delete013

Promo shot from the recent ergonomics testing.

1 hour ago, Lord_James said:

I need a little help, I don't know how to model a "modern" commanders cupola, with all the amenities, without making it too damn big. 

Use a low hexagonal prism as an all around periscopes

48 minutes ago, mr.T said:

Boxer program for Slovenia makes absolutely no sense as they already bought Patria AMVs , adding another type to the mix is crazy not to mention Boxer is just about the most expensive option out there 

Hasn't that deal fallen through?

14 hours ago, Fareastmenace said:

I'm actually interested in this.

For example, if a round penetrates the crew comptartment, but to immediately get absorbed by something non essential, do we consider that simply entering the crew compartment generate enough spall? And if so, what kind of spall cone can we expect?

Any penetration of crew compartment is armour failure, simple. Catching shrapnel between teeth is for the movies.

19 hours ago, Sturgeon said:

 

"Protection" means that at least one atom of formerly-tank vapor must survive.

That is a very Soviet threshold.

On 5/23/2021 at 10:22 AM, Newtonk said:

 

Does anyone here have the attached image in high res, please? Or, point me in the direct I may find it? It is from ATDU and shows the most current digital camo of the Challenger 2. Thank you

 

Brits finally switching to Flecktarn?

9 hours ago, Sturgeon said:

As those of you on the Discord may know

How to infiltrate your discord?

11 hours ago, Jeeps_Guns_Tanks said:

 

Was it a case of "This thing is such a pile of trash, we better not run it?"

I think it was rather "why are we so helpless without strategic bombers and naval artillery?"

10 hours ago, Sten said:

MUH NERA

 

Birgus, (or Lynx, don't know yet the name) the Fulda Gap fever dream:

 

The day we started measuring armour in meters.

9 hours ago, roguetechie said:

 

1. Sloped plates, low silhouette, small or narrow turret cross section/how late cold war tanks are designed.

 

You must be looking at different late cold war tanks than the rest of us because this is all just outright puzzling.

Fine we have different understanding of the matter. I was brought to believe that such things matter by a number of observations, design principles of Leopard 2 and M1 Abrams, both late Cold war tanks. Rolf Hilmes in his Kampfpanzer describes in section 2.3 "Überlebensfähigkeitsbestimmende Elemente" the height of the vehicle as an important factor in the so called passive chance of getting hit (Trefferwahrscheinlichkeit). A number of projects in the 80ies in the US, USSR, Sweden and Germany attempted to explore the feasibility of external gun mounting, moving crew into the hull or very low hull or turret designs.

Development of US heights.

Explicitly lowered hull by tilting the driver's seat of an Abrams

External cannon mount without a turret

Nexter's design looks more similar to the boxy, tall vehicle of the Land Combat System from 2003. Hence, my remark.

9 hours ago, roguetechie said:

2. (Second paragraph thing)

On the superstructure on suspension things, I just flat have no idea what you mean by superstructure. On the suspension thing, reference my prior comments about these being graphic arts concepts more than anything like a concept drawing. Even if they planned to do it exactly like this though, with hydrogas suspension components etc it shouldn't particularly be a problem perse.

Upper square is the "superstructure". I assume it is there because the entire crew is in the hull. This clashes with the "deviantart" images.

Lower square is my issue with suspension travel. At any serious obstacle those side plates will hit the floor.

9 hours ago, roguetechie said:

These "concepts" are too derpy to be all that serious to be honest.

I assume it is Nexter's concept demonstration of digital battlefield, rather than detailed vehicle model.

7 minutes ago, Sturgeon said:

 

With stealth seeking missiles!

You got me there!

5 minutes ago, GregHouse said:

Congratulations, it's only Monday and you win the prize for "most retarded thing I read on the internet this week"

So how was F-117 shot down over Serbia then?

13 minutes ago, Sturgeon said:

 

Which is why no one flies stealth aircraft anymore, of course!

Contemporary "stealth" fighters aren't stealth.
 

Anyways, can one use Blender for your contest?

5 hours ago, Toxn said:

I'm already putting together a submission, so the offer is for help rather than firing up a group project. Again, though, give a shout if any help is needed.

Alright, thanks.

18 minutes ago, GregHouse said:

That's like saying that no one will ever try to shoot down a stealth aircraft because everyone knows how stealthy the aircraft is.

It took exactly one shot down F-117 to render entire fleet useless.

..besides, it was a joke.

28 minutes ago, Beer said:

You are wrong. It is deliberately as wide as the tank itself, i.e. its width is maximum possible. Look at the tank from the top and you may realize why. 

You mean the turret cheeks?

18 minutes ago, Beer said:

 

Sorry to jump into this thread while I don't take part in the competition myself but I have some questions. 

 

How do you assemble the armor arrays in these cavities (front hull and turret cheeks) or maybe better to ask how are those cavities made? They don't look castable at all to me. Are they welded from cast pieces? If so I can still see assembly of the special armor arrays as very inconvenient for a mass production if not impossible. 

It's actually plastic mould. But because entire N.America will know the thickness, nobody will be shooting at it.

On 5/15/2021 at 9:35 AM, Toxn said:

@delete013 I should also mention that I'll happily help with your entry if you need it. I have a bunch of spreadsheets for calculating MMP, gun energy from barrel pressure, armour and penetration.

I don't think I have energy to do it alone. But we can do in tandem, if you're up for it.

On 5/15/2021 at 3:20 PM, Lord_James said:

In what world? Have you seen 1980s and 1990s designed tanks? They’re almost all boxes with fat turrets (M1 Abrams, Leopard 2, Leclerc, Challenger, Type 90, Ariete). 

On 5/15/2021 at 3:46 PM, Beer said:

Even the T-90A and M and Oplot-M have boxy turrets which are intentionally as wide as possible because there is a very good reason for that.  

ow low are those hull and turret?

Isn't that because the primary aim of late cold war protection is not to get hit easily? The size grew purely due to size of spaced and composite armour, which is irrelevant if it gets hit sideways. If the future designs feature bulky turrets with small crew compartment, it is also okay.

Why would T-90 have deliberately broad turret? Broader turret is afaik undesired but unavoidable, long bustle likewise.

1 minute ago, delete013 said:

there seems to be a superstructure that adds to the weight

..to the height. [why can't I modify my posts?]

6 hours ago, roguetechie said:

Which best practices are you specifically on about?

Low silhouette, sloped plates where possible, small or narrow cross-section of turrets. More or less how late cold war tanks were designed.

6 hours ago, roguetechie said:

Let's start with your bulky complaint:

 

You do know that NERA is a thing right and that due to the specifics of how nera works it tends to be very mass efficient but comparatively massive right?

Good, so it is the composite armour that needs space.

6 hours ago, roguetechie said:

Now let's go to the tall thing:

 

How exactly are you getting that they're especially tall? I see the opposite TBH but I wouldn't even want to speculate on the height since there's nothing to gauge the scale by.

Maybe it is not so tall, or at lest, the crew capsule is lower under the bulky armour. You might notice though that there is a flat window before the driver and there seems not much space for armour. It looks like driver's shot trap on a challenger 2. The hull itself is tall relative to vehicle width and there seems to be a superstructure that adds to the weight. All this are vulnerabilities that were attempted to be solved by tilting drivers chair back and lower the hull. Is that simply gone now?

6 hours ago, roguetechie said:

What about little space for suspension:

 

Gonna be honest here, this one blatantly makes it clear that you're just bitching to bitch with no actual grounding for any of it.

I think that part is my most credible observation. The hull is very low. The final drive housing extends almost all the way to the track. Where is suspension travel supposed to go? It looks more akin to Churchill's suspension.

6 hours ago, roguetechie said:

And Last, you're talking about the armor package of CONCEPT DRAWINGS.

 

You have no grounds to speculate about any of this at all.

Sure, I merely asked why is it so. Maybe I don't know something.

On 5/7/2021 at 12:11 AM, Beer said:

The Germans had 84 Panthers and a lot of other AFVs.

On 5/7/2021 at 12:11 AM, Beer said:

Also very few losses came from German counter attacks. Four tank commanders were killed by snipers.

This is an entirely unsourced estimate:

The last quote should be a clue to indicate that Germans didn't have 84 panthers and a lot of AFVs where Czech brigade was fighting. They likely had so few that no mobile reserve was able to be formed. Hence, no counter-attacks. Snipers were a typical German low asset delaying tactic. Fortifications were a mere delaying factor in German doctrine, which without an active reserve is basically a speedbump. The depth indicates that Germans had nothing mobile to counter an expected armoured attack.
If you find German side of the story (Heinrici's opinion on the situation, for example), then you might get some credible facts out of this.

On 5/4/2021 at 8:13 PM, Toxn said:

Oh wow, it managed to come out looking even worse than in the Soviet trials.

On 5/5/2021 at 7:46 AM, Jeeps_Guns_Tanks said:

 

Yeah, it so bad, even Delete can't spin it as a win... 

British reports are Altschnee. They first drove a broken tank (slower than a Chuchill, had broken suspension and missing the third gear) and the post war production tests started with neutral steering, which is what German drivers were told explicitly to avoid. There was likely other weird things involved because Soviets could finish their turning radius tests with neutral steering! If Brits wanted to break the vehicle, then they easily succeeded.
There is another important factor that I failed to point out before. 100km on a road and 100 km in combat are two entirely different categories. Since German tried hard to relocate with trains, then large fraction of driven kms were likely off-road.

16 hours ago, TokyoMorose said:

 

See, I get the feeling that just like Critical Mass - you only read bits and pieces.

 

If you read the whole comment chain, there were other units that likely had AT guns attached - in particular the Norge PanzerGren regiment. Which does have organic AT in their TO&E, and probably had supplementary AT attached (largely because as the German army slowly disintegrated, attaching stragglers from wiped out units to surviving ones was extremely common.)

 

Also I highly doubt that with over 600 panzerfaust in the area, that they did little damage. Soviets spend time whining about panzerfausts, and we know from German records that about 1,300-,1400 men armed with at least 600 panzerfausts were in the area. The whole crux of the argument rests on the soviets saying "projectile impact" - but who is to say the local Soviet commander didn't count Panzerfausts as projectiles? They certainly are projectiles.

Sure, they did also damage, just not likely so much. The "projectile" category alone would be dubious but not if there is a separate category of hand held AT weapons!

Quote

Tank losses to Faust in 2nd GTA and 5th SA during the whole Berlin operation were few. The 11th Heavy GTBr, f.e. did not report any losses to Faustpatr. Losses listed under "Anti tank gun" or "artillery" includes tank guns and is better charakterised as "losses to projectile hits", therefore it is entirely justified to consider TIGER beeing responsible for tank kills in such instances.

Quote

It´s possible that the latter [Norge] had a few 37mm or 50mm ATG.

Not the most convincing AT asset. It is clear that tigers and perhaps those stugs had by far the best chances of destroying armour. From Strausberg, tigers had a nice view of the area. The type of tanks was made for such dueling.

I read again. It seems pretty bulletproof analysis. Not 100%, for sure, but as high as the best ww2 records can give.

58 minutes ago, Lord_James said:

There appears to be an additional variable that you are willfully ignoring... 

Which one?

58 minutes ago, Lord_James said:

Also, you say to “doubt the claims”, yet you take the CLAIM that the soviets knocked out a Tiger B, at face value. Cherry-picking? 

I didn't! 503 admits to the loss. This is just another indicator that tigers were there.

1 minute ago, Toxn said:

How is any of this incompatible with my supposition? Surely the Occam's razor approach would dictate that, if there were plenty of other Nazi forces in the area and the Soviets were not aware of taking losses from tanks, that the losses were mostly not from Nazi tanks?

There weren't any other AT guns in the area beside 9 tigers and 5 stugs! 

1 minute ago, Toxn said:

How do you square pinning all these losses on this one unit? Did the rest of the army just sit back for the day, while the Soviet tankers inexplicably started blaming panzerfausts for 88mm shell hits? And how does the Soviet diary not notice that their concentration point got sniped, and that the scouting party that they sent in later in the day apparently all had T-34s?

They didn't inflict all the losses of Hgr. Weichsel, but lions share. With Stugs, they were the only AT cannon-equipped unit in the area. There was nobody else to do that job there.

Soviets had several failed attacks, not just recce attempt. tankarchives is wrong here and critical mass provides overview based on combat reports.

Because of tremendous concentration of forces were Sovietstl delayed only for a few days. One doesn't need three days to get from Grünow to Berlin. Soviets had 120 IS-2 before Strausberg! Plus T-34 and assault guns.

Come on lads, I'm repeating myself.

8 hours ago, Sturgeon said:

Some genuine fucking advice, mate. The Americans lied all the time. The Soviets lied all the time. This does not mean that the reality is "actually our side is the liar culture and their side was the truth culture". Everyone fucking lied. Every society in the 20th Century (and many other centuries, but especially that one and this one), had a penchant for lies.

Just because the Americans lied about My Lai does not mean the Nazis didn't lie about kill counts. Or Auschwitz, and be careful how close one takes you to the other.

The key to becoming a good historian, speaking as someone who frankly is a pretty decent one, is to recognize lies. And you're not looking at truth, with this Korner dude.

I never said everyone else lied. There is a good reason why I do not accept the available versions of Arracourt. The thesis you posted has a major flaw, it lacks cross checking and is based almost entirely on claims. It has nothing to do with actual US performance there. Maybe it was one of the best in war, who knows. No serious historian or military analyst takes German or any other claims at face value. You guys start the discussion with the conviction of German official sources being Nazi propaganda and proceed with proving it as if it was countering holocaust denial. Not a very sporty behaviour and certainly not in the spirit of military ethos.