That_Baka

Loading D-10 variant on the SU-100P

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SPG and SPAAG variants:
 
XM9 “Black Bear”
 

Basic statistics
Length: 6.6m (hull), 11.4m (total) Width: 2.65m (hull), 3.25m (total) Height: 2.5m Weight: 48 t (combat weight) Crew: 4 (commander, gunner, loader, driver) Armour
100mm (upper hull front) 100mm (lower hull front) 65mm (hull side forward) 25mm (hull side rear) 25mm (hull rear) 25mm (hull roof) 25mm (hull floor) 100mm (mantlet) Weapons
 
120mm L/50 cannon:
APHE: 23.9kg, 875m/s, ~200mm RHA penetration (90’, 500m) APCR: 13.6kg, 1045m/s, ~300mm RHA penetration (90’, 500m) HE: 21.7 kg, 500m/s Movement: +/- 12 degrees horizontal, -10 degrees/+30 degrees vertical Browning M2 heavy machine gun (hull roof)
 
Drivetrain
Engine: 18L, 500 HP (373 kW) V8 petrol engine (Ford GAA derivative) Power/weight:  10.4kW/t Max speed (road): 35km/h Max sustained speed (offroad): 25km/h Range: 300km Description
 

Sometimes you just need whatever is in front of your position to die. The M9 “Black bear” is designed to make everything in within range of its gun go away as efficiently as possible. Armed with a long 120mm gun (a calibre with special significance to Cascadians thanks to its storied history), this SPG is capable of punishing any presently fielded armoured vehicle out to long ranges with standard APHE. APCR, although not presently required, has also been developed in order to deal with any superheavy vehicles which may be developed in the near future. Finally, the gun has access to a very useful low-velocity HE round, along with more specialised rounds such as smoke and star shells.
 
The M9 is a casemate tank destroyer, with a 50cm superstructure on top of the hull to help accommodate the massive gun. The result is a vehicle is not much shorter than the tank it is based on. In terms of protection; the much higher slope of the upper front plate (60 degrees versus 45 degrees for the M8) provides a significant increase in survivability against threats from the front. Otherwise, the armour is the same as the base vehicle.
 
The superstructure and front plate, when combined with the massive gun, did unfortunately result in a significant increase in weight over the M8. As a result the front suspension needed to be strengthened and a new transmission system needed to be designed for the extra load. The latter was probably a good idea in any case, as this allowed neutral steering to be included in order to assist the gunner. The horizontal and vertical travel of the gun is about average for this sort of vehicle, and is adequate for the task at hand.
 
The interior of the crew compartment is relatively roomy, which is helpful given the increased burden on the loader. The main gun uses two-piece ammunition, which lowers the overall rate of fire somewhat but allows one man to load the main gun. Crew comfort is also increased thanks to a forced-air bore scavenging system, which significantly cuts down on smoke and fume buildup inside the vehicle.
 
Overall; the M9 is expected to serve in limited numbers compared to the M8, but should provide a very useful capability for engaging in defensive operations against heavy armour or offensive operations against fixed fortifications.
 
XM10 “Goshawk”
 

Basic statistics
Length: 6.6m Width: 2.65m (hull), 3.25m (total) Height: 2.8m Weight: 20 t (combat weight) Crew: 3 (commander, gunner, driver) Armour
25mm (upper hull front) 25mm (lower hull front) 25mm (hull side forward) 15mm (hull side rear) 15mm (hull rear) 15mm (hull roof) 15mm (hull floor) 25mm (turret front) 25mm (turret front side) 15mm (turret rear side) 15mm (turret rear) 15mm (turret roof) Weapons
2x20mm autocannon (movement: -10/+80 degrees vertical) Drivetrain
Engine: 18L, 450 HP (340 kW) V8 petrol engine (Ford GAA derivative) Power/weight:  22.5kW/t Max speed (road): 45km/h Max sustained speed (offroad): 35km/h Range: 500km Description
 

The M10 is simply a light version of the M8 with an open-topped turret designed to hold two 20mm autocannon. The mount is based on the venerable ZSU-23-2 design, and has good movement in the vertical. The electric turret drive can push the turret through a full rotation in around 10 seconds, which assists in tracking fast-moving targets.
 
The M10 is expected to be useful when dealing with low-flying aircraft and infantry, and should fill a useful niche within the armoured force.

Object 279 with some high velocity cannon:

According to the 1950 US Army guide to spaced armor design, yes.

There are a few tricks that separate gasoline and diesel (and AFAIK supercharged and naturally aspirated) 2 stroke engines.
The problem with 2-stroke engines is that the moment the down-stroke is done, the entire cylinder has to be scavenged and filled with clean air (and fuel, for gasoline engines). And the cylinder is full of hot gas above atmospheric pressure.
So on small engines, the crankcase and piston are used as a pump, with the piston sliding also playing the role of the valves. On the up stroke air is drawn into the crankcase, on the down stroke it gets pressured and then pumped into the cylinder, ready to work.

This of course means you have a lot of air going through your crankcase and can't just spray oil on it, but mix it in with the fuel. You can also get iffy performance thanks to questionable scavenging, rich mixture (if its a diesel, the fuel is injected directly, regardless of the scavenging efficiency), and so on.
In larger 2-strokes, the overpressure problem is solved with a blower of some kind, usually an engine-powered supercharger (turbos don't work at low speed, but external blowing is also possible), which allows the crankcase to not be used for air pumping. This means it can be lubricated like a normal engine.
Additionally, with some cam-operated valves, and careful arrangement of the system, good axial scavenging can be achieved.

Linear scavenging is even more useful for cylinders with a high stroke to bore ratio; such as are found on opposed-piston engines. These are tempermental beasts, but when properly tuned put out a lot of power for their weight and volume. 

The Napier Deltic took this to a whole new level, and it worked pretty well, but was very hard to maintain.
 
With modern CFD and CAD, the precise arrangement of ports, timing, and dimensions can be found to make this work reliably and efficiently. 

Japanese photograph on the T-28, lets just say that Japan used the T28 for more than just making reports...

Yellow booklet is 150 by 105 mm, by the way.

So, Bronezhilet has been snooping around a sectioned T-55, attempting to obtain the secrets of Ural tank smallness to give to the West to help them design better tanks that they can then give to oppressive Middle Eastern theocracies and moderate head-choppers.  And he came across this curious device on the side of the hull:
 

 
As you can see, it's not a mounting point for a road wheel swing arm.  It sits higher than those do, and has a different device attached to it that is clearly not a swing arm.
 

 
It sits behind the last and second to last road wheel.
 
We puzzled over this for a time.  The most obvious thing for this to be would be a shock absorber, but we couldn't see any corresponding shock absorber behind the first road wheel.  Usually tanks have shock absorbers on the first and last road wheels, sometimes the first, second and last.
 
We did some digging and figured it out:
 

 

 
It is indeed a shock absorber, and there is indeed one behind the first road wheel as well.  But we discovered something that will make LoooSeR cringe with horror.
 
Look at the rearmost roadwheel and torsion bar, the T-54's last road wheel swing arm is leading!

That's not just any old T-34-76, it's a 1942 Stalingrad turret combined with fully rubberized road wheels and an early hull, quite a rarity.

Another one of Pasholok's books is coming out in English.
 

 
According to his LJ post, he doesn't intend on writing any Russian books any time soon, but will focus on working with English writers to fill in gaps in English language works on Soviet armour.

This is the point where I jump in and mention that I interviewed the author of these books, R L Dinardo, a couple years ago.  https://tankandafvnews.com/tag/r-l-dinardo/
 
Fun fact, he told me that he orginally wanted to title the book on horses in the German army of WWII "Stuck in the mud and knee deep in horse shit."  He said the publisher was not too keen on that title.  He has a very strong New York accent and sense of humor.

https://www.amazon.ca/Fallen-Giants-Combat-Debut-T-35A/dp/1781556261/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1505831667&sr=8-1&keywords=fallen+giants
 
Fallen Giants is on sale at $10 for the Kindle edition, which is an absurdly low price for such a new book.

Forget Aerogavin, make room for the Aeroshilka!
 

Object 268, version with 152 mm gun in rotatable turret instead of superstructure.

Mfw fascists are spotted on the horizon

Premium T-34-85 discovered
 

Because of you i now making that thread, you are terrible person.

Class consciousness filled in for lack of hands on knowledge, comrade!

I dunno, at least all the major identifying parts are there, the only complaint I have is the early style driver's hatch with late style periscopes and late style hull MG mantlet, as well as additional armour (or early A-34 two-piece turret side) on the turret. Although technically you could put all those parts on one tank if you really wanted.

You'd think that at 70 tons the Germans would start looking into creative ways to save weight like the Soviets did instead of just slamming armour on it all willy nilly.

Went though my school's virtual library to see if it had anything interesting. It did. It has a the Journal of Slavic Military Studies, which had an article in 2012 by a dude named Gary Dickerson on Soviet Tank Repair Rates in WWII. 
 
Data is mostly based off of Soviet records after 1942. 
 
70% of Soviet Tank losses ended up being repairable with 30% of losses being due to non-battle related reasons. I noticed he used Krivosheev as a source of total losses, who would have guessed? 
 
15-20 days into an operation would result with nearly 80% of the original strength being losses, but not irrecoverable losses.  
 
Here are some graphs and charts.

It is not
 
which is me, i do think that T-64 is not good. Also, using "you idiots" in your first post here gives bad impression about you.
 
   As i said, there would be another tank and another line of vehicles after it if there was no T-64. Object 770-based MBT would have been good attempt. Autoloaders were tested before T-64, layered armor was developed outside of Kharkov and could be used by other vehicles as well. Not using opposite piston diesel engine would have been a positive aspect. 

Are we going need to send in the AK to liquidate these uppity UPA shills? 

If this kind of crap is your first post, i suspect we will not see you much here later.
 
   I don't bash T-64 because it is Ukrainian (it isn't, it was Soviet), i bash it because it had number of features that are still a problem, like engine that you need to babysit before launching in temperatures lower than -5 degr C in such warn country as Soviet Union of Tropical Republics, or general low level of readiness and reliability. On top of that add here too cramped layout that makes significant upgrades of firepower or protection on this vehicle very hard.
 
   If it wasn't T-64, than other tank would have appear, as Soviet tank development was not concetrate only in Kharkov. Maybe that tank would have been better? 
 
   And "Kharkovites" is a half-serious joke.