N-L-M

>superheavy shells don't real
>surface gunnery radar don't real
>superior speed don't real
>superior reloading equipment don't real
>DP secondary battery don't real
>actual TDS don't real
>Panama canal trafficability don't real
>fuel efficiency don't real
>Judging battleships by ideal 1v1 slugfest at known range in ideal weather and visibility instead of what battleships actually do
 
Newsflash: you're retarded.

>superheavy shells don't real
>surface gunnery radar don't real
>superior speed don't real
>superior reloading equipment don't real
>DP secondary battery don't real
>actual TDS don't real
>Panama canal trafficability don't real
>fuel efficiency don't real
>Judging battleships by ideal 1v1 slugfest at known range in ideal weather and visibility instead of what battleships actually do
 
Newsflash: you're retarded.

@Peasant,
 
If I may, I'm a bit of a scientist on the internet.
 
First, in regards to the Zero, if it was as good as you claim, why wasn't its name One, or even Three?
 
Secondly, if the Zero was indeed superior, why did the Imperials use them to kamikaze (sp?)  into American Battle Boats?

>superheavy shells don't real
>surface gunnery radar don't real
>superior speed don't real
>superior reloading equipment don't real
>DP secondary battery don't real
>actual TDS don't real
>Panama canal trafficability don't real
>fuel efficiency don't real
>Judging battleships by ideal 1v1 slugfest at known range in ideal weather and visibility instead of what battleships actually do
 
Newsflash: you're retarded.

>superheavy shells don't real
>surface gunnery radar don't real
>superior speed don't real
>superior reloading equipment don't real
>DP secondary battery don't real
>actual TDS don't real
>Panama canal trafficability don't real
>fuel efficiency don't real
>Judging battleships by ideal 1v1 slugfest at known range in ideal weather and visibility instead of what battleships actually do
 
Newsflash: you're retarded.

WEEABOO'S BACK ON THE MENU, BOYS!

I like this template idea too.  I already mentioned the main reason for me not bothering to figure out any hard stats (some classes I'm in right now already having a lot of this same sort of work), but seeing how much math and detail everyone else was putting into their submissions at the time was giving me the impression that I'd have to calculate out all sorts of junk if I wanted to have a chance to compete with them.  One of my classes I'm in has me designing some gadget down to the last nut and bolt, so I wasn't exactly feeling too motivated to go do nearly the same thing in my free time too.  I've got little knowledge when it comes to designing cartridges or understanding engines, so going into serious detail about either of those was a worry as well.
 
A lot of those restrictions I felt were self-imposed on my end, but I'd have probably felt more motivated to complete my submission if I had a clearer idea of when the math would stop giving credence to the design and would start becoming mere fluff.

So i will do a post about competition as a whole, about submissions, give some advices and cover some other minute things. Will update this particular post with my views of each proposed AFVs. 
 
   In general
   Overal level of submissions was both higher and lower than previous time. Best designs of this competition were more detailed and thought out compared to last time, but we also had a surprising number of proposals that didn't even get through basic requirements, which were more generous than they were before. Several members of this forum who wanted to participate, didn't managed to finish their submissions, sadly. Combination of those 2 factors left judges with a strange situation when only 2.5 tanks designs in 45 ton category were available for actual judging.
   Submissions themselves also varied in quality. Lack of at least basic guidlines is probably one of reasons. Some of them were simply hard to read, others had way too much useless information for judges to go through. In my personal case this isn't really a problem, but we have people who have not much time for going through internet stuff. I will propose few things here. @A. T. Mahan's and @Sturgeon's posts are what i am thinking right now. Writing all text in bold IMO is just a step less obnoxious than writing everything IN CAPS. Writing a War and Peace is not needed for short description of your submissions, either.
   During disussion of vehicles, i also found hard to find specific values that were needed for one or another reason. We need some sort of general layout for submission that will allow for judges to compare designs more... fairly, i guess. Even location of description of features is sometimes confusing when jumping from bookmarks/pages between 3-5 different vehicles. In my case, i managed to miss a feature of gunner optics of @N-L-M Norman.
 
   Improvements for submissions
   First of all i propose to introduce a general layout of submission, that will help to orginize and standartize each entry in this competition, and will help for competitors to better represent their creations. For judges this will allow for easier comparison between entries/submissions. 
 
  Submission (Name, etc)
Short description of what the fuck is this thing and why it have 5 tracks, 3 main guns and rotor blades in the bottom List or table of stats, matching with list or table of requirements. Will allow you to understand if you fucked up something as basic as size and for judges it will help to see if they need to pay attention to everything below this part of submission Nice MS Paint pics of your creation Description of design, general features and some thoughts List of features, maybe a place for "advanced" requirements stats. Stats should go in this order - Protection Survivability, Armament, FCS, Mobility, etc Few more pics and detailed stats Trashbin for everything else, in spoiler.  
   This should allow for less random or strange crap from happening and generally will help to improve quality of our time spend on competitions.
 
 
   About designs that were eliminated from competition.
   In this contest judges (i was one of 3 judges) threw several vehicles outside of our SH bar because they were too drunk, and left them under cold rain of non-acceptance, drugs and diseased prostitutes. I already posted about this, but some people wanted more details.
 
ApplesauceBandit for lack of any stats to work with Sturgeon's Donward was too fat for requirements, even with side skirts removed. A.T. Mahan's T44 was proposed by me to be disqualified based on number of features that will be covered in more details.     I want to point out that all i will say here were my thoughts on this subject, other judges could have their own view on a submission.
 
   1) Armor was one of reasons why this vehicle was outside of general level of tech, suggested in a competition.
   As was discussed several times on different forums depleted uranium is a type of material that is very hard to work on safely. They are problems with it during machining process and other crap which would make it too hard or too costly to produce with 1940-1950s level of industry. Making just M1 Abrams-type armor is directly going against the background/backstory of contest. Simple ERA like Kontakt-1 or Kontakt-5 is ok for me, as those could be produced in given timeframe (they were not produced in 1940s or 50s for other reasons). But if we are going with ceramic-polymer layered armor with DU and similar, all other contestants could start to put MERAs, Active cell T-80U-like armor packages, APS, jammers and so on, on their basic vehicles. This is 100% sure against proposed timeframe quoted by Lost.
 
   2) WTF is happening with a weight of T44?
   So it is 41 metric tons unloaded, and 58 tons loaded. Does this mean that you need to strip 17 tons of equipment from a vehicle in order for it to fit into required weight? Did you know that T-90A weight as much as M4 Sherman?*
 
*if you strip 17 tons from it by removing ammunition, fuel, ERA, turret, autoloader and probably an engine as well.
 
 
   3) This reason was less of a problem from requirements point of view, but cemented my view of this vehicle as Abrams wankery.
   Why would anybody even look at gas turbines while having 1950s level of tech? Gas turbines have reason to exist only with level of tech of around 1980s or now, with computerized control. In 1950s nobody had 1000 HP compact gas turbine on a 40-50 tons tank in serviceable condition.
 
 
 

[BMPT HATE Intensifies]

A/4-68 Armor Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division was reactivated today, meaning the US Army officially has air dropped armor again.
 

 

for some reason the hull looks like KV-1

The French were hard at work getting rid of the last supplies of Nazi meth.

I am honoured to accept lifelong house arrest and confinement in the name of designing glorious tanks for our sacred motherland.
 
I will place the coaxial machinegun in a more suitable position where it can wound all crewman equally, so as to enact the egalitarian principles of our supreme state.

After 23 days of drinking booze and random disappearing, judges finally picked winners of this competition!
 
   In a 45 ton category we came to the conclusion that a member of this forum, who only recently joined to us, was able to surpass all other contestants with his tank design. He earns a title of The Glorious Tank Autist of SH - comrade @N-L-M!
   His XM-2239 "Norman" tank was chosen by all judges as the best submissions of this competition. His work was fighting with Toxn's heavy tank for a 1st place, and managed to overtake it.
 

 
   @Sturgeon's XM12 "Donward" was disqualified from the competition as it was not fitting into one of basic requirements (width, 3.35 meters without skirts vs 3.25 meters required). 
   @A. T. Mahan's 120mm gun tank T44 also was disqualified for use of armor tech that was out of competition-imposed industrial capabilities limitation (1940-1950s level of tech)
   @ApplesauceBandit's AFVs were also not in a competition as submission was lacking in any stats, so we couldn't understand if vehicle fits into basic requirements. 
 
 
   In 25 ton category a rivalry was stronger as more light tanks proposals managed to get through basic requirements. Judges examined several war vehicles proposed by A.T. Mahan, Sturgeon, NLM, Toxn, and made their choice. The winner of this category is no other than a Supreme Warrior of Napkinpanzers comrade @Toxn!*
 
*vehicle should receive a change in co-axial MG placement, as now it is a danger for driver's head when he is entering/exiting his station or anytime when he have his head outside of the hatch.
 

Our Great AFV designer Toxn pictured with tank drivers that his tank is going to kill before modernization programm will be launched to reposition co-axial MG to a safer place.
 

Place for a memorial is ready to accept new heroes of SH Tank design bureau.** 
**Not in Kharkov
 
   Winners of this competition now should receive their prizes, after that - locked in their houses and allowed to get out only to work on AFV designs until retirement.

We are almost done, all judges picked their choices. Just one thing is left before winners will be announced.

So update, certain key officials have gone missing. We are not sure if they have been kidnapped, and or if it was the California Crazies, or desert cultists, or corporate shenanigans.  No body has been found at this time. We will keep you posted. 
 
 
FAX# 555-LUV-3TIT with any info on officials. 

The local university had a book sale, so I basically swept up everything with as much as the word "tank" in it off the military history table.
 

 
But wait, there's more. Zoom, enhance!
 

 
These books bound in red cloth are each worth as much as the rest of that stack combined. 
 

 
They're official histories of the Canadian army, published only a few years after the war with the backing of the Department of National Defense. As a result they have amazing photographs and maps actually drawn by military cartographers.
 

 
And the best part is that since they've been printed 70 years ago, so they're all out of copyright

T-64 post, with T-64A section is up.
@Collimatrix
@Scolopax
@Bronezhilet
@N-L-M

Let me say, this has been a scandal-ridden procurement program!  There have been safety problems, gross violations of the required stats,  and rumors of bribery! Also, the "marketing proposals" were disappointing, and the synthetic refreshments at the conference were very low energy and the three-breasted "hosts", were possibly disease-ridden and confirmed radioactive!  AND someone may have leaked this info to the crazies in California, and they may be coming up with some insane super tank!
 
The world has gone MAD!

We should have results soonish.  Just an FYI.

I should probably clarify what is the grognard's opinions - and these are opinions, he hasn't seen any actual design documents on the R-27/AA-10 - and what are my own assumptions working off of what he posited. 

Grognard (almost verbatim):
 
The [R-27...] was designed as something that would counter the AIM-7F missile and would have better maneuverability and expanded F-Pole over the Sparrow.
 
The missile is much larger than Sparrow, particularly the longer range variants.
 
The stuff he's seen says that the AA-10 has Canard control. I guess you could take your choice whether its Canard or Mid-body wing control. In any event, the control fins are place closer to mid-body than to the nose.  These mid-body control finds need to be larger to generate maneuvers because the moment arm between the center-of-pressure and center-of-gravity is much smaller than for true canard or tail control. The sparrow also has large wings for this reason.
 
Given the large size of the control surfaces, he suspects that the designers were trying to provide “wing-like” surface for long range flight profiles that are quoted. The higher aspect surfaces are of higher aspect ratio, and that in turn provides an improved lift-to-drag ratio on lifting surfaces.
 
This is the only missile he can recall that has control surfaces extended out past the tail fins. The longer (and narrower) control surfaces would concentrate the dynamic loading such that the individual surfaces would have the center of pressure closer to the control hinge axis. This means the surfaces can be rotated with less torque than something like the AIM-7. As such, the control surface actuators would require less power to operate and would most likely respond faster while still maintaining sufficient force to affect the body rotation during maneuvering.   
 
He thinks the drawback of this design is that the wings would interfere with conventional launch rail systems, and would not fit into internal weapons bays. This may be why you don’t see a lot of this design; however, from an aerodynamic perspective, he thinks the long, narrower fins are more efficient both in reducing drag and in minimizing control torque requirement.

OnlySlightlyCrazy:

One of the leading factors in a missile's RMax is it's battery life - many missiles can aerodynamically hit targets much further than their battery can last out to. Thus, having more efficient control surfaces on a missile desiring long range makes sense.

As to why the fins are midbody - that's the swappable nosecone bit that Colli shared. That image also explains the forward angle on the midbody fins; you want your fins to be as large as possible since they're midbody, and you want them as far forward as you can get them without intruding into the autopilot or Target Detection Device sections. Thus, having it swept forward means you get a wider fin farther forward, and get to not intrude into other necessary components. That forward sweep is frankly the only usual part of the fin - combining a forward sweep with a conventional fin geometry is what gets you the axe-body. 

I'm happy to take a crack at further questions myself, or forward them to said grognard before he retires and or dies. 

New photo of Object 195
 

 
Oh f*ck. Itsa awesome 

Surely $45 and $25?

So far i picked my "Top 3" lists of designs for a 45 t and for 25 t tanks, suggested what submissions should be dropped out of competition. Because of time zone differences and all this "life" thing, it may take a little more for judges to finalize things. But we are almost at a finishing line.

I've never seen a color picture of a Tiger II being recovered and towed before.