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Collimatrix

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Everything posted by Collimatrix

  1. Collimatrix
    It's interesting that you usually hear of the "driver in turret" concept in connection to MBT-70, but the Soviets actually produced far more prototypes and paper projects using that configuration.
  2. Collimatrix
    I was very confused as to why you were toasting the engines of the F-84 and F-89 until I looked at the pictures. SAAB builds quite sound airframes, but they're hamstrung by the engines. The DB unit in the J-21 was reliable and well-designed, but just too damn weak by the time the thing took to the air. The jet conversion used a first-generation jet turbine, and all first-generation jet turbines were ass. I'm assuming similar applies to the lansen. The engine in the draken was too big, the engine in the viggen was too thirsty. The engine in the gripen is amazingly reliable, has a good power to weight ratio and is reasonably efficient, but it's too damn small. What's more, if the US wants to hip-check the Swedes on the export market and sell more F-16s, they do possess the ability to pull the manufacture license for the engine.
  3. Collimatrix
    IKV 91 is rather tall IMO. STRV-2000 is hilarious; that 140mm cannon was utterly nuts, and the Russians are eternal poor sports for quitting the Cold War so it didn't have anything that needed shot at with a gun that gigantic.
  4. Collimatrix
    I mentioned to The_Warhawk at the Wargaming player meetup that The_Chieftain needs to do an inside the hatch of the IS-7. He said he'd definitely pass it along. I think we all want a nice, long four-parter describing in indulgent detail all the bells and whistles on everyone's favorite communist techno-death-chariot. Also, prepare y'allselves for some Russian Bias.
  5. Collimatrix
    Aha, indeed. It would appear that the JWST will live at L2. It seems that the station-keeping delta-V required to live at L2 is quite modest, so perhaps a nuclear powered electrical system is not required.
  6. Collimatrix
    You're right, Toxn. It was in Collapse. Given how ghastly Scandanavian fish dishes are, I can see why the Viking settlers were opposed to the idea of fishing.
  7. Collimatrix
    For all your STRV-2000 needs. As for the concepts that S-tank beat out, I've only ever seen the FTR writeup: http://ftr.wot-news.com/2014/08/06/swedish-tanks-part-xv-strv-a-strv-t-strv-k/
  8. Collimatrix
    Guys, I'm just about done with research for a mega-post (which is sort of like an essay, but less rigorous) on nuclear energy. Are there any topics you would like to see me cover in particular?
  9. Collimatrix
    If it wouldn't have had torsion bars, then why are the road wheels offset?
  10. Collimatrix
    What's the story on that Chinese smoothbore firing unitary ammunition? Two-piece ammo to fit into Russian-style autoloaders seems like a pretty poor compromise right now since APFSDS are the better gun-launched AT munition type. OTOH, that insane Russian triple-charge HEAT stuff might narrow the gap enough that it's not a crippling penalty.
  11. Collimatrix
    Parking a satellite on the Earth-Sun L2 with a nuclear reactor onboard might be fun. You'd always be in shadow, so your radiators would work better. You could use the reactor to power some sort of electrical rocket (ion, hall thruster, VASMIR, plasma, take your pick) for station-keeping. I can't immediately think of any reason to have a satellite hovering at L2 all the time, but doubtless there is one.
  12. Collimatrix
    Yeah, second that. I remember really liking that book. I just got a copy of Malcom Brook's debut novel Painted Horses.
  13. Collimatrix
    Depending on the geometry of how the coolant interacts with the core, the neutron absorbtion cross section and the atomic mass of the atoms in whatever alloy you end up using may be a concern. You want low neutron absorbtion cross section, else the coolant is going to start sucking up neutrons from the core and become radioactive. You also want highish atomic mass, or else the coolant could start acting like a moderator, which is bad because it's a fast reactor. Ideally the metal will have a high boiling point so that the hot side of your heat engine cycle can be at as high a temperature as possible. That is one of the attractions of liquid salt reactors.
  14. Collimatrix
    I vaguely recall Jared Diamond writing a thing on Scandanavian farming techniques of the period, and pointing out that they would be very poorly suited to the soils in their New World colonies because they would cause rapid soil depletion and erosion. I'll have to see if I can find a reference for that.
  15. Collimatrix
    Well, I like the sense of continuity with the HAV community but... what exactly are we supposed to post in the small arms thread in the small arms subforum? Just general bits and bobs that are topical, but not topical enough to fit anywhere else?
  16. Collimatrix
    I think you are misremembering. A lot of the changes made to the panther Ausf G were in order to rationalize jagdpanther production. For instance, the hull sides of the panther Ausf G are less sloped, but thicker than the hull sides on the Ausf D and Ausf A. This was because the hull sponson sides were too sloped on those to blend into a hull casemate like the jagdpanther's. I presume, therefore, that the improved final drives in the jagdpanther were the same as the improved final drives in the panther Ausf G; which is to say, the housings for the final drives were beefed up so they flexed less. I believe that the drives themselves were more or less the same. Panther II was supposed to have tiger/tiger II drivetrain components, possibly including the final drives, I'm not sure. Panther II was substantially different from a regular panther. The one in the Patton museum is dimensioned differently enough that most standard panther components won't fit, or so I've read. Also, the suspension is different, much more like a tiger II's with single rather than double torsion bars and only two layers of road wheels.
  17. Collimatrix
    Nuclear reactors for space use have some pretty hairy engineering problems. Since you're lobbing this sucker into orbit, it needs to have a good power to mass ratio. Nuclear reactors are amazing at a lot of things, having high power to mass ratios ain't one of 'em, so you're going to be looking at something at least as complex as a naval nuclear reactor. Those are usually fast neutron designs, which is a lot harder to design and operate than a thermal type. If it's being used for an NTR the propellant will double as coolant, taking heat away from the core and keeping it at a stable temperature. If you're using it for electrical power generation... things get exciting. You need some means of rejecting waste heat, and since convection and conduction don't work in space, that leaves radiation. If you want your radiators to be mass-efficient, the waste heat rejection needs to occur at a high temperature. If you want to reject waste heat at a high temperature, you end up using really weird, really dangerous working fluids for your turbine... things like mercury. Also, if you want good carnot efficiency your core temperature has to be super-high since your rejection temperature is so high... Nuclear space power generation is just all kinds of fucked up and weird. Not saying it's a bad idea overall, but it's considerably more involved than just taking a typical terrestrial nuclear reactor (most of which are absurdly reliable) and flinging it into the sky.
  18. Collimatrix
    In terms of accelerating the bullet, it's bore volume that matters, not barrel length. Since bore volume is a function of the square of caliber, you're effectively cutting your barrel length way down if you go too small.
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