Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles • Hacker News Board

Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles

#141

Post by donquichotte » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 10:45 AM UTC

mac01021 wrote: post #114

donquichotte wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a guy who rode a motorcycle from Central Europe through Central Asia to Mongolia, the last part largely off-road, I wholeheartedly agree. Simplicity is key. As a traveler, if your "wheel 4.0" has a software bug or breaks down in the middle of the desert, it is inconvenient enough. I can only imagine the consequences this would have in a war scenario.

I'm interested in your motorcycle trip! - How did you choose this route/destination out of the thousands of possibilities? - Was there any specific goal beyond spending a bunch of time on a bike and seeing a big chunk of the world? - Was your time almost entirely spend riding, or did you spend a lot of time in the places where you stopped? - Camping? Hotels? Staying at friends' houses?

Hi, if you're interested, I have a blog at [1]!

- more or less at random, it is IMO one of the more interesting routes you can start in Europe, opposed to e.g. the Panamericana or BAM.

- not really, I just wanted to explore the world (and still do, haha)

- Maybe 2/3 of the time was spent riding, the rest of the time I spent exploring places and waiting for visa.

- all three of them!

[1] https://goolge.io/motorcycletours/

Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles

#142

Post by JulianMorrison » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 10:47 AM UTC

Angostura wrote: post #138

killjoywashere wrote: post #82

As a military officer, I pray these never make it past Test and Evaluation. They took essentially one part and turned it into 1000 parts. Anyone who has seen what 20 year old Marines do with these machines, let alone what happens in war, will appreciate that this is a fantastically horrible idea in a war zone. I need high reliability, not high zoot. Let NASA have high zoot.

> Let NASA have high zoot. NASA does really rather well with high reliabilty. The Martian rovers have managed without a service.

To be fair, nobody has been shooting at them.

Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles

#143

Post by evgen » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 10:52 AM UTC

Theodores wrote: post #136

webbrahmin wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These were my thoughts also. During WW II German tanks were technologically superior to Russian tanks. However Russian tanks were easy to repair in the field and that was one of the reasons why Russian armour prevailed over German armour.

No, no, no, the comedy tank of the era was the Sherman Tank. https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-m-4-sherman-tank-was-he... Favourite quote: Hence, the Sherman’s grim nickname—Ronson, like the cigarette lighter, because “it lights up the first time, every time.” Everything was wrong about it and the Russians that got given these on Lend Lease knew that they had been given a death sentence. Aforementioned article jus…

This is the sort BS stories that capture the imagination of people who don’t know what they are talking about but are trivially disproven by actual facts and statistics. At US entry to the war the Sherman has equivalent tank and crew losses due to fire as similar tanks from other countries and by the end of the war The Sherman was the _least_ likely tank to suffer an ammunition fire of all the major tanks fielded in the war by a very large margin. The biggest tell for this if you look at the stats is to compare vehicle losses and crew losses (e.g. a penetrated Sherman frequently lost one crew member while a T-34 with a similar hit that causes a loss of the tank frequently only had one survivor.) Oh, and the erroneous derogatory term popularized by Belton Cooper's widely discredited book was "Tommy Cooker" and not Ronson.

The T-34 was fit for purpose for certain, as long as the purpose was to leave a trail of broken-down tanks from factory to battlefield. Prior to 1944 more T-34s were lost to mechanical problems than to enemy action.

Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles

#144

Post by laumars » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 10:52 AM UTC

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #129

mhandley wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could of course just carry a regular spare wheel or two. If your fancy trackwheel fails, unbolt it, and fit the regular spare wheel. You're still mobile, just without the ability to switch to track mode.

Never mind those folks with the rifles pointed at us! They’d never shoot someone whose busy changing a wheel!

Wouldn't you still have that same problem if an ordinary wheel gets damaged?

Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles

#145

Post by dEnigma » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 10:53 AM UTC

Interesting concept, but it looks like it wobbles around quite a lot in "wheel-mode"; and this is at the very low speeds shown in the video. I think it's reasonable to assume that it would be almost uncontrollable at higher speeds (leading to damage to itself and other components over time). As others have already mentioned, maintenance would be much more complex too with so many moving parts, all of which could potentially be damaged; and it certainly would be more expensive than a simple wheel.

Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles

#146

Post by saalweachter » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 10:53 AM UTC

Theodores wrote: post #136

webbrahmin wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These were my thoughts also. During WW II German tanks were technologically superior to Russian tanks. However Russian tanks were easy to repair in the field and that was one of the reasons why Russian armour prevailed over German armour.

No, no, no, the comedy tank of the era was the Sherman Tank. https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-m-4-sherman-tank-was-he... Favourite quote: Hence, the Sherman’s grim nickname—Ronson, like the cigarette lighter, because “it lights up the first time, every time.” Everything was wrong about it and the Russians that got given these on Lend Lease knew that they had been given a death sentence. Aforementioned article jus…

I dunno, forcing everyone to equip their armies with suicidal weapons seems like a great way to discourage future wars.

Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles

#147

Post by saalweachter » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 10:58 AM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #20

banku_brougham wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I wouldn't be surprised if this is one reason why horses lasted so long in various armies.

Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles

#148

Post by mhandley » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 11:16 AM UTC

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #129

mhandley wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could of course just carry a regular spare wheel or two. If your fancy trackwheel fails, unbolt it, and fit the regular spare wheel. You're still mobile, just without the ability to switch to track mode.

Never mind those folks with the rifles pointed at us! They’d never shoot someone whose busy changing a wheel!

I suppose it depends on whether you're more likely to get shot at while changing a broken track wheel, or digging out the vehicle when regular wheels get stuck in the mud/sand.

Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles

#149

Post by psergeant » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 11:19 AM UTC

asfdsfggtfd wrote: post #137

psergeant wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What does them being male have to do with anything? Being young and male correlates strongly with high testosterone, the effects of which you can Google for. Being young and male also correlates with higher incidences of road traffic accidents than most other demographics.

But there are millions of young males in the US alone who are more careful than millions of young females. The effects of testosterone are far from as simple as you suggest. It tends to lead to higher competitiveness. This is not quite the same as recklessness. Meanwhile during normal usage the driver (of whatever gender) is likely to be getting shot at. This will tend to have a larger affect than their gender.

> there are millions of young males in the US alone who are more careful than millions of young females

Yes, and millions of young men in the US who are shorter than millions of young women. What’s your point? Young men are still disproportionately more likely to be in road traffic accidents.

Re testosterone, the keywords you should be searching for are “risk taking behaviour”.

I’m curious also what percentage of time you think the average military driver is being shot at is.

Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles

#150

Post by teekert » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 11:20 AM UTC

donquichotte wrote: post #110

killjoywashere wrote: post #82

As a military officer, I pray these never make it past Test and Evaluation. They took essentially one part and turned it into 1000 parts. Anyone who has seen what 20 year old Marines do with these machines, let alone what happens in war, will appreciate that this is a fantastically horrible idea in a war zone. I need high reliability, not high zoot. Let NASA have high zoot.

As a guy who rode a motorcycle from Central Europe through Central Asia to Mongolia, the last part largely off-road, I wholeheartedly agree. Simplicity is key. As a traveler, if your "wheel 4.0" has a software bug or breaks down in the middle of the desert, it is inconvenient enough. I can only imagine the consequences this would have in a war scenario.

It's also pretty annoying if your are stuck in the middle of the desert because you opted not to use wheel 4.0. In the end it's all about statistics. What is more likely to happen? A wheel 4.0 fail, or getting stuck with wheel 1.0 (where 4.0 would have helped)... The first likelyness is constantly decreasing with wheel 4.1, 4.2, 4.9 etc whereas the first one stays constant. At least at some point in time wheel 4.0 should be preferred.