SuperComrade

Mostly proof that 7.62x39 is not a great round for full auto fire, actually.
 
Also, Brandon Novotny is a very cool guy, very ernest and easy to talk to. I do think their MK 47 will find a place in the market. It's different from other AK-magazine using non-AK rifles in that it is properly set up to accept AK mags. Most other rifles do not have the proper support in the magwell, but the MK 47 does.

Thinking about the effect of a heavier boolit on the combustion, it reminded me of what my thermo lecturer was talking about with the idealised otto cyle and diesel cycle - modelling the combustion as simple heat addition, a heavier boolit will get more PdV work.
 
So, the otto cycle is more efficient than a diesel cycle ceteris paribus - this is because the ignition of the fuel is so quick it's kinda like isochoric heat addition (i.e. constant volume), whereas diesels are limited by the time it takes to inject the fuel* so are better approximated by isobaric heat addition (constant pressure, so with volume increasing). Since some travel is taking place in the diesel cycle before all the heat is added, there's less area under the P-V diagram so less work is done.
 
*according to my lecturer, non-direct injection diesels are not halal
 
Something similar will happen with a heavier boolit - it will have moved less before all the propellant is combusted, so it's closer to the ideal of holding the bullet in place until all the propellant has combusted to maximise PdV work*. A light boolit, OTOH, will have moved down the tube more when the pressure in the chamber was low, so doesn't get as much work done on it. The rate of combustion is probably proportional to pressure and temp as well, giving an even more pronounced effect. All this is happening completely separate to the not-quasi-equilibrium thingy with the ratio of propellant gas speeds and boolit speed - that reduces efficiency towards the end of the barrel, whereas this reduces efficiency near the chamber where velocities are much lower
 
*maximum pressure limits are for wusses

I can be the "expert" with bad hair and dubious acedemic credentials who sets up applied experiments that don't apply to the actual situation.
In other words I can shoot toy tanks with my 30-30 to show penetration values.

I can play the role of the guy that reads archive documents in their original language and is drowned out by the English dub after 5 seconds or so!

I believe it was the lack of knowledge of armored warfare by the American populace that started the "M4 is bad" narrative. 
 
Tanks, before WWII, were armored landships that could pulverize anything in its sights and remain invulnerable. News reports were horribly inaccurate at describing these machines and would regularly use hyperbole in describing their might.
 
Here is an except from the Australian Morning Bulletin which can be representative of American newspapers.
 
 
Since the M4 wasn't what the public thought what a tank should be, it was criticized for being weakly armed and armored once information about their destruction was disseminated overtime.

Death Traps by B. Cooper and associated TV programs have helped spread the narrative as well to a much wider audience nowadays. 
 
We should know better though. Here's a quick run down.
 
Firepower: The M4's firepower was on par with the most powerful vehicles in combat in 1942. The M3 75 mm could realistically knock-out anything it came across from nearly any angle. Once heavier tanks arrived on the battlefield, some M4s were uparmed to 76 mm guns by the Americans and uparmed by the Brits to the 17 pdr. Armor penetration by these guns were adequate in their AT role which comprised of ~15% of a tank's combat role. 
 
Soviet Reports: 75 mm vs. Tiger    76mm(and other calibers) vs. German Armor
 
Chieftain's Articles: US Guns, German Armor pt.1    pt.2   US Firefly Tests+
 
Armor: Armor was nearing 90 mm of effective armor from thickness/cos(slope) but higher velocity German guns started to be very common and this did not bode well. However, one could expect high casualties from nearly any AFV due to the majority of hits occurring on the sides of the vehicle. Frontally, the M4 had decent protection and would bounce 75 mm rounds on occasion. M4s had decent survivability against handheld AT weapons and mines. 
 
Crew Safety: Small hatches and poor ammo storage meant that many M4s succumbed to fires(~80% burn rate) and might have led to the M4's dubious nicknames. However larger hatches were added to later models and better ammo storage brought burn rates in some US units around 15%. For every M4 KO'd there was on average 1 death and 1 injury. This is comparable to other tanks of the period. 
 
Mobility: Thin tracks on the M4 meant that it had somewhat lackluster mobility on soft terrain, but was decent on most terrain. The M4, however was a 
very strategic tank. The ability for M4s to be built in Detroit and fight on 4 different continents in large numbers in a quick amount of time shows one of the M4's true strengths. 
 
Reliability: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
 
Adaptability: The M4 was shoehorned into dozens of roles and it performed each of them well. Tank Destroyer, Amphib, Howitzer, Assault Tank, SPG, Engineering Vehicle, etc. 
 
Postwar variants showed the M4 to be a viable weapon platform up into the 1970s with Israel. Chile had M4s in its arsenal until 2002. 
 
Combat Record: Arracourt? M4s routinely beat "superior" formations of Panthers. 3rd and 4th ADs had what seems to be a 3.6:1 ratio against Panthers. There are only few instances where American M4s were soundly beaten, and this can be attributed to poor tactics and not the tanks themselves. Instances of German triumphs, such as Villers Bocage and Barkmann's Corner, in the West have been called into question over their authenticity. 

Panzerkampfwagen Panther Ausf. QQ
 

I can't have D.E. Watters, who is an actual researcher and stuff, reading my usual grade of gibberish and nonsense.  Now I have to put actual effort into my posts.

Everyone here knows how much I hate effort.
 
This is terrible.

My understanding is that phage therapy has a lot of potential, but some pretty severe limitations as well.
 
A given phage will only attack a very narrow range of bacteria, whereas antibiotics will nuke a wide spectrum of bugs.  This means that accurate diagnosis is crucial for phage therapy to be effective.
 
Interestingly, animal mucus contains bacteriaphages.

Sulfa drugs (among the most famous of which was Prontosil) were the first truly effective antibacterial agents, and were widely used in the West in the years preceding World War II, and remained in widespread use in Germany until the end of the war.

Penicillin, discovered by Fleming and made practical by Chain and Florey, was the first antibiotic to be discovered. It replaced sulfa drugs in the second half of World War II among the Allied forces after tremendous problems with mass production were overcome.

Phage therapy (the use of bacteriophage viruses to destroy harmful bacteria) remained popular in the Soviet Union long after the West switched over to sulfa drugs and, later, antibiotics. It is still in use today in the former USSR, though concerns with using an evolving, self-replicating entity in medical treatments has thus far prevented their use in the West.

Discuss them here.


 

I thought it was quite interesting hearing the aggressor guy talk about his aircraft:

In light of recent events involving Antares and SpaceShip Two...
 


 
Rocket's Red Glare was a documentary made for TLC in 2000, and according to the site, they claim it is used by NASA for training astronauts. Sadly one of many, many shows that TLC/DC never bothered releasing on DVD in English, so we have to put up with the Gavrilov dubbing on this Russian version

Loading mechanisms for the IS-3 and T-10.

Our first week here at SH is done. Honestly, this has been a much stronger start than I expected, and I thank everyone who's posted for helping.

There's a lot of good content here already; I can hardly think of a thread that doesn't contribute something to the making of SH into the research center I had in mind when I started it.

So thanks to everyone, and let's keep the momentum up. For now, if you have a question, ask it on the forum! Have a friend that you think has the archive savvy, inquisitive nature, and ritual-sacrifice-obsidian-dagger-blade-sharp wit that would make them a good fit for SH? Invite them! (For now, I ask members to invite only one person a piece; myself and collimatrix are currently working to expand the membership of SH by adding more people we think would be assets to the forum.)

Carry on, gentlemen!

The Apollo Program is in my opinion the greatest achievement of mankind, so far. I am biased of course, but this isn't for knowing nothing about the manned spaceflight effort of both the United States and Soviet Union during the '60s. I wouldn't consider myself an expert in the remotest sense, but I am much more familiar with the details than the average joe.

So I say this as someone who most decidedly believes that Apollo was a demonstration of excellence of the highest order: Should we have done it?

I encapsulate in this question a couple of distinct ones. First, given the inexperience of the U.S. space initiative, it seems to me that Apollo was positively charmed given that it only suffered the problems it did. The breakneck speed at which the US raced for the finish line is... Well, in retrospect a bit concerning. Consider a few facts that help highlight how absolutely primitive from a development sense Apollo really was: Neil Armstrong was one of nine astronauts selected in only the second class of NASA astronauts ever, following the original "Magnificent Seven". Further, the Saturn V rocket was the first purpose-designed manned US orbital launch vehicle ever to fly (you might count the Saturn IB, but consider that its first stage is literally a bunch of short-range ballistic missiles strapped together atop adapted V-2 rocket engines, and that the rest of it is the third stage up of a Saturn V). This makes sense, considering the Apollo program was begun before the US had even made its first manned suborbital flight.

Taken into account, these facts don't blemish the accomplishments of Apollo at all; in fact, to me they make Man's first footsteps on the moon all the more glorious. We challenged the Soviets to the greatest race in history from a sitting start, and won by (hundreds of thousands of) miles. But that's not the point; Apollo really was just one more baby step on the road to having a full-fledged, mature space program, that's why I ask...

Second, did Apollo set a dangerous tone for US manned spaceflight from that point on? Consider the dangerous Space Shuttle, which I won't go so far as to call "ill-conceived", but which clearly left a lot to be desired in the safety and management departments, was already in the planning stages before even the landing of the Eagle in the Sea of Tranquility. If Apollo was the product of the US space program in its very infancy, what was STS? The triumphant second lap of an unbeatable runner, or a dangerous gamble against luck?

I don't really know the answer to these questions. Spaceflight is dangerous, and unfortunately in an operation as complex and risky as this, some people may very well die. I don't hold responsible the desire to explore our cosmos for the deaths of astronauts or cosmonauts in any incident; but when a holistic view of things is taken, it's remarkable just how much is done with how little was known. And with that, I can't help but wonder how things might have been different.

Discuss.

Now, we are all in agreement that the best tank the Germans built was the StuG III.
 

 
But did you know that the Germans had other vehicles? It's true! You should talk about them here.
 
Links you should click:
Our Problem Child: Rossmum on the Panther tank
Germany's White Elephant, a look at the Tiger tank in theory and practice
Tiger II: A Royal Pain
An overview of Germany's armour quality