Collimatrix

Nanostructured bainite's day in the sun as armor may have come to an end:
 
 
This is the same guy who worked on the nanostructured bainite.  Apparently Tata steel has come out with the next big advance.
 
The claims made in this video are remarkable.  This steel is 550 Vickers hardness, which is about 500 Brinell.  That's definitely high hardness armor by most definitions.  However, the toughness is just as good as a rolled homogeneous armor like Armox 370, and it's weldable!
 
On top of that, the steel is supposed to be reasonably inexpensive, and readily mass-producible using mostly existing tooling.

I found a very good lecture on this subject:

 
 

God save us from stylists and industrial designers.

And again, eng subs using auto-translate gives an Ok translation. Short video, right to the point.
 
Short summary.
   1. Russia is interested in peace in that region. Turkey have different interests for internal policy reasons. Because Americans are not in the game, and because Armenian president is "pro-American", it is a good moment to solve a 30 years conflict around Karabakh. 
   2. Any Armenian gov. that signs surrender of Karabakh is going to be a political suicide. In today situation Russia benefits from Armenia losing, as current president is "West" oriented and after Azerbaijan victory he will become a political corpse, which will allow to change Armenian leadership to something different.
   3. Armenian population is decreasing, including in Karabakh, while Azerbaijan's is much bigger and is growing, which dictates future of this region. 
   4. Pashinyan talked to Putin twice, and both times offered solution for problem was unacceptable for Armenian president. Probably a solution that Putin offered was Karabakh becoming Azerbaijan's, with Russian peacekeeping mission.
   5. All is going to be decided in combat on north of Karabakh.
 

Short summary of that analysis.
 
   Azerbaijan army conducting attack of Nagorniy Karabakh from 2 directions - Southern and Northern. Main attack is happening against city of Martakert (North), southern attack is probably a distraction.

   On southern side there are reports that Armenia started counter-attacks and advances of Azerbaijan army are limited. 
 

   Main target is city of Martakert (shown on the map), it can't be attack head on (terrain and Armenian defenses) so Azerbaijan army is trying to bypass main defensive lines by making flanking attack.
 

   It is likely that Azerbaijan leadership expects that if Martakert captured, part of Armenian troops in Northen part of Karabakh will flee or surrender, or they will be surrounded, which will allow to take at least part of Karabakh under Azerbaijan control.
   The are not many reports about captured towns of villages simply because there are not many of them on path of main attack.
   Mercenaries from Syria participating on Azerbaijan side were also reported by BBC and some other English-lang. media. Probably they are used because Azerbaijan infantry didn't showed much interesting in fighting Armenian troops directly. Combination of heavy artillery support and slow armor and infantry advances was chosen as main way to push by Northern group of Azer. attackers.

The Al Khalid derived from Norinco Type 90IIM MBT. It was in the early 90s, when India started to test their Arjun MBT. Pakistanis looked for a MBT design that could be produced by herself. 
Norinco provided their own Type 90IIM prototype, this is an MBT design which comprised many Western components, such as engine and transmission. 

There were 4 prototypes for Al-Khalid development, namely P1, P2, P3 and P4. 
P1 has a Chinese tank diesel engine with ZF LSG3000 transmission. 
P2 has a British Perkins CV12 Condor diesel engine with French SESM ESM500 transmission. 
P3 has a Ukrainian KMDB 6TD-2 2-cycle boxer engine with its own twin planetary gearbox. 
P4 has a German MB871 engine with ZF LSG3000 transmission, similar to South Korean K1 MBT. 

Norinco and Pakistanis planned to adopt one of the Western powerpack at first, but due to CoCom (Coordinating Committee for Export to Communist Countries) restrictions, China is under embargo, which means China would not import weapons form Western countries. Obviously P3 powerplant would be the only choice. All those descriptions on the internet about ESM500 in Al-Khalid is fatally wrong. 
 
The Al-Khalid pre-production batch and production version all equipped with Ukrainian KMDB 6TD-2 powerpack.
It is an extremely compact design, the engine laid transversely in engine room, twin planetary gearboxes connect to both left and right end. The 6TD-2 has two crankshafts: the front one drives the mechanical supercharger, while the rear one drives the gearboxes. The cooling system covering the whole engine room, the engine itself has no mechanical connection to the cooling system, and the cooling system doesn't need mechanical drive. The cooling system based on a unique principle: exhaust gas driven ejector. The exhaust gas from the engine is injected through the outlet ducting, produce a low pressure in the outlet side, that will suck in cold air from the inlet side. This principle is also used in the T-64, T-80UD and T-84, but as far as I know, Swedish Ikv 91 is the only western tank that have similar cooling principle. 
 
As a result, the total length of powerpack is significantly shortened, much more shorter than the European powerpack mentioned above. This leads to a spare storage room between the fighting compartment and the engine compartment. This storage is for extra ammunition and fuel, when turret points 3 or 9 o'clock, the top cover of the storage could be opened from outside, containing 10 rounds for main gun, with projectiles on the outsides, semi-combustible charges on the inside.
The data table from HIT also describe the ammunition capacity as 39+10, means that 22 ready rounds in the T-72 type carousel autoloader, 17 backup rounds scatter around the fighting compartment, and extra 10 rounds could be carried in the storage room. 
 
The driver of Al-Khalid control the vehicle via steering wheel and an automatic gear control box. The steering wheel and gear control box send electrical signals to the computer, then computer control the hydraulic servo actuator to perform engage and disengage of brakes and clutches, making steering and gear changes, as well as adjusting the speed and torque of the engine.
 
Mechanically the gearboxes are nearly the same as T-64s and T-72s, but have different side reducer unit. The KMDB side reducer unit is designed as a secondary gearbox, acting like a forward-reverse selector. When both reducers were put into reverse, the vehicle can reverse using the normal forward ranges. From 1st gear to 4th gear, all could be used as high speed reverse, and that's why KMDB said this is a 7F4R gearbox system. And if only one reducer was put into reverse, the track will be driving in opposites direction, causing the vehicle turns within its tracks, a.k.a. pivot steer or center steer. T-84 also applied this driving and steering system.  
 
The advantages of Al-Khalid's powerpack is the versatility: all 3 types of MBT in the Pakistanis arsenal, T-80UD, T-84, Al-Khalid, share the same engine and gearbox. 

I confess; when EE or Looser or whoever characterized the Ukrainian government's muscle as fascists, I thought this was Russian hyperbole.  I was aware of the presence of far-right elements during the protest period, and had no doubt that there were some neo-nazis in the ranks currently, the characterization seemed exaggerated.  After all, the Soviets had accused NATO of similar things, and surely the Ukrainians wouldn't be so dumb as to openly play into the role of villains in the Russian cultural monomyth of the Great Patriotic War?
 
I am reconsidering this view.

Diagrams from student theses:



1. Compartment for equipment and diesel heater.
2. Compartments for equipment and oil cans.
3. Tray for equipment.
4. Air passage from engine compartment and exhaust pipe entrance.
5. Air passage between exhaust pipe and fan chamber, with wading hatch.
6. Main fan, exhaust air.
7. Input Scavenger channel.
8. AC system.



Figure 1.2. The band shelf in cross section from the side.



Kylare = Cooler

4.2 Exhaust and cooling systems
The exhaust system enters the belt shelf adjacent to the engine compartment, then the exhaust pipes follow
the tape shelf along a channel all the way back where it finally opens. The exhaust pipes have a temperature
at about 550 ° C and is covered with insulation. The temperature in the estuary is about 500 ° C.
The operating system for air cooling in the belt shelf is a fan at the back that draws air away
the engine compartment and through the entire belt rack. The flow is currently about 230 l / s.
The engine cooling is a system with cooling water that after passing out of the engine passes along
the tape shelf. The temperature of the cooling water is approximately 100 ° C.
The engine air cooling system is located in the front of the engine compartment and the air intake is on top
the hood. When the air is filtered, debris and particles that must be blown away, the fan gets stuck
who performs that work is called Scavenger and blows out the unclean air on the right side of
the carriage.



Final drive cooling

http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:ltu:diva-49985
http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:ltu:diva-47224

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

 

it seems like two pipes are visible through those two holes

Hull ammo storage of the K2 Black Panther.

FİRİNG NOW! (TANK,ANTİ-Tank and Self-Propelled Artillery Ammunition UK&USA 1939-1945

LAND 400 Phase 2 CRV Survivability Requirements
 

 

I've been having a good time with the Knife Steel Nerds blog.  It's a good balance of accessible and technical for me.  The author just wrote a book, which I have purchased but not read.
 
Obviously, it's aimed at knifemakers, but it goes enough into the basic theory of steel that it works for general metallurgy.

I have learned enough about ferrous metallurgy to contribute to this discussion.



Sooooo...

Bainite itself isn't brittle.  Bainite itself is fairly tough, but less hard than the more typical tempered martensitic steels used for armor.  However, a funny thing can happen during the formation of bainite.
 
Bainite doesn't just form; it grows within and eventually replaces crystals of a phase called austenite, like so:


This is done during a special heat treating process called austempering.  Compared to other heat treatment processes, austempering is fairly slow, but it also produces low amounts of warpage and cracking in the steel, works well with simple and cheap low-alloy steels, and does not require any secondary processes like additional tempering after it is done.
 
What can happen during bainite formation is that the growth of those little lathe crystals segregates out impurities like sulfur and phosphorus, piling them up into dense bands that promote crack propagation.  There are ways to counteract this, but if the bainite/pearlite formation was an unintended side effect of an imperfect heat treatment in the first place, then they probably didn't do anything to counteract it.  Also, steel mills today are probably a bit better at removing the sulfur and phosphorus in the first place.

Small grain size is desirable regardless of the microstructure of the steel.  The Hall-Petch strengthening mechanism is of considerable interest because it is one of the few mechanisms that simultaneously improves the hardness and toughness of steel.

If you would like to learn more about steel microstructures and phase changes, you should find an an actual textbook that wasn't written by someone who was strung out on heroin, unlike this one.
 
 

Hopefully this has not been posted already:


 

A great post by tankoff about Russian thermal imagers and sights with thermal channel.
https://otvaga2004.mybb.ru/viewtopic.php?id=1872&p=25#p1355718
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The German Assault Rifle 1935-1945
 

2020 Update:


2019 and 2020 have proven to be turbulent years for computer hardware development.  Since I last posted in this thread, there have been several significant developments.
 
1)  AMD's Navi 2, Ryzen 3000 series 7nm CPUs came out in Summer of 2019, and matched Intel CPUs in all but a few, extremely single-threaded benchmarks:
 
 
The 3000 series sold more than anticipated, with significant price scalping occurring.

The AMD 5000 series GPUs, based on the new RDNA architecture came out as well.  They were... OK, I guess.  Several of the mid and low end models were good value, but the large, high-performing models simply failed to materialize (and were likely cancelled late in development).  Driver support was also rocky at first, and unlike the competing RTX-2000 series, the RX-5000 series has no hardware-level support for ray tracing.

Intel, meanwhile, hasn't been having such a great time.  Several additional security vulnerabilities have been disclosed, and their own 7nm node was postponed by at least six months.  This threw their shareholders into a rage, and they are now facing a class-action lawsuit.

Global supply chains for electronics have been disrupted not only by COVID-19, but also by the trade war between South Korea and Japan.  Taiwan's TSMC is the undisputed industry leader in lithography, and the Trump Administration would like them to build a plant in the USA.  As the global leader in lithography, TSMC has their pick of suitors and has no difficulty selling off fab capacity.  Currently, Qualcomm, Apple, AMD, Nvidia and others jockey for their limited supply of silicon.

In Q3 or Q4 the new video game consoles are expected out, presumably just in time for the holidays.  Both will feature AMD-designed APUs based off their Zen 2 CPU architecture and RDNA2 GPU architecture, with some degree of hardware-level raytracing support.  Innocenceii's youtube channel does an excellent job going into the technical specifics of the designs.  Alas, he is constantly under siege by an army of unwashed console fanboys who keep accusing him of shilling for one side or the other.

Nvidia's next-generation GPUs, all but confirmed to be called the 3000-series, are expected out somewhat sooner, possibly as early as September 2020.  Interestingly, the persistent rumor is that they will be made at Samsung, and not at TSMC.  Samsung has invested heavily in ASML Extreme Ultra Violent (EUV) technology, and while TSMC currently has the highest density, best yielding lithography technology, Samsung may contest that in the coming years.  It is likely that the future of lithography for microelectronic manufacture will be a contest between TSMC in Taiwan and Samsung in South Korea, with Intel trailing far, far behind.

Hopefully this has not been posted already:


 

Eurosatory 1996
 

I have learned enough about ferrous metallurgy to contribute to this discussion.



Sooooo...

Bainite itself isn't brittle.  Bainite itself is fairly tough, but less hard than the more typical tempered martensitic steels used for armor.  However, a funny thing can happen during the formation of bainite.
 
Bainite doesn't just form; it grows within and eventually replaces crystals of a phase called austenite, like so:


This is done during a special heat treating process called austempering.  Compared to other heat treatment processes, austempering is fairly slow, but it also produces low amounts of warpage and cracking in the steel, works well with simple and cheap low-alloy steels, and does not require any secondary processes like additional tempering after it is done.
 
What can happen during bainite formation is that the growth of those little lathe crystals segregates out impurities like sulfur and phosphorus, piling them up into dense bands that promote crack propagation.  There are ways to counteract this, but if the bainite/pearlite formation was an unintended side effect of an imperfect heat treatment in the first place, then they probably didn't do anything to counteract it.  Also, steel mills today are probably a bit better at removing the sulfur and phosphorus in the first place.

Small grain size is desirable regardless of the microstructure of the steel.  The Hall-Petch strengthening mechanism is of considerable interest because it is one of the few mechanisms that simultaneously improves the hardness and toughness of steel.

I haven't logged into your account and posted as you a long account of being sexually attracted to little boys and then banned you for it.  This would suggest that some of my anger issues have been mitigated by the regimen of powerful schedule III drugs I have been taking off-label for several months.  Congratulations on the successful outcome of this test.

The reason we're treating what you're saying as laughable and obvious nonsense is because it is.  It doesn't help that, when I very gently (by my standards) point out what's wrong with it, you just make shit up.

 
 
 
If the receiver on the H is wider, then how does this exist?  If the receiver on the H is wider then how come its bolt carrier isn't visibly wider?  



That especially doesn't make sense when you consider that the SCAR bolt carrier rides on rails that are an integral part of the receiver extrusion:



The SCAR-L and SCAR-H have exactly the same receiver cross section.  Originally, they were going to have a common receiver.  The program later relaxed the requirement for a unified receiver, which means that the uppers aren't identical.  They are, however, very close.

But you don't need to know details of the SCAR's program history to work out that the receivers probably have the same cross section.  You just need to use your goddamned head and think about it.

 


What.  Why would you think this.  Do you even think?

For one thing, caliber conversions for the SCAR-L for 7.62x39 do exist.

For another thing, this entire tangent of nonsense is internally inconsistent with the other nonsense you posted already.  If the HK 433 can accept larger calibers simply by having a magazine well that's a few pixels longer, then why does the FN SCAR require a receiver that's both wider and longer?

Like, think about this for just a fraction of a second.  Your entire train(wreck) of thought is just plain stupid.  This is what I was trying to hint at with the picture comparing the SCAR-L and SCAR-H, but this point went whistling harmlessly far, far above your head.

1)  The distance between the trunnion and the rear of the magazine well isn't what determines the maximum cartridge overall length a rifle can handle for several reasons.  The rifle needs enough distance from the inside of the rear of the magazine to the breech of the barrel plus distance to cam the locking mechanism into engagement and/or ramp the round up into alignment with the bore.  The breech of the barrel doesn't necessarily coincide with the trunnion.  Indeed, it could be argued that the FN SCAR doesn't really have a trunnion at all:
 

See?  There's no big internal buttress that the barrel attaches to.  It's held in from the side by screws.

2)  The thing you think is a trunnion isn't.  If you actually look at the patent, you can see that the thing you marked is the crosspin attachment for the lower portion of the handguard and the lower receiver.  It is not what holds the barrel on.

 
 
 


It happens to be near the barrel mounting hardware, but it does not hold the barrel on nor does it mark the breech of the barrel, which is several millimetres further back.

3) The lower receiver is clearly intended to take 5.56x45mm COAL rounds and magazines.  If they were intending to fire 7.62x51mm from that rifle... they would put a new lower receiver on it that can take the appropriate magazines.

4)  Again, I was gently hinting at this, but you missed it, the SCAR-H has a larger ejection port to accommodate the larger cases and a longer charging handle slot to accommodate the larger stroke of the bolt carrier.  If the 433 were designed with the option of longer calibers in mind, we would also see those features, but we don't so it isn't.


Actually think next time in order to prevent yourself from posting long and tiresome nonsense.
 

I haven't logged into your account and posted as you a long account of being sexually attracted to little boys and then banned you for it.  This would suggest that some of my anger issues have been mitigated by the regimen of powerful schedule III drugs I have been taking off-label for several months.  Congratulations on the successful outcome of this test.

The reason we're treating what you're saying as laughable and obvious nonsense is because it is.  It doesn't help that, when I very gently (by my standards) point out what's wrong with it, you just make shit up.

 
 
 
If the receiver on the H is wider, then how does this exist?  If the receiver on the H is wider then how come its bolt carrier isn't visibly wider?  



That especially doesn't make sense when you consider that the SCAR bolt carrier rides on rails that are an integral part of the receiver extrusion:



The SCAR-L and SCAR-H have exactly the same receiver cross section.  Originally, they were going to have a common receiver.  The program later relaxed the requirement for a unified receiver, which means that the uppers aren't identical.  They are, however, very close.

But you don't need to know details of the SCAR's program history to work out that the receivers probably have the same cross section.  You just need to use your goddamned head and think about it.

 


What.  Why would you think this.  Do you even think?

For one thing, caliber conversions for the SCAR-L for 7.62x39 do exist.

For another thing, this entire tangent of nonsense is internally inconsistent with the other nonsense you posted already.  If the HK 433 can accept larger calibers simply by having a magazine well that's a few pixels longer, then why does the FN SCAR require a receiver that's both wider and longer?

Like, think about this for just a fraction of a second.  Your entire train(wreck) of thought is just plain stupid.  This is what I was trying to hint at with the picture comparing the SCAR-L and SCAR-H, but this point went whistling harmlessly far, far above your head.

1)  The distance between the trunnion and the rear of the magazine well isn't what determines the maximum cartridge overall length a rifle can handle for several reasons.  The rifle needs enough distance from the inside of the rear of the magazine to the breech of the barrel plus distance to cam the locking mechanism into engagement and/or ramp the round up into alignment with the bore.  The breech of the barrel doesn't necessarily coincide with the trunnion.  Indeed, it could be argued that the FN SCAR doesn't really have a trunnion at all:
 

See?  There's no big internal buttress that the barrel attaches to.  It's held in from the side by screws.

2)  The thing you think is a trunnion isn't.  If you actually look at the patent, you can see that the thing you marked is the crosspin attachment for the lower portion of the handguard and the lower receiver.  It is not what holds the barrel on.

 
 
 


It happens to be near the barrel mounting hardware, but it does not hold the barrel on nor does it mark the breech of the barrel, which is several millimetres further back.

3) The lower receiver is clearly intended to take 5.56x45mm COAL rounds and magazines.  If they were intending to fire 7.62x51mm from that rifle... they would put a new lower receiver on it that can take the appropriate magazines.

4)  Again, I was gently hinting at this, but you missed it, the SCAR-H has a larger ejection port to accommodate the larger cases and a longer charging handle slot to accommodate the larger stroke of the bolt carrier.  If the 433 were designed with the option of longer calibers in mind, we would also see those features, but we don't so it isn't.


Actually think next time in order to prevent yourself from posting long and tiresome nonsense.
 

Aleksandr Perov with OTs-02 Kiparis SMG and SR-1 pistol. This SMG is a bit unusual to see in use by FSB, even in early 2000s.

 
   FSB Directorate A members with OTs-14 Groza, 2014, during Sochi Olympics.