Alternative German tanks & AFVs

bf109xxl said:

The Reich vitally needs the resources of the USSR - it cannot wait five years or even two years. And the USSR will rearm and reorganize the army by the summer of 1942, after which the probability of its entry on the side of Britain will exponentially increase every month. It will enter the war with a fully mobilized army on its own conditions, while the qualitative superiority of the Germans will not have such a catastrophic effect. Yes, the Soviets would suffer heavy losses, but in the end it would cost them far fewer sacrifices.

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You cannot assume Stalin would ally Soviet Russia with the west before Germanan aggression forced him to an alliance with Britain and America.

He admired Hitler and abhored the Capatilist west.

Shortround6 said:

I would also note that diesel engines in 1930s and 40s were not easy to start in cold weather, or sometimes to even keep running. The Diesel Soviet tanks used compressed air for starting. I have used small diesel auxiliary engines in Firetrucks that used an electric heating element in the intake to warm the air in the manifold/intake system before you engaged the starter motor. Once the engine fired you let go of the heater switch (and this was sometimes in the heated truck bay.) Basically Petrol will give off flammable vapors over 40 degrees below zero (both scales), not many but some. You have to be closer to 100 degrees F (37 degrees C) above freezing for diesel fuel to give off flammable vapors. There are ways to warm the fuel (or air) and some diesels used either sprayed into the intake to start in cold weather (this may have been post war?). This one reason that truckers will just let the engine run while parked. My department's fire trucks were kept in heated bays (at least high 60s F) in New England.
You can solve a lot of problems, but if you need a lot of trucks in a hurry and you can get petrol engined ones that don't require as much work to operate in cold weather you may want to think about that aspect.

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Having grown up in an area that does reach 40 below I can safely say that ANY engine is difficult to start in subzero weather. We used to carry two sets of keys. When spending an evening of 'fine dining' we would go out and start the car every hour and let it run for 10 minutes. At home we would plug in the engine block heater. I don't know how prevalent anti freeze was in but I would assume coolant freezing up would have been a major issue. The other essential was an electric battery blanket. Batteries perform extremely poorly in cold weather. I would wager that the vehicle whether petrol or diesel were started regularly if not left running continuously.

Reluctant Poster said:

I don't know how prevalent anti freeze was in but I would assume coolant freezing up would have been a major issue.

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As soon as Winter hit, yes. So in the 1890s as soon as water cooling was done.

Wood Alcohol was an early additive for ICE engine Radiators, but would evaporate, and needed to by topped off continuously for cold weather protection. most of the Radiators were vented, unpressurized at this point and no automatic thermostats with block bypasses.

Sometimes Glycerine was added, to reduce the corrosion issues that came along the alcohol/water mix.

Ethylene Glycol was getting popular in the early 1930s, that didn't evaporate, but didn't cool as well as pure water and still had some corrosion issues.

marathag said:

As soon as Winter hit, yes. So in the 1890s as soon as water cooling was done.

Wood Alcohol was an early additive for ICE engine Radiators, but would evaporate, and needed to by topped off continuously for cold weather protection. most of the Radiators were vented, unpressurized at this point and no automatic thermostats with block bypasses.

Sometimes Glycerine was added, to reduce the corrosion issues that came along the alcohol/water mix.

Ethylene Glycol was getting popular in the early 1930s, that didn't evaporate, but didn't cool as well as pure water and still had some corrosion issues.

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Freezing was a major issue - water cooled aircraft would need to have the engine/radiator drained as soon as they were shutdown for the day in early days.

Ethylene glycol is harder to seal into engine - so your HL230 that was designed for water leaked with a water/ethylene glycol mix. It didn't help that Maybach had the same issues as DB - lack of quality control on the gasket - one set being hard as rock, the next still gooey.

Ethylene Glycol was the hot thing in aircraft engine coolant in the early 30s.
It may have migrated to aircraft use from Automobiles (first used in Autos in 1926?).
Aircraft got side-tracked with 100% Ethylene Glycol to use the higher boiling point.
Various mixture ratios had somewhat different properties.
The higher the amount of Ethylene Glycol the lower the freezing point and the higher the boiling point but the higher the chances of it leaking and the less actual heat transfer you get.
The popular 50/50 mix is suppose to 'freeze' at -35 degrees F (-37degrees C ). At this point the mixture is sort of slushy. The point of expansion that will burst radiators or engine parts is several degrees lower.
According to one antique car website the alcohol antifreeze worked pretty well up to about 160 degrees F. Hotter than that saw the alcohol boiling off at a much higher rate. For autos/trucks it was often possible to get thermostats with different temperatures so you could use at 160 deg F thermostat with alcohol in winter and change to a 180 deg F thermostat in summer with plain water.
Ethylene Glycol dates from the 1850s and was used for industrial purposes (like the manufacture of explosives) for sometime before it was used as antifreeze.

Another winter problem was there was no multi-grade oil. Straight 30 or 40 grade oil almost glued the engine parts together in cold weather and just turning the engine over could be a real problem. Lighter oil made cranking easier but might not give good enough lubrication once the engine warmed up.