XDrake

38 minutes ago, Newtonk said:

 

Leo 1 and 2 turrets on a Patton tank, thanks to Gur Khan for the image. Makes for an interesting hybrid.

 

If I remember correctly those M48 hulls were used to move the turrets around a gun range, but the turrets were not able to rotate.

18 hours ago, LoooSeR said:

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   Crews of trucks started to put those strings around cabins for some reason.

 

Maybe it is a way to see if someone tinkered with the vehicle while it is unattended. You cant open the door or hood without having to manipulate the string. That is pure speculation though.

https://www.janes.com/article/95812/germany-and-france-sign-mgcs-framework-agreement

Germany and France sign MGCS framework agreement.

https://esut.de/2020/04/meldungen/20255/deutsch-franzoesisches-abkommen-zum-neuen-kampfpanzer-mgcs-unterzeichnet/

According to this article two of the five phases of the project have been completed already.

@Molota_477 Really well done! I like the stylization.

3 hours ago, Bronezhilet said:

@XDrake

 

https://mega.nz/#!19N3VbbY!tSb2gj4Ms9Lzk__m7tSVna2CNqdMu4twjIiU_pF2Wa0

 

"Theoretical Study of a Diesel-Filled Airtight Structure Unit Subjected to Shaped Charge Jet Impact" by Gao et al

 

Enjoy.

Thank you very much. Gonna enjoy this read.

@Renegade334 @Collimatrix Thanks for your responses I thought I read something about fuel tanks being used as armor. Interesting stuff. I think its not only internal fueltanks that serve as chemical penetrator protection in some cases. The Stridsvagn 103 also has some jerry cans placed alongside the hull sides. Id imagine that placement has the same goal in mind. 

Is it true that some tank designs incorporate fuel tanks as armor? How do fuel tanks work as armor and is there any literature on that?

14 hours ago, EnsignExpendable said:

The Americans had addon armour developed for the M10 GMC. It was trialled but never deployed IIRC.

Did not know that, but addon armor on the M10 doesnt sound reasonable since its probably not supposed to take fire from anything larger than infantry rifles anyways

14 hours ago, Scolopax said:

 

There are photographs and drawings in the Panzer Tracts volume on it and the Maus.  Link with pdf download below:

 

 

WoT has the skirts' armor value at 60mm, but I can't say if that's an official number.

 

I did some search on Google myself and the specific values seem to vary.

1 hour ago, Legiondude said:

 

I don't see anything in Panzer Tracts 6-3 about those plates thicknesses. It's possible they weren't armor steel and considered semi-disposable, like the plates on the Tigers

 

Skimming Google, there looks to be a US Intel profile of the armor on a Roblox wiki of all things, but it only lists the armor angles. That angle measurement may have been misinterpreted in the decades following, as this more modern image assumes 60mm armor thickness instead of 60 degrees angle on the upper side. This profile from a Russian publication seems to suggest in the ballpark though, at 55mm.

Looking in Special Panzer Variants by Spielberger, there doesn't seem mention of the plates thicknesses either. There could be information gleaned from the blueprints though. But the originals were lost or buried in the archives(AFAIK, Yuri Pasholok does have one of the design prints for the turret assembly though). As Spielberger tells, after the war, one of the guys behind the E-100's assembly was roped in Operation Paperclip and offered to recreate the blueprints from memory, which is this thing. It's large, but still too low resolution to properly read it. Luckily, Spielberger has a copy in his book spread over two pages and is quite legible. We can utilize the front or rear image faces to scale things properly and try to get an estimate at least to the bottom lip thickness of the side plates.

 

tl;dr - Running an estimate on the forward face, I got an estimate on the lip just before it meets the front corner of the hull of about 71mm. Running a separate estimate based on the top view, with the hull width run against the plate thickness that is vertical and parallel to the hull, I got 68mm. I could probably get more specific if I had a better copy of the plans, or a more precise measuring tool than MS Paint's coordinate system assisted with some number crunching in Excel.

Nice job. According to this post from the War Thunder website your estimates seem to be about right. They state 75mm. They also have some interesting pictures of their recreation process.

Is there actually any documentation on the sideskirts that are portrayed on most model kits and video game models of the E-100? If thats the case what were the supposed armored values? I think its also pretty much an innovation in german armour design in WW2. Havent seen any addon/modular armor on other WW2 tanks.

example here:

3 hours ago, Karamazov said:

This XM-1 was with hydropneumatic suspension?

I think only the Geneal Motors protoype had a hydropneumatic suspension. According to Hunnicutt the Chrysler prototype had a torsion bar suspension.

1 hour ago, Priory_of_Sion said:

Hello, that's the SU-152p, had to make sure it wasn't the SU-152g. 

Damn, nice one.

First post, long time lurker. Might be a difficult one.