Alternative History Armoured Fighting Vehicles Part 3
- Thread starter Claymore
- Start date
- Status
Driftless
Donor
^^^ Isn't one of the inherent problems for urban fighting vehicles the need to protect the topside of the hull against weaponry fired from above? So, armored front, sides and top, which means a very expensive and not-so-nimble vehicle - or come into town prepared to shoot up the place, right from the get go.
marathag
Banned
Ford GAA engine to Cletrac diff in the rear.
The rest of the drivetrain was very early HVSS with standard M4 tracks, idler and drive sprockets. But same suspension mounting pad, you could do older VVSS if you adjust the fender clearance.
Same 69" turret ring so fit any US turret you want on top. The T22E1 tested a 75mm autoloader.
Except for the small issue of using a completely different hull.
Not really, the T22 hull is pretty much what you would get if you took a Sherman hull, relocated the transmission to the rear (no need for bulbous nose transmission/drive casing) and lowered the hull as there is now no drive shaft going underneath the turret basket and no large radial engine. As I said earlier, the simple act of repositioning the transmission will have secondary and tertiary consequences with the end product looking substantially different. After all, why retain the original vehicle's high profile when there is no longer the need?
Last edited:
Cool, but need to remove those Pz IV road wheels from the side. I wonder how it would actually have performed… 👍
Last edited:
Oops!
I was going to replace the Pz.IV wheels with wheels from the Pz.III/IV but just plumb forgot about it.
- Cold War
- Infantry support
- It's post-1964 coup Brazil.
- MBT
- A blend of the M551 Sheridan – Armored Reconnaissance Airborne Assault Vehicle/Light Tank, used by the US Army from 1969 and Centurion Mk 5 Main Battle Tank – used by the Australian Army, with AVLB and ARV variants.
- Brazilians partecipate in a way similar to South Koreans and realize they need to upgrade their arsenal in case a potential war breaks out in South America if one of their neighbors becomes communist
I'm not the one designing the tank, but does it have to a be a fully homegrown design? Based on the kind of requirements that you're talking about here, it looks like there's either room for some of the scrapped concepts that the US was working on during the Cold War, or just an off the shelf existing tank modified for their situation, something like an M48 Patton; by the timeframe you're talking about the M60 is phasing them out, so it makes sense that a Brazil aligned enough to the US to be willing to play whack-a-mole with South American communists might be able to get them at a pretty good price. Certainly they'd be able to operate in the Brazillian environment; Brazil actually has M60 Pattons, and the M48 served well enough in Vietnam so it should be suitable for the tropical conditions in Brazil.
And for a bonus it actually meets your 6th requirement very well because...
...South Korea still has them in service today, using their M48A3K tanks as reserves to back up their more modern K1/K2s, and other countries like Taiwan had them, too. A Brazil that is heavily aligned with the US would definitely be able to get them, and then in the 70s get a combined fleet of M48s and M60s, which is a pretty darned good setup for the time, and in the years after that you could easily see Brazil setting out on its own refit program to further modernize the tanks, like they did to this Stuart:
They gave the thing a 90mm gun when the tank was originally designed for a 37. I can only imagine what the reaction would be if you took that thing back to 1941 and paraded it in front of the Army Ordnance Department
It appears that as part of the FV 4030 program, the Chieftain Mk 5/3Ps for Iran were going to be all re-engined with a 850bhp CV42 (typo? CV12 variant?) with automated TN 12 gearbox. Cancelled after the revolution. This would imply this was feasible on all existing Chieftains btw.
Could have been nice instead of spending money on the Sundance L60 engines for British Chiefs and would improve commonality with Challenger 1s, but too bad.
Could have been nice instead of spending money on the Sundance L60 engines for British Chiefs and would improve commonality with Challenger 1s, but too bad.
Guys I'm wondering something. Did someone come up with a HEAT round for the short barrel 75 mm Shermans? If so how much armor could it defeat?
marathag
Banned
No, but was possible. The M66 HEAT round could have been used. While it was from the Pack Howitzer, the very same projectile for HE, the M48, and M64 Smoke, was used in both the75mm M1 Howitzer and M3 75mm.
The M66 could penetrate around four inches of armor
Most early HEAT rounds could penetrate more or less 1 diameter, but this improved during the war. I'm pretty sure axishistoryforum.com has a few discussions on this.
If I remember correctly, this was where I first heard of defective fuses resulting in Italian EP rounds working more like HESH than HEAT.
If I remember correctly, this was where I first heard of defective fuses resulting in Italian EP rounds working more like HESH than HEAT.
Any thoughts on the ACAVP, aka the Plastic Tank and the potential for ATL AFV designs with this type of material?
commons.wikimedia.org
File:Advanced Composite Armoured Vehicle Platform.jpg - Wikimedia Commons
Effective plastic-based [1] composite armour needs a couple of technologies to become viable. Kevlar-type fibres (which absorb energy really well), a compatible flame-retardent resin to bind the fibres, and design software so you can make very efficient components.Any thoughts on the ACAVP, aka the Plastic Tank and the potential for ATL AFV designs with this type of material?
File:Advanced Composite Armoured Vehicle Platform.jpg - Wikimedia Commons
None of that easy to bring forward sooner, so the easiest POD would include something to drive use of more conbentional fibreglass composites for additional protection -
Initially schurtzen type flat panels and bolt on plates, then shaped moulded panels. This could possibly occur in some kind of low level civil conflict.
You'd have mixed results using everyday fibreglass composites which splinter quite badly and can be very flammable, but they could be of some use. This could give rise to more serious testing of more advanced compoites as they become abailable.
The thing is, perforated or slatted steel is probably just as good or better, doesn't weigh much more (the holes don't weigh anything) and is probably easier to repair AND more likely to survive multiple hits.
[1] composites come in all kinds of variants including wood (natural) asbestos cement (inorganic) reinforced concrete (metal plus inorganic) glass or carbon or fabric or ceramic fibre reinforced plastics. Etc etc. I could go on, but let's just say there's a lot of it about.
Militarized fibreglass composites are pretty much what Soviet-era textolite is, not quite the same but similar in concept.
In general though, materials other than steel, DU or tungsten will just be worse for composite armor arrays once you reach shotproof levels rather than bulletproof. Most of those materials were interesting because they increased stiffness and splinter protection which was nice for vehicles that normally have only thin bulletproof steel. We are increasingly going towards 30+mm and shaped-charge resistant arrays for combat vehicles though, so exotic materials are frankly niche for vehicles.
As for glass derivatives, they were nice for shaped charge protection but NERA rendered them largely obsolete as fibers cause health concerns in manufacturing and they are more expensive than steel and rubber.
the whole discussion reminded me of this fabled material, starlite.
it was a nice hype for a while
en.wikipedia.org
it was a nice hype for a while
Starlite - Wikipedia
- Status