Tiger Tank milage

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by redeker:

After reading the info from one of the above links, I'm surprised at the ground pressure of the M1A2. It's gone all the way up to 15.4 psi. If CM is anything like reality, such a tank would be bogging and immobilizing all the time in anything but perfectly dry conditions.

Is there something special about the M1A2 suspension that makes it less prone to bogging, or are we just failing to learn the lessons of history? :confused:

The misleading issue here is that the CMBO model is simpler than reality.

Ground pressure is only one of many factors.

Other factors:

To start, the ground pressure shouldn't be viewed as for the whole track. You know the wheel - between the wheels you have less pressure, below the wheels much. Big wheels are a lot better than small wheels, even many small wheels. Best use many big wheels, like the German cats do.

The suspension make a big difference. In a normal spring-based suspension, the spring gets softer the more it is charged. That that is exactly the opposite of what you want. As a result, such a tank will react to bumps by bumping its hull even more than the bump justifies. And if you hit a second bug while already dandling, this get exponentially worse.

Torsion bar suspension is much cooler here, not to speak of hydraulic systems.

As an example of (by me) suspected CMBO mismodeling, the StuG III in CMBO has absolutely absymal going on bar ground, compared to the StuG IV, including high bog change. In reality, the torsion bar suspension in the Pz III chassis would give it a quite good going. I never heard or read that anyone (from real experience) said the StuG IV was an improvement for going on bad ground. The Pz IV is not pure spring based either, it's a mix with torsion bar elements.

The horizonal springs in the Sherman HVSS are also kind a cool. The effect here is that they don't get charged much, they stay in much their same position, they move much less than a spring holding a wheel directly. Thus the HVSS avoid the effect of spring softening.

[ April 25, 2002, 08:41 PM: Message edited by: redwolf ]

[Kingfish]

Regarding M1s and fuel consumption, I remember reading a passage from 'Into the storm' in which Gen. Franks states that the daily fuel consumption of one American heavy division was just slightly lower than the 18 divisions of the combined U.S. 1st and 3rd armies in WW2.

[Terence]

Originally posted by Vanir Ausf B:

Yeah, thats a good point, as far as this debate goes. But you have to consider that only in the field of wargames does one tank go up against another tank with nothing else around it.

Can you imagine a US M1A2 or 100 of them going into action without the USAF around? Or the US Army or Marines? Or the artillery?

I'm no military geopolitical strategist, (but I play one on TV) but I sure can't. If you can spin a scenario where this does happen, lets talk. We can turn it into a paperback, spin off the movie rights and the game license and retire early.

Thats why this "My tank can beat up your tank" argument is kinda pointless in my book, unless its clear you want to talk total abstractions. That isn't clear yet to me.

So sure, the T-80 (like the M1A2) is a fine weapons system, designed by some incredibly clever people who clearly know what they are doing.

But who is driving it? And who trained them, and how motivated are they? (Since its unlikely even in the most nutty scenarios that we're going to war against Russia, who are we fighting?)

And how effective is the T-80 or its ilk if the gas and supplies for them was blown up by US airstrikes and the roads it has to drive down have been mined by air dropped explosives, and the bridges it has to cross to get within range of the US M1A2 tanks is under ICM artillery fire and the Apache helicopters are buzzing around with their nasty hellfire missiles ?

So yes, its a fine tank, and I sure wouldn't want it shooting at me. But when you consider any situation where an army containing T80s goes up against the US and our M1A2s, the guys with the Warsaw Pact stuff get turned into hash. Every time.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Originally posted by Terence:

Thats why this "My tank can beat up your tank" argument is kinda pointless in my book, unless its clear you want to talk total abstractions. That isn't clear yet to me.

Yes, I was talking abstractions. In fact, I agree with everything you said.

[Andrew H.]

Originally posted by Terence:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Vanir Ausf B:

Yeah, thats a good point, as far as this debate goes. But you have to consider that only in the field of wargames does one tank go up against another tank with nothing else around it.

Can you imagine a US M1A2 or 100 of them going into action without the USAF around? Or the US Army or Marines? Or the artillery?

</font>

Well, to be fair, the M1 was designed in an environment where the most serious threat was considered to be a Soviet attack into Germany through the Fulda Gap. Of course the USAF would be there, along with lots of Nato air assets, but even the most optimistic planners did not foresee instant air superiority; they tended to believe that it would take Nato a week or so to get air superiority. In that time period, the plan was to rely on at least some US tanks stopping some Soviet tanks.

Today, of course, it's hard to imagine any similar situation.

[JonS]

I recently read a study that concluded that NATO would have gotten skanked in a conventional war with the Warsaw Pact due to poor logistics preparations by NATO.

The USSR was planning for a long war, and had consistent equipment and logistics plans from the Baltic to the Alps. Nato had several MTB main armament calibres and types, multiple artillery ammos, and no unified logistics planning. Each nation was/is responsible for its own contingents logistics, so its concievable that a well supplied I(Br) Corps could have found itself flanked by a poorly supplied Belgian Corps, or whatever, with no mechanisms to transfer supply assets at anything below national-command level. The difficulty of holding a line in such a situation should hopefully be obvious. Furthermore, nearly all of the NATO contingents held war stocks far below those of USSR Inc.

So, in any protracted conventional war the Soviets would surely have taken some big hits initially, but ultimately would have swamped NATO because the latter was all out of anything to fight back with. It doesn't matter how much better your toys are, if all the batteries are flat while the other guy is still running around like the Energiser Bunny. The main thing holding them back was the nuclear deterrant - so, go out and hug a nuke today and say thanks

Who knows how it would have worked out. But I suspect it would have been rather different than Red Storm Rising.

Err ... sorry about the OT-ness

Regards

JonS

[JasonC]

"Can you imagine a US M1A2 or 100 of them going into action without the USAF around?"

Um, yes I can. I can imagine it happening next week, and world history going this way or that depending on the outcome.

You seem to be under the impression that only the US Army has M1A2 tanks. Not so. We sold 300 of them to the Saudis, and nearly 500 of them to the Egyptians...

[Grey Hunter]

i think the best WWII consumption rate (an I mean best in most entertaining) was the Jagdtiger,

with an amazing 6 gallons to the mile!

and this at a point in the war when germany did notn have enough fuel for transporting ammo to the front.

[Terence]

Originally posted by JasonC:

"Can you imagine a US M1A2 or 100 of them going into action without the USAF around?"

Um, yes I can. I can imagine it happening next week, and world history going this way or that depending on the outcome.

You seem to be under the impression that only the US Army has M1A2 tanks. Not so. We sold 300 of them to the Saudis, and nearly 500 of them to the Egyptians...

And the Saudis are going to war without the US holding their hands? With who?? I don't think so.

As far as the Egyptians are concerned you may have a point -- they may decide to invade Israel just for old time's sake. It would be silly to say "never" when they've already done it once.

I will however, say that this is, IMNSHOP, very unlikely.

[Lars]

Not as unlikely as you might think, Terence.

Egypt ready to wage war on Israel ... for $US100 billion

Should we take up a collection and settle this?

[lcm1947]

I'm willing to chip in. Where do I send my money?

I can't even imagine why they would say that. Well, talk is cheap. I wonder what their young men who would have to do all the killing - and dying would think about that. Yeah, I would be willing to give up my life so my country could make some money. I bet that this one would last a whole 7 days.

[Lars]

Maybe they're saying it for the same reason we asked Japan to pony up before we took off to save Kuwait.

[Jagdratt]

Originally posted by lcm1947:

I can't even imagine why they would say that. Well, talk is cheap. I wonder what their young men who would have to do all the killing - and dying would think about that. Yeah, I would be willing to give up my life so my country could make some money. I bet that this one would last a whole 7 days.

I think the reason they're saying that is that the more militant Arab nations are pressuring Egypt to take military action. Egypt has the geographic position and military might that many Arab nations do not.

Sadly, I think the average squaddie in the Egyptian Army would relish the conflict - at first anyway. There's a level of commitment or fanaticism to the Arab/Israeli conflict that seldom exists in the Western world*. For many Muslims, this the single most important ideological struggle in their life time - perhaps in generations.

I don't think Egypt and its nationals are suggesting the 100 billion figure is payment so much as "compensation" for their losses. The difference - in my mind - being that they're not suggesting this would be a profitable exercise, but rather the cost of responding to the militants within the Arab world.

*The nation formerly known as Yugoslavia being an example of this in the western world.