Search the Community

Inspired by Collimatrix's excellent topic in the Aviation section, my attempt at doing the same for tanks. Tank design is often represented as a trade-off between firepower, armour, and speed. But this ignores many other, equally important variables. Furthermore, this formula doesn't explain why the trade-offs are there in the first place. So here is my attempt to make things a bit more complicated. The Constraint: Compact, powerful and reliable engines – and the ability to use them Firepower and armour are the obvious features that made a 1940 tank obsolete in 1945. Yet even a 1945 tank is trivial compared to a WWI battleship. Or more modestly, the German 88mm, Soviet 85mm and US 90mm AA guns were prewar designs. Why not put them on a tank from the beginning? Were people just stupid back then? Up to a point, I would say ‘yes’. While it is unrealistic to think of 1945 combat aircraft, radar, or nuclear weapons in 1940 as the result of anything short of time travel, 1940 tanks could have been significantly better without anachronistic scientific or engineering breakthroughs. Like the assault rifle, this really was a case where the right people just didn't see the need or spend the money. However, it's not the only reason. A tank with a big gun and thick armour that can't move is just a pillbox. Like aircraft, WW2 tanks were fundamentally limited by their engine power. This is less obvious because additional power was typically used to ‘buy’ weight rather than speed. Yet the trend is clear. Shown below are the improvements in engine power for the German and British (cruiser) tank lines, which were in the war the longest. German Panzers I 100 hp II 138 hp III, IV 250-300 hp Tiger, Panther 690 hp British Cruisers I, II 150 hp III, IV, Crusader 340 hp (Liberty) Cromwell, Comet 600 hp (Meteor) Arguably, more powerful tank engines could and should have been introduced much earlier (the Liberty was first used in a tank as early as 1918). I will leave that aside, noting only that, relative to aircraft engines, tank engines were forced to use lower octane fuel for economic reasons (preventing tank use of the Napier Lion), and are harder to cool due to being inside a slow moving armoured box (this was a particular challenge with the Merlin's conversion to the Meteor). There's also the choice of diesel (compression ignition) vs. petrol/gasoline (spark ignition) engines. Diesels had higher torque and lower fuel consumption, but lower specific power, were heavier and cost more, and meant an extra type of fuel in your logistics train. Both Germany and the US decided against diesels for fear sufficient fuel would not be available. Once you have an engine, you still need to put power to the wheels through what the British call a ‘transmission’ and Americans call a ‘drivetrain’, which also does the steering since almost all tanks turn by making one track spin faster than the other. And you need a track that won't fall apart and a suspension that will stop the occupants falling apart. These were big problems during WW1 – the first tanks had no suspension at all! – and into the 1920s, but by the 1930s you could more or less use the power of the available engines. Even in 1945, however, the Panther and Comet were deliberately speed limited to around 30 mph. TRADE-OFFS OK, we have an engine of a given horsepower, and the ability to turn that horsepower into forward motion off-road with an acceptable degree of unreliability and discomfort. What choices do we have to make now? 1. Weight vs. mobility This is almost self-explanatory, but mobility is more than speed. Very roughly, multiplying the hp/ton ratio by two gives an approximate top road speed in mph, although looking at individual types this correlation is surprisingly loose. The 15 mph of the British infantry tanks was annoyingly slow, the 25 mph of most German tanks seemed good enough, and as mentioned above, anything over 30 mph arguably wore out the running gear and the occupants to little benefit. A high power-weight ratio was also useful to provide rapid acceleration to dash from cover to cover. But weight has other penalties that are less amenable to increased engine power: Reliability and maintenance time – pushing around more weight means more parts everywhere from the engine to the suspension will break. (US tracks lasted about 6000km on light tanks but only 2400km on medium tanks. See Exercise Dracula for the effect of maintenance downtime on overall mobility.) Fuel consumption – less range for the individual tank, more for the logistics train to haul. Bridging – if you can’t cross a bridge without breaking it, you may have to go a much longer long way round. Shipping – the M6 heavy tank was not adopted partly because it exceeded the 40-ton limit on many dockyard cranes. Tanks that were kept in service a long time such as T-34 and Panzers III and IV tended to creep up in weight as bigger guns and frontal armour were added, but for new designs bigger engines and better transmission, steering and track technology (and bridge building) roughly kept pace. Except when they didn't. 2. For a given weight: armour vs. internal volume The basic choice is a smaller box with thicker armour or a bigger box with thinner armour. Similarly, sloped armour will give more protection for a given weight, but reduces the internal volume. At the start of the war, most countries tried to armour the front, sides, and even rear to a similar standard, using mostly vertical armour. As (anti-)tank guns got more powerful, this became impractical, and focus shifted to improving the front armour, both by increasing thickness and sloping (sloping all round reduced the volume of the tank excessively, as in the pyramid shaped early T-34s). 3a. For a given volume: guns vs. crew vs. ammo vs. suspension... Everyone wants a bigger gun, but you need to fit other things in too. For example, a three-man turret crew (commander, gunner, loader) worked better than one or two men, because everyone could focus on one job. But when the British upgunned their Crusader and Valentine tanks from 2-pdr to 6-pdr guns, there was not enough room in the turret for the third man. Of course, if you run out of ammo, or your crew are bumping into something every time they move, your tank will not fight very well either. (A bigger gun has a double penalty: it reduces the room for other things, including ammo, and also makes each round bigger. The IS-2 looks stunning on paper, but remember that 122mm gun only has 28 rounds and has a slower rate of fire due to its separate loading ammunition.) The Soviets limited the height of their tank crews for this reason. If you just want to shoot an enemy soldier or two, the main gun is overkill, so almost all tanks have a ‘coaxial’ machine gun next to it in the turret. Is it worth having a second machine gun in the hull and someone to shoot it? This was nearly universal during the war but fell out of fashion soon afterwards, as bigger guns needed more room for ammunition. (I also imagine most people trying to sneak up on a tank didn't do so from the front.) A few designs even had little secondary MG turrets, a hangover from prewar, but these were quickly abandoned. Tank suspension is a whole topic of its own. Broadly the choice was between types that allowed more independent wheel movement for a better ride but took up valuable room inside the tank (and were harder to repair in the field) like Christie and torsion bar, and types that gave a worse ride but were completely external (and easier to repair) like VVSS/HVSS, leaf spring and Horstmann. Also, lots of small wheels are better to spread weight evenly and not sink into mud or snow, but fewer bigger wheels are better if you want to drive fast over bumps. The Germans tried to have the best of both worlds with many overlapping large wheels, which was complicated and tended to freeze solid in the Russian winter. And obviously you need fuel, and a radio or two, a boiler for tea if you're British, compressed air tanks for cold weather starts if you're Russian, and other stuff I haven't mentioned or thought of... 3b. For a given volume: height vs. width A taller tank is easier for the enemy to spot. A wider tank lets you have a bigger turret ring and therefore a bigger gun. So it seems like a low, wide tank is the ideal. But make your tank too wide and it can't fit on railways – the British were particularly constrained with a narrow railway loading gauge, but even the Germans had to put narrower tracks on their Tigers and Panthers to transport them by rail – or narrow roads and bridges. Also, height allows more ground clearance to get over obstacles and greater gun depression to shoot at the enemy while hull down. Finally, height can actually substitute for width to some extent in fitting a bigger gun: a tall hull as in the Sherman allows the turret ring to be extended over the tracks, or a tall turret as in the Challenger (and later Strv 74) allows the gun to recoil (and the crew to squeeze in) above the turret ring. Length tends to be the residual in the equation, within limits - too long and you can't steer, too short and the crew gets motion sickness. The Sherman was stretched as required to go from short radial to longer inline engines. Similarly the Challenger was basically a stretched Cromwell. 4. For a given sized turret/gun: AP vs. HE Tanks sometimes shoot at enemy tanks, but mostly at other, softer things. If you need to punch through armour with AP rounds, you want a high velocity gun (penetration increases with roughly the square of the velocity, but only linearly in calibre). If you want to blow things up, it's all about calibre (HE capacity increases with the cube of calibre, or even a bit more when you consider the minimum size of the fuze and thickness of the shell wall). So for a gun that will fit in a given sized turret, you can have a smaller calibre high velocity hole puncher or a larger calibre, low velocity HE lobber. While you can build specialised guns for each job (and even different tanks to put them in, as the Germans did, which is going a bit far), it's better to have one kind of gun that can do both reasonably well in most of your tanks, since you never know what they will run into. Conveniently, while tank armour increased throughout the war, common building materials and the human body stayed the same. Therefore, while AP rounds needed ever greater performance, HE didn't. Around 3 inch calibre, with increasing velocity as the war went on, proved a good compromise. The Americans and British both picked the medium velocity 75mm over the high velocity 6-pdr, as did the Soviets with the 76.2mm over their own 57mm AT gun. The higher velocity 76mm, 17-pdr and 77mm then gave the needed AP upgrade while the Soviets went for 85mm (probably because they already had the AA gun rather than any ideal calibre calculation). The Germans also ended up with high velocity 75mm guns on most of their late war tanks (except the 88s on the Tigers, again copied from the AA calibre). 5. For a given budget: quality vs. quantity Obviously, a bigger tank uses more steel and other resources, and fancy gadgets like better radios, optics and steering systems have a cost. The Tiger was hugely expensive compared to the German mediums (and, more speculatively, other countries' tanks). The Panther was surprisingly cheap for its size, but partly by skimping on the final drive, which crueled its reliability. This trade-off applies to distribution as well as production. If you need to move your tanks across the ocean like the Americans, or even by rail across the steppe like the Germans and Soviets, a bigger and better tank at the factory gate meant fewer delivered to the battlefield for the same freight tonnage. So we are back where we started with weight vs. mobility, except in terms of numbers rather than the individual tank's capability.

Hi there! I'm a new user, and found this forum by way of a video on the so-called "reformers". The video also included a screencap of a thread in this forum about some guy called "Black Tails Defense" or something, in which the strangest tank was shown- something with a 145 millimeter... howitzer? The... sheer tomfoolery of putting a long-barrel world war one era howitzer with eighty rounds of ammunition in a forty-ton vehicle somehow designed to also float... I personally enjoy entertaining the concept of designing fictional tanks for fictional universes. However, I'm critically aware of how limited my knowledge on this subject is. Honestly, I was more really concerned with the external appearance of the tank to look as "realistic" as possible- no shot traps, no funny "turrets" like on whatever that Scorpion-thingy from HALO was, as well as worrying about details like how to make sure the tank doesn't break down mid-combat and the placement of critical systems like Optics, but I'd also like to know what kind of systems should you use (e.g. Turbine or Diesel, Horstmann or Torsion bar, etc etc) There's a little thing that I'm doing where I draw up tanks et cetera within the confines of Mid-Late 80s-90s - early 2000s doctrine, and I'd like to ask you, what makes a real tank tick for tanks of this era? How should you go about designing a tank? I'm aware of the fact that one should always design inside-up (critical components such as engine, gun, et cetera up), but what are some of the caveats and nuances inevitably intertwined into it? How should one go about the design process for designing a tank? What's a rough list of features you want to have, and others that you can sacrifice for any given role of a tank? I'm aware that this is like asking, "what should I put on a plane", but let's assume that it's for a tank stuck in, say, the Mid-late nineties, around the Gulf War - Kosovo period. Also, in addition to this, some common questions that I'd also like settled are; - Diesel, Turbine, or Petrol? Where/When/How should these engines be implemented? - Rifle or Smoothbore? This debate goes on forever and I'd like some sort of concrete answer. As far as I know, the only forces that use rifled guns use them either out of necessity or reliance on a certain specific type of round. - Why in god's name would you ever put a 145 millimeter howitzer on a tank? - Caliber: Is there an upper limit? Is it really worth going above 120mm/maybe 130mm at a stretch when combat won't even happen above the ranges that these guns are effective due to the distances that you can see with optics? At range, Artillery and Missiles have traditionally been more efficient. - Whither the Autoloader, or Nay? I've seen the Chieftain's video on it, but I personally would like your opinions on it. - Barrel loaded ATGMs- are they really all that they're cracked up to be? Why/why not? I'd like to strickly restrict this to Main Battle Tanks, as I'd rather ask about Infantry Fighting Vehicles later, in another thread. In short, how the 1990s Tank? Sincerely yours, Aussie_Mantis

You've seen them before; poorly edited videos with an alternating loop of John Phillips Sousa and Weird Al, purporting to tell you about the various design mistakes armored fighting vehicle designers have made over the years: But does the maker of these videos one Blacktail Defense, know shit about AFV design himself? Haha, no, no he does not. Because of Sturgeon's House strict hate-speech enforcement laws, I am compelled to mention that Blacktail Defense is a furry. So know that should you click any of the links to his material, you will need to decontaminate yourself per protocol DG-12-23A with bleach. Blacktail Defense is a military reformer, a storied and interesting political movement in the United States that has gone from being a force of some consequence to being a ragtag group of scoundrels. I'm not going to say that they weren't idiots and scoundrels when they were of consequence, n.b. Military reformers are at they're strongest when they're on the attack. They're a lot like creationists that way; when they can hurl invective at (mostly imaginary) weaknesses within whatever it is they hate, they can look like concerned citizens campaigning for the taxpayer's right to have their money spent wisely and the soldier's right to have the best practical equipment. But give a military reformer some lined paper and a slide rule and tell them to come up with a design, rather than tear down an existing one, and you will quickly see that these people have no idea what they're talking about. Ready? This is taken directly from Blacktail's furaffinity page. Careful analysis shows that, no, this man has no idea what the everliving fuck he's talking about. Are you ready? No, you're not, but let's go ahead anyway. "The Tigerwolf may look vaguely similar to contemporary MBTs, such as the ubiquitous M1-series Abrams, but is in fact wrapped around a lot of design features and technology that are comlpetely alien to today's tanks." Blacktail is going to prove to you that he's a better tank designer than all those idiots at Chrysler by designing a tank using technologies that didn't exist at the time of the design of the Abrams. "For starters the crew is quite large, with a Commander, Driver, Gunner, TWO loaders, and an Engineer. Many designers favor a smaller crew, usually adding an autoloader to eliminate the Loader from the crew (like in the Russian T-64 through 90, the French Leclerc, and the Chinese Type 85 through 99)." ... What? "However, there are a lot of problems with a smaller crew. First, autoloaders work at a painfully slow pace (14 seconds to reload in a T-72), which gives manual-loading tanks a huge rate-of-fire advantage (just 4 seconds in the M1A1 Abrams)." "There's no autoloader either, as that only slows the ROF, requires smaller, less powerful and versitile ammo to be used, adds another complex, delicate set of moving parts to break, and only serves to expand the guantlet of things that can hurt you inside the vehicle.In fact, the Tigerwolf's main gun ammo is extremely large and heavy, and probably would break an autoloader --- it's would be an incredible feat of strength for a single Loader crewman to load in under 10 seconds." The Leclerc uses the same ammunition as the Abrams and Leopard 2. As for his 145mm smoothbore howitzer ammunition breaking an autoloader, does he not know that the Pz 2000 SPG has an autoloader for its 155mm gun? Of course he doesn't know that; Blacktail doesn't know what he's talking about. "The engineer is useful as well, because the large size of the Tigerwolf --- coupled with it's simple drivetrain (most modern tracked vehicles have a deceptively simple drivetrain) and small, flat engine (compred to a "Vee" or gas turbine) make for easy engine maintnance[sic] and repairs from inside the tank --- there's no need to abandon it if you lose a sparkplug while under small arms fire." Simple drivetrains, eh? Note that per the graphic, the Tigerwolf has a diesel wankel. Does Blacktail not know that diesel engines don't have spark plugs? Of course he doesn't know that; Blacktail doesn't know what he's talking about. (Diesel wankels don't exist. Three companies have tried making them; Rolls Royce, John Deere and some Japanese company I CBA to look up. None of the three ever got them to mass production. I'm not sure what the problem was.) "As for the armor, instead of using a large amount of steel and other metals, most of the Tigerwolf's armor is made up of thick panels and blocks of woven fabric Carbon 60 and 70 --- which are genarically[sic] known as "Fullerine". [sic] Fullerine has ove 100 times the tensile strength of steel, it's 10's of times lighter, and theoretically could be manufactured quickly and inexpensively. Essentially, the Tigerwolf has a sort of "Super Kevlar" armor, but unlike current Kevlars (which are made of polimers[sic] or composites), fullerine does not have a molecular structure that distorts or melts under heat or pressure --- a single piece of this new type of armor can withstand MANY direct hits from rounds with tank-killing power, KE and CE alike." Ah yes, fullerenes; every hack futurist's favorite crutch. Fullerenes have many interesting and useful properties, but their large-scale bulk mechanical properties may not be that amazing. Many materials have amazing strength at small scales, but disappointing strength at macro scales. Sapphire whiskers are an example. Moreover, high tensile strength (which is what fullerenes have going for them), does not necessarily imply that a material will make good armor. The properties that make materials effective against high-velocity threats are somewhat esoteric. Aluminum alloys, for instance, have a better strength to weight ratio than does steel, and while several of them do protect better on a weight basis than steel against lower velocity threats like artillery fragments and small arms fire, suffer badly against high-velocity penetrators and HEAT threats due to sheer failure modes that only exist at those higher velocity ranges. Also, why the fuck does Blacktail think that "Kevlars" melt under pressure? Aramids don't melt. "Even though it's much larger than an M1A1 Abrams, the Mk.75 Tigerwolf is over 30% lighter, and can swim over water obstacles, rather than slog though on the bottom. And because it floats, there are no depths that it cannot cross." This is how big a 40 tonne boat is. "Also important is it's low ground pressure, stemming from it's low 40-ton weight, super-wide tracks, low height, and enourmous horizontal size --- it has the ground pessure of a "Light Track" vehicle, like the M113 Gavin. This is important because almost half the world's surface is closed to heavy tracks (again, the M1A1 Abrams), due to thier height, ground pressure, and high centers of gravity. The Tigerwolf can directly cut across many areas that no existing or projected MBT will ever be able to --- not to mention traverse certain terrain features, such as bridges and paved roads, without damaging them." Is Blacktail under the impression that it's ground pressure that damages bridges? Jesus, if that were true the last thing you'd want to get anywhere near a bridge is a car. "As the Tigerwolf has 40% more power and torque than the M1, and weighs 30% less, it is 40% faster and could probably accelerate as quickly as a Humvee. This would make contemporary tanks very hard-pressed to cut-off a Tigerwolf, and no current or projected tanks could ever hope to pursue a Tigerwolf. Other advantages offered by the powerpack include a small number of moving parts, extremely low vibration and ocillation (inherent to Wankel Rotaries; not in piston engines), low heat emissions (less than in 700+ degree piston engines, or 1500+ degrees in Gas Turbines), a very small, flat, light engine block, and stonger individual components than in any current or projected tank engine, and a 5-speed AT, to take advantage of the high engine output. " Uh huh... So this is a magical wank(el) engine that has equal SFC to a diesel, rather than falling between a diesel and a turbine as existing ones do. "Other advantages offered by the powerpack include a small number of moving parts, extremely low vibration and ocillation (inherent to Wankel Rotaries; not in piston engines), low heat emissions (less than in 700+ degree piston engines, or 1500+ degrees in Gas Turbines), a very small, flat, light engine block, and stonger individual components than in any current or projected tank engine, and a 5-speed AT, to take advantage of the high engine output." WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF TURBINE REJECTS HEAT AT 1,500 DEGREES?! The highest turbine inlet temperature on record is 1,600C! Per Honeywell, AGT-1500's exhaust temperature is 500 C, but it's unclear if that is before or after it enters the recuperator. And if he's using bullshit Imperial units he's still wrong. If you don't know the difference between heat rejection temperature and turbine inlet temperature, you have no business discussing turbines. "All tanks require high firepower, and the Mk.75 Tigerwolf has plenty of it. The large size of the Tigerwolf's hull and turret enables a heavier-caliber howitzer to be used than on any tank currently in service --- a 145mm Smooth-Bore Howitzer. Because the German-designed M256 120mm smoothbore (M1A1, M1A2, Leopard 2, etc.) has a 40% larger punch than the British-designed M67 105mm Rifled-bore (the standard to which ALL other tank guns are judged --- used on too many tanks to list), the Tigerwolf's gun probaly has at least 20% more punch than the M256 --- enough to outrange any of today's tank guns, with enough penetration to destroy an M1A1 from well beyond it's maximum gun range." Any fictional Main Battle Wank needs to have a smitey, terrifying weapon... I'm not sure why Blacktail has saddled his design with a howitzer. Also, how many places on Earth are there where you can even see further than the engagement range of an M1's armament? "The Co-Axial MachineGun (COAX) fires 7x50mm rifle rounds, which combine the low cost and recoil of the 5.56x45mm NATO round, with the accuracy and penetration of the 7.62x51mm NATO round. 7mm rounds would also have a smaller casing daimeter than a 7.62mm round, which when coupled with significantly larger magazines and canisters, means the Tigerwolf totes one hell of a lot of MG ammo. As such, it is unlikely that a Tigerwolf will have to resupply MG ammo during a battle, and may even have thousands of rounds to spare --- if it is supporting friendly troops, the Tigerwolf may be able to spare a few thousand rounds for them." Someone doesn't know the difference between case head diameter and caliber. "A smooth ride and steady aim are achieved through hydropneumatic suspension and stabilization (versus the comparatively rougher torsion and hydraulics used in current and projected tanks) . The gun, turret, and hull each have thier own stabilization. While each of these are mechanically independant, they are balanced and co-ordinated via computer (which also feeds stability data to the gunnery computer, adjusting the GPS crosshairs in real time). This is unlike current tanks, whose ballistics comuters only react indirectly to the actual stability of the vehicle." I don't know what any of this means, except that Blacktail doesn't know how suspension and stabilization work. That's all I can stand. I'm done. Go read it if you want to, or not, whatever.

...actually nevermind i found this amazing site https://www.cybermodeler.com/armor/t-72/t-72_all.shtml and it has LOADS of pics and i'm happy...still how do you find high res images of tanks online ? i looked and looked but rarely found any,it can't be possible that people didn't take millions of 6000x4000 pics of tanks...right?

Walter dug up these diagrams, I know not where from: Very interesting, and you can see how much space the Soviet trick of turning the engine sideways saves.

ATTENTION DUELISTS: @Toxn @LostCosmonaut @Lord_James @DIADES @Datengineerwill @Whatismoo @Kal @Zadlo @Xoon detailed below is the expected format of the final submission. The date is set as Wednesday the 19th of June at 23:59 GMT. Again, incomplete designs may be submitted as they are and will be judged as seen fit. FINAL SUBMISSION: Vehicle Designation and name [insert 3-projection (front, top, side) and isometric render of vehicle here) Table of basic statistics: Parameter Value Mass, combat Length, combat (transport) Width, combat (transport) Height, combat (transport) Ground Pressure, MMP (nominal) Estimated Speed Estimated range Crew, number (roles) Main armament, caliber (ammo count ready/stowed) Secondary armament, caliber (ammo count ready/stowed) Vehicle designer’s notes: explain the thought process behind the design of the vehicle, ideas, and the development process from the designer’s point of view. Vehicle feature list: Mobility: 1. Link to Appendix 1- RFP spreadsheet, colored to reflect achieved performance. 2. Engine- type, displacement, rated power, cooling, neat features. 3. Transmission- type, arrangement, neat features. 4. Fuel- Type, volume available, stowage location, estimated range, neat features. 5. Other neat features in the engine bay. 6. Suspension- Type, Travel, ground clearance, neat features. Survivability: 1. Link to Appendix 1 - RFP spreadsheet, colored to reflect achieved performance. 2. Link to Appendix 2- armor array details. 3. Non-specified survivability features and other neat tricks- low profile, gun depression, instant smoke, cunning internal arrangement, and the like. Firepower: A. Weapons: 1. Link to Appendix 1- RFP spreadsheet, colored to reflect achieved performance. 2. Main Weapon- a. Type b. Caliber c. ammunition types and performance (short) d. Ammo stowage arrangement- numbers ready and total, features. e. FCS- relevant systems, relevant sights for operating the weapon and so on. f. Neat features. 3. Secondary weapon- Similar format to primary. Tertiary and further weapons- likewise. 4. Link to Appendix 3- Weapon system magic. This is where you explain how all the special tricks related to the armament that aren’t obviously available using Soviet 1961 tech work, and expand to your heart’s content on extimated performance and how these estimates were reached. B. Optics: 1. Primary gunsight- type, associated trickery. 2. Likewise for any and all other optics systems installed, in no particular order. C. FCS: 1. List of component systems, their purpose and the basic system architecture. 2. Link to Appendix 3- weapon system magic, if you have long explanations about the workings of the system. Fightability: 1. List vehicle features which improve its fightability and useability. Additonal Features: Feel free to list more features as you see fit, in more categories. Free expression zone: Let out your inner Thetan to fully impress the world with the fruit of your labor. Kindly spoiler this section if it’s very long. Example for filling in Appendix 1

Restricted: for Operating Thetan Eyes Only By order of Her Gracious and Serene Majesty Queen Diane Feinstein the VIII The Dianetic People’s Republic of California Anno Domini 2250 SUBJ: RFP for new battle tank 1. Background. As part of the War of 2248 against the Perfidious Cascadians, great deficiencies were discovered in the Heavy tank DF-1. As detailed in report [REDACTED], the DF-1 was quite simply no match for the advanced weaponry developed in secret by the Cascadian entity. Likewise, the DF-1 has fared poorly in the fighting against the heretical Mormonhideen, who have developed many improvised weapons capable of defeating the armor on this vehicle, as detailed in report [REDACTED]. The Extended War on the Eastern Front has stalled for want of sufficient survivable firepower to push back the Mormon menace beyond the Colorado River south of the Vegas Crater. The design team responsible for the abject failure that was the DF-1 have been liquidated, which however has not solved the deficiencies of the existing vehicle in service. Therefore, a new vehicle is required, to meet the requirements of the People’s Auditory Forces to keep the dream of our lord and prophet alive. Over the past decade, the following threats have presented themselves: A. The Cascadian M-2239 “Norman” MBT and M-8 light tank Despite being approximately the same size, these 2 vehicles seem to share no common components, not even the primary armament! Curiously, it appears that the lone 120mm SPG specimen recovered shares design features with the M-8, despite being made out of steel and not aluminum like the light tank. (based on captured specimens from the battle of Crater Lake, detailed in report [REDACTED]). Both tanks are armed with high velocity guns. B. The Cascadian BGM-1A/1B/1C/1D ATGM Fitted on a limited number of tank destroyers, several attack helicopters, and (to an extent) man-portable, this missile system is the primary Cascadian anti-armor weapon other than their armored forces. Intelligence suggests that a SACLOS version (BGM-1C) is in LRIP, with rumors of a beam-riding version (BGM-1D) being developed. Both warheads penetrate approximately 6 cone diameters. C. Deseret tandem ATR-4 series Inspired by the Soviet 60/105mm tandem warhead system from the late 80s, the Mormon nation has manufactured a family of 2”/4” tandem HEAT warheads, launched from expendable short-range tube launchers, dedicated AT RRs, and even used as the payload of the JS-1 MCLOS vehicle/man-portable ATGM. Both warheads penetrate approximately 5 cone diameters. D. Cascadian HEDP 90mm rocket While not a particularly impressive AT weapon, being of only middling diameter and a single shaped charge, the sheer proliferation of this device has rendered it a major threat to tanks, as well as lighter vehicles. This weapon is available in large numbers in Cascadian infantry squads as “pocket artillery”, and there are reports of captured stocks being used by the Mormonhideen. Warhead penetrates approximately 4 cone diameters. E. Deseret 40mm AC/ Cascadian 35mm AC These autocannon share broadly similar AP performance, and are considered a likely threat for the foreseeable future, on Deseret armored cars, Cascadian tank destroyers, and likely also future IFVs. F. IEDs In light of the known resistance of tanks to standard 10kg anti-tank mines, both the Perfidious Cascadians and the Mormonhideen have taken to burying larger anti-tank A2AD weaponry. The Cascadians have doubled up some mines, and the Mormons have regularly buried AT mines 3, 4, and even 5 deep. 2. General guidelines: A. Solicitation outline: In light of the differing requirements for the 2 theaters of war in which the new vehicle is expected to operate, proposals in the form of a field-replaceable A-kit/B-kit solution will be accepted. B. Requirements definitions: The requirements in each field are given in 3 levels- Threshold, Objective, and Ideal. Threshold is the minimum requirement to be met; failure to reach this standard may greatly disadvantage any proposal. Objective is the threshold to be aspired to; it reflects the desires of the People’s Auditory Forces Armored Branch, which would prefer to see all of them met. At least 70% must be met, with bonus points for any more beyond that. Ideal specifications are the maximum of which the armored forces dare not even dream. Bonus points will be given to any design meeting or exceeding these specifications. C. All proposals must accommodate the average 1.7m high Californian recruit. D. The order of priorities for the DPRC is as follows: a. Vehicle recoverability. b. Continued fightability. c. Crew survival. E. Permissible weights: a. No individual field-level removable or installable component may exceed 5 tons. b. Despite the best efforts of the Agriculture Command, Californian recruits cannot be expected to lift weights in excess of 25 kg at any time. c. Total vehicle weight must remain within MLC 120 all-up for transport. F. Overall dimensions: a. Length- essentially unrestricted. b. Width- 4m transport width. i. No more than 4 components requiring a crane may be removed to meet this requirement. ii. Any removed components must be stowable on top of the vehicle. c. Height- The vehicle must not exceed 3.5m in height overall. G. Technology available: a. Armor: The following armor materials are in full production and available for use. Use of a non-standard armor material requires permission from a SEA ORG judge. Structural materials: i. RHA/CHA Basic steel armor, 250 BHN. The reference for all weapon penetration figures, good impact properties, fully weldable. Available in thicknesses up to 150mm (RHA) or 300mm (CHA). Density- 7.8 g/cm^3. ii. Aluminum 5083 More expensive to work with than RHA per weight, middling impact properties, low thermal limits. Excellent stiffness. Fully weldable. Available in thicknesses up to 100mm. Mass efficiency vs RHA of 1 vs CE, 0.9 vs KE. Thickness efficiency vs RHA of 0.33 vs CE, 0.3 vs KE. Density- 2.7 g/cm^3 (approx. 1/3 of steel). For structural integrity, the following guidelines are recommended: For light vehicles (less than 40 tons), not less than 25mm RHA/45mm Aluminum base structure For heavy vehicles (70 tons and above), not less than 45mm RHA/80mm Aluminum base structure. Intermediate values for intermediate vehicles may be chosen as seen fit. Non-structural passive materials: iii. HHA Steel, approximately 500 BHN through-hardened. Approximately twice as effective as RHA against KE and HEAT on a per-weight basis. Not weldable, middling shock properties. Available in thicknesses up to 25mm. Density- 7.8g/cm^3. iv. Glass textolite Mass efficiency vs RHA of 2.2 vs CE, 1.64 vs KE. Thickness efficiency vs RHA of 0.52 vs CE, 0.39 vs KE. Density- 1.85 g/cm^3 (approximately ¼ of steel). Non-structural. v. Fused silica Mass efficiency vs RHA of 3.5 vs CE, 1 vs KE. Thickness efficiency vs RHA of 1 vs CE, 0.28 vs KE. Density-2.2g/cm^3 (approximately 1/3.5 of steel). Non-structural, requires confinement (being in a metal box) to work. vi. Fuel Mass efficiency vs RHA of 1.3 vs CE, 1 vs KE. Thickness efficiency vs RHA of 0.14 vs CE, 0.1 vs KE. Density-0.82g/cm^3. vii. Assorted stowage/systems Mass efficiency vs RHA- 1 vs CE, 0.8 vs KE. viii. Spaced armor Requires a face of at least 25mm LOS vs CE, and at least 50mm LOS vs KE. Reduces penetration by a factor of 1.1 vs CE or 1.05 vs KE for every 10 cm air gap. Spaced armor rules only apply after any standoff surplus to the requirements of a reactive cassette. Reactive armor materials: ix. ERA-light A sandwich of 3mm/3mm/3mm steel-explodium-steel. Requires mounting brackets of approximately 10-30% cassette weight. Must be spaced at least 3 sandwich thicknesses away from any other armor elements to allow full functionality. 81% coverage (edge effects). x. ERA-heavy A sandwich of 15mm steel/3mm explodium/9mm steel. Requires mounting brackets of approximately 10-30% cassette weight. Must be spaced at least 3 sandwich thicknesses away from any other armor elements to allow full functionality. 81% coverage (edge effects). xi. NERA-light A sandwich of 6mm steel/6mm rubber/ 6mm steel. Requires mounting brackets of approximately 10-30% cassette weight. Must be spaced at least 1 sandwich thickness away from any other armor elements to allow full functionality. 95% coverage. xii. NERA-heavy A sandwich of 30mm steel/6m rubber/18mm steel. Requires mounting brackets of approximately 10-30% cassette weight. Must be spaced at least 1 sandwich thickness away from any other armor elements to allow full functionality. 95% coverage. The details of how to calculate armor effectiveness will be detailed in Appendix 1. b. Firepower i. 2A46 equivalent tech- pressure limits, semi-combustible cases, recoil mechanisms and so on are at an equivalent level to that of the USSR in the year 1960. ii. Limited APFSDS (L:D 15:1)- Spindle sabots or bourelleted sabots, see for example the Soviet BM-20 100mm APFSDS. iii. Limited tungsten (no more than 100g per shot) iv. Californian shaped charge technology- 5 CD penetration for high-pressure resistant HEAT, 6 CD for low pressure/ precision formed HEAT. v. The general issue GPMG for the People’s Auditory Forces is the PKM. The standard HMG is the DShK. c. Mobility i. Engines tech level: 1. MB 838 (830 HP) 2. AVDS-1790-5A (908 HP) 3. Kharkov 5TD (600 HP) ii. Power density should be based on the above engines. Dimensions are available online, pay attention to cooling of 1 and 3 (water cooled). iii. Power output broadly scales with volume, as does weight. Trying to extract more power from the same size may come at the cost of reliability (and in the case of the 5TD, it isn’t all that reliable in the first place). iv. There is nothing inherently wrong with opposed piston or 2-stroke engines if done right. d. Electronics i. LRFs- unavailable ii. Thermals-unavailable iii. I^2- limited 3. Operational Requirements. The requirements are detailed in the appended spreadsheet. 4. Submission protocols. Submission protocols and methods will be established in a follow-on post, nearer to the relevant time. Appendix 1- armor calculation Appendix 2- operational requirements Addendum 1 - more armor details Good luck, and may Hubbard guide your way to enlightenment!

Backstory (skip if you don't like alternate history junk) The year is 2239. It has been roughly 210 years since the world was engulfed in nuclear war. Following the war, the United States splintered into hundreds of small statelets. While much knowledge was retained in some form (mostly through books and other printed media), the loss of population and destruction of industrial capability set back society immensely. Though the Pacific Northwest was less badly hit than other areas, the destruction of Seattle and Portland, coupled with the rupturing of the Cascadia Subduction Zone in 2043, caused society to regress to a mid-19th century technology level. However, in the early 2100s, the Cascade Republic formed, centered near Tacoma. The new nation grew rapidly, expanding to encompass most of Washington and Oregon by 2239. The Cascade Republic now extends from the Klamath River in the south to the Fraser River in the north, and from the Pacific roughly to central Idaho. Over time, the standard of living and industrial development improved (initially through salvaging of surviving equipment, by the late 2100s through new development); the population has grown to about 4.5 million (comparable to 1950 levels), and technology is at about a 1940 level. Automobiles are common, aircraft are less common, but not rare by any means. Computers are nonexistent aside from a few experimental devices; while scientists and engineers are aware of the principles behind microchips and other advanced electronics, the facilities to produce such components simply do not exist. Low rate production of early transistors recently restarted. The current armored force of the Cascade Republic consists of three armored brigades. They are presently equipped with domestically produced light tanks, dating to the 2190s. Weighing roughly 12 tons and armed with a 40mm gun, they represented the apex of the Cascade Republic's industrial capabilities at the time. And when they were built, they were sufficient for duties such as pacifying survivalist enclaves in remote areas. However, since that time, the geopolitical situation has complicated significantly. There are two main opponents the Cascade Republic's military could expect to face in the near future. The first is California. The state of California was hit particularly hard by the nuclear exchange. However, in 2160, several small polities in the southern part of the state near the ruins of Los Angeles unified. Adopting an ideology not unfamiliar to North Korea, the new state declared itself the successor to the legacy of California, and set about forcibly annexing the rest of the state. It took them less than 50 years to unite the rest of California, and spread into parts of Arizona and northern Mexico. While California's expansion stopped at the Klamath River for now, this is only due to poor supply lines and the desire to engage easier targets. (California's northward advanced did provide the final impetus for the last statelets in south Oregon to unify with the Cascade Republic voluntarily). California is heavily industrialized, possessing significant air, naval, and armored capabilities. Their technology level is comparable to the Cascade Republic's, but their superior industrial capabilities and population mean that they can produce larger vehicles in greater quantity than other countries. Intelligence shows they have vehicles weighing up to 50 tons with 3 inches of armor, though most of their tanks are much lighter. The expected frontlines for an engagement with the Californian military would be the coastal regions in southern Oregon. Advancing up the coastal roads would allow California to capture the most populated and industrialized regions of the Cascade Republic if they advanced far enough north. Fortunately, the terrain near the border is very difficult and favors the defender; (near the Californian border) The other opponent is Deseret, a Mormon theocratic state centered in Utah, and encompassing much of Nevada, western Colorado, and southern Idaho. Recently, tension has arisen with the Cascade Republic over two main issues. The first is the poorly defined border in Eastern Oregon / Northern Nevada; the old state boundary is virtually meaningless, and though the area is sparsely populated, it does represent a significant land area, with grazing and water resources. The more recent flashpoint is the Cascade Republic's recent annexation of Arco and the area to the east. Deseret historically regarded Idaho as being within its sphere of influence, and maintained several puppet states in the area (the largest being centered in Idaho Falls). They regard the annexation of a signficant (in terms of land area, not population) portion of Idaho as a major intrusion into their rightful territory. That the Cascade Republic has repaired the rail line leading to the old Naval Reactors Facility, and set up a significant military base there only makes the situation worse. Deseret's military is light and heavily focused on mobile operations. Though they are less heavily mechanized than the Cascade Republic's forces, operating mostly armored cars and cavalry, they still represent a significant threat to supply and communication lines in the open terrain of eastern Oregon / southern Idaho. (a butte in the disputed region of Idaho, near Arco) Requirements As the head of a design team in the Cascade Republic military, you have been requested to design a new tank according to one of two specifications (or both if you so desire): Medium / Heavy Tank Weight: No more than 45 tons Width: No more than 10.8 feet (3.25 meters) Upper glacis / frontal turret armor of at least 3 in (76mm) LoS thickness Side armor at least 1in (25mm) thick (i.e. resistant to HMG fire) Power/weight ratio of at least 10 hp / ton No more than 6 crew members Primary armament capable of utilizing both anti-armor and high explosive rounds Light tank Weight: No more than 25 tons Width: No more than 10.8 feet Upper glacis / frontal turret armor of at least 1 in thickness Side armor of at least 3/8 in (10mm) thickness Power/weight ratio of at least 12 hp / ton No more than 6 crew members Primary armament capable of utilizing both anti-armor and high explosive rounds Other relevant information: Any tank should be designed to operate against either of the Cascade Republic's likely opponents (California or Deseret) The primary heavy machine gun is the M2, the primary medium machine gun is the M240. Use of one or both of these as coaxial and/or secondary armament is encouraged. The secret archives of the Cascade Republic are available for your use. Sadly, there are no running prewar armored vehicles, the best are some rusted hulks that have long been stripped of usable equipment. (Lima Tank Plant ate a 500 kt ground burst) Both HEAT and APFSDS rounds are in testing. APCR is the primary anti-armor round of the Cascade Republic. Either diesel or gasoline engines are acceptable, the Cascade Republic is friendly with oil producing regions in Canada (OOC: Engines are at about a late 1940s/early 50s tech level) The adaptability of the tank to other variants (such as SPAA, SPG, recovery vehicle, etc.) is preferred but not the primary metric that will be used to decide on a design. Ease of maintenance in the field is highly important. Any designs produced will be compared against the M4 Sherman and M3 Stuart (for medium/heavy and light tank), as these blueprints are readily available, and these tanks are well within the Cascade Republic's manufacturing capabilities.

Since we've got the new AFV design competition going and not everyone has solidworks, I thought I would share this information from Technology of Tanks so those who do not have CAD/CAM programs could come up with a reasonable accounting of what a tank ought to weigh: -Armor usually contribute between 35% and 51% of the total mass of the vehicle. The lower figure is typical for light tanks, the higher for MBTs. If the armor were reduced to the minimum necessary for structural purposes it would still be about 20% of the total mass. The highest figure on record is 57% for the armor of the IS-3. -The tracks contribute about 8% to 10% of the mass of the vehicle in the case of steel link tracks. On a fast track-laying combat vehicle the tracks are getting slung around over all sorts of rocks and whatnot, so they need to be tough, which means that they're heavy. Band tracks weigh 25%-50% less than steel link tracks, but band tracks can only be used on lighter vehicles. The heaviest vehicle I know of that uses band tracks is the Turkish Tulpar IFV at 32 tonnes. -Suspensions contribute about 8% to 10% of the total mass of the vehicle. Hydropneumatic suspensions are the lightest, but not by an enormous margin. Higher performance suspensions weigh more. -The power pack, that is the engine and the transmission together, account for about 12% of the vehicle's mass. -Guns typically contribute 3% to 7% of the total mass of the vehicle, although cramming the very largest gun possible into the very smallest tank possible can bring this up to about 10%. -Ammo generally weighs less than the gun. Fuel weighs about the same as ammo. On any fictional or notional tank design, I'll be looking to see if the weight of the components are within these bounds. If they're not there had better be a damned good explanation.

This is the place for flame wars about rifle-caliber MGs versus autocannons for tank coaxial weaponry. First, we have Ensign's blog post about tank machine guns:

Sooooo...after doing a site-wide search and perusing Google, I'm surprised not to have found anything about tank suspension, other than a somewhat doubtful thread on the WoT forums. Would my learned colleagues of SH be able to assist me in understanding and identifying the different types of tank suspension? I think I've got leaf-spring more or less mastered, as well as both VVSS and HVSS (thanks, JGT!) but was somewhat embarrassed not to be able to differentiate between the suspension of a Type 97 Chi-Ha and an FV4201 Chieftain. UPDATE: I think I understand tank suspension better now. Thanks, everyone!

Shortly after Jeeps_Guns_Tanks started his substantial foray into documenting the development and variants of the M4, I joked on teamspeak with Wargaming's The_Warhawk that the next thing he ought to do was a similar post on the T-72. Haha. I joke. I am funny man. The production history of the T-72 is enormously complicated. Tens of thousands were produced; it is probably the fourth most produced tank ever after the T-54/55, T-34 and M4 sherman. For being such an ubiquitous vehicle, it's frustrating to find information in English-language sources on the T-72. Part of this is residual bad information from the Cold War era when all NATO had to go on were blurry photos from May Day parades: As with Soviet aircraft, NATO could only assign designations to obviously externally different versions of the vehicle. However, they were not necessarily aware of internal changes, nor were they aware which changes were post-production modifications and which ones were new factory variants of the vehicle. The NATO designations do not, therefore, necessarily line up with the Soviet designations. Between different models of T-72 there are large differences in armor protection and fire control systems. This is why anyone arguing T-72 vs. X has completely missed the point; you need to specify which variant of T-72. There are large differences between them! Another issue, and one which remains contentious to this day, is the relation between the T-64, T-72 and T-80 in the Soviet Army lineup. This article helps explain the political wrangling which led to the logistically bizarre situation of three very similar tanks being in frontline service simultaneously, but the article is extremely biased as it comes from a high-ranking member of the Ural plant that designed and built the T-72. Soviet tank experts still disagree on this; read this if you have some popcorn handy. Talking points from the Kharkov side seem to be that T-64 was a more refined, advanced design and that T-72 was cheap filler, while Ural fans tend to hold that T-64 was an unreliable mechanical prima donna and T-72 a mechanically sound, mass-producible design. So, if anyone would like to help make sense of this vehicle, feel free to post away. I am particularly interested in: -What armor arrays the different T-72 variants use. Diagrams, dates of introduction, and whether the array is factory-produced or a field upgrade of existing armor are pertinent questions. -Details of the fire control system. One of the Kharkov talking points is that for most of the time in service, T-64 had a more advanced fire control system than contemporary T-72 variants. Is this true? What were the various fire control systems in the T-64 and T-72, and what were there dates of introduction? I am particularly curious when Soviet tanks got gun-follows-sight FCS. -Export variants and variants produced outside the Soviet Union. How do they stack up? Exactly what variant(s) of T-72 were the Iraqis using in 1991? -WTF is up with the T-72's transmission? How does it steer and why is its reverse speed so pathetically low?

Tank design is often conceptualized as a balance between mobility, protection and firepower. This is, at best, a messy and imprecise conceptualization. It is messy because these three traits cannot be completely separated from each other. An APC, for example, that provides basic protection against small arms fire and shell fragments is effectively more mobile than an open-topped vehicle because the APC can traverse areas swept by artillery fires that are closed off entirely to the open-topped vehicle. It is an imprecise conceptualization because broad ideas like "mobility" are very complex in practice. The M1 Abrams burns more fuel than the Leo 2, but the Leo 2 requires diesel fuel, while the omnivorous AGT-1500 will run happily on anything liquid and flammable. Which has better strategic mobility? Soviet rail gauge was slightly wider than Western European standard; 3.32 vs 3.15 meters. But Soviet tanks in the Cold War were generally kept lighter and smaller, and had to be in order to be moved in large numbers on a rail and road network that was not as robust as that further west. So if NATO and the Warsaw Pact had switched tanks in the late 1950s, they would both have downgraded the strategic mobility of their forces, as the Soviet tanks would be slightly too wide for unrestricted movement on rails in the free world, and the NATO tanks would have demanded more logistical support per tank than evil atheist commie formations were designed to provide. So instead of wading into a deep and subtle subject, I am going to write about something that is extremely simple and easy to describe in mathematical terms; the top speed of a tank moving in a straight line. Because it is so simple and straightforward to understand, it is also nearly meaningless in terms of the combat performance of a tank. In short, the top speed of a tank is limited by three things; the gear ratio limit, the power limit and the suspension limit. The tank's maximum speed will be whichever of these limits is the lowest on a given terrain. The top speed of a tank is of limited significance, even from a tactical perspective, because the tank's ability to exploit its top speed is constrained by other factors. A high top speed, however, looks great on sales brochures, and there are examples of tanks that were designed with pointlessly high top speeds in order to overawe people who needed impressing. When this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you're going to see some serious shit. The Gear Ratio Limit Every engine has a maximum speed at which it can turn. Often, the engine is artificially governed to a maximum speed slightly less than what it is mechanically capable of in order to reduce wear. Additionally, most piston engines develop their maximum power at slightly less than their maximum speed due to valve timing issues: A typical power/speed relationship for an Otto Cycle engine. Otto Cycle engines are primitive devices that are only used when the Brayton Cycle Master Race is unavailable. Most tanks have predominantly or purely mechanical drivetrains, which exchange rotational speed for torque by easily measurable ratios. The maximum rotational speed of the engine, multiplied by the gear ratio of the highest gear in the transmission multiplied by the gear ratio of the final drives multiplied by the circumference of the drive sprocket will equal the gear ratio limit of the tank. The tank is unable to achieve higher speeds than the gear ratio limit because it physically cannot spin its tracks around any faster. Most spec sheets don't actually give out the transmission ratios in different gears, but such excessively detailed specification sheets are provided in Germany's Tiger Tanks by Hilary Doyle and Thomas Jentz. The gear ratios, final drive ratios, and maximum engine RPM of the Tiger II are all provided, along with a handy table of the vehicle's maximum speed in each gear. In eighth gear, the top speed is given as 41.5 KPH, but that is at an engine speed of 3000 RPM, and in reality the German tank engines were governed to less than that in order to conserve their service life. At a more realistic 2500 RPM, the mighty Tiger II would have managed 34.6 KPH. In principle there are analogous limits for electrical and hydraulic drive components based on free speeds and stall torques, but they are a little more complicated to actually calculate. Part of the transmission from an M4 Sherman, picture from Jeeps_Guns_Tanks' great Sherman website The Power Limit So a Tiger II could totally go 34.6 KPH in combat, right? Well, perhaps. And by "perhaps," I mean "lolololololol, fuck no." I defy you to find me a test report where anybody manages to get a Tiger II over 33 KPH. While the meticulous engineers of Henschel did accurately transcribe the gear ratios of the transmission and final drive accurately, and did manage to use their tape measures correctly when measuring the drive sprockets, their rosy projections of the top speed did not account for the power limit. As a tank moves, power from the engine is wasted in various ways and so is unavailable to accelerate the tank. As the tank goes faster and faster, the magnitude of these power-wasting phenomena grows, until there is no surplus power to accelerate the tank any more. The system reaches equilibrium, and the tank maxes out at some top speed where it hits its power limit (unless, of course, the tank hits its gear ratio limit first). The actual power available to a tank is not the same as the gross power of the motor. Some of the gross horsepower of the motor has to be directed to fans to cool the engine (except, of course, in the case of the Brayton Cycle Master Race, whose engines are almost completely self-cooling). The transmission and final drives are not perfectly efficient either, and waste a significant amount of the power flowing through them as heat. As a result of this, the actual power available at the sprocket is typically between 61% and 74% of the engine's quoted gross power. Once the power does hit the drive sprocket, it is wasted in overcoming the friction of the tank's tracks, in churning up the ground the tank is on, and in aerodynamic drag. I have helpfully listed these in the order of decreasing importance. The drag coefficient of a cube (which is a sufficiently accurate physical representation of a Tiger II) is .8. This, multiplied by half the fluid density of air (1.2 kg/m^3) times the velocity (9.4 m/s) squared times a rough frontal area of 3.8 by 3 meters gives a force of 483 newtons of drag. This multiplied by the velocity of the tiger II gives 4.5 kilowatts, or about six horsepower lost to drag. With the governor installed, the HL 230 could put out about 580 horsepower, which would be four hundred something horses at the sprocket, so the aerodynamic drag would be 1.5% of the total available power. Negligible. Tanks are just too slow to lose much power to aerodynamic effects. Losses to the soil can be important, depending on the surface the tank is operating on. On a nice, hard surface like a paved road there will be minimal losses between the tank's tracks and the surface. Off-road, however, the tank's tracks will start to sink into soil or mud, and more power will be wasted in churning up the soil. If the soil is loose or boggy enough, the tank will simply sink in and be immobilized. Tanks that spread their weight out over a larger area will lose less power, and be able to traverse soft soils at higher speed. This paper from the UK shows the relationship between mean maximum pressure (MMP), and the increase in rolling resistance on various soils and sands in excruciating detail. In general, tanks with more track area, with more and bigger road wheels, and with longer track pitch will have lower MMP, and will sink into soft soils less and therefore lose less top speed. The largest loss of power usually comes from friction within the tracks themselves. This is sometimes called rolling resistance, but this term is also used to mean other, subtly different things, so it pays to be precise. Compared to wheeled vehicles, tracked vehicles have extremely high rolling resistance, and lose a lot of power just keeping the tracks turning. Rolling resistance is generally expressed as a dimensionless coefficient, CR, which multiplied against vehicle weight gives the force of friction. This chart from R.M. Ogorkiewicz' Technology of Tanks shows experimentally determined rolling resistance coefficients for various tracked vehicles: The rolling resistance coefficients given here show that a tracked vehicle going on ideal testing ground conditions is about as efficient as a car driving over loose gravel. It also shows that the rolling resistance increases with vehicle speed. A rough approximation of this increase in CR is given by the equation CR=A+BV, where A and B are constants and V is vehicle speed. Ogorkiewicz explains: It should be noted that the lubricated needle bearing track joints of which he speaks were only ever used by the Germans in WWII because they were insanely complicated. Band tracks have lower rolling resistance than metal link tracks, but they really aren't practical for vehicles much above thirty tonnes. Other ways of reducing rolling resistance include using larger road wheels, omitting return rollers, and reducing track tension. Obviously, there are practical limits to these approaches. To calculate power losses due to rolling resistance, multiply vehicle weight by CR by vehicle velocity to get power lost. The velocity at which the power lost to rolling resistance equals the power available at the sprocket is the power limit on the speed of the tank. The Suspension Limit The suspension limit on speed is starting to get dangerously far away from the world of spherical, frictionless horses where everything is easy to calculate using simple algebra, so I will be brief. In addition to the continents of the world not being completely comprised of paved surfaces that minimize rolling resistance, the continents of the world are also not perfectly flat. This means that in order to travel at high speed off road, tanks require some sort of suspension or else they would shake their crews into jelly. If the crew is being shaken too much to operate effectively, then it doesn't really matter if a tank has a high enough gear ratio limit or power limit to go faster. This is also particularly obnoxious because suspension performance is difficult to quantify, as it involves resonance frequencies, damping coefficients, and a bunch of other complicated shit. Suffice it to say, then, that a very rough estimate of the ride-smoothing qualities of a tank's suspension can be made from the total travel of its road wheels: This chart from Technology of Tanks is helpful. A more detailed discussion of the subject of tank suspension can be found here. The Real World Rudely Intrudes So, how useful is high top speed in a tank in messy, hard-to-mathematically-express reality? The answer might surprise you! A Wehrmacht M.A.N. combustotron Ausf G We'll take some whacks at everyone's favorite whipping boy; the Panther. A US report on a captured Panther Ausf G gives its top speed on roads as an absolutely blistering 60 KPH on roads. The Soviets could only get their captured Ausf D to do 50 KPH, but compared to a Sherman, which is generally only credited with 40 KPH on roads, that's alarmingly fast. So, would this mean that the Panther enjoyed a mobility advantage over the Sherman? Would this mean that it was better able to make quick advances and daring flanking maneuvers during a battle? No. In field tests the British found the panther to have lower off-road speed than a Churchill VII (the panther had a slightly busted transmission though). In the same American report that credits the Panther Ausf G with a 60 KPH top speed on roads, it was found that off road the panther was almost exactly as fast as an M4A376W, with individual Shermans slightly outpacing the big cat or lagging behind it slightly. Another US report from January 1945 states that over courses with many turns and curves, the Sherman would pull out ahead because the Sherman lost less speed negotiating corners. Clearly, the Panther's advantage in straight line speed did not translate into better mobility in any combat scenario that did not involve drag racing. So what was going on with the Panther? How could it leave everything but light tanks in the dust on a straight highway, but be outpaced by the ponderous Churchill heavy tank in actual field tests? Panther Ausf A tanks captured by the Soviets A British report from 1946 on the Panther's transmission explains what's going on. The Panther's transmission had seven forward gears, but off-road it really couldn't make it out of fifth. In other words, the Panther had an extremely high gear ratio limit that allowed it exceptional speed on roads. However, the Panther's mediocre power to weight ratio (nominally 13 hp/ton for the RPM limited HL 230) meant that once the tank was off road and fighting mud, it only had a mediocre power limit. Indeed, it is a testament to the efficiency of the Panther's running gear that it could keep up with Shermans at all, since the Panther's power to weight ratio was about 20% lower than that particular variant of Sherman. There were other factors limiting the Panther's speed in practical circumstances. The geared steering system used in the Panther had different steering radii based on what gear the Panther was in. The higher the gear, the wider the turn. In theory this was excellent, but in practice the designers chose too wide a turn radius for each gear, which meant that for any but the gentlest turns the Panther's drive would need to slow down and downshift in order to complete the turn, thus sacrificing any speed advantage his tank enjoyed. So why would a tank be designed in such a strange fashion? The British thought that the Panther was originally designed to be much lighter, and that the transmission had never been re-designed in order to compensate. Given the weight gain that the Panther experienced early in development, this explanation seems like it may be partially true. However, when interrogated, Ernst Kniepkamp, a senior engineer in Germany's wartime tank development bureaucracy, stated that the additional gears were there simply to give the Panther a high speed on roads, because it looked good to senior generals. So, this is the danger in evaluating tanks based on extremely simplistic performance metrics that look good on paper. They may be simple to digest and simple to calculate, but in the messy real world, they may mean simply nothing.

I thought this deserves its own thread. Where do you see tank design going in the next few decades? Where do you think it should go? Here is where I think things will go: -Western tank development will be depressing. Every country will want their own indigenous tank design, and upon learning that they are lolnotevenclose to competent to actually make a first-rate MBT, they'll ask someone who is and end up making something that is practically identical to a Leo 2 or Leclerc, only without parts interchangeability. -Except for the tracks, ammo and engine, because all new Western MBTs will have the same Diehl tracks, MTU powerpack and Rheinmetall 120mm cannon. -Anyone who deviates from this formula will soon learn that all the engineers who actually design tanks hung up their hats in the early 1990s, and that re-building that knowledge base is hard. Being unwilling to put actual work into the problem, any tank designed that isn't based around these proven components will be a gigantic shitshow, and having wasted hundreds of millions of dollars, the country in question will throw up their hands and quietly buy T-90s or T-14s. -The vast majority of tank armor will be increasingly refined NERA, possibly with perforated stand off screens or those wedge thingies from Leo 2A5 to improve performance against LRPs. This fact, abundantly evinced by pictures of damaged tanks and tanks undergoing repair and overhaul, will continue to baffle and elude journalists. -The USA, Turkey, Franco-German consortium, South Korea and Japan will be the only "Western" countries still able to produce MBTs, and all will heavily lean on German-designed tracks, engines and guns. Turkish MBTs and other AFVs will be materially designed by South Korean firms to Turkish specifications. Italy and the UK will both lose their ability to design MBTs, the UK will actually lose their ability to make them, which will be rationalized by saying that MBTs are obsolete. Crystal ball cloudy for Poland, Czech Republic, and whatever tank production capability remains in Romania and former Yugoslavia. -The Russians will re-acquire the lead they had in tank design throughout most of the Cold War, with the Chinese playing second fiddle. Chinese first-line tanks will be quite good, but they will sell hilarious, hot-rodded type 59s to export customers (alongside hilarious hot-rodded J-7s) instead of their good stuff. Russia will sell the good stuff, and once they manage to replicate the parts they needed to source from abroad, it will be really good. The Ukrainian tank industry will remain gutted, and the glorious Kharkiv tank design lineage will fade into obscurity.

The mean goons over on SA roped me into writing an effortpost, so I figured it's only fair that you freeloaders get to enjoy it too. So, suspensions. I'm going to introduce the book as well because it's probably the most Soviet book that ever existed. It is called TANK. What makes this book so Soviet? Well, here's the first paragraph of the introduction: "Under the guidance of the Communist party of the Soviet Union, our people built socialism, achieved a historical victory in the Great Patriotic War, and in launched an enormous campaign for the creation of a Communist society." The next paragraph talks about the 19th Assembly of the CPSU, then a bit about how in the Soviet Union man no longer exploits man (now it's the other way around :haw:), then a little bit about the war again, then spends another three pages stroking the party's dick about production and growth. The word "tank" does not appear in the introduction. The historical prelude section is written by someone who is a little closer to tanks and might be a little less politically reliable, since they actually give Tsarists credit for things. I guess they have to, since foreigners are only mentioned in this section when they are amazed by Russian progress. The next chapter is a Wikipedia-grade summary of various tank designs that gives WWI designs a pretty fair evaluation, then a huge section on Soviet tank development, then a tiny section on foreign tanks in WWII mostly consisting of listing all the mistakes their designers made. The party must have recuperated since the intro since we're in for another three pages of fellatio. Having read so far, you might think that there is very little value in this sort of book, but then the writing style does a complete 180 and the rest of the book is 100% apolitical and mostly looks like this. Which is what we care about, so let's begin. Bonus points to anyone who can identify what the diagram above is about. Sorry in advance if my terminology isn't 100% correct, there aren't exactly a lot of tank dictionaries lying around. The book skips over primitive unsprung suspensions of WWI and starts off with describing the difference between independent suspensions and road-arm suspensions. In the former, every wheel is independently sprung. In the latter, two or more wheels are joined together by a spring. Some suspensions have a mix of these designs. For example, here's a simple road-arm suspension used in some Vickers designs and their derivatives. The two road wheels are connected by a spring and to the hull by a lever. A weight pushing down on top of the pair of wheels is going to compress the spring that's perpendicular to the ground, bringing the wheels closer together. Here's a more complex road-arm suspension, with four wheels per unit instead of one, also AFAIK first used by Vickers and then migrating to an enormous amount of designs from there. This suspension provides springiness through a leaf spring that you can see above the four road wheels. The two pairs of wheels don't have their own springs. The black circles in the image show where the suspension elements can turn, keeping the tank flat while hugging the terrain. Here's another road-arm suspension, similar to the first one. In this case, the spring is made of rubber instead of metal. Otherwise, the design is very similar. Two rubber bungs on the bottom of the axles prevent the wheels from slamming into each other too hard. This design was used by French tanks and nobody else. For some reason, volute spring suspensions are completely absent from this section. This is the best image of a Vertical Volute Spring Suspension (early Shermans) that I could find. It's kind of similar to the first image, except the spring is a volute spring, and it's vertical instead of horizontal. Later Shermans used horizontal volute springs. Of course, as the book points out, these suspension elements are very easy to damage externally and knocking out one part of the suspension will typically take out the rest of the assembly, so independent suspensions are the way to go. The best way to do this are torsion bars. The bar is attached to a lever that holds your road wheel. As pressure is applied to the road wheel, the bar subtly twists, remaining elastic enough to reset once the pressure is off. This image is kind of weird, but the part in the center is the part on the far left, zoomed in, showing you where the lever and the opposite side's torsion bar are attached. As you can see, road wheels in a torsion bar suspension are going to be a little off on one side, unlike what you're used to on cars and such. Now, since torsion bars are metal bars on the floor, they are going to make your tank taller. If you want a tank that's as short as possible at the expense of width, you may want to consider a Christie like suspension. Here, much like in torsion bars, the pressure is transferred inside the tank, but instead of a bar to absorb it, it's a spring in a vertical (or angled) tube. In most tanks with this kind of suspension, the springs are on the inside, but if you want to make the tank roomier on the inside, you can have them on the outside too. If you're really fancy, you can put a spring within the spring like in this diagram. Since this is a Soviet tank book, you gotta have a huge T-34 diagram. Here it is. The T-34 uses Christie springs, which you can see in the diagram. The road wheel configuration is a mix of the externally dampened and internally dampened "Stalingrad type" road wheels. The former have more rubber for absorbing hits from terrain, but the latter use less rubber. When you're in Stalingrad and you have to make tanks with a rubber deficit, that's the kind you want. When road wheels from other factories were available, they would go in the front and then the back to absorb most of the impact from harsh terrain features, and the steel-rimmed wheels went in the middle. The diagram shows how both types of wheels work. Rubber can't really take too much punishment, so the KV, being a heavy tank, went with internally dampened road wheels from the very beginning, with a ring of rubber on the inside around the axle. And finally, idlers. If you don't have big Christie type wheels, you gotta have idlers so your saggy track doesn't fall off. This diagram shows the rubber coating on an idler, and also how the rear idler can adjust to tighten the track. A loose track makes more noise, gets worn more, and is liable to slip off. Keep those tracks tight, and you'll be zooming towards glorious victory in no time flat! Now, the book ends and my own stuff begins. I mentioned rubber, but not what a headache it was to tank designers. In hot weather, the rubber in your tracks and wheels tends to fall apart. If you go fast enough, tires that don't have proper ventilation are going to melt too. There was a lot of pre-war panic in the USSR about the German PzIII being able to do 70 kph on tracks, but once the Soviets started building SU-76Is on the PzIII chassis they found out that the speed had to be limited to a whopping 25 kph to keep the wear to a reasonable level.