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fatherboxx)
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ChaseSP posted:As long as it doesn't cost too much to get them running to park somewhere there isn't much actual loss provided they don't need massive amounts of material for maintaining them. Unfortunately they've been stored in abysmal conditions and just getting them running is likely to have that issue as the war goes on. I believe the question is about having people who are trained to be tank loaders at all times, which no active duty tanks require.
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Apr 15, 2023 00:31
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Oh yeah I expect to eventually have reports of poorly trained loaders causing considerable reload delays/a bunch of people maybe getting maimed. Qualification for an m1 abrams is 8 sec which requires a good amount of dedicated training.
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Apr 15, 2023 00:44
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It's not like a loader is really required anyway. They're really only useful if you're in a tank battle, which a T-55 isn't suitable for even in this war. For the afore mentioned semi-spg use, the gunner or commander can probably do just fine loading.
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Apr 15, 2023 00:51
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Staluigi posted:As a resident expert in anything I once read a post about ever, I strongly conclude that most Russian nukes are nonfunctional at present because you have to update the ... um, money gas. The money gas, that's in nukes, which the experts say you have to replace every so often. The money gas is expensive to replace and maintain, and russia likes to divert money from things like money gas and put it in yachts while reporting the money was spent on the money gas, so nobody in russia actually knows how many nukes actually has nonexpired gas except some guys you can't reach because they're in a yacht or they fell out a window The issue isn't whether Russia can produce Tritium...sorry, "money gas," they certainly can. Russia is/was one of the chief supplier of rare radioactive isotopes before they decided to shoot themselves in the dick. The issue is whether they still have the personnel to properly service and "top off" said "money gas." Again, Russia doesn't need 4500 warheads to end the Western world as we know it. They could likely accomplish that with ~400, or as little as one ICBM's worth of warheads for every "enemy" capital would be enough to change the world for the worst for the rest of *our* lifespans, at the very least.
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Apr 15, 2023 03:33
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cinci zoo sniper posted:I don't know an answer to this, but I would be very surprised if Russia has been keeping this shadow corps of tank ammo loaders for “what if a war goes so badly that we're rolling WW2 gear out”. Yeah, anyone claiming this is absolutely huffing Putin's farts. T-54/55s are being pressed into frontline service because Russia is just that desperate for working vehicles. The End.
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Apr 15, 2023 03:57
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T-55s and T-62s are just mobile coffins in this war, end of story. Can Russia use them like artillery, lobbing shells from behind the line? If you can call in accurate fire with 80 year-old ammunition and guns, and the enemy is all bunched up and immobile like a bunch of idiots, maybe it could be effective. Outside of Iran-Iraq War human wave circumstances, no. Can you dig them in and have them act like bunkers? You'd need to know exactly where the enemy was coming and meanwhile not have to worry about any sort of precision munitions, including drones with RPG rounds, maybe it could hit something. cinci zoo sniper posted:I believe the question is about having people who are trained to be tank loaders at all times, which no active duty tanks require. T-62s were in service with reserve units even before Ukraine, so they did have loaders in the modern army. The problem is that being a loader in a T-62 is rough. The main ammo stowage is in the front chassis, next to the driver and inside the frontal fuel tank. The other stowage bin is in the rear of the chassis. There are "ready racks" inside the turret, which are just shelves that you can have rounds sitting in for more convenient loading. There is no turret basket, only a rotating floor, which means that the loader can have great difficulty pulling shells out of the main stowage if the turret rotates too far right or left and there are no rounds in the ready racks. The rounds themselves are single-piece and very long and heavy, so they are difficult to move around inside the crew compartment. T-55s have slightly different ammo storage and much less powerful guns. The rounds are roughly as big as the 62's if I remember right, if a bit smaller. I could go on all day about how abhorrent the idea of these vehicles serving on the frontline as tanks is (if you're Russia, at least).
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Apr 15, 2023 04:51
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Coquito Ergo Sum posted:T-55s and T-62s are just mobile coffins in this war, end of story. Please do, I absolutely love tankchat. This was a great post
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Apr 15, 2023 05:02
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Mederlock posted:Just a super quick aside, wanted to say that I appreciate the adjustments you've made to the moderation of this new thread since it went up, after all the discussion in the last one. The conversation has flowed well and is still reined in when it stops being productive and/or interesting and the rare probes have been judicious and fair. Thanks for your efforts here, we appreciate it seconding this
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Apr 15, 2023 05:14
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Jethro posted:It's not like a loader is really required anyway. They're really only useful if you're in a tank battle, which a T-55 isn't suitable for even in this war. For the afore mentioned semi-spg use, the gunner or commander can probably do just fine loading. It's not even the most complicated bit. You could go without a loader, but in the time you teach someone to handle the controls of other parts you can also train the fourth guy. But do they have any experts in maintenance of T-55 or T-62? Probably not too many, and the ones they had are probably needed more in the process of rehauling mothballed tanks into front use. So when some old tank part breaks or the engine starts behaving strangely, it's more likely that the vehicle will be out of order for a long time.
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Apr 15, 2023 05:28
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Those drive trains are surely not up to the rigors of any redeployment? Strategic or otherwise
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Apr 15, 2023 05:38
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Coquito Ergo Sum posted:The main ammo stowage is in the front chassis, next to the driver and inside the frontal fuel tank. What do you mean "inside" the frontal fuel tank.
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Apr 15, 2023 07:34
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Saint Celestine posted:What do you mean "inside" the frontal fuel tank. Think of a fuel tank molded into a rack shape so it can hold tank rounds.
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Apr 15, 2023 08:31
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Saint Celestine posted:What do you mean "inside" the frontal fuel tank. The weight limitations (around 40 tons) they required (so they could roll over most bridges) forced them to build their tanks relatively small compared to western tanks but like anything there are trade offs. One of those trade offs being they had to get 'creative' with how they fit enough fuel and ammo into the thing to be viable in combat. So yeah think of a giant plastic fuel tank full up with diesel with big holes in it that you stuff big 120mm ammo into as a storage ready rack. Couldn't find a good one of the T-62 or 64 off hand but this one about the T-72 can give you a idea of what its like. This is from a video game but they've accurately modeled the interior of a T-72 so you can get a surprisingly half way decent feel for what it'd be like and how it looks. 17:40 he shows the fuel/ammo tanks. Also note the ammo is scattered around all over the inside of the tank too. For some of it you'd be pretty much sitting on some of the ammo too. The 'carousel' autoloader gets lots of blame for the Russian tanks blowing up but going by the Cheiftan's comments and some Ukrainians its actually the ammo in the fuel tanks and all over in the ready racks that is the real problem. Some of the Ukrainians were commenting back in mid or late last year that they'd go out with all the ammo from the ready racks removed and just a full carousel. It meant they couldn't stay in the field as long but they felt that it improved their survivability so it was worth it in their eyes. Actually here is a vid with the T-62 interior and he showed the fuel tank/ammo storage racks at 10:30: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9ZJoJtEDiQ As the loader they'd essentially be directly in front of your legs. Again note how cramped and tight everything is in there. Making your tank small does save weight but the impact on the crew can be high. PC LOAD LETTER fucked around with this message at 10:46 on Apr 15, 2023 |
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Apr 15, 2023 10:31
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a__ks1GgJRU&t=1510s Loading a shell in a T-62. The problems here are obvious, as well as the turret rotating but not the rack of shells bolted to the floor. And seeing how the turret must rotate back to the forward position to eject the casing it takes a lot of skill to reload the gun in combat conditions without losing an arm. But as they also state it's a powerful gun that can mess up anything but the most modern tanks.
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Apr 15, 2023 10:49
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Saint Celestine posted:What do you mean "inside" the frontal fuel tank. Was also known as "Wet" stowage in later models of WW2 Sherman tanks, though they used water not diesel.
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Apr 15, 2023 11:47
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cinci zoo sniper posted:I believe the question is about having people who are trained to be tank loaders at all times, which no active duty tanks require. It takes about 5 days to train a CR2 loader with a student to instructor ratio of 5-1, this being probably the more complicated of all NATO manually loaded tanks, bearing in mind those being trained as the operator (loader) has already been trained as a gunner. If they have loader drill trainers knocking about the process is easy to teach.
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Apr 15, 2023 12:31
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MonkeyLibFront posted:It takes about 5 days to train a CR2 loader with a student to instructor ratio of 5-1, this being probably the more complicated of all NATO manually loaded tanks, bearing in mind those being trained as the operator (loader) has already been trained as a gunner. If they have loader drill trainers knocking about the process is easy to teach. Oh, I don't think it's difficult to teach. I think they're just taught on a basis of necessity.
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Apr 15, 2023 12:32
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 Public service announcement – admins are looking for feedback on the new site-wide rule for gratuitously graphic imagery. This is a rewrite of the same rule that we had a discussion here about a few weeks prior.
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Apr 15, 2023 12:45
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Oh, I don't think it's difficult to teach. I think they're just taught on a basis of necessity. Absolutely, just if the need arises it wouldn't be hard to pump enough numbers for the platforms through a training program, I think as a Brit in armour we vary from our American cousins as we do a lot of self maintenance on our wagons, we have mechanics and technicians in built to our tank squadron's who are very organic to the ORBAT, unlike others who seem to have independent maint units who do a lot of the work, I think a lack of specific platform knowledge is what will effect both sides with Russia's older vehicles and Ukraine's increase in western vehicles.
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Apr 15, 2023 12:50
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yeah, for me it is overthinking to suggest that effectiveness of Russian T62T54/whatever is held back because they don't have trained loaders sitting around. The answer is obvious, mobilize 100 old rear end tanks, put them at training barracks and spend months training 100's to 1,000's of loaders (and gunners and drivers, the TC are probably the real shortage and hardest to train). Most tanks in western forces are not in use around the clock training. They spend most of the time parked up but if needed and you were not committing those tanks to combat, then 20 hrs a day per tank of training can probably be delivered to recruits. VV yeah the point wasn't that they would have great tanks on the front, just that training loaders is a bread and butter task for even a small military force, let alone one with 100's of otherwise spare obsolete tanks and a willingness to have 10's of thousands of conscripts in training. VVV Electric Wrigglies fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Apr 15, 2023 |
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Apr 15, 2023 13:37
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Electric Wrigglies posted:yeah, for me it is overthinking to suggest that effectiveness of Russian T62T54/whatever is held back because they don't have trained loaders sitting around. The answer is obvious, mobilize 100 old rear end tanks, put them at training barracks and spend months training 100's to 1,000's of loaders (and gunners and drivers, the TC are probably the real shortage and hardest to train). They're held back by numerous factors - the poor state of the equipment, second world war gun/optic/fire control technology, protection more akin to an IFV than a modern tank, old ammunition, and the lack of trained crews and effective training cadres (which isn't exclusive to the old tanks). I tend to agree that poorly trained loaders is just the tip of the iceberg compared to the other factors though. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 15:15 on Apr 15, 2023 |
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Apr 15, 2023 15:06
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Whenever I see a T64 autoloader in action I think it's amazing they still work on such old tanks. They look like such complicated devices. Here's one in action: https://youtu.be/6okDotojj58
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Apr 15, 2023 16:12
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cinci zoo sniper posted:I believe the question is about having people who are trained to be tank loaders at all times, which no active duty tanks require. And as far as tankers go, they had a few "elite" units like the 4th Guards (Kantemirovskaya) that was better than the rest. But even they have shown themselves very inept and suffered very high casualties during the initial offensive. Why am I saying all of this? Any recruit who got 10 minutes of instruction on how to "take a shell from here and stick it here", will not stand out in his level of training compared to his freshly mobilized tank driver or gunner.
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Apr 15, 2023 17:03
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https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1647180433849823232 The situation in Bakhmut continues to get worse. But it seems in general there have been less or even no daily updates on movements on the other fronts so the Russian offensive is hopefully wound done everywhere else. Hope the few civilians in Russian controlled Bakhmut are still getting supplies, I imagine local infrastructure is completely gone by now.
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Apr 15, 2023 17:49
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WarpedLichen posted:Hope the few civilians in Russian controlled Bakhmut are still getting supplies, I imagine local infrastructure is completely gone by now. The remaining population has been largely living in basements for half a year now, supplied by trucks. The count estimate as of early March was down to roughly 4000.
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Apr 15, 2023 17:54
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cinci zoo sniper posted:The remaining population has been largely living in basements for half a year now, supplied by trucks. The count estimate as of early March was down to roughly 4000. There was a documentary about civilian life in Bakhmut before the press left where they interviewed people staying there. There was one older man who was talking about sheltering with a female neighbor, and how she died from an artillery strike. You could tell he loved her and was absolutely mentally broken with nothing left to live for. Just rough stuff. I feel like there are people like that guy who won't move from his basement no matter what sticking it out regardless of who owns the land. I'm not sure if the humanitarian supplies are still making it into the city or if they're just living off stockpiles now.
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Apr 15, 2023 18:04
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WarpedLichen posted:There was a documentary about civilian life in Bakhmut before the press left where they interviewed people staying there. There was one older man who was talking about sheltering with a female neighbor, and how she died from an artillery strike. You could tell he loved her and was absolutely mentally broken with nothing left to live for. Just rough stuff. I feel like there are people like that guy who won't move from his basement no matter what sticking it out regardless of who owns the land. I'm not sure if the humanitarian supplies are still making it into the city or if they're just living off stockpiles now. Humanitarian supplies stopped arriving in early February, with AFU closing access to Bakhmut. They were undertaking ferrying supplies to the remaining civilians at the time, but there's no telling about the situation at the present.
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Apr 15, 2023 18:08
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Generally speaking, if the crew chamber is ever exposed to heat capable of igniting fuel or ammo then everyone inside is dead anyway. Therefore you mine as well put all your eggs in that basket to reduce the hitbox of the basket. Or so the thinking goes.
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Apr 15, 2023 21:49
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Cpt_Obvious posted:Generally speaking, if the crew chamber is ever exposed to heat capable of igniting fuel or ammo then everyone inside is dead anyway. Therefore you mine as well put all your eggs in that basket to reduce the hitbox of the basket. The ammo is in a fuel tank to reduce the risk of it going off. Diesel fuel can douse flames, even ones that could ignite propellant.
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Apr 15, 2023 22:12
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Cpt_Obvious posted:Generally speaking, if the crew chamber is ever exposed to heat capable of igniting fuel or ammo then everyone inside is dead anyway. Not when we're talking about HEAT and other intrusions that could set off a catastrophic kill but might only wound crew or kill one while the rest bail out or otherwise cause serious, but survivable damage. In that immediate battle, the vehicle is probably out of action regardless, but crew surviving to live another day or a vehicle being either repairable or able to be used for parts is a lot better than being blown apart entirely in a k-kill.
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Apr 15, 2023 22:39
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WarpedLichen posted:https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1647180433849823232 I dont think Bakhmut has been getting worse, it's more Ukraine has been making a planned orderly retreat and then blowing the gently caress up of any building Russian forces try to occupy
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Apr 16, 2023 00:41
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CAT INTERCEPTOR posted:I dont think Bakhmut has been getting worse, it's more Ukraine has been making a planned orderly retreat and then blowing the gently caress up of any building Russian forces try to occupy This is also the impression I have after listening to that interview with the mortarman. His calm confidence is so opposite all the other Bakhmut coverage, you have to think he knows something the OSINT folks don't. His discussion made it sound like most of the ground lost was done at Ukraine's choosing, in a methodical, controlled sort of way.
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Apr 16, 2023 00:56
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I think it's a bit of copium to say that Ukraine are the true puppetmasters of Bakhmut, but it is true that the Russians didn't make much headway anywhere else in their offensive. So if Russia truly "spent" an offensive's worth of manpower and equipment, then they didn't get much return on investment.
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Apr 16, 2023 01:03
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In his latest proclamation, Prigozhin suggested that Putin should basically say that all the goals of his special military operation have been achieved, stop all offensives, and only defend whatever Russia's managed to occupy so far. On the other hand, he also says his mercenaries are still grinding down Ukrainian forces in Bakhmut with great success, so mixed messages there. I don't think, however, that there is really anything factual to suggest that Ukraine is doing better than it looks apart from wishful thinking. Maybe new information will emerge later, but from what's in the news and in official reports, the Bakhmut stretch of the front is not looking great.
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Apr 16, 2023 01:07
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Fire in a crew compartment isn't an automatic write-off for crew necessarily. You can potentially escape a fire relatively uninjured, you can't escape an explosion uninjured unless you're extremely lucky. The old "diesel douses the flames" doesn't work. Heat, certain sabot rounds, and some explosive rounds can autoignite diesel. There's a big difference between your dad doing the "extinguishing a cigarette in a cup of diesel" trick and the chemical reaction of modern anti-tank rounds striking a steel hull and autoigniting all of the materials inside of an eighty year old design.
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Apr 16, 2023 08:30
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Coquito Ergo Sum posted:The old "diesel douses the flames" doesn't work. Heat, certain sabot rounds, and some explosive rounds can autoignite diesel. There's a big difference between your dad doing the "extinguishing a cigarette in a cup of diesel" trick and the chemical reaction of modern anti-tank rounds striking a steel hull and autoigniting all of the materials inside of an eighty year old design. That was always a myth, tbh. It was apparently popularised in the 1970 film Patton where it was claimed that German tanks ran on diesel and American tanks on gasoline, which made them prone to catch fire. In reality German tanks, such as the Tiger, had gasoline engines. There were gasoline and diesel variants of Sherman, iirc the diesel ones went to the Pacific and Russia. T-34 ran on diesel. The anti-armour weapons used in WW2 were totally sufficient at creating enough heat at penetration to ignite diesel. I'm sure there were marginal cases in which diesel wouldn't have ignited but petrol did, but WW2 tanks had already so much armour that anything that was used to penetrate them had to carry a lot of energy, be it kinetic or chemical.
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Apr 16, 2023 09:40
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Poland and Hungary have blocked imports of cheap Ukrainian grain and food imports as local farmers can't compete with the prices. Part of the problem is logistics, EU really should invest in https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/polish-government-bans-grain-food-imports-ukraine-2023-04-15/
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Apr 16, 2023 11:44
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Improved interconnections are already planned: https://transport.ec.europa.eu/news...t-2022-07-27_en However, you don't build comprehensive rail infrastructure over night, and rail cannot match the throughput of ships. Ukraine need access to world markets right now. Integration of Ukraine into the single market is going to lead to some conflicts in the future. It produces a ton of grain, but EU producers are already producing plenty as well. Agricultural policy is a huge area of conflict within the EU, so… that's going to get spicier in the future.
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Apr 16, 2023 12:22
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Nenonen posted:Poland and Hungary have blocked imports of cheap Ukrainian grain and food imports as local farmers can't compete with the prices. Part of the problem is logistics, EU really should invest in There was something very suspicious about the grain situation. What was being claimed by the Polish government was that it was supposed to be imported into Poland via a simplified procedure and stored in silos until exports to Africa and Asia were organized. It the turned out that the grain started appearing on the market and was sold as “technical grain” - supposedly a lower grade product for non-agricultural use, allowing for uncontrolled sales at dumping prices. Who sold this? How controlled the silos? Nobldy knows, as there was zero government oversight over the silos.
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Apr 16, 2023 12:50
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Nenonen posted:That was always a myth, tbh. It was apparently popularised in the 1970 film Patton where it was claimed that German tanks ran on diesel and American tanks on gasoline, which made them prone to catch fire. Also, just from watching a lot of Warsaw Pact tanks brew up in Syria, it's the gas fire that starts the ammo explosion, because a lot of those tanks ran their fuel lines around the turret ring. They would catch fire when hit, then the fire spreads to the ammo carousel just under the turret ring, and suddenly the turret is airborne.
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Apr 16, 2023 16:00
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