Tank graveyard

[Olefin]

And fyi - a lot of military equipment gets brought back from the dead from similiar graveyards all the time by collectors and sometimes even companies like BAE - when we built M109A5+ vehicles foe Chile we had to get parts from all over - some of which were in very very bad shape but could be reclaimed still with effort. And you would be amazed what vehicles we refurbish look like when we got them back from depots - I saw M109's and M88's that literally you would think were total wrecks that we managed to restore to fully operational status

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I agree, the Littlefield Collection for example, is a very good resource. As long as you have sufficient personnel with the right skills and sufficient resources to get the parts & to refurbish them.
It is an amazing resource, but it is not the panacea that it's often presented as.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

I agree, the Littlefield Collection for example, is a very good resource. As long as you have sufficient personnel with the right skills and sufficient resources to get the parts & to refurbish them.
It is an amazing resource, but it is not the panacea that it's often presented as.

Absolutely. It's also a LOT more limited than a dedicated industrial scale facility as could be found at Karkov which is designed to handle dozens, even hundreds of AFVs virtually simultaneously.

Museums also generally hold obsolete equipment, and although T-72's aren't exactly cutting edge, they're certainly more current than Shermans, T-34's and Panthers.

Out of the two, I know which one holds more value in a military setting.

[Olefin]

Actually any tank holds value in a military setting especially by 2000-2001 - a standard WWII era Sherman tank doesnt have a hope in hell against a T-72 for instance -but against a homemade armored car, against troops that dont have anti-tank weapons (which remember have become pretty rare by 2001, especially in certain areas that didnt have a lot of them to begin with), against a BMP-C or BTR that has a non-operational gun system its more than sufficient

and keep in mind the situation in the US as per the canon -i.e. by 2000 the US military was putting anything that had a turret and an operational gun into its stocks as a tank - thus an old WWII Sherman would qualify as a tank to MilGov and CivGov

look at what just happened in the Ukraine - the rebels took an old Soviet tank from a museum, made it operational and used it in combat successfully against Ukranian troops who didnt have anti-armor weapons on them until the tank broke down and was captured by the Ukranian troops

and most US marauder groups dont have anit-tank weapons beyond a bottle of flaming gasoline - i.e. look at Alleghany Uprising - those kinds of weapons are not in the hands of the marauders - so a single old Sherman tank there would literally be something they couldnt handle unless they get to Molotov cocktail range

[ArmySGT.]

What is Rolled Homogenous Armor?

What is Layer Composite Armor?

Why is the first one obsolete since the mid 1970s?

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

What is Rolled Homogeneous Armor?

What is Layer Composite Armor?

Why is the first one obsolete since the mid 1970s?

And that right there is why Karkov holds far more value than any number of museums and private collections.

[Legbreaker]

http://balashnikov.com/showthread.ph...anks-go-to-Die
Can't believe the Israeli's are scrapping AFVs, especially Merkavas (even if they are Mark 1's)!

[unkated]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

What is Rolled Homogenous Armor?

Rolled homogeneous armor (RHA) is a type of armor armor vehicles made of a single steel composition (thus 'homogeneous') as compared to cemented or layered armor using different compositions in different parts of the plate, which RHA is 'worked' by rollers applying pressure while the plate is hot.

It was the primary tank armor from the 1930s until the 1980s (and later for non-tank AFVs).

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

What is Layer Composite Armor?

Composite armour is a type of vehicle armour consisting of layers of different material such as metals, plastics, ceramics or air. Most composite armours are lighter than their all-metal equivalent, but instead occupy a larger volume for the same resistance to penetration. It is possible to design composite armour stronger, lighter and less voluminous than traditional armour, but the cost is often prohibitively high, restricting its use to especially vulnerable parts of a vehicle. Its primary purpose is to help defeat high explosive anti-tank (HEAT) rounds.

There are several flavors of this, including British-developed Chobham armor used by the British and Americans.

However, because governments are cagey about just how tough their layered armor is, modern shell penetration is sometimes expressed in RHA equivalent, as the resistance of RHA is more consistent.

The US Army (among others) use Depleted Uranium (DU) in their penetrators 9since the late 1980s), as these are dense, allowing more mass in the volume of the penetrator - meaning it hits harder.

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

Why is the first one obsolete since the mid 1970s?

HEAT rounds (and AT Missile warheads) began to become the primary tank vs tank round in the 1960s & 70s, since the race for bigger guns to defeat armor was reaching the point where bigger guns wouldn't fit in a tank. (Yes, you could make a tnk beig enough, but then the vehicle weight soared and the energy needed to move it rose....

Then APFSDS (Armor Piercing Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot) rounds were developed; these are kinetic kill rounds that fire a penetrator (think very tough spear that is much thinner than the round's diameter) at high speed.

Reactive armor is supposed to try to defend against these by blowing up the penetrator before it hits the tank's armor.

There is lots more detail than this; search the internet for more detail.

Uncle Ted

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by unkated

There is lots more detail than this; search the internet for more detail.

Uncle Ted

Those were rhetorical questions you understand. Meant to give the modellers insight into why the veterans keep telling them that WW2 tanks are dead meat and scrap metal in any T2K environment.

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Absolutely. It's also a LOT more limited than a dedicated industrial scale facility as could be found at Karkov which is designed to handle dozens, even hundreds of AFVs virtually simultaneously.

Museums also generally hold obsolete equipment, and although T-72's aren't exactly cutting edge, they're certainly more current than Shermans, T-34's and Panthers.

Out of the two, I know which one holds more value in a military setting.

By the way - most tank museums dont have Panthers (there are only five in the entire US, with the rest in Europe) or T-34's (unless its in Europe)- but what they do have are tanks like the Pershing, the M47, the M48, the M60, the Walker Bulldog and the M103 - and those tanks could give a T-54/T-55/T-64 a run for their money -