Strategic Arms Quest 3/2: Armor Edition

We should probably be thinking about crew ergonomics at some point as well. Not sure if they've cottoned on in universe, but IRL something like 90% of the time the first tank to land a hit on the enemy was the one to make a kill. Therefore, crew ergonomics and the ability for the gunner and commander to spot and train the turret on enemy tanks is absolutely vital.

khang said:

@Rukia I am not following the logic you are using for limiting our armor to be proof to 20 at rifles. If we are building for the next war then why are be setting the armor for the last one? should we at least make our armor proof to the guns we are expecting to be in the next war?

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It's functionally impossible for a light tank to be proof against a dedicated anti tank weapon, so there is no point even bothering. Making sure it's armoured enough to survive everything short of said anti-tank weapon makes them a nightmare for any infantry or light vehicles they come across though.

Dwergar said:

Considering the fact that it looks like the Army apes Navy by trying to form most basic armour formation to be like several "escorts" W-5's around one "battleship" Skz-1...

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It's more high/low doctrine. Put the tanks that are blind, deaf, and dumb murdermachines next to the bigass tank that can launch illumination rounds and smoke rounds, as well as hear radio and send signals. The perfered way to communicate with a W-5 is a smoke shell to designate a target; since the Battle of Marienburg it's been common knowledge that letting the lights off the leash means you're not getting them back until they run out of gas or break as a formation- and after they break they rally to a SkW-1 every time.

Rukia said:

Protection from the 55mm from the front would require very thick frontal armour or incredible sloping. The gun can penetrate 60mm of battleship grade steel (it's possible that using their steel might be throwing off our testing results, as tanks generally won't have anything near as tough), which in this era is heavy tank armour. Just proof the armour against 20mm autocannons and maybe 30-40mm AT guns if at all possible.
@7734, can we get some info on the average penetration of AT rifles, 20mm and 30-40mm AT guns? Might as well give us the averages for the rest while you're at it.

I think that now might be a good time to start thinking about standardised parts for our vehicles. We're just about to get an absolute monster of an engine, 700hp will be more than enough for use in Light, medium, heavy and maybe even super-heavy tanks. For reference, the engine that could push the 57 ton Tiger I to nearly 30mph was only 690hp. If we can use the same engine in all of our tanks it should reduce costs and construction time by a lot.
Is this a possibility @7734?

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No, the gun can penetrate a 6cm sheet of Rolled Homogeneous at 100 meters. If you asked for penetration tests over multiple ranges, you'd have some very different and very interesting information. As for anti-tank weapons, penetration of the most common Irromic AT weapon, a SMg.83, is 20mm of plate perpendicular to the muzzle at 100 yards. Anti-armor testing of everything else is not yet complete, or in many cases started.

As for standardizing and the engine presented, be careful what you wish for- this is the engine, *not* the powerpack in total. There's still better in the works.

Rukia said:

I had been assuming that a basket was standard issue @7734?
Ditto for sloped armour.

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several people think the above is good design. Assumptions make an ass out of you and me, no?

brmj said:

"Should be assumed standard" is still a bad plan. To the point where I am seriously wondering if we need to specify a single turret. Also, we should probably specifically ask for sloped armor and avoiding shell traps, given what some WWII tanks looked like. There's a lot of stupid shit we can avoid if we can afford to ask for it.

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kpkdktswnw2015 said:

Ok, majority of fatalities not directly combat related. If not modularity then removability of parts and ease of maintenance. Basket was not always standard. Never assume something is standard if it cost additionaly.

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These people get it.

7734 said:

It's more high/low doctrine. Put the tanks that are blind, deaf, and dumb murdermachines next to the bigass tank that can launch illumination rounds and smoke rounds, as well as hear radio and send signals. The perfered way to communicate with a W-5 is a smoke shell to designate a target; since the Battle of Marienburg it's been common knowledge that letting the lights off the leash means you're not getting them back until they run out of gas or break as a formation- and after they break they rally to a SkW-1 every time.



No, the gun can penetrate a 6cm sheet of Rolled Homogeneous at 100 meters. If you asked for penetration tests over multiple ranges, you'd have some very different and very interesting information. As for anti-tank weapons, penetration of the most common Irromic AT weapon, a SMg.83, is 20mm of plate perpendicular to the muzzle at 100 yards. Anti-armor testing of everything else is not yet complete, or in many cases started.

As for standardizing and the engine presented, be careful what you wish for- this is the engine, *not* the powerpack in total. There's still better in the works.





several people think the above is good design. Assumptions make an ass out of you and me, no?




These people get it.

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From what I'd gathered pretty much all of our tanks have featured sloped armour with the intention of the slope actually increasing the effectiveness of the armour, I had assumed (my bad) that the people who realised this didn't forget.

For the armour, I'm expecting that the penetration drops off very quickly past 100m, the only other option then is probably going to be the Thryssen. Barrel life issues can be fixed, but it's heavy and the barrel is already lengthened as long as it's probably going to go. I don't suppose you'd let us request a lengthened 55mm?

And on the note of standard, I'll fix that.

Ok so I've changed a few things

[X]Plan Actually A Light Tank
-[X]Dimensional limits: 20 tons max though ideally as light as reasonable, at least 30km/h top road speed, no larger than can fit on a standard rail car.
-[X]Internal fuel must be enough for 100-150km on dirt road.
-[X]An easy to maintain engine and transmission is encouraged. If possible, place transmission in the back to make room for frontal armour sloping. Good enough suspension and track width for decent off-road mobility.
-[X]Must use the 5.5cm Field Gun, in an armoured turret, with a turret basket for the gunner and loader. One one turret should be present with a single main gun.
-[X]Must carry at least 60 rounds, 10 of which should be in reach of the loader at all times.
-[X]Loader must be separate from Gunner. Ideally room should be made for a commander, but if he cannot fit in the turret then it's not a deal breaker.
-[X]Must be protected against nearby detonation of large artillery shells from all directions, a sloped upper and lower glacis with enough armour to deflect a 55mm from 100+ metres (thickness should be at least 30mm but no more than 50mm) and thick enough side and read armour to protect against 20mm autocannons from all directions up to 100m.
-[X]Turret front armour should be heavily sloped backwards, with the goal of providing enough protection to deflect 55mm shots off of the cheeks (No more than 40mm thickness). A flat plate may be used around the gun if it cannot be sloped, but must be thick enough to provide equivalent protection. Turret sides and back only need to be armoured up to resist 20mm from 100m.
-[X]Equipped with space in the turret for a radio.
-[X]At least one machine gun should be on the tank, preferably mounted in the turret, next to the main gun.
-[X]Adequate ventilation and internal communication with good visibility and crew ergonomics. Escape hatches are recommended so long as they stay off of the front or sides of the tank.

-[X]Determine rough penetration characteristics of equivalent foreign guns, for calibrating armour designs.
-[X]Continue engine research.
-[X]Muse on how much more money you could have for testing if tank parts were standardised and easy to replace. Though don't make any serious plans.
-[X]Consider creating Army Penetration Standards. 10m to 1000m

I'm not really happy with defining the exact thickness of armour and so on, because I feel like it infringes on 7734's creative ability to make awesome or hilariously bad tanks. But apparently our tank designers are kind of bad at this.
If you'd rather I not please tell me.

Anyone else got anything to add to the pile?

Should we be asking for a separate commander as well? I legitimately do not know, that is why I am asking.

We should try and ensure adequate room in the engine compartment for whatever satisfactory thing Jumo eventually comes up with.

We should consider asking for at least short range radio equipment standard.

Some "don't do stupid shit" items:

• Only one turret!
• Avoid shot traps where possible.
• Adequate ventilation and internal communication.
• Good visibility and crew ergonomics.
• Good enough suspension and track width for decent off-road mobility.

More as it occurs to me.

brmj said:

Should we be asking for a separate commander as well? I legitimately do not know, that is why I am asking.

We should try and ensure adequate room in the engine compartment for whatever satisfactory thing Jumo eventually comes up with.

We should consider asking for at least short range radio equipment standard.

Some "don't do stupid shit" items:

• Only one turret!
• Avoid shot traps where possible.
• Adequate ventilation and internal communication.
• Good visibility and crew ergonomics.
• Good enough suspension and track width for decent off-road mobility.

More as it occurs to me.

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Honestly I was wondering if we could get 7734 to accept a list of 'do/don't do this' that we can wave at our tank designers, just so we don't need to include this sorta stuff in every vote.

I would list 'avoid shot traps' but I'm not sure if they know what those are in universe.

One big gun per turret, plus an optional coaxial machine gun. There's another for the "don't do stupid shit" list. Not that that's one I expect them run afoul of, but if they did it could get pretty silly.

Should we ask for provisions to the tank hatches for most of the crew positions so that in the event that the crew need to escape the tank they sre not bottle necked by the one turret hatch?

A point on the Thryssen gun relaying discussion from Discord: this is likely a very high pressure gun, and the maintainance issues may be fairly inherent. Their special shell is a bit questionable: a soft cap on a hard body is the more conventional thing. Theirs is the opposite. Might be intended to defeat face hardening (in which case it will still be actively worse than a more conventional shell against non-face-hardened armor), or it might just be bullshit that the gun is working despite rather than because of. If anyone has other thoughts or insights into what is going on, please share. That said, the gun looks pretty garbage despite its effectiveness in the test and the shell may not be a useful selling point or feature to copy elsewhere.

So how about plans don't call for this thing?

brmj said:

A point on the Thryssen gun relaying discussion from Discord: this is likely a very high pressure gun, and the maintainance issues may be fairly inherent. Their special shell is a bit questionable: a soft cap on a hard body is the more conventional thing. Theirs is the opposite. Might be intended to defeat face hardening (in which case it will still be actively worse than a more conventional shell against non-face-hardened armor), or it might just be bullshit that the gun is working despite rather than because of. If anyone has other thoughts or insights into what is going on, please share. That said, the gun looks pretty garbage despite its effectiveness in the test and the shell may not be a useful selling point or feature to copy elsewhere.

So how about plans don't call for this thing?

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This has a Discord?

[X]Plan Actually A Light Tank

Also, a vote tally so we can see what people are voting for.

Rukia said:

thickness should be at least 30mm but no more than 50mm

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Rukia said:

No more than 40mm thickness

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May I ask why you see the need to restrict the armor thickness like this? It seems quite unnecessary to me, since there's no deletrious effects of additional armor with the exception of added weight, and that's resolved by weight limits and requirements for certain top speeds - and outside of those things, there is literally no issue caused by added armor. So why should it be restricted as such?

Rukia said:

I'm not really happy with defining the exact thickness of armour and so on, because I feel like it infringes on 7734's creative ability to make awesome or hilariously bad tanks. But apparently our tank designers are kind of bad at this.
If you'd rather I not please tell me.

Anyone else got anything to add to the pile?

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Yeah, uh there's a lot of political capitol you guys have been racking up since day one with various background groups (der neustche Teuschen, the Old Guard, der Imperialer Kriegsgarden (Seebatalioners und Gerbersjaegers), der Reichsmarine, Skoda Kampfwerke, the independent manufacturers, etc) and a granary simulation plan like this will cost up the ass with them, as well as cost a significant chunk of your budget. If you plan like this, and continue planning like this, you won't be able to do an emergency second RFQ or modified vehicles round of testing. Fifteen lines of vote is a lot of vote.

This is the last time I'm gonna warn you guys before you set off a landmine. This quest has a number of political elements you may not see and can only inference. Ignoring their existence will make severe issues.

[X] Plan I'm trying to compromise
-[X]Dimensional limits: 25 tons max, no larger than can fit on a standard rail car.
-[X]Must use one of the cannons tested, in an armored turret.
-[X]Must be protected against nearby explosions and shrapnel from all directions, and hits from light guns from the front if possible.
--[X]More speed, offroading ability, and better fuel endurance is more important than more armor, though.
-[X]Some anti-infantry armament such as a coaxial machine gun is encouraged but not required, but no crew should need be dedicated to machine gun operation.
-[X]Adequate ventilation, good visibility, commander in the turret, turret space to put in a radio, reliability and easy maintenance, and crew ergonomics are all pluses if they don't compromise the design otherwise.
-[X]Continue engine research.

Maybe we should test the cannons again at longer range?

We need a better plan that is for an actually light tank with a reasonable number of line items which also manages to filter the worst of the stupidity. I am potentially prepared to write that plan if no one else is, but I don't know exactly what it would actually entail yet because we haven't actually talked over exactly what we mean for this vehicle to do and how much armor and mobility it needs to do it. Or at least, haven't talked it over enough and haven't reached any kind of actually articulated consensus. Are we looking for a super fast vehicle with minimal armor, or do we want to resist anti-tank weapons and the lighter armed current tanks, or do we want to armor it for the future? Do we try to have it all on the strength of the good engine we hope to have in time for modifications, even if it gives us less control over what we end up with when it goes wrong and probably means a bigger vehicle? What do we hope to get out of this exactly?

I want a mobile vehicle that can survive the current generation of anti-tank rifles and anything up to at least a 20mm autocannon. Ideally 3.7 cm cannons and the like, at least from the right directions. My logic is that that is plenty to keep it useful for a long time to come, hard to counter with anything short of a tank or future generations of antitank weapons, but able to threaten tanks and dug in infantry and so on with the nice gun we are going to have them put on it. With the improved engine we can realistically hope for, if they get the suspension right it should be able to almost keep up with the current generation stuff completely optimized for speed. I think this vehicle would be of use both independently and in combination with the SkW-1 and future replacements. Thoughts?

[X] Plan I'm trying to compromise
I can live with this plan, as it won't bust the bank and isn't meaninglessly restrictive.
Regarding distribution of armor vs. speed, I figure that something like this plan will be best, as due to how tanks are shaped it will always be easier to up-armor a tank than up-engine it, so starting off with relatively mobile if lightly armored vehicles should be preferable to the opposite.

TortugaGreen said:

[X] Plan I'm trying to compromise
I can live with this plan, as it won't bust the bank and isn't meaninglessly restrictive.
Regarding distribution of armor vs. speed, I figure that something like this plan will be best, as due to how tanks are shaped it will always be easier to up-armor a tank than up-engine it, so starting off with relatively mobile if lightly armored vehicles should be preferable to the opposite.

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This plan is self-defeating in that the weight limit it gives is senselessly high for a vehicle optimized for mobility right now. 25 tons is a heavy medium tank. That isn't what a fast, lightly armored light tank looks like, and manufacturers will get the wrong idea.

brmj said:

This plan is self-defeating in that the weight limit it gives is senselessly high for a vehicle optimized for mobility right now. 25 tons is a heavy medium tank. That isn't what a fast, lightly armored light tank looks like, and manufacturers will get the wrong idea.

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I interpret the weight limit there as less of a practical suggestion for actual tank size and more a sanity check to keep massive tanks in check, just in case. And frankly, there is certainly a place for a weakly armored but highly mobile medium, particularly in high speed armor pushes, and if needed more armor can always be added later.

[X]Plan Actually A Light Tank 2.0
-[X]Dimensional limits: 20 tons max, at least 30km/h top road speed, no larger than can fit on a standard rail car.
-[X]Internal fuel must be enough for 100km on dirt road.
-[X]Must use the 5.5cm Field Gun, in an armoured turret, with a dedicated loader. At least one machine gun should be on the tank, preferably mounted in the turret.
-[X]Must be protected against nearby detonation of large artillery shells from all directions and armoured to protect against 20mm autocannons from all directions up to 100m.
-[X]Equipped with space in the turret for a radio.
-[X]Determine rough penetration characteristics of equivalent foreign guns, for calibrating armour designs.
-[X]Continue engine research.

Thoughts?

-[X]Suspension that is simple and easily repairable.

[X] Plan More Testing
-[X] Advice Skoda, Hannover and Thryssen to develop HE round to be tested with the gun.
-[X] Get in contact with relevant companies and hold a contest for radios in two categories, receivers and transmitter-receivers; Test for weight&volume, reliability, repairability (and tuning), range.
-[X] Get in contact with field officers (also NCOs and/or veterans) of armour regiments and get their feedback on W-5.
[X] Have Jumo continue research.
[X] Have Anne-Marie float the idea of yearly, dedicated tech&military expo for various companies to present their developments in to Irmionic and possibly foreign buyers.

Because I don't think we need to jump into designing a tank just yet.

Dwergar said:

[X] Plan More Testing
-[X] Advice Skoda, Hannover and Thryssen to develop HE round to be tested with the gun.
-[X] Get in contact with relevant companies and hold a contest for radios in two categories, receivers and transmitter-receivers; Test for weight&volume, reliability, repairability (and tuning), range.
-[X] Get in contact with field officers (also NCOs and/or veterans) of armour regiments and get their feedback on W-5.
[X] Have Jumo continue research.
[X] Have Anne-Marie float the idea of yearly, dedicated tech&military expo for various companies to present their developments in to Irmionic and possibly foreign buyers.

Because I don't think we need to jump into designing a tank just yet.

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Our radio tech is good enough that I'm not particularly worried. As for the gun testing, I'm not sure why you are asking for HE rounds for all of them but not outlining an additional course of testing. If we go back for more gun testing, how destructive the HE rounds are is, in my opinion, one of the least interesting things to do with it. We can likely get a good guess at that purely off of experience with other guns of similar caliber. Range, accuracy, rate of fire, reliability and how penetration varies with distance all seem like more useful things to run tests on.

I do however strongly agree with the W-5 feedback, with the caveat that this ought to also explicitly include getting a more complete sense of how they are used in practice and their strengths and deficiencies in that context.

[X] Plan More Testing

brmj said:

As for the gun testing, I'm not sure why you are asking for HE rounds for all of them but not outlining an additional course of testing. If we go back for more gun testing, how destructive the HE rounds are is, in my opinion, one of the least interesting things to do with it. We can likely get a good guess at that purely off of experience with other guns of similar caliber.

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Early- to mid-thirties design; It's likely that the anti-tank capabilities of this tank are going to become marginal regardless of the cannon chosen, so I'd prefer if it could be used for infantry support role. Thus request for HE round.
And IRL Sherman 75mm HE round was rather anemic, so I'd prefer to be sure that the cannon chosen is capable in that regard.

For radio testing - we aren't bad on that front, yes, but forwarding request for installation of proven design would further insulate us from possible shenanigans.