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It’s worth noting that the Sherman specifically had a multitude of power plants, including a gas V-8, several different gasoline radial engines, a gasoline 30 (!!!) cylinder engine comprised of five inline sixes, twin inline diesels, and a diesel radial engine.
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Aug 24, 2019 17:49
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:So you acknowledge that a close range pistol shot will be stopped, yet do not consider this protection from bullets? Also, how much more protection do you think kevlar helmets offer? Even the 70s-vintage PAGST helmet was light years better than a steel helmet. The new Enhanced Combat Helmet was specified to be 35% more effective against penetration than the ACH that replaced the PAGST, while being lighter, and exceeded the specification. I’ll take any Kevlar or composite helmet over a steel pot, any day. (The ECH is actually plastic.)
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Aug 25, 2019 19:38
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A helmet is going to be ideal for any vehicle-in-motion type of environment by a long shot, but I feel that most people underestimate how much protection even a ball cap or beret gives your delicate scalp when you’re working around machines. I’ve absolutely been saved from multiple head lacerations just wearing a cotton twill baseball cap around airplanes. It still hurts when you brain yourself, but you tend to not get blood in your eyes.
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Aug 26, 2019 19:56
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Nebakenezzer posted:One thing the author did during WW2 was engineer radios that could resist distortion from engines. Were they still having issues with this in the forties? It was essentially a solved problem by the late twenties in the US.
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Sep 2, 2019 11:37
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Elissimpark posted:Would anyone know anything about chariots? Are you talking about south-pointing chariots? A differential is really only a thing when you start to try driving an axle, or in the case of a south-pointing chariot, you would like to drive something off of the axle.
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Sep 14, 2019 18:02
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Elissimpark posted:No, though the south pointing chariot is pretty cool - had to google that. They wouldn’t have a differential though, they’d just have free wheels on a solid axle, which accomplishes the same thing without any of the complexity of a differential.
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Sep 14, 2019 18:56
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axelord posted:You could argue that the South Carolina was an more advanced design. It had the 2 super firing turrets fore and aft setup you'll see in future BBs. While the Dreadnought had wing turrets. Later British Dreads would adopt a similar setup as the US ships. The South Carolina still had reciprocating steam engines, with all the drawbacks mentioned up thread. It wouldn’t be until USS North Dakota that the USN put steam turbines in a battleship, which still predates HMS Orion commissioning as the RN’s first all-centerline-turret battleship over a year later.
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Sep 15, 2019 02:44
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LatwPIAT posted:Sounds like an incredibly frustrating engagement. The P-51 can't hope to touch the Phantoms, but early Sidewinders are going to struggle to get a good tone, and when they do, the P-51 is can easily turn into the Sidewinder to break the lock. Early Sparrows were infamously poor on the best of days and the P-51 should be able to pull enough Gs to toss them off. Result: either the Sparrows win with a lucky AIM-7 hit, or a draw as the Phantoms go home with no weapons left. Oh sweet summer child.
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Sep 15, 2019 17:32
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SlothfulCobra posted:Was there anything wrong about ball turrets? Aside from escapability and being extra weight and drag when speed mattered. Obviously they're irrelevant now in the era of aircraft using long-range missiles for everything, but was there any other reason against their use? Ball turrets (and manned turrets in general) were only useful in the short period of time between bombers being large and powerful enough to carry large defensive gun armaments, and electrical remote fire-control systems becoming practical and effective. Some of the early B-17Es had an early Sperry (not Bendix, B-17s we’re never equipped with Bendix turrets, that error is EVERYWHERE) electrically-controlled belly turret, which was widely disliked by crews. It was mechanically identical to the Sperry top turret that was retained through production, but equipped with a remote sight that was installed just aft of the turret. The gunner would lay prone, facing aft, and was equipped with a number of windows wrapping around the aft belly of the aircraft, though the sight itself couldn’t translate through the entire field of view. No kills were ever recorded with the Sperry remote turret, and many (possibly most) were removed or replaced with the familiar Sperry manned ball turret. Just three years later, B-29s were being built with an elaborate and effective integrated fire control system built by GE. The Sperry remote turret would go on to find success (in modified and improved form) as the B-17G’s chin turret.
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Sep 16, 2019 12:13
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Popular Mechanics isn’t the most reliable source, but here we are... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nskFayhBcy0
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Sep 16, 2019 14:27
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The problem with the “new jet every five years” approach isn’t the aerospace industry being incapable of delivering on those kind of timetables; The problem is the USAF being the customer. The federal government is no longer capable of working on those sorts of timelines, because even a simple program decision cannot be made in a timely manner. Hell, I’d be surprised if the USAF could agree on a specification for the first round of new jets in less than five years, even if you started counting from today. It’s been eight years since the last Raptor was built. They’re still arguing about what shape the loving specification program will take for the next fighter.
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Sep 17, 2019 15:34
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Taerkar posted:Some of the rifle grenade setups actually used a live bullet I believe. That’s called a bullet-trap rifle grenade. There’s at least one design that had a hollow center and allowed the bullet to exit through the grenade.
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Sep 19, 2019 01:38
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Ensign Expendable posted:Operated by the loader IIRC, which the British really didn't like since it was tough for the commander to order the loader to fire it. I know radios weren’t common installations in some armies’ tanks until the war, but when did intercom systems become common? Around the same time? I know tanks are loud as hell, and it would seem an obvious advantage, but then so does radio, in retrospect.
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Sep 21, 2019 17:24
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SeanBeansShako posted:As is the case with most uniform design the stuff that works stays and the stuff that loses their function and fashion just fade away.  
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Sep 22, 2019 12:35
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FrangibleCover posted:One hundred and thirty thousand shaft horsepower of steam turbine and they can't find enough spare steam to get the creases out of their trousers? They were busy sinking anything and everything with a Japanese flag on it.
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Sep 22, 2019 22:53
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JcDent posted:Why didn't the Americans develop one... The M1919A6 started fielding in 1943, but it was a heavy bitch compared to the MG34 and MG42. It was replaced in the squad light machine gun role by the M60, starting in 1957.
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Sep 23, 2019 12:09
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SimonCat posted:Why not just 2 3 gun turrets? A 3-gun B turret would put more weight higher in the ship, raising the metacentric height. Of course now, if someone knocks out A turret, you’re down to just two guns up front instead of three. Trade offs.
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Sep 26, 2019 23:37
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feedmegin posted:To put it mildly. 1930 is before radar, remember (and Chain Home was still secret even in 1939). Detection back then was literally a bloke in a field seeing planes go overhead and picking up a telephone. 
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Sep 27, 2019 18:18
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feedmegin posted:Yeah plus extrapolating from eg Guernica. The assumption in the 30s was that strategic bombing would actually be pretty much equivalent to a nuke. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOCYcgOnWUM If you’ve not seen Fog of War, I highly recommend.
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Sep 30, 2019 21:40
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Nebakenezzer posted:I read that for a second as 'F-4 Phantom II' and then got irrationally angry at USN aircraft nomenclature Before the Tri-Service designation system in 1962, the Phantom was the F4H. 
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Oct 12, 2019 20:09
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Siivola posted:A good helmet might turn the blade away, but even the impact alone will give you a bad time. Even if your armor 100% prevents penetration, you just got hit with what is effectively a multiple pound sledgehammer at the end of a four foot ash handle. That’ll ring your bell for sure. Pre-gunpowder combat was metal as gently caress.
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Oct 13, 2019 14:05
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“Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you the Montana class BBBN.” *Thunderous applause*
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Oct 14, 2019 12:18
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Randomcheese3 posted:The Italians did actually have a few CGBNs - several of the Italian Navy's cruisers built in the 1960s were designed to carry Polaris SLBMs. Giuseppe Garibaldi had four Polaris tubes from 1961, while the Andrea Dorias and Vittorio Veneto were fitted for them, but never received the tubes. Italy was never actually allowed to purchase the missiles, though, and so these ships never actually carried missiles. The Italians did try to design their own SLBM, the Alfa, which had a few test firings but never entered service. Ya, and it’s always surprised me that the tubes were on the aft deck. I mean, a bare Polaris is something like 32ft long, intruding straight down into the ship. We’re the Italian ships really oddly proportioned aft, or were they just big enough for it to not matter?
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Oct 14, 2019 15:53
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LatwPIAT posted:Yes. The British didn't have enough L85s and L86s, so some rear-line troops were issued with SLRs and Brens. I wasn’t expecting that one, I figured you were going to say they were locals. That would be like the Guard deploying with Thompsons. ...Which would be AMAZING, now that I think about it.
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Oct 14, 2019 16:04
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I’m a big fat gently caress and I have a hard time visualizing eating 12k calories in a day. Particularly since presumably he would have been eating relatively cleanly.
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Oct 20, 2019 01:17
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Milo and POTUS posted:Oh and for subs patrolling the arctic, does sea ice hamper ASW efforts? Absolutely. The ambient noise level near pack ice is higher, which gives you more leeway to hide yourself if your submarine is louder than you’d like. This is a large part of why the Russians run some of their deterrent patrols under ice.
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Oct 21, 2019 14:04
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Barrel length is GENERALLY from the muzzle to the face of the breech with the breech closed. I’m not entirely sure how the USN measured it, though.
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Oct 24, 2019 22:24
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:I feel like the guy on the bottom left in the light blue coat is wearing the fire department (feuerpolizei) stahlhelm, which had a mohawk bump, but it's too small to tell. If so, that's awesome. He also appears to be throwing a Molotov cocktail, which makes it even better.
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Oct 27, 2019 22:55
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Perestroika posted:Is it just me or are those a lot of explosives? Did every trooper carry that much? If not explosives, it would be 60mm mortar shells, or .30cal belts, or BAR mags. Combat jump loads on D-Day were almost uniformly well north of 100lbs.
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Nov 4, 2019 17:23
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The Lone Badger posted:I wonder how things shift now, with cheap-to-run simulators but even more complicated aircraft? A modern war between say, the US and Russia would be nasty, brutish, and short. MrYenko fucked around with this message at 14:45 on Nov 6, 2019 |
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Nov 6, 2019 13:57
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vuk83 posted:Excluding nukes why? Waving the magic no-nukes-wand, both of our military capabilities are extraordinarily effective, but of limited depth compared to what we’ve seen in the past. High intensity combat operations would have clear (and horribly bloody) results, but would likely leave even the victor in rough shape, materially. Neither side has the reserves of munitions and spares that we used to. The initial formations are pretty uniformly much smaller, as well. Which is of course, related to nukes. Nuclear weapons ensure that we don’t have to keep enormous conventional militaries, because existential threats to a nuclear power have -so far- very rarely been made.
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Nov 6, 2019 14:59
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bewbies posted:I think its a pretty questionable assumption that hostilities would cease just because PGM magazines are depleted. I’m not saying hostilities would cease. I’m saying things would devolve rather rapidly as a lack of munitions (but more probably) spares reduced the ability of both sides to keep up the pace of operations. The US probably has a huge advantage here against any possible opponent, simply by virtue of its expeditionary logistics capability, but it’s not immune.
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Nov 6, 2019 15:09
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LingcodKilla posted:I’ll go back and watch Pearl Harbor and see. Don’t do it. It’s not worth it.
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Nov 10, 2019 20:57
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chitoryu12 posted:I had Stephen Biesty's cross-section book on a man o' war and one of the sections shows the ship in battle. The books were supposedly for 4th grade and up but they had insanely graphic violence (and lots of poop), so there's dudes with splinters the size of tree trunks impaling them through the chest and a surgeon's room absolutely filled with blood and buckets of severed limbs. I think he was even drawn in the middle of sawing a leg off. Had the same book. Can confirm all details, especially the abattoir of the surgical room.
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Nov 18, 2019 17:35
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C.M. Kruger posted:...the British need them and a 75mm gun in a compromise design is better than no tank or no 75mm gun at all. The first rule of armored combat is to bring armor.
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Nov 25, 2019 15:10
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RE: V-2 guidance, I don’t think they were controlled in the roll axis. I think the launch table was simply “aimed” down the bearing to the target.
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Jan 1, 2020 15:14
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Smiling Jack posted:Yes, helicopters had to hover to fire most ATGM until the Apache / Hellfire combo and even then they had to mantain line of sight to target. ...And then... Longbow
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Jan 5, 2020 18:35
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Cessna posted:Is a Soviet tank's autoloader as dangerous as the rumors of the 80's ("it rips crewmen's arms off all the time") made it out to be? No. Does that mean it's a safe system, or one I'd prefer to the one I worked with? Nope. I got this for Christmas one year, and the author comically alleges that Soviet auto loaders had a habit of grabbing the TC’s genitals and shoving them in the breech. (The book DOES have some great photos of late-cold-war US army equipment, though.)
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Jan 6, 2020 02:17
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mllaneza posted:20mm is a fine shell for shooting at aircraft of any size, but a determined Kamikaze needs much more stopping, so radar directed 40mm mounts started showing up on everything. Destroyers even lost a 5" mount in favor of 1 or 2 twin 40mm. 40mm is about the smallest mount that got VT ammo during the war, too.
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Jan 6, 2020 23:47
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Nenonen posted:I wish we still had artisanal fighters. F-35 unit cost couldn't go much higher if they did. I think the B-58 was the first airplane that cost more than its weight in (contemporary) gold. I assume that trend has not gotten better.
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Jan 9, 2020 02:07
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