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Old 12-25-2018, 06:57 PM
cosmicfish cosmicfish is offline
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If the intention is to use the fusion plant in place of the diesel motors generally found in military vehicles of these types, then (fusion plant + fuel storage) must be <= (diesel engine + transmission + diesel fuel and tank). If the goal is to use a single fusion plant for multiple vehicles then it must be smaller still, to allow for form factor issues, although some clever engineering can help as well - if you can divide the power system into subsystems, you may be able to reconfigure the system chassis without actually needing different functional components. But if your replacement fusion system exceeds either the volume or weight envelopes of the original then performance may be impaired, perhaps severely.

And regardless, aviation engines are a poor comparison. They are relatively high horsepower, low torque, with maintenance requirements that would be totally unacceptable for an exploratory ground vehicle. The diesel engine in the V-300 I know weighed a little less than a ton and produced only 260 or so HP... along with over 600 lb-ft of torque. The fuel tank was only around 600lb, if I recall correctly, but when you add the transmission 2 tons would probably be a reasonable total SWaP estimate for the V-300, with the V-150 presumably scaled to about half of that.
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