TokyoMorose

5 hours ago, heretic88 said:

I do not really understand the point of the 4 in 1 bucket on a military vehicle. A big, heavy, adjustable dozer blade, like on soviet and russian engineer vehicles (IMR, BAT, UBIM) is much better, much more useful. In military environment, you do not need precision work. You do not need to load trucks. You do not need to grade. Also the position of the excavator arm is quite too far back, and the front bucket limits its movement greatly. Why not do it like on the Wisent-2, or the russian UBIM? 

I do get the feeling that the bucket choice and location, along with the location of the excavator arm were determined by the chassis used as the base. Wheeled vehicles aren't the best for a massive solid dozer blade, there might be stress and balance issues...

IMHO, it seems they chose the platform first (and was probably chosen due to low cost & high strategic/road mobility) and then did what they could to make a viable engineering vehicle from it. Also, their obsession with road mobility in the Sahel would suggest they think the future use is going to be overwhelmingly in non-combat or counter-insurgency ops. Note how they directly mention trailer coupling ease / capability as a plus.

I believe these are new (for here) photos of Numba One MBT of World in construction.

This CAD drawing also shows glorious thickness of hull protective scheme.

Spoilering it because it's huge, but here's a good image showing how the armor was added on the M1A2C.

3 hours ago, LoooSeR said:

   This is one of the least problems of that vehicle. Just the type of main weaponry of this vehicle alone is strange and fixing different muzzle brake will not solve a problem of tactical niche vs actual design of BMPT.

I always thought the original "Model 2000" (nickname of course) version of the 199 made the most sens of the modern BMPTs. Single 2A42 + 4 Kornets instead of the wacky setup they settled on.

8 hours ago, Henschel said:

Can I ask a basic question here?

Nowadays, many tank has changed from hydraulic drive turret to electric drive turret because of fire hazard. Does hydraulic drive turret have any advantages over electric drive turret?

Generally speaking, with the crude electronics of the time hydraulics were smoother, more powerful, and more reliable.

The Sherman is an interesting vehicle from this perspective, as it was initially produced with either a hydraulic or electric drive depending on the vehicle. But the Oil Gear designed hydraulic drive was so superior in performance and reliability that it became standard for all. And of course by the 50s, basically everyone had moved to hydraulic for these reasons despite the issues of a hydraulic drive. Reliability was the biggest issue, and would not be fully solved for electrical systems until the development of solid-state electronics. And once those came about, you start seeing the trend back towards electric drives that continues to this day.

48 minutes ago, heretic88 said:

Then check the CIA report. The captured T-34/85 uses the later multicyclone filter, and it had an incredibly low efficiency. The earlier oil bath filters didnt work at all, no matter if it was oiled or not. The problem was solved in 1955 with the introduction of the excellent VTI-3 filters

 

Edit: "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." CIA report about the multicyclone filters

Cleaning once per day is within spec for multicyclone, which was certified to meet its filtration quality for 20 hours without cleaning. Air purity was kept at 100% (within margin of testing error) to densities of 3 grams per cubic centimeter - with is reasonably dusty.

It should be mentioned cleaning multicylcone (or cyclone) is actually quite simple. Like any cyclone-filtering vacuum cleaner all you do is disconnect the dust bin, dump it out, and reconnect it.

The CIA report is based on an NK tank that was battered to hell and back and not properly maintained for its years with the DPRK. It is unsurprising elements of it were damaged.  And on the other hand, we have combat experience corroborated by German and Japanese reports of really quite vast and long-ranging movements in Bagration and Manchuria by Soviet armor.

Oh, and dust cleaning with filters is not some magic process either - if a filter lasts longer between cleaning it is purely because the filter has more dust capacity, and will take proportionally longer to clean. You spend about the same amount of time overall cleaning any dust filter of a given configuration for a given volume of dust, irregardless of the fine details that differ it. (Note how cleaning a vacuum cleaner of a standard size is basically the same work irrespective of brand and design features)

6 hours ago, Ramlaen said:

https://www.janes.com/amp/us-army-begins-light-tank-soldier-assessment-without-bae-systems-prototype/ZnlJK3dHVU9mZ28xajRJVkc5dVI5VFp1cVMwPQ2

 

Well now.

This was BAE's contest to lose, and they appear to be *trying* to lose it.

14 hours ago, heretic88 said:

non functioning air filters

This one stands out to me, because the only report I have ever seen where the T-34's air filters didn't work (as opposed to working poorly) were when it was tested at Aberdeen.

And the reason for that was very simple - the early T-34 they had was equipped with Pomon-type air filters, which are an oil bath filter, and for some reason the US testing crew never oiled it.

It is not a big shock that an oil bath filter fails without oil.

6 hours ago, heretic88 said:

A report about Jagdpanthers covering 4-500 kilometers with the reinforced final drive. Regular tanks didnt get it. Why? Probably because they didnt need it that much.

That report is (in)famous, but every Jagdpanther ever seen has had the same final drives as other Panthers. That, along with the supposedly reinforced transmission on Jagdpanthers appears to be nothing more than a myth.

I'm sure the JgPanther crews wish they had those reinforced drives and/or transmission.

1 hour ago, Stimpy75 said:

TATA Kestrel some where high

Ah yes, the sheet metal 8x8. I eagerly await to see more dents on it.

14 hours ago, Toxn said:

Anecdote:

 

As a sort of test run of my "fix a tank" competition series idea, I had a go at fixing the Panther (ie: the most talked-about problem child of the war). The rules here were to make the fix as historically realistic as possible - ie: no blowing a smoking crater in the Reichstag or 6th Department, no ignoring the large industrial concerns etc. I also tried to take into account the stated requirements and preferences that drove the project and got MAN the nod over DB: sloped armour, mid-mounted Krupp turret, front drive, torsion-bar suspension, Kniepkamp's interleaved suspension, the use of a Maybach engine of some variety, honking big gun courtesy of Rheinmetall, and 60-100mm of armour thickness up front.

 

And funnily enough, once I'd gotten my head around the dumpster fire that was German AFV procurement in the 1930s to the end of WWII, I came to realise that Panther was about as good as it was going to get for the Germans. Really, the most that could have been hoped for in the real world was that more attention got paid to managing the weight of the beast, that the ergonomics were given more priority, and that some of the really dumb mechanical innovations that the Germans seemed to cram into everything (ie: mechanical turret drive) were left out. All of which would have lead to a 35-tonne monster instead of a 38-tonne one.  

 

German AFV development just really sucked that badly.

Accurate in general, but the MAN design used a Rheinmetall Turret, and the DB design had better sloping all around (but also violated so many Wa Pruef 6 diktats that it was never going to go anywhere - Leaf springs instead of torsion bars?! Heresy!).

7 hours ago, alanch90 said:

You mean the one on the Ariete? Or the newer meant to replace it as part of the MLU program?

If you mean the first, then it most likely will have problems in the Altay since the tank is heavier than the Ariete and the engine is less powerful than the MTU. If you mean the second, with 1500 hp, it is still in development phase and by the time its clear for export, the Turks may have made enough progress with their own engine. Either case the most important aspect is not clear which is the political willingness of Italy to defy EU stance on Turkey´s militarism. And right now Italy is not the most stable country in the world politically, to say the least. The Prime Minister just resigned hours ago.

The safest path forward for the Altay program depends on how fast they need to get the tank into production with an interim powerpack. I see two options. The Chinese powerpack used on VT-4, which while underpowered as the Ariete´s, is readily available and surely cheaper and more modern and politically safer at the same time. On the other hand, the Korean Doosan/DST powerpack, which is supposed to be mature enough in the short term, would serve the Altay just as good or even better than MTU/Renk, On the down side, it may be very expensive. But if the development of an indigenous powerpack fails, the Korean solution is the best one. 

It's the 1600hp variant from Ariete AMV they are getting ahold of. That should work just fine.

6 hours ago, mr.T said:

Both Koreans and Turks have issues with the engine for the new tank , and it doesnt seem like Ukrainan engine is going to solve turk engine problems,

Koreans have long solved their engine issues, and for them the only issue is that the Transmission has a MTBF that's shorter than required.

The Italian engine should be fine enough for Altay.

So, here's some pictures of the CR2E in training kit with a strange camo.

On 12/14/2020 at 9:13 PM, Cleb said:

Two 1/8th scale models by the Agency for Defense Development on the "development of armored vehicles for infantry fighting". 

 

"Type 1": 25 tons, amphibious, 30mm cannon

 

"Type 2": 30 tons, not amphibious, 35mm cannon, equipped with ATGMs

The second one in particular reminds me extremely heavily of the Type 89 and Desert Warrior.

2 hours ago, alanch90 said:

Yeah i noticed that too. Wasn't expecting to see the Dorchester getting replaced. Guess that the new armor is going to be called "Port Down armor".

I'm suspecting the new armor is only on the new turret. When they mention upgrading the family of vehicles like CRARRV they mention only mechanical changes. Which would make sense.

I honestly have to agree with the soldiers here in terms of rejecting the 1-2 variants, but it's purely out of survivability concerns. A 60 ton + vehicle whose turret resists only 'medium cannon' (which at the most charitable is something like a 90mm Cockerill, probably meaning something more like a 57mm AC) and is armed with (in variant 1) a 120mm? There's much lighter vehicles that already essentially meet those requirements, and whatever deficiencies they have wouldn't take another 10-20 tons to remediate.

Variant 2 is less objectionable, but the reference to 'medium cannon' as the reference threat still boggles me for a vehicle that is 66 tons. There are already plenty of vehicles that match the weight and protection, with comparable firepower. Stuff a 130mm in the Leo 2A7+, and what exactly is this 'future' machine supposed to do better than that would?

While variant 3 has some objectionable old-fashioned aspects to its design (where's the ERA of any sort on Variant 1 or 3?!), it at least offers tank-level protection for a family of vehicles that are all firmly in the 'heavy' weight class.

1 hour ago, Insomnium95 said:

This is the low profile hull. The Army sets the requirements and they want the 105.

I still can't get over the fact that they didn't put an autoloader in it. Seems like such a waste of space for an extra crewman. 

As to the 105, I know that was Big Army's dumb decision - but it was still a major selling point for the original Griffin II demonstrator.  As to height, this hull certainly seems higher than the hull they were showing off earlier. This appears to be just a regular ASCOD 2 hull, the original Griffin II having had only a couple inches between the top of the roadwheels and the return track.

There's no autoloader because GDLS literally just reused the Abrams design with less armor and a few dimensional adjustments.

On 10/9/2020 at 12:06 AM, Ramlaen said:

https://www.gd.com/Articles/2020/10/08/gd-at-ausa-2020

 

Is it me or does every time this thing shows up it manages to look worse? They ditched the low-profile hull, they ditched the 120mm and went back to ye olde 105... when GDLS first showed off the Griffon II I thought it was a much better design than the warmed-over XM8 - but now what's the selling point for it? XM8 is already somewhat familiar to the Army and has parts commonality with other Army vehicles... this is just an ASCOD 2 with a armor-less M1 turret slapped on.

10 hours ago, Wiedzmin said:

it's 2A46 and it's Frankenstein museum, they also have JS-2 with KV-2 turret mockup IIRC

While plausible, that really doesn't look too much like the 2A46 to me. I could totally be wrong, but the barrel profile just seems off.

On 9/28/2020 at 11:01 AM, Insomnium95 said:

Didn't even read what you wrote. 

What he is trying to say is there is much less volume in an unmanned turret, as it has no fighting compartment inside it. As such the unmanned turret is much smaller and can carry far more armor for a given mass.

The scourge of protected volume is what lead the soviets to the hilariously compact T-64.

That said, Beer's explanation was quite good and you should have read it.

7 hours ago, heretic88 said:

Again, this "protected against 30mm" BS... What 30mm? Soviet/Russian 30mm? That usually means 3UBR-6. And this is basically .50 SLAP equivalent... 

I always find such vague figures worth a chuckle, nah it's rated against 30mm launched grenades - such as the fearsome IO-30TP.

On 7/21/2020 at 11:04 AM, alanch90 said:

So an industry that has grown way too accustomed to over promising, over budgeting and under delivering is concerned about real competition. You gotta love free enterprise capitalism.

IMHO, the army is pressing ahead with requirements that literally nobody thinks can be delivered on, and is so confident they just know better that they are going to have themselves do it. I'm in the camp who thinks the requirements are bogus, and that the army is just fooling itself.

On 6/30/2020 at 8:25 AM, Molota_477 said:

Really doubt how a ''30mm'' can cause such damage.

3UBR6? Not a "APFSDS", but the mediocre performance and big hole would line up well.

That said, it that looks a lot like the... (splatter? splash?) I've seen on many HEAT impacts.

7 hours ago, LoooSeR said:

   That sounds like not really usefull test in the first place, i was under impression that there should be plenty of data about T-55 in US. Hell, T-84s with Drozd APS were sold to US, why bother to test T-55s?

5 hours ago, Priory_of_Sion said:

I was wondering this too. I can only imagine it would be useful if they were

testing some updated fire control system that’s being used on T-55s in Syria or Libya but I’m not aware of any. 

It is doubly baffling because it was ancient BK-5M ammo they were firing - they weren't even trying to verify a new ammo type or change to the gun.