I can't wait to see the next batmobile with these reconfigurable wheels.
Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles
11–20 of 220 posts
Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles
#12That thing looks like a maintenance nightmare.
You’re not kidding. Maybe the track version is meant to be used only rarely, when the vehicle is truly stuck. So you’re either wasting time digging yourself out with a shovel and saving on maintenance, or you switch to tracks to get out of the ditch and then perform maintenance right after you get back to the base. So long as maintenance is not deferred it seems preferable to do the latter.
Probably for special purpose vehicles not as a replacement for wheels on Humvees / Landy's
Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
read the article. it's the first sentence.
What is the benefit on this suburban parking hell landscape? That's where they had their demo, after all.
The benefit of filming in the parking lot of the engineering building is that you don't have to drag your prototype and a film crew out to the nearest swamp.
Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles
#14I'm curious how it affects performance in wheel mode.
Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles
#15That would actually be pretty useful on some farm vehicles. No need to pick a wheeled or tracked tractor, you can have both.
Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles
#16That thing looks like a maintenance nightmare.
You're thinking of the present. It's first stage tech. From here you'd keep iterating - learning, improving, trying various approaches.
I'm hardly an expert, but I believe caterpillar treads have been in regular use for over a century and still take loads of maintenance compared to wheels. However effective it may ultimately be, it seems unlikely that this team will solve that particular problem.
Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles
#17That thing looks like a maintenance nightmare.
And how often do humvees get stuck anyway? I like the product, but it’s obviously wasteful. During the Iraq insurgency what was wanted was armor plating. Literally just 1/4” slabs of steel.
This is of a piece with the F-35.
Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles
#18That thing looks like a maintenance nightmare.
You’re not kidding. Maybe the track version is meant to be used only rarely, when the vehicle is truly stuck. So you’re either wasting time digging yourself out with a shovel and saving on maintenance, or you switch to tracks to get out of the ditch and then perform maintenance right after you get back to the base. So long as maintenance is not deferred it seems preferable to do the latter.
I would think this will need way more maintenance than a regular wheel/tyre combination even if only used in the ‘round’ configuration.
I also worry about what a hand grenade or small IED will do to this contraption, compared to what it will do to a conventional tyre. Even if it is as strong, it likely still will increase mean time between repairs, as, when one breaks down, it’s more likely that one will have a regular tyre at hand than that one has one of these.
Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles
#19I'd like to see it go ride through sandy road. or a gravel road.
I'd also like the inventor to use it for a year.
Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles
#20That thing looks like a maintenance nightmare.
And how often do humvees get stuck anyway? I like the product, but it’s obviously wasteful. During the Iraq insurgency what was wanted was armor plating. Literally just 1/4” slabs of steel. This is of a piece with the F-35.
Humvees get stuck a lot!
The US donated (I’m sure with wink wink strings attached) to us, Slovenia, some years ago and it was quickly found that they are too large and cumbersome for our foresty mountanous terrain. They’d get stuck all the time on tiny roads or between trees.
I think these days they’re used for paraded to show we have them but day to day the military keeps using their trusti Puchs from who knows when. Tiny and manouverable.