its 17, for AMX, its 35km/h.

 

The Soviet instruction manuals for the T-62 are unlikely sources for reliable data on tanks like the AMX-30 and Leopard 1.

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11 hours ago, 2805662 said:

Contract actually signed. Standby for the LAND 400-3 RFT...

 

Is known what exact parts of the tested vehicles will be part of the purchased configuration? Will they feature the SAS and the laser warning system? The model from the contract signing event also has the (mock-up) ADS:

 

DkwlxlRUwAA6D17.jpg

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8 minutes ago, SH_MM said:

 

Is known what exact parts of the tested vehicles will be part of the purchased configuration? Will they feature the SAS and the laser warning system? 

 

Not yet. Now that the contract has been signed, I’d expect more details to trickle out. 

 

There’s been a big push by Varley Rafael Australia (relatively new JV) on the APS front....I’m expecting a degree of standardisation on the APS. Covers off on AIC (Australian Industry Capability), whilst offering economies of scale (Abrams, Boxer, Phase 3, etc.).

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I’ve a question about rommelkiste on a Marder IID, sdkfz 132, in that was the top hinged, or did it consist of two sliding panels,?  The reason I ask is I want to model a rommelkiste at the rear of a Marder IID and believe the top was two sliding panels inset as I’ve not seen a hinged top on any of the numerous photos out there. Any help appreciated. 

 

Thank you,

 

kylie 

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On 8/17/2018 at 1:03 PM, Collimatrix said:

I've never seen detailed comparative tests of those performance parameters, but it's perfectly reasonable to assume that the Leo 1 was superior across the board in terms of practical mobility. 

i mostly interested in reports, because they rarely contain a personalized opinion, only facts,  without reports there is no any interest in my "reasonable to assume", or your, or anybody else, with all due respect

On 8/17/2018 at 1:03 PM, Collimatrix said:

It was much lighter than the M60 or Chieftain

M4 Sherman much lighter than Panther, but in Swedish test IIRC was worse cross country than Panther, that's why I want to see reports, and not some logical conclusions

 

On 8/17/2018 at 1:03 PM, Collimatrix said:

I don't believe Chieftains somehow got better mileage than a tank twelve tonnes lighter.

it's not a matter of faith, for example in the offensive movement and the column, the unit moves with the speed that is set by its weakest(or lets says with speed of fuel supply and technicians) 

 

yes Chieftain unreliable, but after all, there are no complete reports on all the technical "features" of Leo1 (as i have mentioned the problems with tires at max speed, for example)

 

On 8/17/2018 at 1:03 PM, Collimatrix said:

 

As for the rubber on the Leo 1's roadwheels delaminating, this is a very common problem.

but this problem decrease so called "good mobility" to same level as other western tank, no ? and moving in mixed column(with IFV, APC, and other) will decrease even worse.

 

On 8/17/2018 at 1:03 PM, Collimatrix said:

The swinging motion is an obvious consequence of the long-travel suspension that the Leo 1 possesses.  Chieftain's paired roadwheel suspension provides excellent resistance to pitching motion, but it's completely terrible at isolating the crew from bumps from moving over rough terrain at speed.  Leo 1's suspension is squishy at low speeds and very prone to pitching motion during starts and stops due to low spring constants, but it provides far better isolation from bumps when moving at speed.

so you have tank with great speed, without stabilisation(until 1972?) and main method of firing will be firing from short stops/halt ? and in this situation you will have problems with swinging ? 

 

On 8/17/2018 at 1:03 PM, Collimatrix said:

there will always be these sorts of trade-offs in suspension design.

in whole tank design yes.

 

On 8/17/2018 at 2:15 PM, SH_MM said:

If I am understanding the following Dutch graphic correctly,

saw this on FB page of museum IIRC, unfortunately they didn't post the report itself, is there an opportunity to contact them?

 

On 8/17/2018 at 2:15 PM, SH_MM said:

I don't think it makes sense to argue

i interested in full reports in all conditions, so as to be as impartial as possible

 

On 8/17/2018 at 2:15 PM, SH_MM said:

while Germany also rejected the Chieftain (both M60(A0) and Chieftain were tested by the Bundeswehr

it would be very strange if the country producing its own tanks would decide to kill its own production

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13 hours ago, Wiedzmin said:

i mostly interested in reports, because they rarely contain a personalized opinion, only facts,  without reports there is no any interest in my "reasonable to assume", or your, or anybody else, with all due respect

 

A uniform test would be better, but I've never seen such a thing.  It's also important to keep in mind how the test might be slanted.  

 

13 hours ago, Wiedzmin said:

M4 Sherman much lighter than Panther, but in Swedish test IIRC was worse cross country than Panther, that's why I want to see reports, and not some logical conclusions

 

 

Only in vertical obstacle climbing.  In US Army testing, Panthers were almost exactly equal to M4A2E8 Shermans on muddy terrain in terms of straight-line speed (the report notes individual tanks doing slightly better or worse), and noticeably inferior in cumulative speed on curved courses.

And the reasons why aren't mysterious at all.  Panthers are heavier than Shermans, but they have lower mean maximum ground pressure than Shermans (even with the wider tracks), but grossly inferior power to weight ratios.  In the particular test conditions where the US Army tested their tanks, these two factors cancelled out.  If you knew the precise gearing ratios, rolling resistance and cohesion of the soils you could predict this mathematically.

The results of the turning course test were a little more surprising, but again, if you compared the turn radii per gear, track width to length ratio, ground pressures, and soil cohesion you could reasonably predict the results.

There is no "secret sauce."  If the machinery is working, the results are in line with the predicted results of physical law.

 

Quote

it's not a matter of faith, for example in the offensive movement and the column, the unit moves with the speed that is set by its weakest(or lets says with speed of fuel supply and technicians) 

  

yes Chieftain unreliable, but after all, there are no complete reports on all the technical "features" of Leo1 (as i have mentioned the problems with tires at max speed, for example)

 

By all accounts the Leo 1 was the most reliable NATO tank of the period.  That was what the Australian tests concluded, anyway.

 

You might have more luck if you looked for reports of unit readiness rates during the period.  But in the absence of more specific information, there are a lot of reasons to believe that the Leo 1 was substantially more mobile than it's stablemates, and no specific reasons to believe otherwise.

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1 hour ago, Collimatrix said:

Only in vertical obstacle climbing.  In US Army testing, Panthers were almost exactly equal to M4A2E8 Shermans on muddy terrain in terms of straight-line speed (the report notes individual tanks doing slightly better or worse), and noticeably inferior in cumulative speed on curved courses.


And the reasons why aren't mysterious at all.  Panthers are heavier than Shermans, but they have lower mean maximum ground pressure than Shermans (even with the wider tracks), but grossly inferior power to weight ratios.  In the particular test conditions where the US Army tested their tanks, these two factors cancelled out.  If you knew the precise gearing ratios, rolling resistance and cohesion of the soils you could predict this mathematically.

 

Is this report available online? Sounds very interesting; thanks!

 

Did the report say the M4A2E8 had a better power to weight ratio than the Panther, though? If we take the 45,400 kg Panther Ausf.G, which is the heaviest, with its 700 hp/1340 lb-ft HL230P30, we get 15.4 hp/29.5 lb-ft per metric ton. I don't have the weight for the M4A2(76)W HVSS handy, but the M4A2(76)W weighed 73,400 lb. If we use the lighter single-pin T66 tracks, HVSS would add 2950 lb, giving us a tank that weighed 76,350 lb, or 34,630 kg. The GM 6046 produced 410 gross hp and 885 gross lb-ft. So the M4A2E8 would make ~11.8 hp and ~25.6 lb-ft per metric ton. Even if we use the lighter and more powerful 74,200 lb (33,700 kg) M4A3(76)W HVSS with its 500 hp/1040 lb-ft GAA, we still only get 14.8 hp per ton, but the torque is a bit higher at 30.9 lb-ft.

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13 minutes ago, DogDodger said:

Is this report available online? Sounds very interesting; thanks!

 

Did the report say the M4A2E8 had a better power to weight ratio than the Panther, though? If we take the 45,400 kg Panther Ausf.G, which is the heaviest, with its 700 hp/1340 lb-ft HL230P30, we get 15.4 hp/29.5 lb-ft per metric ton. I don't have the weight for the M4A2(76)W HVSS handy, but the M4A2(76)W weighed 73,400 lb. If we use the lighter single-pin T66 tracks, HVSS would add 2950 lb, giving us a tank that weighed 76,350 lb, or 34,630 kg. The GM 6046 produced 410 gross hp and 885 gross lb-ft. So the M4A2E8 would make ~11.8 hp and ~25.6 lb-ft per metric ton. Even if we use the lighter and more powerful 74,200 lb (33,700 kg) M4A3(76)W HVSS with its 500 hp/1040 lb-ft GAA, we still only get 14.8 hp per ton, but the torque is a bit higher at 30.9 lb-ft.

 

 

Portions of the report are excerpted in Mike Green's panther book.  

 

As for the HL 230, it was really only capable of 700 horsepower on paper.  That output was only possible at 3000 RPM, and the majority of HL 230s produced were governed to 2500 RPM, and only produced 600 horsepower or so.

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Thanks for the reference; I have that book. Good info, but I felt at times the writing was almost being deliberately padded to meet a word count or something.

 

Anyway, the Greens say that with the 2500 rpm governor the HL230P30 only made 580 hp, which would give us 12.8 hp/ton for the Ausf.G, which is less than the M4A3E8 (which was the Sherman the Panther was compared to during the speed test where the tracks sank 1" into the ground and individual Shermans were faster/slower) but still more than the diesel version. The report the Greens quote about the curvy course had the Panther compared to an M4A1, and the report seems to be blaming the Panther's steering system, not any ground interaction factors per se: "Except for the ability of the tank to make a pivot turn about its own axis, its steering system does not contribute to satisfactory maneuverability and this tank, even though it has a higher top speed than a medium tank M4A1, could not keep up with the medium tank on a course where curves were frequent. It is readily realized that practice in operating these vehicles would contribute greatly to driver skill and, therefore, increased mobility..." The US Army drivers were apparently unused to a steering system where one had to anticipate matching the transmission gear to the radius of the turn, which would add considerable difficulty I would think. The Greens also quote LTC Wilson M. Hawkins from a later report: "It has been claimed that our tank is the more maneuverable. In recent rests we put a captured Mark V against all models of our own. The German tank was the faster, both across country and on the highway and it could make sharper turns. It was also the better hill climber." The Greens conclude: "In the case of the Panther tank, its tactical mobility surpassed the Sherman tank and that of the T-34 tank series." So even with the governed engine the Panther's power:weight doesn't seem too bad, and the comparison with the M4A1 on the curvy course may have been an aberration due to a combination of lack of driver skill and the higher requirements the Panther's designers imposed on its operators?

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From the other documents in that book and that I've seen elsewhere, the one thing that a Panther could do that Sherman crews really envied was neutral steering.

 

On paper, the Panther's steering system is a generation more advanced than the Sherman's, although by WWII standards the Sherman's steering system was quite good.  The Sherman has one turn radius, around twenty meters if memory serves.  Since the Sherman's steering system only permits a single turn radius, this turn radius was something of a compromise and had to be wide enough it wouldn't cause the tank to skid or roll at high speed, but tight enough the tank could maneuver well at low speed and in confined spaces.  The Panther has nine turn radii; one for each forward gear, one for reverse and one for neutral.  Moreover, the wider turn radii would be used when the vehicle was in higher gear, which is exactly what you'd want.  So far so good, right?

But if you look at the table of turn radii at each gear in the Mike Green book, you'll see that the Panther only turned inside the Sherman if it was in third gear or lower.  So, in order to perform what the Sherman's designers had determined was the most desirable turn radius on average, the Panther would need to slow down and downshift.  The ability to make wider radii turns at higher speed would be nice, but a Sherman driver could approximate a wider-radius turn by using the turning brakes intermittently (and in fact they were instructed to do so to save wear).  So there would definitely be some speed range where the Sherman could simply initiate a turn, but a Panther would have to slow down to downshift into third or lower.

 

Not only that, but several of the historical documents in the Mike Green book state that the Panther's third gear was dodgy, and the synchromesh would often crap out when shifting into third.

 

I think if the gear ratio in the steering drive were better chosen and the HL 230 actually delivered as much power as it was supposed to, the Panther would have enjoyed a meaningful maneuverability advantage.  The Panther's suspension is visibly better at cross-country shock absorption when the tank was moving at speed too.

 

I'm not sure what to make of the hill-climbing test.  In British tests their Panther's engine stalled when compared to a Churchill, IIRC.

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4 hours ago, Collimatrix said:

Not only that, but several of the historical documents in the Mike Green book state that the Panther's third gear was dodgy, and the synchromesh would often crap out when shifting into third.

 

AFAIK, the 3rd gear wasn't any particularly weaker than any other gear in the AK 7-200, but it was the most common gear used (by mileage) and thus wore out the fastest. If I remember the French postwar numbers right, they averaged 1000 km before busting the 3rd gear, while the transmission on average overall lasted 1500 km.

 

On 8/17/2018 at 4:15 AM, SH_MM said:

To be fair every the manufacturers or operators of every Western main battle tank of the era looked at possible improvements to mobility. The Vergoldeter Leopard project would have kept the engine, but change the transmission and cooling for better performance. In the mdi-1970s during the Leopard 2 development, several options of Leopard 1 upgrades were considered as alternative, which would have been fitted with 1,000 or 1,200 hp engines, 105 mm or 120 mm smoothbore guns and improved armor protection.

The Chieftain was offered with various engines as Chieftain 800, Chieftain 900, Chieftain 1000 and FV4030/2 Shir 1 (Khalid) tank with the same hydrogas suspension and 1,200 hp engine later fitted to the Challenger 1.

 

The difference IMHO, is that in particular with regards to the AVDS-1790 improvements and the advanced torsion bars developed by TCM, these were literal drop-in upgrades. It's only the more complex transmission replacement or suspension overhaul that took any actual real modification work, it's purely the army being stubborn.

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7 hours ago, Collimatrix said:

 

 

Portions of the report are excerpted in Mike Green's panther book.  

 

As for the HL 230, it was really only capable of 700 horsepower on paper.  That output was only possible at 3000 RPM, and the majority of HL 230s produced were governed to 2500 RPM, and only produced 600 horsepower or so.

 

Still, the Panther in the swedish tests was damn impressive. It didnt appear to be underpowered at all. Sure, the Sherman in the test was an earlier variant, with narrower tracks, but I dont think even an M4A3E8 could beat the Panther in any of those tests. Equal at best. And Im pretty sure that the apparent inferiority of the Panther in curved courses was caused by the inexperience of the drivers. Putting an M60 driver in the seat of the T-72 would produce similar results.

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