(Thread IKs:
weg, Toxic Mental)
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zone posted:https://twitter.com/front_ukrainian/status/1634216133824839680 Been finally diving into my books on the T-64, T-72, and T-80, and boy, Soviet tank development got really fucky. Famously, the T-64 was really ahead of its time with a lot of its tech, armor, and firepower. The problem was that its engine was temperamental and had a short life span and the suspension wasn't great. While the Kharkiv plant was trying to fix the T-64's problems into what would become the T-64A variant, other factories were trying to outpace Kharkiv with their own designs that would eventually become the T-72 and T-80. Each of these tanks were sort of like T-64s (I know, with their own alterations to the design) with their own modifications beyond simple internals and it would require paragraphs' worth of dorking out to describe the differences. The T-80U came about when the Kharkiv plant was ordered to make turrets for Leningrad plant's to make the T-80U, then later Kharkiv plant developed a new diesel that was put into the same version of said tank to make the T-80UD (which has been further built upon to make the T-84).
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# ¿ Mar 11, 2023 02:24 |
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# ¿ May 14, 2024 22:30 |
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Pablo Bluth posted:Where will 1A5s sit on the tank ranking scale of all the tank types seeing action in Ukraine? Probably as training devices or with TDF/Guard forces. Maybe as armored cavalry? The main known feature about the Leopard 1 is that it has really thin armor. This is by design, as AT rounds (especially HEAT) at the time were massively overmatching what we could accomplish with basic steel armor. So some nations opted for smaller, faster tanks with lighter armor. And if you think that T-72s can throw turrets, get ready because the L1 has its main ammo storage sitting in the front chassis behind like 50mm of sloped armor. Then, tanks with composite armor like the T-64 started coming out, enabling tanks to have good frontal protection again. There are armor kits made by different countries that have given the Leopard 1 more effective protection, but I can't speak to their effectiveness against the more powerful or modern ATGMs or kinetic rounds. The Danish Leopard 1s are technically A3s that have been upgraded to A5 level, minus some unavoidable differences like not having the A5's cast turret. They have fairly modern optics and FCS. Sorry if I got anything wrong. I'm running off of what I remember from reading a book years ago. That said, L1s are robust and fast and the guns are still viable in the conflict. They performed well in the former Yugoslavia conflicts. I wouldn't say no to receiving them.
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# ¿ Mar 11, 2023 18:49 |
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Shaman Tank Spec posted:Well yes, to a point. In some situations. If my enemy has only small arms, then I'll be very happy in my T-62, but if they have any kind of anti-tank weaponry then I'm just presenting them with a very obvious and easy target. For sure. There's really no comparison. When it comes to protection, you may block a few more weapon types in a 62 than a Leopard 1, but a 1A5 is better than any iteration of a T-62 in nearly every other regard. The T-62 may use a somewhat powerful smoothbore gun, but it doesn't use two-piece ammo, and the shells are something like a meter long. It also doesn't have a turret basket (does have a rotating floor), so the loader has to make some difficult movements just to get shells from main storage to either the gun or ready racks (62 doesn't use an autoloader). The main ammo storage is stored inside the frontal fuel tanks, the logic being that in event of penetration, the fuel could douse the ammunition. This is fine in theory, but in practice, any penetrator made after 1965 can light up the fuel/ammo boxes from the front, and even HESH has been known to do it, nevermind the ready racks that hang shells all over the inside of the turret. The crew compartment is known to fill up with gases from the cannon and MG. There's a vent out the back to clear air from the compartment (literally just a hole) and toss out spent shells, but it can only do so much, so some crews in different parts of the world have been observed operating with the hatches open. It's been a while since I've seen the upgraded electronics in a T-62M, but I remember them being pretty awful, if they're even going to go into these emergency models at all.
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# ¿ Mar 13, 2023 15:37 |
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Pot Smoke Phoenix posted:I thought to myself, "Why would India need Russian tanks?" and pretty much everything I know about my fellow human for the past 57 years came flooding in, They needed them because India started a program called the Arjun tank and it was so bad that they had to abandon the program and buy T-90s. The T-90s took so long to be delivered and were so underwhelming that India started up another future tank program.
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# ¿ Mar 24, 2023 00:11 |
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Flavahbeast posted:I hope they still use the same shells as the Arjun Gunner ready, cum blast indexed.
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# ¿ Mar 24, 2023 00:18 |
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Nobody's really ever built a good tank on the first try except for New Zealand. India kind of had to run into the same problems that other nations did in the past but for their first project, such as ballooning weight with an underpowered engine like the Tiger and Panther, implementation of new technology for a frame not designed to store it like the T-series, or new technology coming out while designing the vehicle like what happened with Duke Nukem Forever.
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# ¿ Mar 24, 2023 00:44 |
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Toxic Mental posted:Some people will try to tell you that this isn't a Warhammer Orc tank I posted about one of the orkiest tanks in the first Threead: Coquito Ergo Sum posted:Also something for the thread, a true Orky tank (in the 40k sense), the M2 medium tank: Not pictured: The two roof-mounted MGs that gave it a "bunny ear" look. Also, when it was announced that "M2s" were being sent to Ukraine, a Taiwanese broadcast used a picture of the M2 medium instead of the Bradley.
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# ¿ Mar 24, 2023 01:02 |
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The only thing trapped is anyone taking on the Bob Semple Main Battle Tank.
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# ¿ Mar 24, 2023 01:16 |
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WithoutTheFezOn posted:Good old rock.
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# ¿ Mar 26, 2023 02:46 |
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WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kharkiv_Morozov_Machine_Building_Design_Bureau Soviet/Russian tank design since the late 60s has been a mess, but the tanks are still capable in many ways. T-64s were extremely advanced designs for their day. They had a great gun, tremendous armor (first tank fielded to use composite armor), an autoloader, and impressive technology for their day. Unfortunately, T64s had teething issues, mainly dealing with their engine life and suspensions. Morozov worked out said kinks to eventually evolve them into the T-64A, but were unable to fulfill demands to produce the T-64's advanced multifuel engine. So the army ordered experiments to make less intensive models of the T-64, one of which became the T-80. Uralvagonzavod's designers thought they could do better and decided to make their own tank that changed way more than just the drive system. There are conflicting stories to how the designers escaped this insubordination, but eventually this project became the T-72. The T-72 has its own different autoloader model from the 64 and the original models lacked the 64's composite armor (which changed with the T-72A and B models). It uses a heavily modified and redesigned successor to the T-34's V12 engine. This engine is underpowered relative to any modern tank, even after receiving various upgrades over the years. Originally, The T-72 was supposed to be the "mobilization" tank that would support the more elite 64 units. T-90s are based off of T-72Bs, and there are many different models of T-90s with different engines, turrets, FCSs, etc. T-80 is kind of similar to the 64 but with some alterations, with the catalyst of its creation being that it uses a gas turbine engine. These tanks have their own chassis design and had their own internal technology, but have the composite armor and autoloader of the T-64, among other similarities. There was a variant produced in Morozov called the T-80UD that used a powerful multifuel engine. This tank is in service with the Ukrainian army as the T-84. There's so much more. There is a disgustingly long list of different frontline variants of each of these tanks, and they're all in existence and even serving alongside each other in Ukraine.
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# ¿ Mar 26, 2023 06:04 |
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Zippy the Bummer posted:why did they keep building so many variants in parallel? Different reasons. -Competition among design bureaus. There was a lot of bureaucracy and backroom politicking for favor from the government/MoD. -Manufacturing capabilities/capacity of different factories. Some facilities could maybe not make enough complicated equipment, so they would be granted permission to introduce a new model tank with parts that were easy to manufacture. This tends to feed into bullet point one, where a factory didn't want to admit it couldn't fulfill an order, so it would do some backroom deal to get its own tank program going. -Tanks needed upgrades and fixes like any new technology. Problem was that while say, that Soviets would make a new tank hypothetically called the T-69, it would maybe have drive train issues in its initial run. While they tried to fix the drive train to make it the T-69A, they would make thousands of versions of the problematic T-69 base models, eventually promising to upgrade them to the T-69A. While this is happening, someone is making some new fire control system, but that system could only fit in a new turret. This is the T-69B and will use base T-69 hulls but their own larger, welded turrets instead of cast. Then, you'll have more and more branching paths of upgrade models that see limited runs like 69AMVs, 69BVMs, 69CBDs, etc. with all of their different engines, wheels, FCS, turrets, ERA/NERA, etc.. Then someone will notice that you still have old baseline T-69s sitting around that you need to sell off so you throw what you can into them and sell them as export models or to your satellite/influence states (that either won't get upgraded or are upgraded by the satellite state). And it just keeps ballooning when you start to introduce whole new tank models like the T-77 or T-88 or whatever. Oh, and don't forget that you have a hundred thousand old T-61s and T-58s sitting in depots. Why not upgrade them for rear guard units or exports? It's a snowballing issue that came out of particularities with the Soviet system, then later particularities in the post-Soviet system.
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# ¿ Mar 26, 2023 06:32 |
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Gervasius posted:To expand on this, our very own Xerxes17 did a series of effortposts regarding the development of Soviet cold war tanks in milhist thread and they are fantastic: Cool. I've had a similar effort post sitting on my hard drive for a while, waiting for a good chance to dump it, but I'll just save those links for the future instead. I work with tanks in a limited capacity, but I have to be careful when it comes to posting about the Abrams or I might end up War Thundering one of these threads.
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# ¿ Mar 26, 2023 07:14 |
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CeeJee posted:I get the impression the Uralvagonzavod crew was quite good at waiting for the new designs from the big brains at Morozov in Kharkiv, see what does not yet work, replace that with proven older tech and then deliver a 'new' tank quicker and cheaper. I can only guess from what dependable Russian journalism that I've read that Ural's had issues that date back to its inception and later its conversion to making machines of war. Uralvagonzavod is massive, owing in part to its merging with other factories that had to escape eastward during the Nazi invasion. It was originally designed to produce things like freight and agricultural equipment, then had to switch to producing things like tanks on a dime while trying to fight off their own extinction. Ural just can't produce new stuff. They have trouble moving past their V12 diesel, and even then, they have difficulties producing it (though this could also be traced back to Obama-era sanctions as well). Even the engine in the T-14 is based off of an engine used in gas refining, which itself is based off of an infamously bad engine that the Nazis used in very limited capacity WW2. I don't know if that's mismanagement, inefficient use of space, not updating tooling, or what, but Ural has had some serious troubles going back to WW2 when it comes to this kind of thing.
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# ¿ Mar 26, 2023 15:45 |
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Tigey posted:War Thunder needs to do something drastic and leak some T-14/Su-57 Blueprints or its gonna lose its crown The T-14 leak would just be someone's Amazon list and Ferdinand Porsche's diary.
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# ¿ Apr 8, 2023 00:52 |
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There's a channel I've been getting into recently called Animarchy. It seems like it started as an anime channel but switched gears to history/military/Ukraine content a few years ago. There's a particularly good video where he interviews a specialist on the Patriot missile system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SReqD5QYNMg&t=2s
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# ¿ Apr 9, 2023 02:16 |
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There's always something to say about the hideous things that the USA either encouraged, supported, or flat-out carried out in the name of its imperialism, and that there will never be justice done in terms of punishing the state actors responsible. The issue is when people draw the line at the actor and not the act.
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# ¿ May 1, 2023 04:58 |
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Pablo Bluth posted:To have a break from all the Kremlin drone talk: An article about Ukrainains crowdfunding ex-UK army stock You used to be able to buy Chieftain tanks for like $60K. Frankly, that may have been overpricing them a tad.
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# ¿ May 4, 2023 00:35 |
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Deki posted:I dont think Wagner was some load bearing pillar of the Russian front or anything, but it would be very funny if this caused a general panic/rout before Russias victory day celebrations. No but the problem is that they will be replaced by Chechens who are scary muslims hence why Ukraine should surrender. This has been another episode of War Nerd Radio. Thank you for listening.
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# ¿ May 7, 2023 02:14 |
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T-80s died in Grozny back in Ninety Four Shot from the roof by RPGs 90s in Allepo all blew their tops From a bunch of Kurdish rebs and their old Metis All those tanks and they died and they died.
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# ¿ May 9, 2023 21:32 |
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# ¿ May 12, 2023 00:03 |
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armpit_enjoyer posted:https://twitter.com/Hajun_BY/status/1657433538143170562 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdZUN1-VXEE
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# ¿ May 13, 2023 20:28 |
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Deki posted:I can't wait for the very smart geopolitics-understanders to explain why Putin attempting to Annex Belarus after giving Luka the ol' spicy tea is actually cool and very moral. And Ukraine's fault, obviously. Let me link you to blackandredliberationblog.blogspot.com for unbiased reporting.
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# ¿ May 14, 2023 01:57 |
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Modern naval warfare is so above my head. I keep seeing ranges of detection and munitions listed in documents and it boggles my mind, just to listen to interviews with experts who have to coyly say that those figures are underselling the real potential distances.
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# ¿ May 16, 2023 11:31 |
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So we keep posting r/NCD posts here. I thought I'd start sharing some curated posts so that people can get the better stuff in without having to sift through their junk memes and Rule 34 posts. Will link videos to spare peoples' ears and whatnot. Posting with titles if they're relevant. If people hate it or mods don't like it, I won't do it anymore. Current Events video: "This has aged like fine wine" (minor for language): https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/13iatbv/this_has_aged_like_fine_wine/ (video by David Firth) "The only reason why we know about Prigozhin offer is that the deal is already done" Military Posting: "Romania pulled its last Mig-21 Lancers out of service today" "Okay hear me out. What if we modernized the Bob Semple" From the comments: quote:Here's what ChatGPT came up with: Coquito Ergo Sum fucked around with this message at 12:17 on May 16, 2023 |
# ¿ May 16, 2023 12:13 |
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mobby_6kl posted:I think the costs also gets overblown, like remember how mad everyone was about the F-35 program? It's now cheaper per unit than any comparable plane. I think even than the F-16? That, and there's overlap. Research from some programs will go into others. I recall something to the effect that a lot of the money and research that went into the F-14 went into the F-16 or vice versa, decreasing later development time and cost. There haven't really been any stinkers in the US arsenal since the '70s,and to be fair we made some real bad stuff in that time. People tell me the Stryker sort of qualifies, but that's out of my knowledge. Some of the reports of it feel overblown despite its deficiencies. Failures since then have mostly come in the form of development heading into dead ends and restarting as new programs. Russia and the USSR though had a problem up to today where they would approve anything the moment that it could could move/fly, shoot, and be manufactured (in some cases, not even the last one). The USSR was a much better about it, but they made a few stinkers in large numbers. Even then, some failures came in the form of being fixed later, or not being able to support them in the field (like certain T-80 tanks being fine vehicles, but lacking logistical support/training/APUs and the like).
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# ¿ May 16, 2023 15:03 |
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Tunicate posted:Even so it is astonishing how the things the USSR were world leaders in (like crystal growth) ended up being raided and totally destroyed by modern Russia. This extended to the military, too. After some post-Civil War failures, the SU decided to let in some White officers to bolster the military. At this time, the SU had some brilliant commanders with forward-thinking ideas for what modern warfare.. who would were subsequently executed/purged along with their families because Stalin and his cronies felt threatened.
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# ¿ May 16, 2023 20:38 |
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Coolguye posted:the bradley also has a lot of conceptual overlap with the f-35 insofar as the bradley came at a time when there was a big gap to fill in modern battlefields and nobody really knew how to fill it, so they more or less made a single project an overbloated mass of R&D wherein they solved an entire class of basic problems that then got appropriated into a bunch of other projects - even after they slapped together everything they learned from it into a vehicle that actually does solve some interesting problems. A while back but it's worth noting that the Bradley wasn't really "overbloated." You couched your speech enough that I don't think you believe the Pentagon Wars' mythology around the Bradley program, but the US had gone through decades of specialized equipment and wanted to streamline its needs for light AFVs that something like the Bradley could fulfill. At the end of the day, the we got a vehicle that performed admirably in the recon/counter-recon, cavalry, infantry support, and mobile command roles, among others. And it was even under budget, a rarity for its time. Its long development came at a time when we were trying to scrap old thinking and reorganize unit structure.
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# ¿ May 17, 2023 23:22 |
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tiaz posted:iirc flork also thinks they're funny and is fine with them He even made his own contribution to the meme:
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# ¿ May 19, 2023 23:46 |
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Tai posted:https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1660074364602073089
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# ¿ May 21, 2023 15:58 |
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The world was denied Fourth International Posadism.
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# ¿ May 22, 2023 02:14 |
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Deki posted:Believe it or not, it's true. I actually may know what happened here. When a missile locks on to a possible incoming target, it will try to intercept it. Patriot batteries had this problem when they first saw action. Modern systems now have switches that will detect that they're hitting ground targets and switch off their guidance/payload.
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# ¿ May 29, 2023 03:40 |
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Neddy Seagoon posted:What causes/enables them to target their own launcher like that? Wouldn't being behind the launching missile/torpedo prevent that just by its nature? From what I understand, it's a two-point problem where a) The missile tries to take into account what it thinks is the trajectory of an incoming round, so it will end up accidentally striking its own launcher if it assumes there is incoming fire from what it perceives as an intercept-able target. b) Depending on the system, the missile may not take the ground into effect. I can't speak on Russian systems, but this was another problem with the early Patriot. It would try to intercept incoming fire, and due to the trajectory, the point of contact may be somewhere underground or even a mountain or tall building. This could end up causing collateral damage, so that's why Patriots now have the kill switches for this kind of situation. My expertise isn't in these systems, but I've come across materials on them while reading for my job.
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# ¿ May 29, 2023 14:42 |
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My Spirit Otter posted:tanks blow engines like crazy to the point where units going to the field take a bunch of spares with them and from what ive been told by tanker buddies, its a fairly quick process. Tanks are designed around undergoing routine maintenance, especially before major maneuvers, yeah. You don't want a platoon brought to half strength because of maintenance issues that could have been avoided. Shaman Tank Spec posted:Well, it can be. The United States literally pioneered the field during World War II, where they designed the Sherman to be built from individual modules which were precision engineered to such a degree that you could take a Sherman built in Detroit, pull out the transmission, install a transmission that was built in Atlanta, and then slap in a new engine built in some completely other factory, all in the space of a couple of hours. This was NOT the standard in World War II. Yeah, this is all right. There are a lot of myths around why we didn't adopt the M26 Heavy/Medium/whatever earlier in WW2, with some people outright slandering Leslie McNair for being inept, when that tank required far more logistical support than the Sherman, on top of having issues with its engine and powertrain and not being able to cross as many bridges as standard lighter tanks. It's also worth noting that even the USSR wasn't even all that hyped about the T-34 around its adoption. They were planning on hefty redesigns until the Nazis invaded. Beyond issues with the design, other shortcomings were due to the shortages of metallurgical materials like nickel, and the loss/impending loss of dedicated tank factories, and having to repurpose factories that were not suited for T-34's manufacturing needs. The only caveat to the German maintenance issue is that it was either the Panzer 3 or 4 that had an easily-serviced transmission (I forget which one). Otherwise, yeah, repairing anything on a German tank was a federal project. I got to participate in a M4A3 restoration and it's wild how easy it was. We were able to use commercial equipment, and our hands had plenty of room to move when servicing the engine/powertrain. Comstar posted:When did the British tanks start doing this? I recall a lot of stories of the British having the best tanks in Europe...so long as it broke down in a good firing position. British tanks of WW2 weren't bad and common criticisms of their armored force could have been laid at the feet of any other beligerent, but the Brits were kind of dealt a bad hand and caught some undeserved flak for it. Biases in the historical record didn't do them any more favors. I could go into the WW2-era stuff, but as for the Cold War, "best" might be pushing it. The Centurion was certainly a better tank than comparable western designs of the time, and they performed admirably in many conflicts. Their good low gears helped them in the rough terrain of the Korean War. Chieftains... not so much. The earliest versions had a lot of troubles with their engines. The British inserted a multi-fuel engine into The Chieftain, under the presumption that having a tank that could run gasoline and diesel would be helpful were they to be supplied by America. The problem is that multi-fuel engines back in the day just weren't as capable as they would later become, so it was very weak. The worst versions of these Chieftains were either upgraded or never put into service. Chieftain armor protection wasn't great. T-72s were able to frontally penetrate them in the Iran-Iraq War. They performed more admirably in Kuwaiti hands against Iraq. By all accounts, most of the engine issues were handled later on. Challengers are both great, but even the Brits realized that The Chieftain needed a replacement ASAP, and as a result, Chal 1 got put into service until they could properly play catch-up. Chal 1 is a good tank, but its role as a stopgap is pretty clear in its design. Even so, it was a hell of a good stopgap. Chal 2 is fantastic by all reports, but I never got to read deeply into them. I'll also say that they produced the coolest-looking tanks of the Cold War. There's just something about the aesthetics of the Cent, Chief, Conqueror, and Challenger that I really like.
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# ¿ May 31, 2023 22:12 |
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steinrokkan posted:Lmao not a single supportive comment either, just universal backlash That has been the one heartening thing. I've grown really disconnected with certain left movements and circles who seem to want to spend all their time whining about "lib poo poo." There's much better groundwork that's been going on without the help of the DSA. Recently, the laborers in my factory successfully unionized, all without the help of podcasters who spend all of their Patreon money whining about NYT op-eds.
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# ¿ Jun 3, 2023 16:40 |
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# ¿ Jun 6, 2023 16:40 |
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Tai posted:or act like that they are hyper intelligent becaause they shift F7 every adjective word in a paragraph and think they are playing 5D chess with everyone. Oh god, this is it for me. I remember every leftist space taken over by tankies who attributed a political theory to every bird-brained lunatic who ever handed out a pamphlet. "Well, I used to exptrapolate myself wherein as a Fourth Pillar Stevejohnsonian Cromulationist, but I later epiphanized wherein that Steve Johnson of the Des Moine People's Tankfucker Initiative wherein epitomized more of a Third Stalinist Pillar Movement of Tanksucker Revunctionism wherein I believed that any marriage of man to armored vehicle, but I later alligned myself more as a Dave Wilsonian Reverse Armor Conjoinist wherein state inter-armor marriages would be approved by a council wherein" I wish I was exaggerating, but I once saw a multi-page serious consideration of "Fourth International Posadism" that of course devolved into US-bashing about hiding UFOs in an attempt to undermine Juan Posadas.
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# ¿ Jun 11, 2023 16:28 |
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CSM posted:Perhaps the most valuable aspect of new Western kit: Wanna nail this tweet to James Burton's door.
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# ¿ Jun 15, 2023 21:53 |
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HKR posted:The only reason I can think of for this particular cope cage is that the gunners kept getting hit by infantry fire, which say a lot about the armor, or lack there of on those tanks In WW2, soldiers of every nation tried to come up with solutions to add extra armor to their vehicles in the form of slapping spare tracks, logs, sandbags, etc.. Most of the measures didn't really work, and added extra strain onto the powertrains. Some nations like US and Germany allowed the practice if it gave the crews more confidence. George Patton specifically hated the practice and there are pictures of him admonishing crews for putting sandbags on their tanks. He did approve of programs that welded bits of salvaged armor onto tanks, as these applique armor bits were supposedly tested and showed that they provided adequate extra protection. German units used bits of skirt and extra armor to counter anti-tank rifles. These became parts of official upgrade packages and were used up until the end of the war. Soviet units had their famous "bedspring" screens that were designed to counter early HEAT rounds, but I never looked into how effective those were. I can't talk too specifically about my credentials, but I'll say that modern anti-tank rounds are not stupid enough to be deterred by measures like this. EDIT: It's worth mentioning that the practice continues to this day. American units in Iraq specifically came up with proactive (extra firepower) and reactive measures (lining their vehicles with salvaged materials) to compensate for their vehicles having inadequate protection. Famously, Phillipine soldiers also nailed wood to their vehicles for use against guerillas. But something like this will not deter a modern chemical or kinetic penetrator beyond something like old RPG-7 or western AT-series rockets. Coquito Ergo Sum fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Jun 17, 2023 |
# ¿ Jun 17, 2023 22:49 |
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This seems like a really good time for Ukraine to finally surrender.
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# ¿ Jun 24, 2023 02:23 |
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# ¿ May 14, 2024 22:30 |
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NCD popped off today: https://twitter.com/war__online/status/1672535209038827521?s=20
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# ¿ Jun 24, 2023 18:00 |