Tracked vehicle attrition

[Mohoender]

I think we already develloped that subject but as I grow old, my memory is not as good. No kidding, I'm just overworked

Anyway, I found an interesting element today while reading a military magazine edited by a friend. France recently withdrew the Leclerc tank and AMX-10P IFV it had deployed with the FINUL in Lebanon. It appeared that, on the average, the track shoes had to be changed every 3 weeks.

As a result, the VBCI have replaced both of these vehicles while the Ceasar artillery system has replaced the AU-F1. VAB, however, remain in operation.

I would expect tracked vehicle in T2K to be really rare with them mostly available to units in cantonments (as in Krakow). Salvaged tracks could be found of course but with time they would become increasingly rare.

Tires last longer (much longer) and can be replaced more easily while damaged/used tires can be reworked more easily (poisoning people in the process but who would be caring about that in T2K?).

Your thoughts.

[95th Rifleman]

Past 2000 I'd expect tanks to be used as dug in bunkers in all honesty. It's not just tracks, but enines need allot od maintenance. The American M1 is a bitch to maintain, it's engine is essentialy a gas turbine and has perhaps the worst mileage of any military vehicle without wings.

With fuel and parts becoming scarce I'd imagine more effort would be put into smaller, easier to maintain vehicles while the big warhorses would form fixed defensive positions.

[TiggerCCW UK]

I would be inclined to agree that most tanks will become pill boxes, but I reckon the odd one here and there will be kept mobile as a 'secret weapon' for emergencies.

[bobcat]

Originally Posted by TiggerCCW UK

I reckon the odd one here and there will be kept mobile as a 'secret weapon' for emergencies.

hey thats supposed to be a secret.

but yeah i'd expect to see more smaller lighter vehicles. heck once tanks start exiting the picture for the most part ATVs and technicals could fill in a lot of gaps in the lines sufficiently

[Panther Al]

I rather doubt ATV's and Technical's will take on the role of tanks, or even any kind of fighting vehicle. Just too fragile. When even light small arms can eat up one of those with ease, and lets face it, with 4, 5 years of attrition the ratio of automatic weapons to troops is going to be well into the stratosphere, which means there will be far too much lead being sprayed about to let them do anything.

Now, you want to slap some armour on a truck, ala uparmoured humvee or something, maybe then. But a lot of the load capacity will be used by armour, which means less firepower and with the extra weight, more time spent up on blocks due to breakdowns.

[Legbreaker]

Anyone know if the turbine of an M1 could be ripped out and replaced with a conventional diesel?
I know that you wouldn't get anywhere near the same speed, etc, but if it saves fuel and keeps some amount of mobility.....

[Tegyrius]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Anyone know if the turbine of an M1 could be ripped out and replaced with a conventional diesel?

Any engineering problem is solvable with a hammer of sufficient size. The Ukrainians did it with the T-80UD, which is a diesel variant of the turbine-powered T-80.

Would a transmission replacement also be necessary?

- C.

[Legbreaker]

The next question is just how big would said engine need to be to give say 80%+ of the performance of the turbine? Would it be possible to shoehorn such a beast into the available space?
Would it even be worth it if the turbine still worked?

[Panther Al]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Anyone know if the turbine of an M1 could be ripped out and replaced with a conventional diesel?
I know that you wouldn't get anywhere near the same speed, etc, but if it saves fuel and keeps some amount of mobility.....

The answer is:


Actually quite easy relatively speaking. MTU has a repower package that shoehorns a 1500hp diesel into the bay with a minimal reworking done to the engine bay. Keeps most of the fuel load, and massive increase in fuel savings. They also have a 1650 from what I understand that is a little more complex, and cuts the fuel load by 30%, but... still.

The downsides is that the M1's agility is seriously compromised. The weight of both diesels are much higher than the turbine (Remember, a third of the engine compartment is actually empty space for the intake.) and it doesn't give the tank the massive power on demand that a turbine does, so accel is way down.

People don't understand, but the M1 isn't a great rough terrain tank: A Merkava going cross country will actually leave a M1 in its dust due to its suspension having a higher bounce than the M1's - almost triple the range of travel.

[Legbreaker]

Ah, good. I can see that as the war drags on and fuel becomes a major concern (as early as Christmas 1997) the turbines are likely to be removed and replaced with 1500's. Initially perhaps as just a temporary measure while the turbines undergo major service, but as more and more turbines become unrepairable, and fuel consumption grows into a critical issue....

Perhaps a Division would maintain a supply of a dozen turbines in their stores for "just in case fuel supply improves" or they are sent on an offensive. As most modern vehicles have relatively easily changeable power packs, changing over a dozen tanks may well take less than a day for one engineering crew to accomplish.

Obviously this isn't something that would be done ordinarily, but since when was anything about T2K ordinary?

Gives a GM (and players to some extent) more options for keeping the tanks on the field for longer.

[Panther Al]

Don't get me wrong: this isn't a field swap, from what I understand its a 40 level (depot) operation.

And also: In the next 5 to 10 years all M1's are going to have to have it done in the real world. Why?

Things to note:
All engines, especially high stress types like Turbines can only run so long before needing a rebuild.

Every time you rebuild one, the hours till it needs another is less than before.

We haven't made a new Turbine for the M1 in almost a decade - even the new tanks going to Australia and Iraq are going out with (admittedly very good) rebuilt engines.

Something to consider: Back when my old 1SG was a buck Sgt, he said that to swap a M1 engine was a call a Spec4 could make at anytime without a second thought. In 05, in order to swap out a engine required the approval of the Motor Pool CWO. Says something about the engine supply situation doesn't it?

[Legbreaker]

Yes, I can see it's not something that would be done lightly and would only occur with at least several days notice and planning (those tanks aren't going to be very useful while it's happening).
Once swapped, I imagine the engine would remain the same for months (or longer) before the need to swap back came along.
I see it a little like fitting your car with Nitrous - you're not going to need it on a daily basis, but it's damn good to know it's there as an option. Of course flicking a switch to kick in the gas is a little easier than swapping out a whole engine...

[dragoon500ly]

Originally Posted by Tegyrius

Any engineering problem is solvable with a hammer of sufficient size. The Ukrainians did it with the T-80UD, which is a diesel variant of the turbine-powered T-80.

Would a transmission replacement also be necessary?

- C.

Certainly a bigger hammer tends to fix most things on a tank!

But replacing the power pack on any modern tank is going to be a major engineering challenge. The engine and transmission normally comes in one unit. Most battalion maintenance sections do have the expertise and tooling to break packs apart so that the engine could be used on one vehicle and the trannie on another. The key problem will be adapting a engine to not only fit the trannie, but fit into the remaining space in the engine compartment.

On of the key problems with the M-1 design process was getting a small enough engine that developed the horsepower needed to move a dang heavy vehicle at high speed. Virtually every diesel engine in production or under development was tested and simply created more problems with weight, volume, fuel consumption and maintenance access. The turbine engine, in spite of its high fuel requirements was chosen because it met or exceeded the requirements.

Its a measure of note, that in spite of of its long life time, in spite of repeated requests to develop a diesel engine replacement, the M-1 is still rolling on, powered by the same turbine engine that it started out with.

When ever the discussion turns to replaceing engines, armament and fire control systems on tanks springs up, I am reminded of a quote by Major General John G. Willis who, in the 1980s, was the British Army's Director of Vehicle Procurement. He was often frustrated by the inability of his political bosses to understand how very difficult it is to design and build a tank. After one memorable session in which a politican had leveled the charge "After all, the tank is a simple tin box." General Willis replied, "Yes, you're absolutely right that a tank is indeed a simple tin box. Unfortunately it is a simple tin box that most move across country. To move across country, it requires an engine of the highest possible power density you can get and is therefore putting out a lot of heat. What do you do if you wrap the engine in a box and therefore make your cooling problem even worse than it was before? You start putting thermal stresses on this engine that no engine should be subjected to."

"What is more, you then put a gearbox behind it. You ask that gearbox that it not only give you a range of gears in forward and reverse but also act as a steering mechanism. Furthermore, you demand of that gearbox that the power you do not require for the outside track when you are turning is delivered to the inside track so you do not waste any power. You produce a gearbox the like of which has no civilian application whatsoever."

"You wish this vehiclle to move across country at a reasonable speed and therefore have to supply it with a suspension and tracks which must be capable of withstanding the shocks of cross-country travel but not so heavy as to totally nullify the whole thing. This box must also carry fuel which is highly volatile. And so on and so forth. And you end up by putting in it human beings, without whose presence the vehicle would be a total nonevent, but who, of all the elements within that weapons system, are probably the most vulnerable."

"So yes, the tank is a very simple tin box."

"The trade-offs are infinitely more difficult to achieve than in an aircraft. People say to me that perhaps weight doesn't mean very much in a tank. It is crucial....crucial!"

That's the problem in a nutshell.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Something else strikes me as important to Mohoender's original post. Perhaps part of the reason the French tracked vehicles got such a low track time was because they were designed for European fields and roads.

Panther Al mentioned that the M1 isn't a great rough terrain tank particularly compared to a Merkava. I wonder how much track time a Merkava gets considering it is operating in the region it is designed for (unlike the French vehicles, designed for Europe but working in the more demanding conditions of Lebanon)

[95th Rifleman]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

Something else strikes me as important to Mohoender's original post. Perhaps part of the reason the French tracked vehicles got such a low track time was because they were designed for European fields and roads.

Panther Al mentioned that the M1 isn't a great rough terrain tank particularly compared to a Merkava. I wonder how much track time a Merkava gets considering it is operating in the region it is designed for (unlike the French vehicles, designed for Europe but working in the more demanding conditions of Lebanon)

Not so sure about that, the UAE uses the Leclerc and they don't seem to have too much in the way of enviromental issues.

[dragoon500ly]

When the M1 first came out, we had mostly rubber chevron tracks (1980s), life span in Europe was roughly 2,500 kilometers before replacement.

By the time of Desert Storm, the M1 had switched to mostly metal with rubber replacement pads. Estimated track life for the metal portion was 4,000 kilometers with the replacement pads having to be replaced roughly every 1,800 kilometers.

After the Merkava was introduced, an Israeli colonel on exchange duties claimed that the track was good for 5,000 kilometers. I would take that figure with a large bag of salt as the Israelis are famous for being "tight" with reliable info!

Now the figures I quoted are for European service! In rough, rocky terrain, track life is roughly halved.

[Mohoender]

Originally Posted by 95th Rifleman

Not so sure about that, the UAE uses the Leclerc and they don't seem to have too much in the way of enviromental issues.

Actually the Leclerc sold to the UAE are quite different from the French ones. Still, conditions in Lebanon are in no way conditions in UAE.

Stainlesscynic has a point and I should have recall that the German had tracks problem in USSR and not only in winter.

That must make things even more complicated as the need for mechanical replacements are more common on tracked vehicles than on wheeled ones. As someone said, with time most tanks will be turned into pillboxes.

[Mohoender]

Originally Posted by dragoon500ly

Now the figures I quoted are for European service! In rough, rocky terrain, track life is roughly halved.

Really interresting figures. Then, IMO it will effectively render tracked vehicles in T2K useless outside of the local level where a commander can gather sufficient technical supports. I'm thinking that because the lack of available spare parts will make necessary to maintain some type of repair shop.

Could be interesting to look at the haganah in 1948 or at what has happened in Africa over the years. With time, I would expect to find a larger number of hybrid vehicles in the ranks of most armies.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Originally Posted by 95th Rifleman

Not so sure about that, the UAE uses the Leclerc and they don't seem to have too much in the way of enviromental issues.

Interesting, I'd wager that the UAE doesn't have as much hard ground surface as Lebanon though

Originally Posted by dragoon500ly

When the M1 first came out, we had mostly rubber chevron tracks (1980s), life span in Europe was roughly 2,500 kilometers before replacement.

By the time of Desert Storm, the M1 had switched to mostly metal with rubber replacement pads. Estimated track life for the metal portion was 4,000 kilometers with the replacement pads having to be replaced roughly every 1,800 kilometers.

After the Merkava was introduced, an Israeli colonel on exchange duties claimed that the track was good for 5,000 kilometers. I would take that figure with a large bag of salt as the Israelis are famous for being "tight" with reliable info!

Now the figures I quoted are for European service! In rough, rocky terrain, track life is roughly halved.

That was kind of my train of thought, the harder rocky terrain of Lebanon would probably chew through the tracks much quicker than if they were running on soil or sand.
As a point of interest, the Merkava originally made use of the tracks from the Centurion and I believe that later track types evolved along with the tank itself.
Not too surprising as the prototype for the Merkava was little more than a Centurion with the turret placed to the hull front and the whole vehicle turned around so that the engine was now the front!


Merkava prototype, Yad la-Shiryon Museum, Latrun, Israel

[Panther Al]

Track service life on the Merkava is a good bit longer than most other tracks in the west due to the fact that our track was designed with the idea that it would spend enough time on pavement that the rubber pads are needed to avoid destroying the roads upon which they run on. Now in Europe, this isn't a bad point- the road net is so huge that its actually pretty reasonable that a tank would spend more than half its time on some sort of pavement. Now the Merkava's tracks (And soviet style ones as well to a point) are designed to spend all its life running over rocks: All steel. A lot more durable than the soviet all steel tracks, but they both are designed to take massive amounts of abuse compared to the "softer" rubber padded tracks we use. The doesn side to all steel is that as mentioned, they destroy roads. Also, the ride of the tracks are a lot rougher. But when the ground you are crossing is already rough, it really isn't noticeable.


In regards to the points Dragoon500ly made, he is right: Deciding tomorrow to reengine a tank is far from easy: in the case I mentioned, MTU already did all the work and engineering to make it possible with relatively little pain. Diesel engines have some a long way in the almost 40 years the M1 has been bouncing around (including prototype stage).

[dragoon500ly]

Don't forget, when we discuss replacing the M-1s turbine, in the twilight war time frame, there is no diesel engine capable of doing the job as well as the turbine.

So breaking the pack apart and slapping the trannie onto a diesel and then rigging it to fit isn't even an option, IMO.

Any diesel engine was still in the test stand stage, virtually hand made and almost totally lacking in spare parts.

Came across this little tidbit in a M-60 maintenance manual...the T142 track (replaceable rubber pads) can also be used without the pads, the requirement was that this was only to be considered when the vehicle was to be used solely cross-country.

[Olefin]

Saw this old thread - keep in mind guys that the M1 engine will do just fine a large variety of fuels.

My boss was an M1 commander in the Gulf War and as a reservist drove them again in 2003-2004 - and as he said you can keep it going on just about anything

it will run very well on any aviation gas, jet fuel (various types), gasoline ranging down to as little as 70 octane, diesel, even bio fuels and cooking oils

you have to clean out the filters more but it will work

the tracks are a different story - but keep in mind that Europe by now would be literally littered with dead M1's that they can salvage tracks and track shoes from - and with the reduced operational tempos they may be fine for years

the people who will have problems will be guys like me (I rolled an M1A1 tank) who take them cross country all over Poland - found track shoes and parts in Krakow (where else after all would have them?) but cost a lot

[kcdusk]

Reading all through this thread, I'm thinking:

1. could an average soldier replace treads? Would he have the tools & technical know-how? Could an average soldier even drive a tank?

2. we keep forgetting most of the T2K combatants are likely to be civilians. Some will be ya-hoos thinking they can claim abandoned army gear, riding around in army vehicles they can drive (jeeps, humvees, i wouldnt imagine a civvy could work out anything more ... even "simple" ATVs like a couger or Grizzly?). Most civilians will stick to what they know, maybe a .22 rifle. But who's going to try and start a tank? Point being even if a brand new tank was available or spares in abundance, i dont think civvys (or normal soldiers) would have the tools or technical knowhow to do the job.

[Sanjuro]

When I first read Olefin's

(I rolled an M1A1 tank)

I thought, AWESOME! Then I read the post properly and was a little disappointed, but thanks for the image anyway...

[Targan]

Originally Posted by kcdusk

Reading all through this thread, I'm thinking:

1. could an average soldier replace treads? Would he have the tools & technical know-how? Could an average soldier even drive a tank?

2. we keep forgetting most of the T2K combatants are likely to be civilians. Some will be ya-hoos thinking they can claim abandoned army gear, riding around in army vehicles they can drive (jeeps, humvees, i wouldnt imagine a civvy could work out anything more ... even "simple" ATVs like a couger or Grizzly?). Most civilians will stick to what they know, maybe a .22 rifle. But who's going to try and start a tank? Point being even if a brand new tank was available or spares in abundance, i dont think civvys (or normal soldiers) would have the tools or technical knowhow to do the job.

Good points. You only need to find one guy with the right knowledge though, and he can train others. A lack of tools would be a major problem, I agree.

[Adm.Lee]

I agree with the above, if one is speaking of civilians finding an abandoned tank in the woods. But a military unit's got to have contact with at least one oother unit with still-kicking treadheads and their mechanics, and they've likely got a building full of whatever they could strip off of their own derelicts.

[Olefin]

the M1 tank is very easy to drive - take it from me (or you can watch the BBC and see it for yourself)

replacing treads is a different issue - but with the right TM and at least one guy who is trained how to do it and who can teach it can be done

oh and I havent rolled an M1 tank personally - but I have seen the results of it being done (saw a briefing a year ago about how an M1 in Iraq got retrieved after it flipped off a bridge because of a driver who was going way too fast - took two M88A2's to get her out of the river)

[Webstral]

If memory serves, them Iraqi rivers are all yummy.

[kiltedguard]

1. could an average soldier replace treads? Would he have the tools & technical know-how? Could an average soldier even drive a tank?

2. we keep forgetting most of the T2K combatants are likely to be civilians. Some will be ya-hoos thinking they can claim abandoned army gear, riding around in army vehicles they can drive (jeeps, humvees, i wouldnt imagine a civvy could work out anything more ... even "simple" ATVs like a couger or Grizzly?). Most civilians will stick to what they know, maybe a .22 rifle. But who's going to try and start a tank? Point being even if a brand new tank was available or spares in abundance, i dont think civvys (or normal soldiers) would have the tools or technical knowhow to do the job.

Yes and no. The average person, once they figured out how to start it...could learn to drive it in very short order. Replacing track pads is a fairly easy task that can be accomplished with a socket wretch, gun oil and a standard screwdriver.

On the other hand, popping the link-pin out of a set of tracks is what we like to refer to as "Breaking Track", and is universally accepted to be on of the most horrific experiences the first time you have to do it. (And only mildly better subsequent times.) The sheer weight of each track section makes a repair like that EXCEPTIONALLY DIFFICULT (I won't say impossible) to do alone. It requires tools to maintain track tension...and well...it's not fun with a whole crew. Yer looking at a timeframe of about 4-6 hours to do that in the field with field tools. The mechanics at the support BN could probably bang it out in about a hour or two change using their equipment and their experience doing it fairly often.

[Olefin]

Nice to see someone who has actually done it - seen it myself here at the plant in York.

And you are right about how much fun it would be in the field - it can be done - but it would be a lot easier if you had an M88 along for the ride with your M1 or Bradley when the time came.