The Military Thread

Well, obviously.

I mean, technically not only do radios emit radiation... but fire is also radioactive, for thermal heat is on the electromatic spectrum, as a form of radiation and so are radio waves. Not only are we all radioactive in this way... but Bananas emit beta particles.

I am more afraid of being in a room filled with Bananas and raw bullets, than a room with the same weight in Depleted Uranium.

On that first tank drawing are those ceramic applique armor plates?

I don't think I have heard anything terrible about export Abrams other than they are still expensive.

The Abrams the US left behind were in Iraq.As were the vids of nasty brew ups.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on May 30th 2023 at 7:41:34 AM

RE: Tuefel Hunden IV

That's the BDD or "Brow" armor of the T-62M tank. I don't recall what it was made of.

I can't find a single good source right now that explains what it's composition is.

I meant on the Titan with those bolt-on pieces.

However, I did dig into the armor for the T-62M. From what I can find those are a form of applique armor. They consist of a thick outer layer with layered and spaced 5mm steel plates with a type of polymer (most are suggesting polyurethane) filling in between. Also, I keep seeing a supposed nickname of "Ilyich's eyebrows" or similar. Not sure how official that is or if it is something that wasn't concocted by the online community out of humor.

Supposedly the extra armor package is pretty good and brings the tank up to almost the same protection levels as the early T-72A models.

That'll render it immune to a lot of lighter shoulder fired weaponry and early 105mm ammo, to say nothing about 90mm or smaller caliber shells.

The bolt-on pieces are something like BLAZER ERA.

If you can get over over 300 RHA protection against HEAT, you should be okay against early LAW rockets and RPG-7s, but the later RPG-7 rockets and the AT-4 are 500~ RHA.

Edited by WorkingOnBeingGood on May 30th 2023 at 12:51:39 PM

No they're non-reactive, there are T-62MVs and T-55AMVs with Kontakt ERA.

They've got their own designation

Ahh. I Should have thought of the BLAZER you did mention the 105mm and enlarged turret scheme.

As I understand it the combination of spaced armor plates that are angled against the expected direction of attack plus the filler is to break up a HEAT jet improving overall protection against heat across the turret's frontal arcs.

I also said Titan-6, as in it's based on the Tiran-6.

Fun fact, before the Soviets were really into ERA, the IDF were.

But yeah, like I said, maybe 300 RHA against HEAT is good against some threats, but Anti-Tank HEAT Warheads that do 500 RHA are becoming more and more common.

Anything that can't handle the most powerful single stage RPG-7, isn't suitable for use against the Cartels or Boko Haram, or even any rag-tag militia with military contacts.

Right now any tank worse than a T-72B in terms of armor (Naked), is not really a tank. I hope the new MPF has at least that much armor.

Edited by WorkingOnBeingGood on May 30th 2023 at 4:31:00 AM

It does not, those 40 tons went to engine and opticals and gizmos, not armor.

And somehow not a goddamn autoloader

Edited by LeGarcon on May 30th 2023 at 9:20:58 AM

I was this many days old when I found out that the Abrams NBC system catches on fire, and the fire retardant system is often on order or being repaired.

I wonder how many other tanks have problems like this.

Real answer?

Most of them.

"Starts itself on fire" and "Burns out the transmission" are the continual bane of tank existance.

Your trying to make a big heavy object go fast, it's not easy on the machinery.

Normaly it's the engines though not the NBC kit.

Edit: Honestly if your curious about this stuff, from what I have heard the bigest pain complaint from abrams mechanics is actualy the tracks.

Tanks throw tracks fairly regularly, and appertnly the Abrams are a particularly large pain in the ass to actually get back on the tank when it does so.... something about the location of the bolts, and how tight they need to be.

Edited by Imca on May 30th 2023 at 10:21:00 AM

Tanks and armored vehicles in general are in a state of perpetual maintenance cycles. Active use is disturbingly hard on them and the heavier the beast the worse it gets. It doesn't help that each individual vehicle tends to develop maintenance quirks that need to be poked out in a way the manuals sometimes don't cover.

BBC: Malaysia detains Chinese ship suspected of looting the wrecks of HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse.

And for today's blast from the past, here's a British Army training video from 1982 showcasing how to block an enemy mechanised advance through a forest:

Reminds me of some of the more amusing training vids I saw at the Aberdeen Proving grounds like the one on mortars. I think it was called the "The Commanders Hip Pocket Artillery" or something similar.

I heard that the metal used in the sunken British ships have potential research yield on it.

A lot of tanks claim they are multi-fuel, but are they really? I've never seen any indication of a single nation actually using a different fuel.

Also, historically, a lot of these engines were unreliable or they operated very poorly with alternative fuels.

Is the engine running and is it still combat effective?

If yes then it's good to go.

The Abrams was designed for desile, it now runs on kerosean to simplify supply lines. (you might have heard it runs on jetfuel this is technically true, jetfuel is just kerosean but in an airplane)

Nothing about the tank was changed, and because of that it now has a vestigial smoke generator (smoke generators dont work with Kerosean only desile)

So yes, the multifuel works...

Its just that generally speaking you start to get reduced performance or systems no longer working quite right, which is why no one does so under ideal circumstances.

But here is thing, if you were given the choice of your tank producing only 1000 horsepower instead of 1500 and the smoke generator not working.... or you know, no tank.... the choice is pretty easy.

Because thats the alternative that is being considered for those things, its not just "use the right fuel" the right fuel doesn't exist under the scenarios those engines are designed for... the alternative is no tank period, because some one blew up your supply lines and while there is a gas station right there it only has petrol and your engine is a desile.

Edited by Imca on Jun 2nd 2023 at 6:46:54 AM

A lot of times for vehicles there's even a little guide by the refueling port listing the different kinds of fuels in order of best to worst that it'll still be capable of running on

Australian Abrams run on diesel fuel. Gas turbine engines run at much higher pressures and temperatures than diesel, so once the compressor revs up, pretty much anything you feed into the combustion chamber is going to ignite (as long as the valve design permits it).

The reason this is possible because gas turbines are constructed very differently from diesel engines: they're painstakingly cast in a single crystal from specific high-temperature materials (typically a nickel alloy, or a silicate ceramic) under incredibly tight tolerances. A single mistake can leave microscopic defects in the part that leaves it fragile and prone to premature failure.

That's why gas turbine manufacture is still a very high-end industrial capability only achieved by a dozen or so countries, even today. China has spent decades copying Soviet/Russian designs and still struggles to churn out reliable, long-lasting engines. South Korea, an industrial powerhouse in its own right, is only now starting to co-produce a General Electric design for its KF-21 Boramae fighter program. Even Sweden, which used to build its own engines under Volvo, has reverted to being a junior partner in co-producing another GE engine for the Gripen. Gas turbine engines can do a lot of impressive things, so their manufacture has the price tag and complexity to match.

In aircraft engines, you have a lot of additional considerations (like weight and icing) that necessitate the use of "aviation-grade" kerosene (i.e. avtur) with high energy density and low freezing/combustion temperature. Those factors are less of an issue in most ground-based uses (unless you're, like, in a tundra environment), so you can feed a gas turbine ground vehicle pretty much whatever as long as you don't mind a reduced fuel economy.

The reverse doesn't really apply for diesel engines, which run on a heavy fuel with lubricating properties. With the wrong fuel type, you'd risk dirty combustion and, more importantly, having the pistons and and cylinders grind each other into powder in the absence of lubrication, which isn't going to be fun for your engine going forward.

Edited by eagleoftheninth on Jun 3rd 2023 at 2:24:34 AM

This conversation made me realize there may be a bit of a fundamental miscommunication on what a multi fuel engine is.

It's not "give me whatever and I will run happily"

Its "if you need to give me the wrong fuel in an emergency I wont kill myself"

Because that's what happens if you put the wrong fuel in a normal engine, you make it a couple kilometers then get a sevral thousand dollar repair bill.

"Kerosene is a light refined product (C6-C16) that has a lower boiling point range than diesel/No. 2 fuel oils. Jet-A (freeze point of -40°C) and Jet-A1 (freeze point of -47°C) are highly refined kerosene-type fuels used in commercial and general aviation turbine engines."

A bit of a simplification, but I didn't know it was a type of Kerosene. - So I presume when people talked about the Abrams switching to Diesel, they were really talking about an engine that wasn't multi-fuel, and drank less?

Does the Aussie Diesel Abrams drink just as much or way less?

Edited by WorkingOnBeingGood on Jun 3rd 2023 at 2:00:12 AM

You might find it useful to watch these basic explainers on how the different engine types work:

• Diesel

• Gas turbine

Australian M1s have the exact same gas turbine engine as the American ones. I've never heard of them having any significant issues running on diesel fuel, though I can't imagine them consuming less fuel than US Abrams — which, IIRC, also regularly get fuelled with diesel on the field if JP-8 isn't available.

You can fill it up with vegetable oil and it should run just fine, if not exactly up to specs. The gas turbine runs way hotter than a diesel engine and doesn't need a lubricating fuel: anything you put inside is going to burn just fine, as long as it's not filthy with solid contaminants.

I don't think you could feasibly convert modern Abrams variants to run on a diesel engine, simply because of their 70+ tonne weight. The diesel-powered tanks closest to the Abrams' weight class, the Challenger II and Merkava, are both pretty notorious for their comparatively poor power-to-weight ratios (especially when going up slopes). The gas turbine engine is a gas guzzler, but its power output makes it borderline mandatory when you're talking about a chonker of that weight class.

There have been past proposals to convert the Abrams to a diesel engine, and IIRC, either one of the pre-production prototypes or the MBT-70 was originally going to be powered by a diesel engine. But none of those plans went anywhere, simply because the AGT1500 turbine is here and you're not going to come up with a suitable diesel powerplant without a lot of teething problems (especially as diesel engines are heavier and have more moving parts compared to gas turbines of an equivalent power output).

The gas turbine engine also has some secondary advantages (less noise, less vibration) that make it worth the price tag and fuel consumption for the US. One downside is that its power level is harder to precisely regulate than diesel and requires significant driver training, lest you risk destructive "hot starts" or flameouts as sometimes happen to aircraft engines.

As a fun fact: the Abrams' Honeywell AGT1500 turbine was designed by Austrian engineer Anselm Franz, who arrived in the US in 1945 and had worked on gas turbine engines for a range of military platforms, including the Huey/Cobra and Chinook helicopters and the Me 262 jet fighter. Truly an icon of the American Dream.

Edited by eagleoftheninth on Jun 3rd 2023 at 3:08:15 AM

I'm pretty sure there are two different 1500 HP diesel engines, so I'm still confused.

Also, for some reason I want to buy a new fuel efficient jet engine and I don't know why.

Edited by WorkingOnBeingGood on Jun 3rd 2023 at 3:45:52 AM