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

Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles

#171

Post by 0xfeba » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 1:16 PM 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.

> 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.

No -- being shot at is 0-2% of your time deployed. The rest is waiting around.

Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles

#172

Post by arto » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 1:31 PM UTC

return2sender wrote: post #140

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.

It's also the reason why Finland successfully defended its independence.

Indeed. http://ar.to/2010/08/red-blood-white-snow

Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles

#173

Post by dsfyu404ed » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 1:52 PM UTC

kbutler wrote: post #163

asfdsfggtfd wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does them being male have to do with anything? Are you implying that being male means that they must be reckless? Or that if they were female they would automatically be careful and gentle? Careful throwing around those negative stereotypes. EDIT: The driver is likely to be getting shot at. This is going to be an order of magnitude more important than slight gender differences.

https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... "Motor vehicle crash fatalities were higher for males than females in all age groups, while the male population is equal to or less than the female population in all age groups." Particularly in the 21-30 age group, males had 3x the fatalities of females.

That has little bearing on the cost of fielding/maintaining a vehicle. Fatalities are so rare they won't have an impact maintenance costs unless a sizeable chunk of your fleet is getting driven off a cliff.

In my experience men and women tend to be about equally hard on things. The male outliers tend to create more maintenance work by being hard on chassis/suspension ("hold my beer and watch this"). The female outliers tend to create more maintenance work by keeping quiet about problems (usually having to do with fluids not in their proper places) for far too long.

The most expensive driver is the kind that blindly follows directions/orders into a dumb situation.

Source: Did fleet maintenance in high-school.

edit: The words "in my experience" and "outliers" were used for a reason. I'm not claiming that all men will get a mini-bus airborne if given the opportunity or that all women will ignore an obvious puddle in a parking spot. I am stating what patterns I observed in the noteworthy cases of neglect. There's a million uncontrolled variables, maybe we were just a really scary maintenance department and none of the women wanted to talk to us or something. I'm not claiming that a bunch high school teachers a decade ago is a sample that accurately represents the rest of the population. Maybe the way buses were assigned to teams (pseudorandom) resulted in the observed failure pattern.

Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles

#174

Post by anchpop » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 1:55 PM UTC

edem wrote: post #127

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.

What does zoot mean in this context? I'm not a native speaker.

I'm a native speaker and I've never heard it. I assume it means something like "cool fancy flashy tech"

Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles

#175

Post by pweissbrod » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 1:58 PM UTC

Wouldnt it be a better/simpler design to just have big tires that can change pressure instead

Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles

#176

Post by lambdadmitry » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 1:58 PM 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…

> as advertised over the skies of Syria

You mean in an uncontested airspace, with no AA to speak about, disregarding any collateral damage because there is no one to hold them accountable (unlike US forces that are panned by US press)? Right, those plane may be fit for that purpose. Meanwhile, US&allies measure up their planes against each other during Red Flag, where both F-22 and F-35 have stellar performances. FIY, the only time Su-s (of Indian airforce) were there they were outgunned pretty heavily and had a very tough time protecting the engines from foreign object damage. Pretty bleak if you ask me

Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles

#177

Post by 0xfeba » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 1:59 PM UTC

newnewpdro wrote: post #91

"Global War on Terror" Capitalized as if it's a movie title, is strangely unsettling to me.

Always reminds me of the Wikipedia article that always used to give me a chuckle, since merged: List of wars on concepts[0]

  [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_wars_on_concepts&redirect=no

Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles

#178

Post by pweissbrod » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 2:00 PM UTC

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.

Yeah this is cool looking but isnt it just as effective and simpler to just have big knobby tires with adjustable pressure?

Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles

#179

Post by Retric » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 2:02 PM UTC

owlmirror wrote: post #162

pasta wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today's cars are so much more complex than old cars. Yet almost all of them are much more reliable than old cars. I don't think simple == reliable. A wheel made of solid wood is very simple. But the choice of material is poor. So there are a lot more factors involved to make something reliable. Getting stuck in the dirt might be more dangerous than a wheel with 1000 parts that gets you out of a nasty situation. Also:…

>Today's cars are so much more complex than old cars. Yet almost all of them are much more reliable than old cars. That's debatable. Evey person who owns a vintage car, pre electronics area will tell you that. I'm sure there are improvement in new cars which made them more reliable but not because of increased complexity. Maintainability of modern cars is a mess.

Vintage cars are the survivors. Many cars where junked because they where not worth maintaining.

Most modern cars can hit 100k miles with only regular and cheap maintenance. That's a huge step up.

Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles

#180

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 2:07 PM UTC

arka2147483647 wrote: post #116

ENGNR wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the failure mode was it just being a regular wheel again? I suppose it's competing against letting the air out of the tyre so it might still be worse

You cant guarantee such a failure mode. That thing has to be full of little gears, actuators and electronics to make it work. Any of those break; and it freeses, stays as is or falls apart.

[deleted]