skylancer-3441

photos of K2PL scalemodel from various twitter users

https://cloud.mail.ru/public/4HFz/ramj5wq6b articles from Czech magazines (ATM, Military Revue, Historie a Plastikove Modelarstvi, Nase Vojsko, etc) on various, usually unfinished, military projects they developed during Cold War. Mostly in Czech, sometimes with screenshots of Google Translate to English

https://cloud.mail.ru/public/4zsb/5nr7FEi44 those, and some other, Czech magazines

IMO it's would be very reassuring to know for a fact that in 2000s Russian Army and military-industrial complex have departed from that thing happening with Soviet Army and Soviet MIC  every once in a while - with T-64, T-80, BMP-3, and presumably other things too, which all had quite a bit of problems with reliability for couple of years before and after adoption, but still were accepted by what looks like lowering standards and believing promises, and/or been very accurate about how to make a report which "smells like a rose".

I doubt BTR-90 might be called satisfactory at any year of its development, 

one could just look at its potential adversaries (and wonder how exactly it was pitched to back than Soviet Army) -

starting all the way back in mid80s when Wehrtechnik (1985-02, 1988-08) and International Defense Review (1988-10) were publishing articles on Western next generation wheeled AFV development - namely West German EXF and Daimler Benz proposal of family of vehicles based on it, including such things as 32t APC. (while research phase which started in mid80s have led Soviets to next generation 21t vehicle, with preliminary project ready in 1989)

...and all that without paying much attention to BTR-90's layout, with no exit at rear, even narrow one - an abomination repeated yet again -

while at exactly the same time, in 1989, other developers in WarPac - presumably Czech, given striking resemblance to PSP Zubr - have presented this:

https://btvtinfo.blogspot.com/2019/11/blog-post_10.html?m=1

https://books.google.ru/books?uid=115590142161999487031&as_coll=1007&source=gbs_lp_bookshelf_list

some could be available there (some from USA IP adress only, so VPN might be required), I've spent quite some time back in 2017-2018, making requests to GoogleBiooks to show them and other magazines in full view instead of snippet view - more was mentioned in post on p.11 of this thread

or there https://cloud.mail.ru/public/DF26/vHThkrzpC/Armor/ as separate jpeg files in appropriate folders, though not for long now - I'll delete that as soon as I'll need more space to store photos from RSL (as couple of years ago when they gave 1Tb for free on their cloud, I was stupid enough not to register couple more additional accounts ASAP to get more storage space)

On 9/2/2020 at 1:29 PM, SH_MM said:

 

Hull ammo storage of the K2 Black Panther.

was there a version of K2 which looks that much like K1 from the rear?

Given that's how other K2s look like (3 screenshots from the same video, 4th from another):

9 hours ago, Collimatrix said:

Are there any pictures of the coolant lines that take the engine heat from the front mounted engine to the rear-mounted radiator?

Best I could find so far - unless I'm mistaken -

it seems like two pipes are visible through those two holes

some screenshots from this video

https://cloud.mail.ru/public/7nsN/mUTvg1W9K

btw, presumably it was demonstrated on one of exhibitions back in May of 2019

screenshots

https://cloud.mail.ru/public/9dEX/djuwzbp4V/_tmp/International Defense Review/

issues from 1983-1988 of IDR were photographed and uploaded (except those from 1983 which were photographed today, and will be uploaded tomorrow), though in not-user-friendly way only - without renaming, without deleting duplicates, without identifying and replacing blurry photos. All that takes a lot of time, and was postponed at least until September, as I'm trying to concentrate instead on one activity which actually requires visiting library - that of making photos, up to 9 hours a day, 6 days a week (on average somewhere around 6x6/7x6 though).

If I'll be able to continue to do that until end of this mouth, and not fall into laziness, I might photograph all IDR issues stored at RSL (1975-1991).

color-corrected, to best of my abilitiy

https://legiero.blog.hu/2020/08/17/elougrott_a_magyar_hiuz

from this Czech article advertising KF41 modularity

https://www.czdefence.com/article/lynx-kf41-modular-ifv-for-full-spectrum-of-operations

- renders of 3 versions (for Czech army), including IFV with turret which looks somewhat different (compared to well-known Lynx prototype)

...

>>IFV with turret which looks somewhat different

...featuring, among other things, equipment which was identified as Rheinmetall Vingtaqs II

...so, this render up there appears to be representing not IFV, but reconnaissance version

https://legiero.blog.hu/2020/08/17/elougrott_a_magyar_hiuz

...

On 8/5/2020 at 11:01 PM, Pascal said:

MILITARY HANDBOOK: DESIGN OF COMBAT VEHICLES FOR FIRE SURVIVABILITY (15 FEB 1995)

Very interesting book for me, as it quotes reports on Bradley ASTB (Advanced Survivability Test Bed) aka Col. Burton's Minimum Casualty Baseline Vehicle,

which (reports) seem to be unclassified but still are unavailable on the internet.

other pics from this pdf:

...

https://livepictureevents.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/04-GVPM-Industry-Day-2020.pdf

turns out, NGCV-OMT was renamed (a-la  MPF) into NGCV-FDL

http://www.usarmygvsc.com/soldier-innovation-workshop-considers-abrams-replacement/

Roshindow's take on fixing distortion:

scalemodel on second photo shows design known for couple of years:

Aforementioned video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzYimCkt4Zo

I've made some 50 screenshots, all uploaded to twitter

- all could be seen on one page there:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1287353695789776897.html

(Though this website used downscaled 1200pix version of those 1920x1080 screenshots,

so in case one wants 1920pix images, it's easier to download them by opening my posts directly at Twitter. Or one could manually add ":large" after ".png"/".jpg" to every image link)

And there is another video, released 12 hours later:

https://youtu.be/MtIEs961xuY

and some 20 screenshots were also posted on Twitter, starting from this tweet:

https://mobile.twitter.com/skylancer7441/status/1287406394103271425

Another video, unfortunately w/ Korean hardsubs:

dozen of screenshots were posted there:

https://mobile.twitter.com/skylancer7441/status/1287436177381916672

...

Half a dozen screenshots from Arirang video were posted there:

https://mobile.twitter.com/skylancer7441/status/1287448166518919169

Two more interior pics from elsewhere:

On 7/14/2020 at 2:47 AM, Eliz said:

3 feet 11 inches, about 120cm is normal interior height for most of the sedans.

IIRC sedans usually have doors to exit right next to passenger seats, not 5 feet away, and passengers usually do not seat with their back turned towards center line of the vehicle (or in opposite direction, with back turned towards left/right side of the vehicle).

On 7/14/2020 at 2:47 AM, Eliz said:

70cm is absolutely enough for

Depends on what kind of clothes or equipment people are wearing, and what they are doing (give everyone an RCV to control with some kind of joysticks, like MET-D demonstrator, you'll probably need more than 70cm).

But 19.5 inches equals to ~49.5cm

Quote

Why should you ask comfort or more number of dismaunts in a vehicle which is supposed to be on frontline taking hits from every direction.

It's not about such vague thing as comfort, it's about basic necessity required to prevent dismounts and crew from getting too tired too fast (thus - reportedly -decreasing their combat effectiveness).

Small infantry squad has a problem of seriously decreasing its combat effectiveness with only 2-3 people killed, IIRC what US Army's studies said about that.

IIUC in order to make vehicle substantially harder to hit compared to regular vehicles, nowadays or anytime during last 50 years or so, one have to make it much, much smaller, as even 30cm difference in height would not make that much of a difference. 

One could look at 1970s-1980s experiments with external pod guns and very small profile turrets, designed this way to decrease enemy's hit probability among other things, - as regular tank turrets looked too big, too easy to hit -

and frontal area of those regular tank turrets from back then is much smaller than any infantry-carrying-vehicle's hull

358.000 for T-64B (and 283.730 for T-72B) in 1987 according to the same post by Gurkhan.

Also, there was another set of prices, posted online by Vasiliy Chobitok (aka armor.kiev.ua), from information provided in 1999 by Ukrainian GBTU (Main armor and tank directorate) to Chief of Staff of the Ukrainian army,

on prices of AFVs in US dollars - apparently they were using prices from no later than 1987, and converted them into dollars at RUB/USD exchange rate of 1.56:1

AFAIK during mid-late 00s it was the main source on Soviet AFV prices in Russian community, until other publications become available - though unfortunately some of those numbers are still hard to check by looking elsewhere.

converted back to roubles:

BMP-1 69.409

BMP-2 146.565 

T-55 62.910

T-55AM 92.742

T-62 52.930

T-62M 98.414

T-64 148.000

T-64A 159.636

T-64B 328.678

T-64B1 270.471

T-64BV 343.608

T-72A 216.184

T-72B 270.000

T-80 600.000

T-80B 530.000

T-80UD 733.000

From another post by Chobitok - same numbers, accompanied by numbers on BMDs and BTRs

converted back to roubles:

BMD-1 88.300

BMD-2 112.000

BTR-70 29.390

BTR-80 69.300

BTR-152 "around 10.000"

btw, Kostenko in his book compared T-72B vs T-80U (so, late 80s prices) - 280.000 incl. 15.000 for diesel engine, and 824.000 including 104.000 for gas turbine

from one of UVZ's books, IIRC one on 80th anniversary, starting from second year of T-72's production

"Full production cost"

There was also another cost apparently, optovaya tsena ("wholesale cost" or something like that) - as far as I can tell, but I could be wrong, it says how much State actually pays for this thing to the tank plant.

It should be higher than production cost, and with tanks it apparently was, as some reported numbers on tank cost for the same year and same tank are different.

(Reportedly in some cases it could be lower than production cost - so, military, erm, division loses money on every one of those things sold - but if it's a part of larger company which also produces other things for civilians, those other things could become more expensive to cover losses. Or not - it was a Soviet economy, after all, AFAIK literally nothing owned by the State could ever go bankrupt. Well, "ever"... until whole country became bankrupt)

Nothing as detailed as this was published on any T-64 version so far.

There was mention in one book (could be Kostenko's "Tanks (tactics, technology, economics)", or TiV magazine article on T-80, but I'm not sure), according to which in 1974 T-80's cost was 480.000 and T-64A's 143.000.

There were also numbers on wholesale cost of T-64 (432) in first 3 years of production (1963-1965, when 254 tanks were produced in total) - 200.000, 192.000 and 183.000 respectively (published in Tehnika I Vooruzheniye 2011-04).

And then there were numbers posted on Russian Otvaga2004.mybb.ru forum by Aleksey Khlopotov (aka Gurkhan) - he claimed that in 1976 T-72 was 18.500 roubles aka 12.25% more expensive then T-64A; he also says that next year T-64 become 4.000 roubles more expensive, and T-72 become 6.500 roubles cheaper, so difference decreased to 8.000 roubles or 5.16%.

As I've calculated, all that means 151.000 for T-64A (and 169.500 for T-72) in 1976, and 155.000 vs 163.000 in 1977.

/IIUC that's only group of numbers, which in the beginning gives difference of exactly 12.25% and in the end - of exactly 5.16%, every other pair I've checked failed in one or another./

...

One thing which seems to be missed by some people is the fact that

out of 13.8+7+17.8=38.6 thousand of T-64/72/80  tanks Soviet Army have recieved,

less than half (46.1%) were T-72s

IIRC UVZ's 80th anniversary book, on tank production:

Tagil production of 20574 and Chelyabinsk production of 1522 equals to almost 22.1 thousand

12.5 thousand of T-64A/B in this chart does not include T-64 (obj. 432), 1297 of those, which gives 13.8 thousand.

7 thousand T-80s.

another chat from the same book:

19.65 thousand of T-62s produced during entire production run

53 minutes ago, Calicifer said:

 

...that view ignores some of the things published (in Russian) on Soviet tank development during last decade or so, such as Ustiantsev/Kolmakov's book on T-72/90 - and other books from "UVZ's combat vehicles" series too,

and also Chobitok/Tarasenko's book on T-64.

Quote

USSR had produced up to 100,000 T-55 and its variants during 30 year span. This comes to an average of 3,333 tanks per year.

...that should include T-54 and T-55s, T-62s, T-72s -

and 12+7 thousand of T-64s and T-80 too. No other way to get even relatively close to 100.000 figure

4 hours ago, Calicifer said:

As for T-64, tank was never a meant for mass production in a same quantities as their main battle tank lines hence its serial production. 

1964's plan for 1920 T-64s in 1968 and 2550 in 1970 (or 8670 during first 5 years) begs to differ.

5 more years of exactly 2000/year, and this thing would exceed number of T-72's reportedly delivered to Soviet Army in real life. 1 year on top of that - and it would exceed number of T-62s reportedly delivered to Soviet Army.

4 hours ago, Calicifer said:

Idea of T-72 comes from 60's as a merging between T-62 and T-64

object 167 (and 167M) and T-64A

4 hours ago, Calicifer said:

in an effort to make a mass production variant which would be cheap to produce

No information on promised T-72's cost, but real cost figures were published for 1974-1989, and T-64A's cost is known for some years of its production run, so in the end - it turns out that during 1970s basic T-72 newer was cheaper than T-64A.

32 minutes ago, Calicifer said:

in early 60's

Quote

T-64 was a lemon design. T-72 was still miles away at that time

T-72 was not expected to exist at that time. At all. 

Plans to switch by 1966-1967 all 3 soviet medium tank factories, and one former heavy tank factory (Tagil, Kharkov, Omsk, Chelyabinsk) to T-64 production were drawn in 1964 by State Committee of Defense Technology with expectations of having only one single medium tank in production (starting from ~ 1967 or 1968), just like it was with T-54 in early - mid 50s

That plan failed completely, as we know, but before it they made some changes, apparently - it seems like that switch to T-64 was moved to later date, as Tagil started preparations for producing T-64 (by making attempts to simplify it), only in like 1967 or something.