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Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles

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201–210 of 220 posts

Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles

#201
post #65
post #53

That video at the end about the army throwing Humvees without properly setting up the chutes was pretty incredible

From what I read, not so much "without properly setting up", more sabotage: https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2017/07/05/soldier-...

The comment:

"Johnny Lodern: One issue is they where dropped from seperate aircraft, each crew is supposed to inspect cargo before drop, so there is more than 1 person at fault if it was not equipment failure."

Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles

#202

Isn't the advantage of using tracks supposed to be the increased surface area for traction and weight bearing? This seems to only slightly increase the surface area. It doesn't seem that this would have enough traction advantage to make the complexity worth it.

Back of the envelope: One car weighs ~3500 lbs. If I keep 35psi of air pressure in the tires, that works out to ~100in^2 of contact patch. With four wheels, that's 25in^2 per wheel or 5in square. This looks like the tread-extended contact patch is more like 12in long times the original width, or 60in^2. That halves the weight per square inch.

> If I keep 35psi of air pressure in the tires

You don't. Off road you lower the tire pressure significantly.

Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 outlie…

I looked for statistics on maintenance cost of equipment for male vs female operators but didn't find any, just the un-documented assertions in https://www.equipmentworld.com/men-vs-women-who-are-the-bett... that basically say women are easier on equipment and specifically Attention to detail “I’ve always been impressed by how women take care of their machines” Smith says. “They keep them clean and don’t leave trash…

>I looked for statistics on maintenance cost of equipment for male vs female operators but didn't find any, just the un-documented assertions

Ok, well my undocumented assertion is roughly the opposite. Where does that leave us?

>I'd be happy to look at any statistics you can provide that show "equally hard on things".

Post on /r/mechanicadvice, dump out the 80% that were written by someone who's never actually turned a wrench and sift through what's left?

Regarding trash specifically I think the difference between a company vehicle and a personal vehicle is going to make a bigger difference than gender.

Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boring, exists for decades already.

That's a good point. There's got to be a way I can replace these wheels with some sort of modern javascript framework.

Internet of Things means that we can enable new synergies with Web Scale techniques, like making each tread run its own software package with logging, analytics, self-maintenance, and the normal operational features, each implemented as a reliable, portable Electron app.

Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles

#205
post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did the US engage the Germans in heavy armor combat similar to that of the Russia’s e.g when Hitler was trying to take Moscow?

Infrequently. The US were early proponents of combined arms tactics. Find heavy armour? Call in artillery or air support -- one of the advantages of owning the airspace over the battlefield. Oh, and the only Tiger tanks that got close to Moscow are the captured ones on display at Kubinka.

The US Shermans were equipped with cannons that had weaker armor penetration by design so that they could fire more potent high energy rounds that would take out infantry since they were expect to meet very little tank resistance. I think part of the 5:1 myth is from the fact that out of a platoon of 5 Shermans only 1 would be equipped with a gun that could penetrate a Tiger from the front.

Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> You mean in an uncontested airspace, with no AA to speak about

... and Russia still managed to lose about 1/3 of their carrier's planes.

Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles

#208
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of the book. The inmates are running the asylum.

I still can understand the dislike HN has for this wonderful book. But given generally anti-user stance maybe I do understand it a little. Edit: "anti-user" may be to harsh. Let's say "developers first, users second".

That's pretty much the diametrical opposite of the book's message, at least in my reading of it. Most of the book has been spent, as I remember it, decrying features that look cool for developers but useless for the users, such as overly-complex configuration panels, or interfaces that emphasize "cool" features at the expense of reliable basic function, etc.

Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

War is diplomacy by other means, a fundamentally political decision. As long as there are armies, it is politicians who will send men to die, and those politicians are responding to their voting blocs.

Thus senior military leadership is keenly interested in readiness. This requires training, R&D, and intelligence. "Are my officers and troops more physically and mentally prepared than the enemy's?" "What's the best weapon I've got?" and "What's the best weapon they've got?" are critical questions.

See T. R. Fehrenbach's "This Kind of War" for the US's brutal baptism into the darker side of their role as a superpower, a war no American wanted to get involved in. The short-hand in history for this necessity of readinesss is Task Force Smith (2).

(1) https://smile.amazon.com/dp/1574883348

(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Osan#Task_Force_Smit...

Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good point. There's got to be a way I can replace these wheels with some sort of modern javascript framework.

Internet of Things means that we can enable new synergies with Web Scale techniques, like making each tread run its own software package with logging, analytics, self-maintenance, and the normal operational features, each implemented as a reliable, portable Electron app.

On blockchain, right?
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