Discussion of Military, real or fictional

[Darth Fluffy 302]

26 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

...afterthought: what do you call a man like Putler who does the exact opposite of Renault in the above and commits nearly a century out of date obsolete death traps to the front lines? 'Postscient'?

I had to look 'Putler' up, had not heard that. Then again, I am in the US, so alternate names for The Mango Mayhem of Mar Lago loom large and crowds out other considerations. Good name for him. Puttler could work, too; he's more of a Puttler than a Driveler in golf terms.

 

39 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

In all fairness, I do not think Renault had the weaponry of a century later in mind when he designed it. And I do think the man could be otherwise called prescient. After all, I have yet to see any modern tank design that has deviated far from its basic conception: rotating turret with heaviest weapon in it, thick front armour, engine to the rear, tracked locomotion.

Exceptions do exist but these tend to be specialized for nonstandard purposes.

The 50 cal Browning M2 was developed near the end of WW I by John Browning, who also developed the M1911 .45 cal pistol and the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle. John Browning passed away in 1926, so, not 'a century later', although technology moves rapidly during warfare, so 'late in the war' can be quite advanced over 'early in the war', and, quoting wiki, "Several of Browning's designs are still in production today.", so technically, your are correct, which we know, is the best kind of correct.

 

 

 

[Darth Fluffy 302]

Unclear on the concept, I guess . . .

[mlooney 3,417]

4 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

In all fairness, I do not think Renault had the weaponry of a century later in mind when he designed it. And I do think the man could be otherwise called prescient. After all, I have yet to see any modern tank design that has deviated far from its basic conception: rotating turret with heaviest weapon in it, thick front armour, engine to the rear, tracked locomotion.

Exceptions do exist but these tend to be specialized for nonstandard purposes.

The only really design change is that the driver is in a separate section on most, but not all, modern tanks. 

[The Old Hack 2,448]

3 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

The 50 cal Browning M2 was developed near the end of WW I

So still after Renault designed his tank. I reiterate that it is hard to design for something that does not yet exist at the moment you are creating your design. A more relevant question would be when the .50 round was created if any weapon capable of sufficient muzzle energy for it existed.

(Perhaps more relevant would be the 13.2 mm Tuf which was developed by the Germans specifically to counter British and French tanks and might be considered in part a response to the FT-17 itself.)

8 minutes ago, mlooney said:

The only really design change is that the driver is in a separate section on most, but not all, modern tanks. 

Possibly also the addition of decent suspension, which is arguably also of some little importance. For the crew, at least.

[mlooney 3,417]

1 hour ago, The Old Hack said:

Possibly also the addition of decent suspension, which is arguably also of some little importance. For the crew, at least

Well, yeah.  Suspension is the most important thing for cross county at speed.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

3 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

So still after Renault designed his tank. I reiterate that it is hard to design for something that does not yet exist at the moment you are creating your design. A more relevant question would be when the .50 round was created if any weapon capable of sufficient muzzle energy for it existed.

(Perhaps more relevant would be the 13.2 mm Tuf which was developed by the Germans specifically to counter British and French tanks and might be considered in part a response to the FT-17 itself.)

Possibly also the addition of decent suspension, which is arguably also of some little importance. For the crew, at least.

Yes, early in the war vs late in the war is a big gap.

Browning created the round, apparently concurrently with the weapon, more or less - both were scaled up from his earlier M1919 .30 cal, with the specific goal of anti-armor (such as it was at the time) and aircraft. A notable innovation was that they were both air cooled, which made them much more portable.

Reading your 13.2x92mmSR article, the M2 was started earlier, but the 13.2 was completed earlier. There is speculation that the 13.2 may have influenced the design of the .50 BMG, but the earlier round does not perform as well and has other drawbacks, among them, it has a rim, so not suitable for an autoloader.

I would say that a good suspension is a vital part of a tank. Mobility is one of the keys to many battles, and having a suspension that will hold up and allow crossing rugged terrain or worse is vital. The comfort of the ride is not insignificant; it relates to gun stability and aiming, and the ability of the crew to focus on their tasks rather than dealing with being ill is also vital. A tank with a crappy suspension is a mobile gun emplacement at best.

The Soviet T-34 was at least in part successful because it's treads were wider than the German's treads, and so it preformed better in snow and mud, both of which were in abundant supply. It also had a big enough gun to do the job, which the Sherman lacked. (The T-34 lso used a Christie suspension.)

[The Old Hack 2,448]

11 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

A tank with a crappy suspension is a mobile gun emplacement at best.

In fairness to the F-17, suspension becomes somewhat less of an issue when top speed is approximately 3 mph.

11 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

among them, it has a rim, so not suitable for an autoloader.

It still sounds like something you really don't want to get hit by even when fired from a rifle.

12 hours ago, mlooney said:

Well, yeah.  Suspension is the most important thing for cross county at speed.

And as Darth Fluffy pointed out, accuracy. I am really impressed by those modern tanks which can fire on the move with high precision. Doing so while moving cross country must be a nontrivial problem.

[mlooney 3,417]

3 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

16 hours ago, mlooney said:

Well, yeah.  Suspension is the most important thing for cross county at speed.

And as Darth Fluffy pointed out, accuracy. I am really impressed by those modern tanks which can fire on the move with high precision. Doing so while moving cross country must be a nontrivial problem.

Not only accuracy, but the amount of bouncing around that the crew does is major limiting factor, even if there is more power available from the engine.  One reason why Christie and later torsion bar suspensions are so common in not only WWII tanks but in modern ones as well.  (Torsion bar, not Christie for modern tanks).  Those types of suspensions allow a lot more travel of the road wheels, resulting in a smoother ride, meaning the crew doesn't bounce around as much.

[mlooney 3,417]

For context, in the last 2 days there have been 4 friendly fire shoot downs of Russian aircraft.

[mlooney 3,417]

Correction, apparently 5 3 helicopters and 2 fast movers

 

[Darth Fluffy 302]

1 hour ago, mlooney said:

For context, in the last 2 days there have been 4 friendly fire shoot downs of Russian aircraft.

 

13 minutes ago, mlooney said:

Correction, apparently 5 3 helicopters and 2 fast movers

 

Which is really odd, when you think about it. Odds of an air frame in the sky being Russian vs being Ukrainian?  And they do have IFF, although, to be fair, we have our own issues with so called 'friendly fire'.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

5 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

In fairness to the F-17, suspension becomes somewhat less of an issue when top speed is approximately 3 mph.

 

5 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

It still sounds like something you really don't want to get hit by even when fired from a rifle.

I wouldn't particularly relish getting hit with a bb. But yeah, to your point, this is massive round for a man portable non vehicular weapon (13.2x92mmSR). The article was short, not a lot of detail, but the impression I got was it was used in a single shot (guessing bolt action?) anti-armor rifle. The bullet is a bit bigger in diameter than the .50 cal - 1/2 inch ~ 12.9 mm. If it hit bone, the bone is not going to stop it. (Even hitting bone going in and on exit is not going to matter.) On the other hand, if it is made to penetrate armor, it won''t expand explosively as it passes through a person. Expanding rounds are not supposed to be used by militaries anyway, but I don't know when that was initiated, I have a hunch it was around this time frame.

 

5 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

And as Darth Fluffy pointed out, accuracy. I am really impressed by those modern tanks which can fire on the move with high precision. Doing so while moving cross country must be a nontrivial problem.

By WW II, initial designs using analog computation, such as the Norden bombsight were beginning to break this ground. That is a much easier problem than a tank firing; for the most part, the pilot can fly straight and level on approach, and the target does not move. We've come a long way.

For many problems, analog computation is simpler and quicker than a digital approach, albeit much less flexible. There is some renewed interest in hybrid computation using some analog processing to augment digital. (Weirdly, a school I attended over half a century ago had a course in hybrid computation of exactly this kind; I wasn't there long enough to take the course, saw the lab on our introductory walk through, but my impression is that interest in analog was on its dying edge at the time.)

 

2 hours ago, mlooney said:

(Torsion bar, not Christie for modern tanks). 

I saw that, and it makes sense. Christie is a hybrid of conventional direct suspension with springs and shock absorbers, modified by leveraging systems to redirect the placement of components. It's still bulky and takes up a lot of space, raises the profile of the vehicle (not a good thing), adds weight, and has many parts, all of which can break. I imagine the failure rate of the shocks was pretty severe. A torsion bar suspension does away with all of that, and takes up little room. (I have no idea how they accomplish the damping. Now I'm curious.)

[mlooney 3,417]

26 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

 

 

Which is really odd, when you think about it. Odds of an air frame in the sky being Russian vs being Ukrainian?  And they do have IFF, although, to be fair, we have our own issues with so called 'friendly fire'.

Well, they was just after the 2 storm shadow, 1 decoy attack so they might have been a bit trigger happy.  Also given that Russia and Ukraine have the same air frames and electronics they have the same IFF units so some mode of IFF will respond the same way.  They may have used the wrong mode and gotten a return, which the Russian aircraft had been told to disable.  Don't know if this is possibe, but I know that NATO aircraft during exercises would turn off mode 3, but use mode 4.  A target the squawked mode 4, but not mode 3 was considered to be friendly.  Aircraft that squawked mode 3 only (i.e. commercial aircraft) were evaluated based on their actions. Now IFF is supposed to be coded on a daily or even 4 times a day basis, based on code books sent to the various users.  My personal bet it that the ADA units on the ground and the flying units didn't get the same code books, so IFF request goes out, aircraft doesn't squawk the right response, it's hostile.   Or the Russians are just idiots, could go either way. 

[Darth Fluffy 302]

4 minutes ago, mlooney said:

Well, they was just after the 2 storm shadow, 1 decoy attack so they might have been a bit trigger happy.  Also given that Russia and Ukraine have the same air frames and electronics they have the same IFF units so some mode of IFF will respond the same way.  They may have used the wrong mode and gotten a return, which the Russian aircraft had been told to disable.  Don't know if this is possibe, but I know that NATO aircraft during exercises would turn off mode 3, but use mode 4.  A target the squawked mode 4, but not mode 3 was considered to be friendly.  Aircraft that squawked mode 3 only (i.e. commercial aircraft) were evaluated based on their actions. Now IFF is supposed to be coded on a daily or even 4 times a day basis, based on code books sent to the various users.  My personal bet it that the ADA units on the ground and the flying units didn't get the same code books, so IFF request goes out, aircraft doesn't squawk the right response, it's hostile.   Or the Russians are just idiots, could go either way. 

Re: code books - Patton said the key was logistics.

Re: idiots - or inebriated on missile fuel? Isn't there some joke about the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and sober Russians?

[mlooney 3,417]

1 hour ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Re: idiots - or inebriated on missile fuel? 

Difference without  distinction.  Either one results in Bad Things happening.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

11 hours ago, mlooney said:

Difference without  distinction.  Either one results in Bad Things happening.

And if it is both, is the result then Very Bad Things happening?

On second thought, scratch that. I already have an example of that. Some guard in an Archangelsk munitions depot -- a really massive depot -- got drunk and then happened to spot what he thought was rats inside the depot. And then went hunting for them with his automatic rifle.

The subsequent explosion was easily visible from orbit and for a while both sides thought it might have been a nuclear detonation. Fortunately they got it cleared up before the nukes started flying.

14 hours ago, mlooney said:

For context, in the last 2 days there have been 4 friendly fire shoot downs of Russian aircraft.

Darth Putin said it was because of the increasing friction between Russian ground units. Apparently Aeroflot (or whatever the Russian air force is called) felt left out and started to shoot its own airframes down just to show how it was done.

15 hours ago, mlooney said:

Not only accuracy, but the amount of bouncing around that the crew does is major limiting factor

True. It is a little hard to focus on combat when you keep getting tossed around and have your head banged repeatedly into the sides of your vehicle.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

7 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

On second thought, scratch that. I already have an example of that. Some guard in an Archangelsk munitions depot -- a really massive depot -- got drunk and then happened to spot what he thought was rats inside the depot. And then went hunting for them with his automatic rifle.

Technically successful; he got the rats, and he never had to answer for his error. Not did he regret it, at least not in this world.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

On 5/14/2023 at 5:01 PM, Darth Fluffy said:

Technically successful; he got the rats, and he never had to answer for his error. Not did he regret it, at least not in this world.

It may in fact be the most impressive example of overkill in human history.

[ijuin 572]

There is no Overkill. There is only “Open Fire” and “Reload”.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

13 hours ago, ijuin said:

There is no Overkill. There is only “Open Fire” and “Reload”.

1) I believe that detonating literal kilotonnes of conventional explosives to kill a rat counts as overkill.

2) I do not believe the individual in question was in any state to reload afterwards.

[ijuin 572]

Your enemies can never be too dead.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

26 minutes ago, ijuin said:

Your enemies can never be too dead.

That why I keep ferns around. With fronds like these, who needs enemies?

[The Old Hack 2,448]

6 hours ago, ijuin said:

Your enemies can never be too dead.

Yeah, which is a real comfort after you have taken out yourself and all your friends, too.

Also I am not sure a rat qualifies as an enemy worth spending kilotonnes' worth of explosives on.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

"Last call."

[mlooney 3,417]

10 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

That why I keep ferns around. With fronds like these, who needs enemies?

/me adds a star and an comment.  "Using plant based puns now.  Needs further study."