SuperComrade

http://thesovietarmourblog.blogspot.ru/2015/05/t-72-soviet-progeny.html
 
Only just found this and seems to be a very good write up so far.
 
Edit: nah fuck dat this is a fantastic resource. Shit, it would probably be a good introduction to newbies about cold war tanks as it goes into great detail about all kind of things like APDS vs APFSDS, NERA mechanics and etc. It's amazingly comprehensive, feels better than Zaloga's books honestly.

You can use anything you like 

Pakistani M4A1 with 76 mm gun (Yuri Pasholok's LJ)

STURGEON'S NOTE: THIS IS JUST FOR FUN, DON'T TAKE IT TOO SERIOUSLY.
 
Toxn's note: what he said. The in-character stuff is just to reflect how these sorts of proposals end up getting bloated all out of proportion as conflicting requirements get tacked on by committees. I'll also try to provide clarity on the requirements themselves as we go along, so ask away.
 

 
With a slew of regional conflicts threatening to metastasise and military expenditure rising for the first time in decades, military planners are once again pondering the role of AFVs on the modern battlefield. Recent conflicts seem to indicate that armed forces may be faced with lengthy conflicts in urban and peri-urban areas - places where tight confines and large numbers of anti-tank weapons have resulted in attritional warfare. In other areas, more open terrain has favoured the use of man-portable ATGMs against armoured elements. Finally, there has been a long-standing trend towards the use of IEDs and, on the other end of the scale, ever more sophisticated autonomous and semi-autonomous platforms as methods for inflicting casualties upon mechanised and armour forces.
 
These aspects, when combined with a long-standing trend towards more heavily armed and armoured IFV variants, have potentially created a niche for a class of AFV optimised for general combat rather than specific anti-armour or scouting operations. This class of AFV should ideally be air-transportable or air-deployable using existing transport aircraft, be capable of high mobility and survival against infantry-borne weapons, and should be capable of tackling other armed vehicles (up to and including AFVs of a similar configuration) as well as providing infantry support. Other considerations would include the use of the chassis as a basis for a number of specialised variants, the ability to upgrade and retrofit the design during its life cycle and, of course, the cost of the vehicles themselves.
 
As the head of a design team working within a massive defence conglomerate, your task is to come up with a design to pitch to defence departments around the globe. Your basic requirements are as follows:
Must be capable of protecting against small arms from all aspects, and must be capable of withstanding 20-30mm autocannon fire across the frontal arc. Must be capable of engaging and defeating existing AFV designs (not including modern MBTs) at modern combat ranges. Must be air-transportable using existing transport aircraft (preferably AC-130 or equivalent) in either a ready-to-run or partially disassembled state. Must be capable of defending against at least one strike by man-portable anti-tank weapons, including ATGMs Must include weaponry or equipment for engaging with dug-in infantry in urban areas Must be capable of defending against mines, roadside bombs and IEDs Must be highly reliable, including servicing at local depots. Must cost the same or less than equivalent systems (around $4 million per unit maximum) Must be capable of off-road travel Finally, the design must use, wherever possible, existing components and processes in order to minimise development time. As our company specialises in armour arrays (including composites and the like) and electronics, some leeway will be allowed in terms of the armour package and electronic systems. Our extensive contacts within the defence sector mean that any weapon system currently being developed or fielded may plausibly be integrated with our product.
 
Advanced requirements are as follows:
May be capable of surviving multiple hits by heavy autocannon (40-60mm) across the frontal arc May be capable of engaging low-flying aircraft and helicopters May be directly air-deployable from existing transport aircraft May be capable of surviving multiple strikes from anti-tank missiles (of all classes) from any angle May include only COTs components May be capable of being serviced in the field. May be in the form of a family of vehicles sharing a common chassis May cost significantly less than equivalent systems (under $3 million per unit) May be capable of extreme off-road travel, including across anti-tank ditches and the like  
Designs, including at least a picture, description and list of attributes, should be presented by the end of April 2016 for evaluation by a panel of experts. The winning design team will receive a small prize (cash and in-game currency for one of a number of games discussed on this forum) and the adulation of millions of imaginary fans.
 
Good luck!
 

 
IMPORTANT OOC NOTE:
 
The in-character post is sort of supposed to be maddening, as it reflects the tendency to propose a lightweight expeditionary vehicle (the absolute requirements viewed loosely) and then have everyone shove more and more stuff in until it turns into an MBT with an autocannon on top.  The absolute versus optional requirements (some of which simply cannot be reconciled) indicate this.
 
I advise the contestants to look at the trends (including real-life ones that I may not have examined in any detail) and pick their guiding philosophy - bearing in mind that this is supposed to be a vehicle for infantry support and general combat against anything smaller than an MBT. From there you should try to fulfil all of the absolute requirements (some leeway is allowed) and then argue the optional requirements as needed.
 
Above all - have fun!

The real housevwives of UralVagonZavod https://rtd.rt.com/films/tanks-born-in-russia/#part-1

Albeit new, I heard it used the material FM purchased. I haven't seen it myself yet, not worth the money when I've already seen the pages. 

This hasn't been posted here before, right?
 

 
Sturgeon's edit: I replaced it with the bigger, actually readable one from Walt's site.

This is hilarious:

http://www.featureshoot.com/2016/02/when-giant-teddy-bears-roamed-the-streets-of-nazi-germany/

This hasn't been posted here before, right?
 

 
Sturgeon's edit: I replaced it with the bigger, actually readable one from Walt's site.

The turret ring was the same size, but it was larger by volume.

This hasn't been posted here before, right?
 

 
Sturgeon's edit: I replaced it with the bigger, actually readable one from Walt's site.

So on my recent trip to Japan (protip: don't fly for 19 hours with your kids), I took some time out from family to visit Yushukan museum.
 
To bring you all up to speed, this place is the museum attached to the controversial shrine that Japan and China are in a perpetual snit over. The shrine itsef is actually pretty anodyne, if fairly imposing and charmless.

 


 
The museum, however, is pretty fucking sinister. Anyway, I'm sure you didn't click this just to see me repost content, so here are my impressions.

 
1. Revisionism deluxe
 
If you've gotten the impression by now that this place has an agenda, you are absolutely correct. Japanese soldiers are always described in glowing terms ('honourable actions', 'noble warriors', 'honoured dead' etc.), war crimes are ignored whenever they aren't completely rewritten as laudable or necessary (Manchuria is described as an operation to bring regional stability, for instance) and the Emperor was a saint. It gets to the point of being almost admirably ballsy, such as the train from the Burma railway parked at the entrance without any comment whatsoever. Or when the brochure specifically highlights a Japanese flag signed by 25 of the most well-known ‘alleged’ war criminals as a key exhibit.

 


 
In terms of the content of the museum, it is at pains to remind the viewer about Japan’s glorious martial past (glossing over the whole civil war aspect), how it was pushed into a hopeless war by the perdifery of the US/colonial powers, and how the noble sacrifice of its people/Emperor lead to... something, I guess? Sadly, a lot of the place is off-limits to cameras so I can’t show you some of the truly egregious stuff.

 
Finally, the amount of memorialisation gets to sort of strange levels. There are statues, displays and plaques commemorating the brave souls who died in the war – including, and I can’t make this stuff up, a special statue depicting the sailors who died testing a suicide diving suit that the empire was working on in its final hours. There is an entire wing of the museum dedicated to photos and mementos of dead soldiers, sailors and airmen. There is also a section devoted to providing bibliographical accounts (including displays of uniforms and equipment) of the men – again eliding any reference to crimes or atrocities.

 
2. Suicidepalooza

 
Part of this focus on heroic struggle seems to be to include every possible reference to suicidal actions that it can. Every field gun displayed, for instance, helpfully included a note on how the crew had fought to the last man.

 


 
This also extended to suicide weapons. The museum has an Ohka sitting up in the hall (which I wasn’t supposed to photograph, but did anyway), a Kaiten at the centre of the same room, a Shinyo sitting to the side and a model of Kairyu sitting next to it. Each helpfully notes the exact number of airmen/sailors who perished during testing or use.

 

 

 
Finally, the Zero sitting in the entranceway and the Judy sitting in the hall both make mention of their later careers as planes intended for ‘special mission’ purposes. There was also an interview with one of the surviving kamikaze pilots playing on repeat in the main hall.

 


 
My suspicion here is that the obsessive focus on suicide craft has some special meaning to the Japanese nationalists who effectively fund and run the place that I am unable to grasp. This is interesting, as I’ve generally found that the best possible way to get people to contemplate the insanity of total industrial warfare is to talk about Japanese suicide craft and the reasoning that went into their creation. Generally, once you’ve explained this stuff in detail to a person they’re, like, 50% of the way to either total pacifism or a wholehearted embrace of America’s post-war role as the most munificent empire in history.

 
3. Odds and sods

 
Every museum has some interesting little bits and pieces hidden away, and this one was no different. For me, it was seeing the astonishingly crude nature of pre-Edo bows (which were, sadly, verboten for purposes of photography). One of them was literally a bronze-capped branch (complete with copious knots) about 25mm in diameter at the handle and steamed into the familiar yumi shape. The others were various iterations of brutalist single-piece bowering, culminating in a square cross-section bow that looks like a direct ancestor of the modern Japanese bow.

 
For the small arms nerds, there are a few machineguns and cannons to look at.

 


 

 
There was also a single, lonely Chi-Ha to give the armour nerds some succour.

 


 
Finally, outside of the museum there was an example of a weirdo-gun: a bronze cannon which was taken in an re-rifled at the end of its life.

 


 
4. Conclusion

 
All in all, I found the visit interesting but a bit ominous. Worse, I fear that this sort of thing is more portentous in terms of where Japan is headed than anyone wants to admit. I guess I can only hope that the country, which seems to be going through some sort of transition, doesn’t begin indulging in its worst tendencies again as pax Americana wanes.

 

 

The entire Soviet Union is never mentioned by name and you see its flag once. No mention of the battle at Lake Hasan, Khalkin Gol, or August Storm. A shameful display.

So, ummmmm....ughhhh.....what? This is like the worst example of ERA-on-a-light-vehicle I have ever seen.  Crew must have a death wish.

T-34-85

Slowly we are winning.  This thread is now the number two google result from searching "blacktail defense."
 

It seems we aren't the only ones taking a piss at BTD.

I'm pretty sure they are (5 mm spaced)

There is one small additional benefit.  The crew in the turret enjoy a slightly smoother ride because the vehicle rolling motions are cancelled out.
 
Is that worth the trouble?  Well... no.  It is not.

No, there is no real benefit for doing that. On top of problems with size and power consumption of stabilizer, turret become very hard to upgrade/upgun, add here problems with ammunition loading process and turret weight limitations (turret armor upgrades would be pain in the a$$).

Also, with metals you're limited to the heat transfer rate of said metal. Which, with steel, isn't all that high. I have some books on this which I should take a look at, it's been a while since I had a lecture on this.
 
But basically, due to the low heat transfer rate of steel you can't cool the core quick enough to lock the crystal structure in place. The crystal structure in steel when it's red-hot is quite strong/hard at room temperature, but if you let the metal cool on its own, the crystal structure changes and you end up with 'normal' steel. But you can keep that crystal structure if you cool it really really quickly. But since you can only cool the outer part quick enough, the crystal structure of the core changes, making it weaker.
 
For example, one of the brands of commercial 'armour'/wear resistant steel is Hardox. The top of the line Hardox plate (Hardox Extreme) with a HRC (Hardness Rockwell Cone) of 57-63 is only available with a maximum thickness of 19 mm. And just so you know, 65 HRC should be the absolute theoretical maximum hardness of steel.

Oooh, I should try and find one next time I am back home