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by Desena » Tue May 30, 2017 8:12 am
by The Akasha Colony » Tue May 30, 2017 8:29 am
Desena wrote:How big of a difference can a suspension system make in combat for AFVs? I don't know much about automotive design.
I see that most tanks seem to use torsion bar suspension, while others like the Leclerc and Challenger 2 use hydropneumatic suspension. Do they have any advantages over the other, or is it just different means of accomplishing the same thing?
Are there any other suspension systems for heavy military vehicles, or is that it?
by Dostanuot Loj » Tue May 30, 2017 8:59 am
The Akasha Colony wrote:There's only one hyperbar engine in the world, so it's not like there are a lot of examples floating around out there. Hyperbar is a specialized system so it hasn't seen any applications outside of the one it is presently used for. It's not good for fuel efficiency which is why it's of little commercial interest. It's of interest to the French because it helped them create a 1,500 horsepower V-8 diesel rather than a bigger V-12 engine, but this came at the cost of fuel efficiency.
Opposed-piston engines for tank use in general though haven't been a smashing success. Their compact size has made them attractive but the high operating pressures needed to squeeze the maximum power from their displacement has often negatively affected reliability. The Leyland L60 in the Chieftain is a particularly good example, and the 5TDF and 6TD engines used in the Soviet T-64 series and its successors have had problems as well. A hyperbar would only exacerbate this situation by increasing the pressure even further; I can't find any reference to the 5TDF or 6TD being turbocharged at all (compared to the competing V-2-series diesel in the D-72 which has turbocharged variants).
by Prosorusiya » Tue May 30, 2017 9:13 am
by The Akasha Colony » Tue May 30, 2017 9:45 am
Prosorusiya wrote:Fairbanks-Morse used to make OP Diesel engines, which were used in submarines successfully and in railroad locomotives less so. Although the latter was mostly because they were not standard and well maintained examples still run in some parts of the world.
by Prosorusiya » Tue May 30, 2017 9:47 am
The Akasha Colony wrote:-Celibrae- wrote:One of Sprey's arguments is that smaller aircraft have a lower RCS, and this outweighs the beefier radars available to heavy fighters. Does this argument have any stock?
Not enough to matter. RCS is only loosely correlated with size. It's usually more a factor of whether any real attention was paid to RCS and how much effort was put into reducing it. F-22 is much bigger than F-35 but has an RCS that's estimated to be ~10 times smaller. Super Hornet has a smaller RCS than Hornet despite being larger.
There was a case to be made of light fighters when Pierre Sprey was pushing them hard in the 1970s and early 1980s. At the time, rules of engagement required positive visual identification of targets before engagement and thus severely hampered the effectiveness of any BVR missiles available at the time, which also tended to have a relatively high failure rate. Thus, you had scenarios like the ACEVAL/AIMVAL trials in the 1970s where light F-5s were able to regularly close in to IR SRAAM range with heavy F-14s and F-15s, who were not able to get reliable positive VID at ranges beyond 8 miles or so. Thus, a light fighter like F-5 had a decent chance of getting into close range, firing off their AIM-9s at the heavy fighters, and then retreating. Or getting shot down but taking several very expensive heavy fighters with it. It still didn't solve the range issues, but it made the F-5 a surprisingly deadly adversary (oddly enough, the F-14 and F-15 supposedly had better performance in gunfights than the F-5, but this only mattered if they could get through the wave of Sidewinders fired by the F-5s).
But with the development of more advanced and more reliable NCTR techniques, the need for VID was eventually phased out. In Desert Storm, coalition aircraft did not require VIDs despite operating in perhaps the most complicated environment (most of the aircraft in the area were friendly coalition aircraft so the risk of friendly fire was high and the Iraqis were flying some of the same aircraft as the French). New BVR weapons like AIM-120 replaced the less capable AIM-7 and BVR went from being something of an infrequent occurrence to being fairly common. In this method of combat, radar range, flight range, payload capacity, stealth, and speed are king. Coincidentally, this is what all fifth generation fighters (the first generation designed with these advances) have been focused on: extremely powerful engines, long-range sensors (radar, IRST, passive detection), aerodynamically efficient airframes, and stealth. Weapons capacity sort of got the shaft in favor of the stealth and aerodynamic benefits of internal carriage, but that was unavoidable.North Arkana wrote:What's with the boners for "carriers are obsolete because of crappy ballistic missiles" thing these days... *sigh*
It's not just blogs and publications that are talking about it. There's real concern on the part of the US Navy about long-range anti-ship weaponry, especially ballistic missiles. While to some extent I think the "A2/AD" meme has been overplayed (most of the elements of the "A2/AD threat" are not new), it cannot be simply brushed aside and ignored. It's a challenge the USN hasn't had to seriously face in nearly 30 years: the prospect of a near-peer opponent employing technologically sophisticated weapons in large numbers.
AShBMs might not be the magical wonder-weapon that some claim them to be, but even if not, they're a weapon the US Navy currently doesn't have a good answer to. And that's a concern.North Arkana wrote:Or the concept of interdicting the kill chain. Or general countermeasures. Or that shooting ballistic missiles in a major war is asking for massive trouble when there's people who have to wary of potential nuclear weapon use.
They're not totally wrong though. Carriers aren't necessarily obsolete but anti-ship ballistic missiles and by extension the general category of long-range (1,000+ km) stand-off anti-ship weapons is a cause for concern. Mostly because while interdicting the kill chain is cool and all, you are at best just buying time and hoping the enemy doesn't manage to sneak a ship or drone or MPA close enough to guide a strike in. All the enemy needs is a single successful strike to put that carrier out of action. And it means the carrier will have to devote so much of its air wing and escort group to protecting itself that it may not have enough resources left over to launch offensive strikes, meaning that it's essentially neutralized anyway.
The preferred option of course is to outright destroy the launchers, but the problem with long-range anti-ship weapons is that they can be based well inland, protected by air bases stocked with fighters and a robust air defense network. The range alone poses a formidable challenge.
by Prosorusiya » Tue May 30, 2017 9:57 am
The Akasha Colony wrote:Prosorusiya wrote:Fairbanks-Morse used to make OP Diesel engines, which were used in submarines successfully and in railroad locomotives less so. Although the latter was mostly because they were not standard and well maintained examples still run in some parts of the world.
The Fairbanks Morse engines stuck around because EMD's pancake engines had huge reliability problems whereas the Fairbanks Morse 38 8-1/8 was reasonably reliable, readily available, and had an extensive supply chain and pool of skilled mechanics in service. By that time, nuclear propulsion was taking over and the 38 8-1/8 was good enough to work as a backup.
by The Akasha Colony » Tue May 30, 2017 10:03 am
Prosorusiya wrote:So basically, ballistic AshMs work a lot like old costal forts & fleets in being: they are just enough of a threat to force the enemy to take countermeasures, or withdraw beyond their effective range, and thereby hamper their operational effectiveness?
On the topic of light fighters, I've been personally interested in this myself, as I run a small Soviet style nation and have been working lately to copy their military a little more historically accurately, which means reducing my air defenses somewhat... and I am mulling replacing my MiG-23P interceptors with L-39ZA's, as this would reduce the maintenance and training costs resulting from operating two types, one more much more complex than the other, and be closer to the historical Chechen AF which operated L-39C's. Idk how much interceptions my AF would really need to do, compared to ground attack against ISIS and other terrorist groups in the region, and any A2A work they do on a practical level would be mainly air policing work. I am mulling going back to operating Sa-2's as well, the only reason I dropped the batteries from my ORBAT were there was shaky evidence they were still in place In the 1990's. Thoughts?
by North Arkana » Tue May 30, 2017 1:49 pm
by Austrasien » Tue May 30, 2017 2:24 pm
North Arkana wrote:So how much of a counter AShBMs would systems like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RATTLRS in a deployable form be?
by Gallia- » Tue May 30, 2017 2:35 pm
by Seryu » Tue May 30, 2017 2:45 pm
by Kouralia » Tue May 30, 2017 2:48 pm
Seryu wrote:Not sure if this is the right place but I'm doing an II RP very soon and looking for some last few things to read...
1: Anyone have resources on how an asymmetrical rebel force would typically be organized?
2: Any tips on RPing a very large but low tech military that's behind everyone else on the technological level?
by Seryu » Tue May 30, 2017 2:53 pm
Kouralia wrote:Seryu wrote:Not sure if this is the right place but I'm doing an II RP very soon and looking for some last few things to read...
1: Anyone have resources on how an asymmetrical rebel force would typically be organized?
2: Any tips on RPing a very large but low tech military that's behind everyone else on the technological level?
I have nothing for No.2, but for No.1, here's Allanea's Guerrilla Warfare - A Primer for Nationstates Players.
by Prosorusiya » Wed May 31, 2017 10:00 am
The Akasha Colony wrote:Prosorusiya wrote:So basically, ballistic AshMs work a lot like old costal forts & fleets in being: they are just enough of a threat to force the enemy to take countermeasures, or withdraw beyond their effective range, and thereby hamper their operational effectiveness?
Existing land-mobile truck-mounted AShMs like Exocet already did this. The British certainly learned this in the Falklands when Glamorgan was struck by a truck-launched Exocet that had been modified for land-based launch. But this threat has already largely been answered in the form of EW suites, decoy/chaff/flare launchers, CIWS, and conventional tiered air defenses.
China's AShBMs are the next step because while there are nowadays lots of countermeasures to regular AShMs, there are far fewer countermeasures against ballistic missiles. A ballistic missile bypasses all of the previous defense mechanisms against cruise missile strikes and requires a whole new suite of defenses to counter.On the topic of light fighters, I've been personally interested in this myself, as I run a small Soviet style nation and have been working lately to copy their military a little more historically accurately, which means reducing my air defenses somewhat... and I am mulling replacing my MiG-23P interceptors with L-39ZA's, as this would reduce the maintenance and training costs resulting from operating two types, one more much more complex than the other, and be closer to the historical Chechen AF which operated L-39C's. Idk how much interceptions my AF would really need to do, compared to ground attack against ISIS and other terrorist groups in the region, and any A2A work they do on a practical level would be mainly air policing work. I am mulling going back to operating Sa-2's as well, the only reason I dropped the batteries from my ORBAT were there was shaky evidence they were still in place In the 1990's. Thoughts?
If you're confident you won't need any real air-to-air combat capability, L-39 is fine. L-39's air-to-air capability though is probably in the same general class as other ground attack aircraft like A-10 though. Which again is probably fine if you don't expect to ever be seriously challenging "real" fighters.
by Laywenrania » Wed May 31, 2017 10:30 am
Prosorusiya wrote:could an L-39ZA do something like intercept a commercial jet? A high jacked airline is probably a more likely threat in their air policing role than Turks in F-16s...
Nachmere wrote:Tanks are tough bastards.
Gallia- wrote: And I'm emotionally attached to large, cuddly, wide Objects.
by Prosorusiya » Wed May 31, 2017 3:16 pm
by Laywenrania » Wed May 31, 2017 3:32 pm
Prosorusiya wrote:Damn it's that slow? Huh... maybe I'll rethink getting rid of the MiGs then.
Nachmere wrote:Tanks are tough bastards.
Gallia- wrote: And I'm emotionally attached to large, cuddly, wide Objects.
by Neo-Pontic Empire » Wed May 31, 2017 4:10 pm
Seryu wrote:2: Any tips on RPing a very large but low tech military that's behind everyone else on the technological level?
by North Arkana » Wed May 31, 2017 5:26 pm
Neo-Pontic Empire wrote:Seryu wrote:2: Any tips on RPing a very large but low tech military that's behind everyone else on the technological level?
How low tech and what's the county like overall? I mean are we talking second rate military equipment like T-72s or are we talking WW2 equipment, some RPG-7s, and whatever guns they can scrounge up?
by Atomic Utopia » Wed May 31, 2017 6:43 pm
by The Akasha Colony » Wed May 31, 2017 7:06 pm
Atomic Utopia wrote:So I was thinking of machine learning applications in warfare, and was thinking of anti missile defense systems and realized that the problem of jamming via flares, etc. is basically the same as the problem of picking out a face from a crowd. So with that in mind, would it be practical to train a neural network to conduct target recognition for a heat seeking or radar guided missile to allow it to identify the difference between flares, chaff, et cetera, and the target craft?
by Austrasien » Wed May 31, 2017 8:11 pm
by Seryu » Thu Jun 01, 2017 10:06 am
Neo-Pontic Empire wrote:Seryu wrote:2: Any tips on RPing a very large but low tech military that's behind everyone else on the technological level?
How low tech and what's the county like overall? I mean are we talking second rate military equipment like T-72s or are we talking WW2 equipment, some RPG-7s, and whatever guns they can scrounge up?
by New Vaduz » Thu Jun 01, 2017 10:14 am
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