The "I love military hardware" thread.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

You mean they just fired wherever they wanted, or they took directions by other means?

It's a "live-fire loading drill". No life jackets, one guy standing in the elevation aimer's saddle, sleeves rolled up. Just practice, not even a "simulation". You have to learn to communicate while the guns are firing, note the phone-talker learning that in the picture. You can make yourself heard if the others are used to the noise and have experience filtering it out.

[FBM]

Metal Storm

In-fucking-credible2

Well once you have electronic fire control in weapons you are one step away from personalised firearms which when removed from the vicinity of their owner can't ever be fired. One embeds the electronics in the gun and pair it with an RFID tag. The owner carries the RFID tag, which can have an effective range of only 1metre. Once the gun can no longer sense the tag it won't fire. Thus once the gun is stolen it becomes useless.

Excellent. No more worries about the enemy scavenging your weapon and using it against you (unless point-blank ) or your kid carting off to school and laying waste to a dozen of his closest friends, eh?

[AshtonBlack]

Metal Storm

In-fucking-credible2

Well once you have electronic fire control in weapons you are one step away from personalised firearms which when removed from the vicinity of their owner can't ever be fired. One embeds the electronics in the gun and pair it with an RFID tag. The owner carries the RFID tag, which can have an effective range of only 1metre. Once the gun can no longer sense the tag it won't fire. Thus once the gun is stolen it becomes useless.

Excellent. No more worries about the enemy scavenging your weapon and using it against you (unless point-blank ) or your kid carting off to school and laying waste to a dozen of his closest friends, eh?

Until they can come up with secure RFID, I doubt this would work. (By the way, you can crack current RFID for about $40 and a PC.)

I try not to use ANYTHING with RFID if I can help it. Most aren't even encrypted, yet.

[FBM]

Until they can come up with secure RFID, I doubt this would work. (By the way, you can crack current RFID for about $40 and a PC.)

I try not to use ANYTHING with RFID if I can help it. Most aren't even encrypted, yet.

Well, so much for that note of optimism. I'd still give my left 'nad for an hour of play time with the Metal Storm, tho. Figuratively speaking.

[AshtonBlack]

Until they can come up with secure RFID, I doubt this would work. (By the way, you can crack current RFID for about $40 and a PC.)

I try not to use ANYTHING with RFID if I can help it. Most aren't even encrypted, yet.

Well, so much for that note of optimism. I'd still give my left 'nad for an hour of play time with the Metal Storm, tho. Figuratively speaking.

Oh yes. It does look like good fun!

[klr]

Back to the hardware - the Nebelwerfer, 6-barrel 150 mm version:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... arrels.jpg[/imgc]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebelwerfer

[CJ]

Driving a Tiger Tank

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Driving a Tiger Tank

Fun watching the cement dust come off the tracks in the beginning!

I wish I had that baby and Bovington had a feather up their collective arses. We'd both be tickled.

[leo-rcc]

The Elephant. Built on a Tiger Chassis.

[klr]

The Elephant. Built on a Tiger Chassis.

Not quite. Built on the chassis of the Porsche design that lost out to the "real" Tiger, which was produced by Henschel. Porsche had manufactured about 100 chassis for it's design before the Henschel tank was chosen for production, and 91 of those were used for the Ferdinand tank destroyer. After a poor combat debut (particularly at Kursk), the survivors were modified to the improved Elefant standard.

The Japanese Type 90 MBT - like all things Japanese, rather expensive:

http://ishingen.files.wordpress.com/200 ... 0tk08m.jpg[/imgc]

The Korean K2 Black Panther:

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/upload/news ... onomic.jpg[/imgc]

Still in development, but already on order by Turkey.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K2_Black_Panther

It uses a long-barreled (L55) version of the Rheinmetall 120 mm gun, which succeeded the Royal Ordnance L7 as the most widely used gun in Western tanks. The Japanese Type 90 uses the shorter L44 version.

[CJ]

Merkava Mk IV

The Israeli army's main battle tank has a unique design. The engine is mounted in the front thus adding to the armour protection in front of the crew, this also allows an exit to be built into the rear of the tank, research showed that a significant number of tank crew fatalities occurred when they tried to exit there damaged and immobilised vehicles.

[klr]

It uses the same gun as the above tanks, albeit substantially modified.

Now for a really odd design - the Swedish Stridsvagn 103 (S-Tank):

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... 103c_a.jpg[/imgc]

http://anzacsteel.hobbyvista.com/Armour ... s/Sw09.jpg[/imgc]

[CJ]

The S tank was also powered by a gas turbine combined with a diesel engine, which I believe is unique.

[CJ]

Warrior AFV UK

"The Warrior family of tracked armoured vehicles, developed by Alvis Vickers Ltd (now BAE Systems Land Systems), has been proved in action with the British Army in operations in the Middle East during Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom and on United Nations duties in Bosnia. Warrior vehicles were also deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in September 2007."

[klr]

The S tank was also powered by a gas turbine combined with a diesel engine, which I believe is unique.

Yes, the turbine was used for high speed. Turbine fuel consumption is horrifically bad though, as with the M-1 Abrams:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... rams_1.jpg[/imgc]

... which is why very few tanks have used it.

EDIT:

Earlier than the Warrior was the German Marder (not to be confused with the series of WW II tank hunters):

http://www.panzerbaer.de/types/pix/bw_s ... 0-007i.jpg[/imgc]