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We'd better deploy the Illi-noise national guard 
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Apr 24, 2014 19:50
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Cyrano4747 posted:I don't want to bog this thread down in WW2 tank chat, but - like everything else - you have to keep in mind the contexts from which the various tank designs emerged, their intended uses, and what the situation was like when they were first fielded. The PzIV was a profoundly pre-war design and it's a minor miracle it was able to be as effectively upgraded as it was. Saying that it was outclassed in 1944 is a bit like complaining that the 109 was showing its age at the same time. The real difference is that the US didn't constantly try to improve on the Lee for the entirety of the war. The soviets had a similar thing going on with the T34 as the germans did with the MkIV, but that was a later design as well which gave it a bit of a leg up in that respect. Quite true, but my statement was more about how they tend to be presented (especially in tabletop games) versus reality. There's still a large belief that the M4 was just outclassed by everything but only managed to win because of numbers, even more so for the Soviets. See the common myth of "5 Shermans to kill 1 Tiger!" claim. Hell, in some regards the Lee was better than what it was facing in North Africa, though that was mostly short 75 IV's, 37 and 50L42 III's, and who knows what else. Of course the biggest advantage the T34 and M4 had over their contemporaries isn't something you see in most (any?) wargame: They were reliable and were strategically mobile. German armor doctrine also effectively regressed through the war, especially as Nazi politics went into psycho mode. Q_res posted:I'm actually saying it was outclassed well before then. Eh, more that the M4 was made to be a general purpose tank. Sure it's main purpose was to support infantry, but it was a proper 'Medium'
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Apr 24, 2014 19:53
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Taerkar posted:Quite true, but my statement was more about how they tend to be presented (especially in tabletop games) versus reality. There's still a large belief that the M4 was just outclassed by everything but only managed to win because of numbers, even more so for the Soviets. See the common myth of "5 Shermans to kill 1 Tiger!" claim. The most impressive thing about the M4 was that the design was thrown together in basically a year by an army/military complex with zero institutional knowledge of mobile warfare and it does everything you need a medium tank to do. So the US army goes from literally not having a tank worth the name in 1940 to arguably producing the best tank in the world in 1942. The problems really stem from the fact that in Normandy in 1944 what the Allies really need is a heavy breakthrough tank that can shrug off an 88mm shell to the front and they don't have one. PS. Actually T34 engines were terribly unreliable. They just didn't have all the suspension problems the Germans did.
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Apr 24, 2014 20:20
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The early T34 engines were unreliable, but even still it supposedly could get about 100 hours of operation, and the reliability also depended upon the factory I think. I believe EnsignExpendable pulled out a report regarding it.
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Apr 24, 2014 20:53
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Alchenar posted:The most impressive thing about the M4 was that the design was thrown together in basically a year by an army/military complex with zero institutional knowledge of mobile warfare and it does everything you need a medium tank to do. What's funny is that the US actually had a breakthrough tank, the heavily-armored M4A3E2 "Jumbo" Sherman variant. They only built 250 of them, though, so there were never enough for everywhere they were needed.
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Apr 24, 2014 21:58
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The problem with armor on late war tanks in ww2 is that the guns were outpacing armor by a lot because their technology was improving, but RHA was hitting its limit as far as how much protection it could really provide. When tanks started carrying 105-120mm antitank cannons, there simply wasn't a practical amount of RHA that could provide protection from these guns.
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Apr 24, 2014 22:48
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Panzeh posted:The problem with armor on late war tanks in ww2 is that the guns were outpacing armor by a lot because their technology was improving, but RHA was hitting its limit as far as how much protection it could really provide. When tanks started carrying 105-120mm antitank cannons, there simply wasn't a practical amount of RHA that could provide protection from these guns. Not that the Germans didn't try.  
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Apr 24, 2014 23:39
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ArchangeI posted:I thought the Leo 1 suffered pretty badly from the "any tank that gets hit will be destroyed by a HEAT shell anyway, so lets not armor it much and rely on speed"? Of course, the Leo 1 never faced enemy MBTs in the open field so we will never know how it would have done. It really did. In its initial mid-60's incarnation the Leopard 1 was by far the worst of its Western contemporaries (basically Chieftain, M60, Strv 103). It had no meaningful amount of armor (basically, it was only protected against small arms fire and various small-caliber autocannons) and wasn't really all that more mobile than the Chieftain in difficult terrain (although on good surfaces it was a lot faster). It also had the main ammo storage immediately behind the very thin (70 mm steel) front glacis, making it highly susceptible to catastrophic ammo rack fires. Its big strength was that it was incredibly much more reliable than the Chieftain (which in its early version had a horrible engine that died all the time) and the Strv 103, and one hell of a lot easier to maintain. Switching out the power pack (engine, etc) on a Leopard 1 took less than 10 minutes in the field; on the Strv 103 with its twin engines hidden under the front glacis, it was about 8-12 hours of work even with trained mechanics. Later on though the Germans upgraded their Leopards a lot; at some point they replaced the turrets with ones that had a lot better protection (composite armor, etc). Meanwhile the Soviets were like a good ten years ahead of the curve with their late-60's T-64, which had a lot of features western tanks would only get in the late 70's (like smoothbore guns and composite armor). I've been visiting the national Swedish military archives regularly in the last six months or so, and if you're a horrible nerd like me it's really pretty interesting reading. I keep thinking I should do some writeups on this poo poo but I'm way too lazy to get off the ground. I have several hundred words about the development of the Saab 35 Draken sitting open in Notepad right now, but that post hasn't gotten anywhere in weeks. TheFluff fucked around with this message at 01:21 on Apr 25, 2014 |
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Apr 25, 2014 00:05
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priznat posted:
Great, now how will we defeat the space orks.
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Apr 25, 2014 00:24
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Nebakenezzer posted:Not that the Germans didn't try. Sweet Jesus what did that thing weigh?
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Apr 25, 2014 01:26
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Memento posted:Sweet Jesus what did that thing weigh? 188 goddamn tons, according to my copy of My Tank is Fight!.
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Apr 25, 2014 01:34
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TheFluff posted:It also had the main ammo storage immediately behind the very thin (70 mm steel) front glacis, making it highly susceptible to catastrophic ammo rack fires. This is actually fairly common for a lot of post-war tanks. When they removed the hull radioman/assistant driver, they needed to put something there.
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Apr 25, 2014 01:38
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Humboldt Squid posted:Great, now how will we defeat the space orks. It reminds me of a futuristic Matilda II
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Apr 25, 2014 01:43
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Taerkar posted:The early T34 engines were unreliable, but even still it supposedly could get about 100 hours of operation, and the reliability also depended upon the factory I think. The engine issues actually lasted until late 1943 when the engine filters (which didn't actually filter) were finally replaced. The second big problem the T-34 had was the hilariously bad idea of having no commander position to save room in the tank. Instead the "commander" was also the gunner until the T-34-85. The third would be the tendency of the tracks to fall apart during normal operation of the tank due to use of poor materials. The last would be the rushed production of the tanks and many of their components, which could basically be summed up as a lack of quality control resulting in some tanks getting poo poo like transmissions that didn't work. Edit: Leopard 1's actually have been in actual tank v. tank combat once in the balkans, against T-55s. It won by dint of seeing the other guy first and hitting them first. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Apr 25, 2014 |
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Apr 25, 2014 02:50
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What do you all think of the Russian Armata? Is it their own Future Combat System in terms of project goals? Or is it just the new MiG 1.44/Su-37, in that its there to scare the West and accomplish nothing aside from crappy Youtube videos about its prowess?
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Apr 25, 2014 06:18
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Dandywalken posted:What do you all think of the Russian Armata? Is it their own Future Combat System in terms of project goals? Or is it just the new MiG 1.44/Su-37, in that its there to scare the West and accomplish nothing aside from crappy Youtube videos about its prowess? I think given the number of roles they're attempting to shoehorn the same design into it may end up like the JSF or any number of "universal" vehicle boondoggles. Otherwise, eh, it's a tank concept that won't see the light of day until at least 2020 and the list of features when it comes to "being a tank" are almost less ambitious than the Black Eagle. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 12:30 on Apr 25, 2014 |
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Apr 25, 2014 12:27
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Warbadger posted:I think given the number of roles they're attempting to shoehorn the same design into it may end up like the JSF or any number of "universal" vehicle boondoggles. Otherwise, eh, it's a tank concept that won't see the light of day until at least 2020 and the list of features when it comes to "being a tank" are almost less ambitious than the Black Eagle. While I agree this is the most likely, the Russians do seem to have a bit better reign on not trying to fit a an entire radioshack into the vehicles like we have with the GCV. This could be changing though, given the failure of stuff like the BTR-90. I'm most curious about the Boomerang and Kurganets 25, more so then the tank portion of the project. The Kurganets is the platform that is basically their GCV, including all the MT-LB variants. Mazz fucked around with this message at 13:45 on Apr 25, 2014 |
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Apr 25, 2014 13:40
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This is from the spaceflight thread but I thought it was apt here. Press conference on this is going on live right now with SpaceX founder Elon Musk. 
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Apr 25, 2014 18:06
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10 F-35, two LCS or 50 Black Hawks.
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Apr 25, 2014 18:08
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They just announced that SpaceX is suing over the 30-rocket noncompetitive block buy from ULA by the Government. Hahah Elon now pointing out that ULA-s rockets cost about 4x more than SpaceX, also that their rocket uses Russian engines and that the guy they buy them through is on the USA sanction list. Pork Barrel spending to ULA that also dumps into the Russians pockets. Will be interesting to see how the lawsuit plays out given the current political climate. That Works fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Apr 25, 2014 |
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Apr 25, 2014 18:22
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FrozenVent posted:10 F-35, two LCS or 50 Black Hawks. Think of savings! We can buy two of the worst boondoggles ever in limited quantity, or a fleet of choppers already in wide circulation that the military has expressed strong interest in replacing.
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Apr 25, 2014 18:27
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Back Hack posted:Think of savings! We can buy two of the worst boondoggles ever in limited quantity, or a fleet of choppers already in wide circulation that the military has expressed strong interest in replacing. It also mentions it as a way to keep the A-10 fleet.
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Apr 25, 2014 18:29
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Those are all hot-button issues with voters, though. The LCS projects might be pointless pork barrel spending of another kind, but it's the kind that provides lots of jobs in some key districts. Same for a lot of the other things he mentions, plus the whole A-10 issue just has a bunch of people who want to keep them on board for reasons that range from  to 
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Apr 25, 2014 18:34
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Cyrano4747 posted:Those are all hot-button issues with voters, though. The LCS projects might be pointless pork barrel spending of another kind, but it's the kind that provides lots of jobs in some key districts. Same for a lot of the other things he mentions, plus the whole A-10 issue just has a bunch of people who want to keep them on board for reasons that range from The savings are savings, it's not being proposed what they should spend the money on in lieu of paying ULA (Boeing-Lockheed launch merger) just that they could.
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Apr 25, 2014 18:37
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RAND has a new study out, authored by Dr. Obvious, with military adviser CAPT Obvious chiming in. http://www.rand.org/pubs/periodical...dium=socialflow Straight to the point: RAND posted:In short, we find no evidence that historical joint aircraft programs have saved money. Emphasis theirs. 
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Apr 25, 2014 18:52
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onezero posted:RAND has a new study out, authored by Dr. Obvious, with military adviser CAPT Obvious chiming in. So the TFX turned into… five different operational airplanes?
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Apr 25, 2014 19:01
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The F4E and F4J are that different?
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Apr 25, 2014 19:03
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That makes me wonder how absurd the TFX requirements originally were, if it wanted to take '60s tech and produce a high-speed, high-altitude carrier-based interceptor that was also an A-10.
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Apr 25, 2014 19:31
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Memento posted:BBC News - Russian fighter jets "breach Japan airspace" This happens more often than you think. There's a reason Elmendorf AFB has Raptors and AWACS. Russia plays these gently caress gently caress airspace games with nearly everyone around them.
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Apr 25, 2014 19:33
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holocaust bloopers posted:This happens more often than you think. There's a reason Elmendorf AFB has Raptors and AWACS. Russia plays these gently caress gently caress airspace games with nearly everyone around them. Well, they're not the only ones. That EP-3 that ended up stuck on Hainan didn't exactly get lost on its way somewhere else.
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Apr 25, 2014 19:48
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Cyrano4747 posted:Well, they're not the only ones. That EP-3 that ended up stuck on Hainan didn't exactly get lost on its way somewhere else. Those guys were legit doing their aircraft mission, though. The Russians with respect to the Alaska guys were just doing Cold War party games. Launching bombers and fighters was them testing our response and trying to get looks at the Raptor.
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Apr 25, 2014 19:57
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Cyrano4747 posted:Well, they're not the only ones. That EP-3 that ended up stuck on Hainan didn't exactly get lost on its way somewhere else. A fairly obvious sigint plane is more benign than combat fighters or a nuclear-capable bomber. I guess you could throw a couple Harpoons on an EP-3 but it's an awfully implausible first wave strike weapon (outside of Clancy novels.) E: the Russians do use the Bear platform for P-3 maritime patrol / ASW, but looking at intercept pics that doesn't seem to be the variant they buzz other countries with. Snowdens Secret fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Apr 25, 2014 |
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Apr 25, 2014 20:03
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Meanwhile a 24 year old American was detained by North Korea after trying to claim asylum there, or something.
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Apr 25, 2014 20:07
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Sperglord Actual posted:Meanwhile a 24 year old American was detained by North Korea after trying to claim asylum there, or something. Anyone know who he posted in D&D as?
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Apr 25, 2014 20:12
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StandardVC10 posted:So the TFX turned into… five different operational airplanes? Snowdens Secret posted:That makes me wonder how absurd the TFX requirements originally were, if it wanted to take '60s tech and produce a high-speed, high-altitude carrier-based interceptor that was also an A-10. I haven't read the report, so maybe they address it in there, but including the A-10 strikes me as a bit of an overreach. The TFX was never explicitly supposed to be a CAS asset. It was supposed to just be an interceptor for the Navy and an interdiction asset for the USAF...maybe they're including the CAS mission since the USAF at the time expected its interdiction aircraft (F-100s, F-105s, F-4s) to perform CAS as well and didn't have a purpose built CAS aircraft, but that's less an indictment of the F-111 specifically and more an indictment of the way the USAF conceptualized roles/missions and assets at the time. The A-X program RFP was released less than 5 years after the TFX one was, so I really don't think it's fair to tie the A-10 in with TFX. TFX was enough of a dumpster fire on its own without adding that exaggeration in. For that matter, I'd hold up LWF/ACF as an example of a success, because they didn't try and shoehorn both services into buying the same platform thanks to some Congressional subterfuge Breaky posted:The F4E and F4J are that different? Yes. Different radars, different fire control avionics, different J-79 variants, control surface details that were different, and the -E had an internal M61 while the -J didn't. i think they may have even had different ejection seats. Other than the fact that they both basically looked like Phantoms, almost everything under the hood was different in some way. The Russians stopped doing that stuff for most of the '90s and early '00s, but they started doing them again pretty heavily in the '07-'08 timeframe and haven't let up since. And yeah, they do it with everyone...they do it down Western Europe either through the Channel or the G-I-UK Gap in addition to AK and Japan in the Pacific.
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Apr 25, 2014 20:12
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It's kind of a pretty regular thing for them, apparently? Or other times they would send Tu-16 or Tu-95s to shadow NATO/other Western naval exercises.
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Apr 25, 2014 20:27
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There is a pretty great picture of Bears being met up with by about 5 or 6 generations of US/Canadian interceptors.
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Apr 25, 2014 20:31
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Alaan posted:There is a pretty great picture of Bears being met up with by about 5 or 6 generations of US/Canadian interceptors. From earlier in the thread.
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Apr 25, 2014 20:38
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Do we ever do the same thing to them? Heh, I wonder if we flew a B-2 over if they even could respond.
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Apr 25, 2014 20:38
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Mortabis posted:Do we ever do the same thing to them? Not from Alaska.
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Apr 25, 2014 20:39
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