Carrot of Truth
War is Peace
Its torque, A diesel cannot match the torque of a gas turbine.
Tanks and other Armoured Vehicles Image thread.
- Thread starter Duke Nukem
- Start date
Its torque, A diesel cannot match the torque of a gas turbine.
Doomsought
Well-known member
Instead of cylindrical pistons it has a curved triangle sliding round trying to keep a gas seal on all three corners and its sides. Theoretically it is highly efficient, but practically the gas seals take more effort than you save by combining three pistons onto a single triangle.
...Someone in the Rebels' leadership has been playing too much Command and Conquer.
PsihoKekec
Swashbuckling Accountant
Tank communications in 1917-18
Agent23
Ни шагу назад!
And from what I have heard they are:
1) More complex and brittle.
2) Massive gas guzzlers.
3) Take more time to start and stop, and consume more fuel in idle.
Wankel engine - Wikipedia
This, a lot more successful than the X type engine.
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
The gas guzzler rep especially when idling was in large part due it taking way way too long to give the M-1 a proper auxiliary power unit that wasn't removed for some reason or another. Mostly due to needing the space for other kit
Also they don't take that much longer than a normal tank to start or stop. Longer yes but not stupidly so
Also they don't take that much longer than a normal tank to start or stop. Longer yes but not stupidly so
paulobrito
Well-known member
To be honest, the Abrams engine is 70 tech. You can replace it with a more modern gas turbine that is way more fuel-efficient, lighter, compact, and more reliable. But, sadly, the money for that is never available.
Could it help in glorious melee ?
And,if destroyed,would nearby units run,commit sudoku, or go berserk?
Wait,it supposed to have railgun,right?
The K3 concept is looking kind of interesting apparently they are going for a fully unmanned turret and a crew capsule. It also appears to be going for a 130mm main gun rather than 140mm.
Isn't the proposed Abrams X upgrade also looking into modernizing the engine?
Yes, but those are minor issues, at least if your military has logistics and maintenance in good order. Also you probably want an APU on a modern tank anyway even if it was a diesel (running all the electronics while not moving and not idling would drain the battery fast), making 3 irrelevant.
paulobrito
Well-known member
On top of that, the APU uses less fuel, generates a lower IR signature, and is less noisy than the diesel engine of the tank. And probably is optimized to generate electricity.
Doomsought
Well-known member
Just about anything that burns if your maintenance crew knows how to adjust the fuel injectors.
Wankel engines were supposed to be the "next big thing" in internal combustion engines in the late 60s-early 70s, using eccentric triangular rotors instead of the traditional cylinders. Basically, the gaps between the rotors and the case around them, which expand and contract as the rotor spins, act as the ignition space as opposed to a cylinder going up and down.
A Wankel engine has inferior inherent thermal efficiency compared to a four-stroke reciprocating piston engine, but has considerable advantages in power-to-size and power-to-weight ratios, as well as being inherently smoother since there's no conversion of up-and-down motion into rotation, and having fewer moving parts. Engineering-wise, the biggest challenge has been the longevity of the 'apex seals' on the rotor, as the eccentric motion puts a lot of wear and tear on them.
There was a significant push in the late 60s / early 70s to adopt of Wankel engines as a 'next generation' engine for cars pretty much across the board, with many major car manufacturers (notably AMC and GM) investing substantial resources in rotary engine development. However, as there were extended teething issues the car companies started getting cold feet about it, and the oil embargo crisis of the 70s pretty much killed it dead. Mazda was the only car company to stick to the type, with the RX series of sports cars being Wankel-powered.
All of the major countries switched to nuclear subs, and the countries that continued to use diesel-electric subs were interested in reliable low budget craft, not pushing the technical limits of technology. It's worth noting that even the "regular" submarine diesel engines used very sophisticated mechanical designs that are rarely if ever seen in other kinds of internal combustion vehicles, such as double-acting and opposed cylinder layouts.
It's just a rather specific niche -- extremely high power-to-weight ratio is demanded, raw size far beyond cars and aircraft, massive priority on torque, constant-speed operation, operating continuously for months on end.
Although for comparison, the LM 2500 gas turbines used on literally almost every Western warship are 60s tech. They're a gas turbine version of the General Electric TF39 turbofans from the C-5 Galaxy, which were the very first high-power, high-bypass jet engines ever invented. Yet still going strong to this day, regardless of being "old".
Carrot of Truth
War is Peace
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
The biggest problem is material science giving smaller tank guns the middle finger, to be honest. We've basically discovered EndoSteel V0.1 and all sorts of 'fun' (i.e., make offense's day excruciatingly hard) materials that can be used in armor have been developed during the 20-aughts and 20-teens. The biggest problem is the unwillingness to shell out the development money to see if they're viable for mass production.
DarthOne
☦️
I wonder if that’s intentional. Keeps the balance of power as is and allows for Western military adventures that can stretch on for years and years…