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Jobbo_Fett posted:Italy is purely lack of experience and the lack of production facilities. This is why most of their planes either had French Gnome-Rhone radial engines or a variant of the German inline DB60X. Italy is a good example of how you need to be an economic superpower to win a technology-based war like WW2 and how every extra bit of performance (horsepower, in the case of aero-engines) becomes progressively more difficult and expensive. In 1931 the Fiat A30 was one of the best V12 aero-engines around - 24 litres and producing 600 horsepower (800 in brief bursts). This was strong performance against the likes of the R-R Kestrel, BMW VI, Curtiss D12 and Hispano-Suiza 12X. Six years later and it was up against engines making 1000+ horsepower and much more hp/size : the Merlin (27 litres), the Daimler 601 (30 litres) and the Allison (28 litres). Fiat could wring that sort of power from an A30 but not for long enough to be worthwhile. And the service life of many of these engines was not great. The Merlin had stated service life between rebuilds of 100 hours (at half maximum boost pressure), or just 10 hours of accumulated running at its rated power. The DB was similarly highly-strung, the Allison was significantly better, as was the Hispano-Suiza 12Y but that was a significantly bigger engine and so was less stressed. These engines were all pushing the limits of technology, even for the nations and industries that could produce them. A 'second tier' industrial power like Italy simply couldn't keep up. The Italian aircraft designs were very effective and highly underrated but the likes of the Fiat G55 and Macchi C205 used German engines and before long German industry couldn't supply enough engines for its own needs, let alone its ally. That 100 hours was equivalent to 50 full-range sorties for a Hurricane or Spitfire, or nearly 100+ typical combat missions (scramble-->intercept-->14 seconds of ammo--->return). No fighter was really expected to last that long in a pitched aerial campaign and if the engine wore out after 20 hours (which many of them did), you had a stock of new engines and a full ground crew to fit it while the worn one went off to be rebuilt or converted into a tank or torpedo boat engine.
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Dec 29, 2016 14:38
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Nebakenezzer posted:If you have strong opinions about this, please post: This is a good writeup - it seems like you're soliciting feedback so I'll be way more nitpicky and pedantic than I'd normally be so don't think I'm just being an obnoxious know it all internet guy just to impress myself. If you want/need sources for any of this stuff let me know. quote:If you want to add performance in any dimension - power, speed, or range - you start with your engine and work outward from there. This is...debatable. Especially in the WWII era, designers tended to look to aerodynamic improvements or weight reduction/balance improvement before powerplant. Developing and mounting a new powerplant generally required a new mark or variant due to the requirements of mounting the engine, then rebalancing the airframe; relatively slight aerodynamic improvements or reducing weight on the other hand could often be carried out by operational squadrons. The way you typically see this is by the sub-variants between each mark. Maybe a better way to phrase what you're getting at here is "major upgrades to aircraft were generally only possible with improved powerplants" or something along those lines. quote:To give you an idea of power ranges, 1000 horsepower was what the radials in the B-24 and the B-17 made, while the Spitfire and the Mosquito were driven initally by V12 Merlins making 1500 hp. Though ugrades, the Merlin was in some applications making 2000 hp by the start of 1944. The engine of the Corsair carrier fighter stated with 2000 hp and went up from there; the slightly mad Napier H-24 was putting out 2400 hp reliably by 1944. The numbers/timeline are a bit off here - the Merlin II was first engine for the Spitfire/Hurricane, and it barely put out ~1,000 hp (it was actually rather behind the curve in 1939-40). The Merlin didn't hit ~1,500 hp until 1942, and only a handful of the 130s (the 2,000+ hp variant) were built - by that time RR had moved on to the mighty Griffon. Conversely the Wright 1820s were putting out ~1,200 hp in 1937. If your point here is to illustrate how power increased as the war went on, I'd keep it more generic - most aero engines in 1940 were putting out between 900 and 1200 hp, with a power/weight ratio of between .8 and .9 hp/lbs. By 1943, most sides had fielded radials in the 2,000 hp class, and inlines in the 1,500 hp class - by war's end, the biggest inlines could push 2,400 hp and the biggest radials were putting out 4,000+ hp, both with power/weight ratios in excess of 1.1. It might also be worthwhile to write up a paragraph discussing the pros/cons of radials vs inlines; it would fit well with the remainder of the post, and it is something a lot of people don't really know about or consider. quote:The Germans started well - their aircraft engines are notable in that they adopted fuel injection over carburetors throughout World War 2 - but developing the next generation piston engines proved challenging. With the smaller types of engines - ones for fighters and light bombers - the Germans maintained parity with the US right up until the end of the war. The DB605 was arguably the best inline engine of the entire war; the final variants of the Jumo 213 and BMW 801 were at the least on par with anything else anyone fielded during the war years. Where they never really had any success was in the scaling up of radials into the giant powerplants necessary to drive the big strategic bombers, which I think is what you're getting at here - they kept trying those ridiculous "hook two engines up to one crankshaft" ideas that never came really close to working. The main reasons for this were 1) metallurgy (as you note), and 2) fuel quality. The metallurgy issue, to be very specific, isn't actually a limitation for the engine, but rather, for the boost system. More specifically, the turbocharger component of a turbo-supercharger. Big aero engines run hot, but their boost systems run significantly hotter. The turbo is what takes in the hot exhaust from the engine, and as engines got more powerful, that gas got hotter and hotter. Without superb metals to deal with the heat, you couldn't make full use of said exhaust. This was how the P-47 got so much out of its engine at high altitude - it had the best boost system ever developed to that point, and the only reason it worked was because of American advantages in metallurgy. That being said, both of the late-war American megaradials (the Wright 3350 and the Wasp Major) had teething problems and very long development cycles of their own, and even after being fielded, they had something of a tendency to catch fire at inopportune times. In other words, they did better than the Germans, but not by a whole lot. The fuel issue was discussed eloquently below but it really can't be overstated. Octane was a huge, huge deal. I made kind of an effortpost about this some months back, I'll try and dig it up, but being limited to ~87 octane was a problem that no amount of engineering could overcome. That said, the Germans did make a pretty valiant effort - the MW50 system was a stroke of genius that made up for quite a lot of their materials limitations, for example. I should also add my standard plug in posts of this type - while the Japanese generally lagged behind in aero engine development, especially after 1941, somehow or other they came up with what was, at least in terms of pure performance, the best engine of the war: the Nakajima Homare. It had pretty poor maintenance and manufacturing characteristics but from an engineering perspective it was kind of a work of art. quote:Of course, by abandoning piston engines The Germans continued to develop reciprocating engines right up until they surrendered. In fact, they were testing a new 801 variant in 1945 that, at least on paper, was pretty spectacular. The Jumo 213 was similarly still in heavy development right up until the very end of things. bewbies fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Dec 29, 2016 |
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Dec 29, 2016 15:49
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BalloonFish posted:That 100 hours was equivalent to 50 full-range sorties for a Hurricane or Spitfire, or nearly 100+ typical combat missions (scramble-->intercept-->14 seconds of ammo--->return). No fighter was really expected to last that long in a pitched aerial campaign and if the engine wore out after 20 hours (which many of them did), you had a stock of new engines and a full ground crew to fit it while the worn one went off to be rebuilt or converted into a tank or torpedo boat engine. The whole concept of "sure the equipment wears out fast in absolute terms, but statistically it's going to be a combat loss before this gasket blows or that bearing shatters" is incredibly fascinating to me (Yeah, I've seen the video about the tank production differences in WWII) because of how deep that doctrine can go - how much in spare parts do you send with your fresh tank crews when you transport them to the forward bases? Well, if you think about how often a tank loses a man but continues operating divided by the number of bolts and belts times running hours etc. Look I'm a financial investigator by trade and my life is spreadsheets on a Monday to Friday basis don't you judge me
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Dec 29, 2016 15:50
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JcDent posted:On the other hand, then, wgat were the overall strengths and weaknesses of Patton and Monty? Why were they liked by their men if they were lovely commanders? Monty was liked because he could play the game of both getting satisfactory results when they were needed during the North African campaign and actually being able to at least talk with the officers and soldiers underneath him. Remember also the North African campaign has that odd reputation of being the less horrible and most honourable (hahahaha) campaigns of the 2nd World War too. As talented and hard working were the British generals before him they either had the worst luck of coming against Rommel, being under supplied or having to be shipped back and forth through multiple fronts at a high time of crisis. Most of them too saw action in the 1st World War and were trying their best.
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Dec 29, 2016 15:57
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SeanBeansShako posted:most honourable (hahahaha) I'd be curious to know what you meant by that--which again I say as a genuine question, not a defensive one, I'm largely ignorant of the North African campaign besides what I hear in The Stories.
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Dec 29, 2016 16:03
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Monty also had a role in revising the Overlord invasion plan to be a lot less like Dieppe 2.0.
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Dec 29, 2016 16:12
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SeanBeansShako posted:Monty was liked because he could play the game of both getting satisfactory results when they were needed during the North African campaign and actually being able to at least talk with the officers and soldiers underneath him. Remember also the North African campaign has that odd reputation of being the less horrible and most honourable (hahahaha) campaigns of the 2nd World War too. From my limited research this is technically true. The North African campaign lacked many of the elements that made other areas of World War II so horrifying, such as no real interest in targeting the population at large in the area and the lack of the type of tensions that lead to routine violations of things such as the rules surrounding POWs. Of course this is mostly because the campaign ended before the Axis could really get started with projects such as transitioning concentration camps for Jews into death camps and more importantly the Nazis were unable to force their way into Palestine to start butchering every Jew they could find. Also as a general point just because an area of combat is considered the least bad in terms of World War II does not stop it from being horrifying.
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Dec 29, 2016 16:14
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FAUXTON posted:The whole concept of "sure the equipment wears out fast in absolute terms, but statistically it's going to be a combat loss before this gasket blows or that bearing shatters" is incredibly fascinating to me (Yeah, I've seen the video about the tank production differences in WWII) because of how deep that doctrine can go - how much in spare parts do you send with your fresh tank crews when you transport them to the forward bases? Well, if you think about how often a tank loses a man but continues operating divided by the number of bolts and belts times running hours etc. Yeah, I design data centers, and it was interesting to me to realize that military standards are much less robust than civilian in terms of redundancy. There's no point in having a secondary generator if it's just going to be destroyed by the same bomb that hit the primary.
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Dec 29, 2016 16:32
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FAUXTON posted:The whole concept of "sure the equipment wears out fast in absolute terms, but statistically it's going to be a combat loss before this gasket blows or that bearing shatters" is incredibly fascinating to me (Yeah, I've seen the video about the tank production differences in WWII) because of how deep that doctrine can go - how much in spare parts do you send with your fresh tank crews when you transport them to the forward bases? Well, if you think about how often a tank loses a man but continues operating divided by the number of bolts and belts times running hours etc. World War Two also gave the famous incident of an American engineer figuring out how to better protect airplanes by defying the conventional analysis of the time. Until that time, standard practice for damage analysis had been to look at what parts of returning aircraft had suffered the most damage and clearly needed to be better protected. The better solution: look at which parts consistently weren't damaged on returning aircraft because aircraft that had been damaged there weren't coming home.
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Dec 29, 2016 17:12
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Cythereal posted:World War Two also gave the famous incident of an American engineer figuring out how to better protect airplanes by defying the conventional analysis of the time. Until that time, standard practice for damage analysis had been to look at what parts of returning aircraft had suffered the most damage and clearly needed to be better protected. The better solution: look at which parts consistently weren't damaged on returning aircraft because aircraft that had been damaged there weren't coming home. This is always one of those things that seems surprising because it seems so obvious a failure point, but I guess I have the benefit of being taught data analysis by people who learned data analysis after people worked stuff like that out.
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Dec 29, 2016 17:23
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Fangz posted:Monty also had a role in revising the Overlord invasion plan to be a lot less like Dieppe 2.0. Which is always a good thing.
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Dec 29, 2016 17:54
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FAUXTON posted:The whole concept of "sure the equipment wears out fast in absolute terms, but statistically it's going to be a combat loss before this gasket blows or that bearing shatters" is incredibly fascinating to me (Yeah, I've seen the video about the tank production differences in WWII) because of how deep that doctrine can go - how much in spare parts do you send with your fresh tank crews when you transport them to the forward bases? Well, if you think about how often a tank loses a man but continues operating divided by the number of bolts and belts times running hours etc. I think the ultimate express of that (maybe with the exception of the T-34, which needed refilling with lube oil before it needed topping up with diesel and the engine of which rarely lasted 50 hours - this was acceptable because the average life expectancy of the average T-34 in field conditions was significantly less!) was the Liberty Ship: an entire 15,000 ton, 450ft cargo ship that could be built in about 40 days and could be produced at the rate of three per day. They had welded hulls (cheap and quick) and ancient reciprocating engines (cheap, familiar, reliable) and a design life of five years (early problems with brittle steel and weak welds not withstanding!). But statistically each individual ship was considered a success if it made just a single eastbound trip across the Atlantic. If it was sunk another two would hit the water in the next day and if it made it there and back then that was a bonus.
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Dec 29, 2016 17:55
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BalloonFish posted:I think the ultimate express of that (maybe with the exception of the T-34, which needed refilling with lube oil before it needed topping up with diesel and the engine of which rarely lasted 50 hours - this was acceptable because the average life expectancy of the average T-34 in field conditions was significantly less!) was the Liberty Ship: an entire 15,000 ton, 450ft cargo ship that could be built in about 40 days and could be produced at the rate of three per day. They had welded hulls (cheap and quick) and ancient reciprocating engines (cheap, familiar, reliable) and a design life of five years (early problems with brittle steel and weak welds not withstanding!). But statistically each individual ship was considered a success if it made just a single eastbound trip across the Atlantic. If it was sunk another two would hit the water in the next day and if it made it there and back then that was a bonus. The sheer scale of the economies and industrial forces in WW2 has always staggered me, and it's something Shattered Sword takes pains to point out. Today, a bomber costs a billion dollars and makes the news when one crashes. In WW2, the USA was making fifty bombers a day.
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Dec 29, 2016 17:59
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Cythereal posted:World War Two also gave the famous incident of an American engineer figuring out how to better protect airplanes by defying the conventional analysis of the time. Until that time, standard practice for damage analysis had been to look at what parts of returning aircraft had suffered the most damage and clearly needed to be better protected. The better solution: look at which parts consistently weren't damaged on returning aircraft because aircraft that had been damaged there weren't coming home. See also, WWI helmets? e: Cythereal posted:The sheer scale of the economies and industrial forces in WW2 has always staggered me, and it's something Shattered Sword takes pains to point out. Today, a bomber costs a billion dollars and makes the news when one crashes. In WW2, the USA was making fifty bombers a day. Hilarious to consider what happens if in 1989 everyone runs out of tanks after the first month like how everyone ran out of munitions in iIRC Yom Kippur?
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Dec 29, 2016 18:00
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BalloonFish posted:I think the ultimate express of that (maybe with the exception of the T-34, which needed refilling with lube oil before it needed topping up with diesel and the engine of which rarely lasted 50 hours - this was acceptable because the average life expectancy of the average T-34 in field conditions was significantly less!) was the Liberty Ship: an entire 15,000 ton, 450ft cargo ship that could be built in about 40 days and could be produced at the rate of three per day. They had welded hulls (cheap and quick) and ancient reciprocating engines (cheap, familiar, reliable) and a design life of five years (early problems with brittle steel and weak welds not withstanding!). But statistically each individual ship was considered a success if it made just a single eastbound trip across the Atlantic. If it was sunk another two would hit the water in the next day and if it made it there and back then that was a bonus. Yep there's a whole 90-minute presentation about this on YouTube where a scholar guy compares the industrial processes of the WWII belligerents and talks about how the Soviets took the US factory line idea (I believe it was Albert Kahn who went over there in the interwar period to consult on the industrialization under stalin) and just wrung as much slack out of it as possible so they could produce as many tanks as they could. Don't have a link on my phone but I'm sure someone has it at hand. It's the one where he caricatures Nazi tanks as being forged by dwarves in the mines of moria.
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Dec 29, 2016 18:03
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The other thing you have to remember is just how expendable soldiers were considered. Today politics make any losses a PR nightmare so there is an insane amount of crew survivabilty built in.
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Dec 29, 2016 18:04
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The amount of money and resources thrown into the more modern sized conflicts is simply staggering. Through the Napoleonic Wars the British government more or less threw money in pretty much every direction to gently caress with Napoleonic France.
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Dec 29, 2016 18:05
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Cythereal posted:The sheer scale of the economies and industrial forces in WW2 has always staggered me, and it's something Shattered Sword takes pains to point out. Today, a bomber costs a billion dollars and makes the news when one crashes. In WW2, the USA was making fifty bombers a day. The current USA also isn't in two simultaneous transoceanic wars with peer competitor industrial powers though. I'm sure if there was a planned wartime economy Lockmart could start cracking out planes a bit faster than they do now. I would be funny to see the history books 30 years after WWIII laughing at the LCS or the F-35 in the same way we laugh at the Mark 14 torpedo though.
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Dec 29, 2016 18:16
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Fangz posted:Monty also had a role in revising the Overlord invasion plan to be a lot less like Dieppe 2.0. Speaking of Dieppe, I seem to remember reading something a few years ago about new research suggesting that Dieppe wasn't quite as much of a disaster as it seems on the surface. Something about how they were trying to steal a bunch of cryptographic equipment, and were expecting severe casualties, but figured it was worth it anyway. On the other hand, a naval descent of that type just falling apart on its own is also pretty possible. Anyone know more?
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Dec 29, 2016 18:17
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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MikeCrotch posted:The current USA also isn't in two simultaneous transoceanic wars with peer competitor industrial powers though. I'm sure if there was a planned wartime economy Lockmart could start cracking out planes a bit faster than they do now. I'm just glad the world will still have laughter then
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Dec 29, 2016 18:20
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Cythereal posted:World War Two also gave the famous incident of an American engineer figuring out how to better protect airplanes by defying the conventional analysis of the time. Until that time, standard practice for damage analysis had been to look at what parts of returning aircraft had suffered the most damage and clearly needed to be better protected. The better solution: look at which parts consistently weren't damaged on returning aircraft because aircraft that had been damaged there weren't coming home. IIRC it was the same group of people that designed the B-17 that thought of that. Could very well be wrong on that, though. FAUXTON posted:The whole concept of "sure the equipment wears out fast in absolute terms, but statistically it's going to be a combat loss before this gasket blows or that bearing shatters" is incredibly fascinating to me (Yeah, I've seen the video about the tank production differences in WWII) because of how deep that doctrine can go - how much in spare parts do you send with your fresh tank crews when you transport them to the forward bases? Well, if you think about how often a tank loses a man but continues operating divided by the number of bolts and belts times running hours etc. A fresh tank crew doesn't get much in terms of spare parts, if any at all. The logistics and (field) repair groups are the ones that get them. A fresh tank crew, going by an in-depth look into Panther tanks (which may only be indicative of the Germans rather than a universal thing), will receive their tank along with any tools required to perform maintenance and upkeep on their vehicle. Some tanks, like the Tiger I, would be shipped with their transport tracks, but I've never heard of anyone but the Germans having such a thing.
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Dec 29, 2016 18:22
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PittTheElder posted:Speaking of Dieppe, I seem to remember reading something a few years ago about new research suggesting that Dieppe wasn't quite as much of a disaster as it seems on the surface. Something about how they were trying to steal a bunch of cryptographic equipment, and were expecting severe casualties, but figured it was worth it anyway. http://www.rmoutlook.com/True-story-of-Dieppe-uncovered-20131219 quote:But given the complexity, the intrigue and how the raid has affected Canadians, it’s a book worth reading twice. Once is not nearly enough to catch all of the intricacies of this larger-than-life story that answers the single-most important question of why Canadians were at Dieppe: To capture a four-rotor Engima machine.
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Dec 29, 2016 18:29
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MikeCrotch posted:The current USA also isn't in two simultaneous transoceanic wars with peer competitor industrial powers though. I'm sure if there was a planned wartime economy Lockmart could start cracking out planes a bit faster than they do now. A planned wartime economy wouldn't make it past Congress even if there were enemy boots on the ground in the continental US, so I doubt it.
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Dec 29, 2016 18:52
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BalloonFish posted:I think the ultimate express of that (maybe with the exception of the T-34, which needed refilling with lube oil before it needed topping up with diesel and the engine of which rarely lasted 50 hours - this was acceptable because the average life expectancy of the average T-34 in field conditions was significantly less!) This was not true at any point of the war. The initial warranty period of V-2 engines was 100 engine-hours, by the end of the war the warranty period was 250 engine-hours and T-34s in the field were regularly pushing 300 hours before refurbishment. Yes, the V-2 initially leaked a ton of oil, but that was an issue that was fixed as the designers actually got to examine engines that were worn. Before the war started, shiny new T-34s were put in sheds and no one was allowed to drive them. Turns out that was not such a great idea.
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Dec 29, 2016 18:59
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FAUXTON posted:Yep there's a whole 90-minute presentation about this on YouTube where a scholar guy compares the industrial processes of the WWII belligerents and talks about how the Soviets took the US factory line idea (I believe it was Albert Kahn who went over there in the interwar period to consult on the industrialization under stalin) and just wrung as much slack out of it as possible so they could produce as many tanks as they could. Don't have a link on my phone but I'm sure someone has it at hand. It's the one where he caricatures Nazi tanks as being forged by dwarves in the mines of moria. I'm sure it was an earlier version of this thread that had an effort-post on that subject; a bit like how I mentioned before that Rolls-Royce engines were virtually 'artisan-built' by hand while Packard just churned out the same engine en masse with much more consistent tolerances and quality. IIRC German tanks were built like steam locomotives - you'd lay the frame out in one spot on the factory floor and a small team of guys would build up the entire tank, all doing all the jobs needed. The T-34 and the Sherman were built on car-style production lines past workstations of guys each doing the same job on each tank as it passed. German tanks had their filler caps held on by little watch-chains with links bent by hand. Allied tanks had their filler caps were held on (if at all) by twisted lengths of wire. Surely the point of whether the Sherman is 'better' than the Tiger or the P-40 is 'better' than the Ki-43 is rather moot if you can get five Shermans onto the field for every Tiger...or if the Tiger isn't on the battlefield at all because its transmission spewed its guts onto a road 50 miles away?
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Dec 29, 2016 19:12
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Cythereal posted:A planned wartime economy wouldn't make it past Congress even if there were enemy boots on the ground in the continental US, so I doubt it. If every piece of equipment had at least one part built in each state to ensure maximum re-electability
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Dec 29, 2016 19:17
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MikeCrotch posted:would be funny to see the history books 30 years after WWIII laughing at the LCS or the F-35 in the same way we laugh at the Mark 14 torpedo though. Not really. The MK 14 was a failure that didn't function anywhere as intended. The F-35's acquisition process was a clusterfuck but a decently capable plane will come out the other end at immense expense to the taxpayers. in a WWIII situation it would probably be remembered as a functional, probably pretty good airplane. gently caress, if we were churning them out in world war numbers chances are the per unit cost wouldn't even be that bad. Read up on the B-29's development if you want to see the WWII version of the F-35.
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Dec 29, 2016 19:20
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FAUXTON posted:Yep there's a whole 90-minute presentation about this on YouTube where a scholar guy compares the industrial processes of the WWII belligerents and talks about how the Soviets took the US factory line idea (I believe it was Albert Kahn who went over there in the interwar period to consult on the industrialization under stalin) and just wrung as much slack out of it as possible so they could produce as many tanks as they could. Don't have a link on my phone but I'm sure someone has it at hand. It's the one where he caricatures Nazi tanks as being forged by dwarves in the mines of moria. The caricature comes at around 44:05, but you should start no later than 43:14 to pick up some the background that leads into the mines of moria reference. Jonathan Parshall (of Shattered Sword fame)'s presentation actually starts at 26:20. I'd give time links but the forums (or SALR) are eating them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6xLMUifbxQ EDIT: The discussion about having each component have roughly the same lifespan starts around 38:43. ulmont fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Dec 29, 2016 |
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Dec 29, 2016 19:20
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Planned economies aren't immune to hilarious clusterfucks either. My favourite is the Soviet T-50 tank, where one of the bids for the tender was completely off-spec because Kotin was a hilarious prima donna, and the author of the winning bid spent a year running around and telling everyone how his tank was cool and good even after it became abundantly clear that there is nowhere to produce it and the niche it was supposed to fill is now occupied by another, cheaper tank.
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Dec 29, 2016 19:25
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BalloonFish posted:I'm sure it was an earlier version of this thread that had an effort-post on that subject; a bit like how I mentioned before that Rolls-Royce engines were virtually 'artisan-built' by hand while Packard just churned out the same engine en masse with much more consistent tolerances and quality. IIRC German tanks were built like steam locomotives - you'd lay the frame out in one spot on the factory floor and a small team of guys would build up the entire tank, all doing all the jobs needed. The T-34 and the Sherman were built on car-style production lines past workstations of guys each doing the same job on each tank as it passed. German tanks had their filler caps held on by little watch-chains with links bent by hand. Allied tanks had their filler caps were held on (if at all) by twisted lengths of wire. Only five Shermans per Tiger?
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Dec 29, 2016 20:30
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Fangz posted:Only five Shermans per Tiger? No, but it's in the same order of magnitude. Taking 1944, which was the highest year for Tiger production, wikipedia says 1,069 Tigers and 12,925 Shermans (in each case counting variants). This Sherman production is about half of 1943 as well.
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Dec 29, 2016 20:46
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To give you an idea of Sherman reliability you can still find the odd one used for random poo poo in commercial settings due to them being sold off as surplus after the war. It's not super uncommon to see them as rough terrain logging vehicles out in the PacNW, for example. edit: apparently they are also used as portable drilling rigs. 
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Dec 29, 2016 21:11
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To put it in perspective, the Tiger was actually the most reliable and best-driving of the big cat tanks(also the most expensive). It was actually made with its weight in mind, but its armor protection was becoming less sufficient as the war went on.
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Dec 29, 2016 21:33
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Ainsley McTree posted:I'd be curious to know what you meant by that--which again I say as a genuine question, not a defensive one, I'm largely ignorant of the North African campaign besides what I hear in The Stories. Rommel was always a complicit member of the party, and besides the inevitable sort of atrocities that in combat come up to, the Afrika Korps also turned a blind eye to Einsatzkommando activity and the destruction of the Libyan and Tunisian Jewish population.
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Dec 29, 2016 22:19
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FAUXTON posted:Yep there's a whole 90-minute presentation about this on YouTube where a scholar guy compares the industrial processes of the WWII belligerents and talks about how the Soviets took the US factory line idea (I believe it was Albert Kahn who went over there in the interwar period to consult on the industrialization under stalin) and just wrung as much slack out of it as possible so they could produce as many tanks as they could. Don't have a link on my phone but I'm sure someone has it at hand. It's the one where he caricatures Nazi tanks as being forged by dwarves in the mines of moria. I don't have the link for it but I know what you refer to. The Soviets [partially due to the great move east of the Urals] focused tank production on two things: vertical integration to cut down on rail transport, and getting the best ROI - if they figured out that 2/3rds of the tanks needed to last for 1 week in combat, that's what they would build them for. Americans, in contrast, loved increasing production via the production of specialized machine tools. If there was a tool that could be made to do a job as opposed to doing it by hand or whatever, they would make it. That cost more upfront, but the results mean an incredibly low unit cost.
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Dec 29, 2016 22:29
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bewbies posted:This is a good writeup - it seems like you're soliciting feedback so I'll be way more nitpicky and pedantic than I'd normally be so don't think I'm just being an obnoxious know it all internet guy just to impress myself. If you want/need sources for any of this stuff let me know. I would like a few sources if you know of any! I now realize that my knowledge of this is pretty foggy. Just from you and mr. Ballonfish, part of this is the sheer complexity of base engines, power to weight ratios, fuel, turbo and superchargers...let alone things like reliability and useful life. And this is something I know we talked about before in the last thread, because I was scratching my head then, too, about what made the Germans have so many power plant failures compared to the allies. PS> I remember you mentioned the Homare before. You should post about it here or in the AI thread, I'd be all ears. I also find it amazing that you'd have an engine that would be used for a few hundred hours, and then shipped off to some other use.
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Dec 29, 2016 23:13
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:Rommel was always a complicit member of the party, and besides the inevitable sort of atrocities that in combat come up to, the Afrika Korps also turned a blind eye to Einsatzkommando activity and the destruction of the Libyan and Tunisian Jewish population. Also, the 'partisans' and other troublesome locals in Libya and Vichy Algeria had been pre-atrocitied in the earlier, colonial phases so...
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Dec 29, 2016 23:28
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Nebakenezzer posted:I don't have the link for it but I know what you refer to. The Soviets [partially due to the great move east of the Urals] focused tank production on two things: vertical integration to cut down on rail transport, and getting the best ROI - if they figured out that 2/3rds of the tanks needed to last for 1 week in combat, that's what they would build them for. Americans, in contrast, loved increasing production via the production of specialized machine tools. If there was a tool that could be made to do a job as opposed to doing it by hand or whatever, they would make it. That cost more upfront, but the results mean an incredibly low unit cost. Right, part of the interesting point of that lecture though is the Soviets also used a comparable amount of specialized jiggs as the Americans because they were following in the US's footsteps because in some cases the US literally built their largest tank production centers and they were built with American principles of mass production in mind. I think the difference is as you mentioned the vertical integration to avoid possibly catastrophic stress on the rail system which costs them some efficiency/throughput but is a sane and reasonable decision. I think they had something like close to the American number of jiggs but much more than the Germans if not quite as many as the wealthier Americans who threw money at the problem.
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Dec 30, 2016 01:00
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so i just saw this at the bottom of the wikipedia page on the dieppe raid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beach_Comber
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Dec 30, 2016 01:30
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Nebakenezzer posted:I also find it amazing that you'd have an engine that would be used for a few hundred hours, and then shipped off to some other use. You referring to my mention of what they did with time-expired Merlins? That wasn't common but it did happen. It happened before the engines left the factory, too: If a Merlin engine block, crankshaft or cylinder head fell outside certain specifications for use as an aero-engine (which needed to reliably put out huge amounts of power for a brief period) it may still be found suitable for building up as a Meteor, the unsupercharged, de-tuned version for powering tanks (which had to reliably put of a small amount of power for a long period). An engine considered 'junk' for aero use could still be stripped, repaired and rebuilt for land-based uses.
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Dec 30, 2016 01:34
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