Best tank engines of WWII (1 Viewer)

[GrauGeist]

...all that and still, no link.

Did you see post #474?

 

[Elvis]

Did you see post #474?

No I didn't, but it doesn't matter. You're still wrong.

 

[marathag]

But to produce a non-aviation variant means detracting from the aircraft engine production line.

Let's look at the V-1710's physical specs:
Weight (dry): 1,395 lbs
Length: 7.1 feet
Width: 2.4 feet
Height: 3.1 feet

So now let's compare the Allison's dimensions to the Continental radial:
Weight (dry): 675 lbs
Length: 3.5 feet
Width: 3.75 feet

So it becomes aparent that to consider the Allison as a tank engine, serious modification to the tank (and not just the M4, but nearly a dozen other types) would have to be made before production.

The Chrysler, Ford and Cadillac V engines were close to the 970 radial's dimensions, btw.

Some more info I collected over the years

M4A1
Continental R975 973 cubic inches governed max rpm 2400 400 hp@2,400 rpm
5 speed 1st 7.56 2nd 3.11 3rd 1.78 4th 1.11 5th 0.73 Rev 5.56
Net Torque 940 ft lbs@1700rpm 24 mph
L53"x4W45"xH45"

M4A2
GM twin Diesel 850 cubic inches max rpm 2900 375hp@2,100 rpm
5 speed 1st 7.56 2nd 3.11 3rd 1.78 4th 1.11 5th 0.73 Rev 5.56
Net Torque 1000 ft lbs@1400rpm 25 mph
L65"xW59"xH46"

All this iron weighed 5110 pounds

M6
Wright G200 1832 cubic inches max rpm 2300
Torque Converter plus 1st 1.61 2nd 0.22 reverse 1.61
Max torque 1850 ft lbs@2300rpm 22 mph
L52"xW55"xH55" +L51" for inline Generator

M26
Ford GAF 1100 cubic inches max rpm 2600
Torque Converter 1:1 to 4.8:1 1st 12.7 2nd 2.34 3rd 4.1 reverse 1.32
Transfer case 1.38


T29E3
Ford GAC 1649 cubic inches max rpm 2800
Torque Converter 1:1 to 4.75:1 plus 1st 1.1 2nd 6.2 3rd 4.1 reverse 20.6
Max torque 1560@1600 22mph

T-34
V-2 500 HP@1800 for 2368 cu. inches 1600 lbs/ft torque 1984-2380 pounds weight
Five speed 1st: 5.57 2nd : 2.6 3rd : 1.855 4th : 1.215 5th : 0.756 Reverse gear: 4.95
Width: ~80cm Height: ~104cm Length: ~149cm

Tiger I
Maybach HL230 1457 cubic inches max 3000 rpm(2600 rec) 700HP Torque 1,364 ft. lbs@2100 24 mph
8 speeds, 4 reverse 1st 15.4 2nd 10.2 3rd 7.15 4th 4.86 5th 3.16 6th 2.11 7th 1.61 8th .98

Weight 3080 lbs Width: 100cm Height: 119cm Length: 131cm

Maybach HL210 1302 cubic inches max 3000 rpm Aluminum, almost 800 pounds lighter than HL230 2310 lbs 650bhp at 3000rpm, but for reliability ran at 2600.

Missed US opportunity for land use

They were bored out in 1940? to 2181 cubic inches 5 3/4" Bore x 7" Stroke, Net Weight for the Models 2268, 2269 is 3600 Pounds. Models 3368, 3369 is 4125 Pounds, Models 2286, 2287 is 4600 Pounds

Model 2269, Industrial gas engine, 2181 ci. 5 3/4" x 7" @ 2100 RPM brings 575 BHP,
1500 torque lb. ft. 3600 pound weight, not having the water cooled exhaust manifolds

Some models were supercharged.

Marine and industrial engines were rated differently from the tank or aero engines, the Power output was was for continuous output, for hours at rated top rpm.

 

[tomo pauk]

Actually, it was produced, Tomo.
Going by memory, 50 GAC V-12s were produced.

Key word is 'aircraft', in the 'GG aircraft V12' passage. That should mean, at least, that supercharger is present, and so are the pressurized cooling and ignition, etc.

 

[Shortround6]

The Ford GG aircraft V12 showed great potential, producing over 1800 Hp on its initial dyno test!

This is highly suspicious.
There were a number of engines that didn't make into production that were supposed to have shown very high power in very earling testing if not in initial test/s.
Then failed to make rated power installed in aircraft.

And let's look at it. You have a very expensive prototype engine (one of a kind or 2nd engine is weeks away from completion) and the test engineers are going to wind the snot out of it or boost the crap out of it (or both) in the initial dyno test?
RR made 1800hp in the engine they were prepping for the "Speed Spitfire" but it sure wasn't the first Merlin engine. They had already built hundreds of them, If they blew up the engine on the test stand they could have another engine on the stand in 1-2 days. They were also not running on gasoline but some sort of special racing brew.

Is the 1800hp from the actual test stand report or from the advertising dept?
How many hours did P&W have on their test R-2800 engines before they hit 1850hp?
They blew up a lot them, partial or full rebuilds.

 

[ThomasP]

re the Ford V12-cylinder engine(s)

re the Ford V12 aero engine being a Merlin in disguise

Ford USA was given, in 1940, access to pretty much all aspects of the Merlin as it existed then - including the Merlin XX's improved supercharger and Hooker's mathematics and design concepts, along with a nearly complete set of blueprints. While Ford used some of this information in its designs for their later V12 aero engine, their aero engine had no mechanical parts in common with the Merlin, unless you count the Ø5.4 x 6" piston stroke for both engines, and the resulting 1650 in3 displacement.

Ford's V12 aero engine never proceeded beyond the V2-cylinder test engine and a mockup of the full sized V12 design. The reported power outputs were all based on theory and tests using the V2-cylinder test engine. The 1800 BHP figure was based on the power output achieved with the V2 running at 3600 rpm and AFAIK was agian only theoretical, since the V2 test engine used external cooling and supercharging. Also, the 1800 BHP would only have been available for TO, with 1500 BHP at 3000 rpm available at the rated altitude. In theory, the rating at altitude could have been increased via ADI or some such, but since the project never progressed to full scale testing such ratings are pie-in-the sky stuff.

The actual engine - if it had been built - was intended to use a direct to exhaust driven turbocharger as the single-stage single-speed compressor. The air then passing through an inter-cooler (Ford's term, though today it would be called an after-cooler). The exhaust driven turbocharger, on the mock-up, was mounted directly at the rear of the engine. While it was a neat design, it incorporated several of the serious design problems that manifested in every other engine that attempted to run at such high rpms and using exhaust driven turbochargers mounted near the engine. The image below is from a Ford document of the time (mid-1941).

Material Command looked at the engine and decided that it was far too risky in its design goals - since it contained several of the problems encountered in other turbocharger systems, with none having been shown to work in an actually full size engine - and decided not to fund the project, focusing instead on the potential improvements to the V-1710 and the already impressive Merlin.

To reiterate, there were no complete Ford V12 aero engines completed and run, not even in test stage, so as tomo pauk and Shortround6 imply upthread any theoretical ratings are questionable at best.


re Ford's V12 tank engine

The Ford V12 aero engine and their GAC V12 were nearly totally different engines - possibly the piston rings and other bits and pieces were the same, but even the piston bodies and cylinder liners were different. It also had almost nothing in common with the Meteor or Merlin, aside from the Ø5.4" x 6" piston stroke and the resulting 1650 in3 displacement. Again, Ford probably used some of the design concepts incorporated in the Merlin - Ford USA had no experience manufacturing engines like this at the time, and was operating on information given to them by RR and their Ford UK plant.

There were a small number of Ford's V12 tank engines made, as GrauGeist mentioned upthread, but were found to be "unreliable in the application". To be fair, the engine had not had time to be thoroughly developed, and was not able to produce the 770 BHP that Ford had promised. This was in common with Ford's GAA engine, which was supposed to be able to produce 550 BHP but in WWII service had to be derated to 450 BHP for reliability reasons. Very late-war(?) the GAA(GAF) was given a provisional higher rating for use in the Pershing, but crews found the higher BHP output caused significant problems with breakdowns and it was recommended that the higher power only be used in emergencies.

I am not sure what the resulting maximum BHP for the V12 GAC was as the numbers I have only give the max engine speed to be used as 2200 rpm, with a recommendation of 2000 rpm under normal circumstances.

 

[tomo pauk]

This is highly suspicious

Note that those are not my words, but a quote from another site. IOW, I find the hype around that Ford engine misplaced.

 

[Shortround6]

In some 1953 vehicle sheets the Ford GAA engine was rated at 450hp at 2600rpm in the M4 tanks and anything that used an M4 chassis (Some M7 105 howitzers, M-36 TDs, etc.)
M-26 tanks and M-45 tanks (M-26 with 105 howitzer)

have Ford GAA's rated at 500hp at 2600rpm and both engines are rated at 950ft/lbs torque at 2100rpm.
max governed speed was supposed to be 2600rpm in most applications but two vehicles list 2800rpm (misprint?)
By 1953 they had the M-46 and M-47 and several SP guns with the Continental A V-1790 engines rated at 810hp at 2,800rpm and 1560ft/lbs of torque at 2400rpm.

However some of these power figures are for gross hp and do not subtract the power needed to run the cooling fans.
When Continental switched the engines to diesel the engines were rated at 750hp but they actually wound up with a bit more power going to the tracks because they changed the cooling fan drives to take less power. The Air cooled diesels didn't require as much cooling air.

These are "official" HP numbers (as advertised) and may not reflect how the troops actually used them

 

[ThomasP]

FWIW

Ford issued GAA engine proposed power & torque curve as of late-1945.

 

[Elan Vital]

For info, an April 1945 British Army Staff doc mentioned that the M26 only had around 250hp at the sprocket, while the M4A3 with the same engine had 352 hp. In fact, the sprocket hp/weight ratio was 5.9 on the M26, 6.2 on a late M4A1 with R975-C4 radial and 9.9 on the M4A3.

The Ford GAF in the Pershing also had the cooling fan drive shafts running at 5000 rpm instead of the 4000rpm they had been designed for (for the GAY/Centaur installation). This was a contributor to degraded reliability.

Among the modifications being contemplated for M26, one involved using the final drive ratio from the T26E5 which would sacrifice 3mph of top speed (barely useable anyway) but would allow the torque converter to work more efficiently and to make up for mediocre sprocket hp.

 

[Engineman]

Having looked at everything linked here on this thread (and earlier ones) and everything I can find elsewhere about the USA Ford involvement with the RR Merlin in 1940, the whole situation seems somewhat convoluted. Overall, I can imagine that there were visions of commercial opportunity by Ford USA and desperate hopes of additional Aero-engine production by RR/ UK Gov. Also, the UK was rapidly going Broke, and I suggest that the Merlin production partnership was one of those things that the UK might barter with at that time.
The weight of evidence seems to be that Ford USA never built a full copy of the 1940 Merlin, but took and copied all the details and Tech that they could.
It would seem that there is strong evidence of the FORD Merlin V2 test engine rigs being built but, of course, such test engines were common in engine development. If I was a betting man, I would suggest that Ford USA did build a Merlin copy version of the V2 test rig as soon as they had the drawings, and I suspect that it was identical with SOHC and Blade/Fork Connecting rods etc, to see how it compared with the Ford USA ideas. However, circumstances rapidly took-over, and it made no sense for Ford USA to actually produce the RR Merlin when they were really eyeing the large AFV market, which they did very well.
I would expect that Ford USA could have produced Merlin copies if they had wanted to. I guess if Ford USA had really set-to as soon as they had the drawings, they could have had production of a copy Merlin faster than Packard did, due to the delay with Ford. But, is that the truth? Were Packard actually better placed than Ford USA to get the license-built Merlin into production?

Eng

 

[Admiral Beez]

Thoughts on building a German heavy tank around the MAN M6V 40/46 6-cylinder, 4-stroke diesel engine used on Germany's Type VII and other U-Boats?

There's also the MAN M6V 30/38, a "scaled-down" cousin of the 40/46.

 

[z42]

Thoughts on building a German heavy tank around the MAN M6V 40/46 6-cylinder, 4-stroke diesel engine used on Germany's Type VII and other U-Boats?

View attachment 882516

There's also the MAN M6V 30/38, a "scaled-down" cousin of the 40/46.

Maybe for the Landkreuzer? Landkreuzer P. 1000 Ratte - Wikipedia

But seriously, whatever you're smoking I want some too. The MAN M6V 40/46 was an absolutely massive engine compared to anything on a land vehicle or aircraft. About 58L swept volume PER cylinder, for starters.

 

[Admiral Beez]

But seriously, whatever you're smoking I want some too.

Well said. lol. I'm thinking of a scaled down version of German diesel engines used across the armed forces.

 

[WARSPITER]

Possibly the MB507 and later supercharged types.

 

[Admiral Beez]

We have 25 pages to dig through, so perhaps it's already covered, but what of the Junkers aero diesels?

 

[Shortround6]

We have 25 pages to dig through, so perhaps it's already covered, but what of the Junkers aero diesels?

They sort of; kind of, did that in the late 50s with the engine used in the Chieftain. Did not turn out well.

Germans might have been able to stuff a Jumo 205 into a Panther or Tiger but how well it would have worked is a real question.
They seemed to work OK in maritime patrol planes. They worked OK in Lufthansa airliners. They didn't work well in Ju 86 bombers before 1939. Supposedly they didn't like the changes in rpm/power settings that the bombers used.
Now put them in tanks driving around in the dirt and with a manual transmission using 5-6 gears and constantly changing rpm?
Compact yes, easy to manufacture?
And what would be the power of the Jumo 205 when down-rated for tank use?

 

[WARSPITER]

Germans might have been able to stuff a Jumo 205 into a Panther or Tiger but how well it would have worked is a real question.

Definitely would require an optimistic engineer with the HL230 being 1 metre long (39") and the 205 being 2.05 metres (80.7") long.

And what would be the power of the Jumo 205 when down-rated for tank use?

700 PS (690 hp; 515 kW) at 2,500 rpm (5 minutes) at sea level sir hardly any difference to the HL230 as it was already supercharged.

I posted the MB507 as I was thinking of the larger designs such as the Maus since it was fitted to the Maus and the Karl Gerat. The 507
wasn't going to fit in a Tiger or Panther either as it was over 900mm longer than the 205.

 

[Shortround6]

Definitely would require an optimistic engineer with the HL230 being 1 metre long (39") and the 205 being 2.05 metres (80.7") long.

Jumo 205 was also 52.2 in high. British made the bore bigger and shortened the stroke and maybe did a lot of other things to get the height down.

Americans derated the Wright Whirlwind engine from 450hp to 350hp in the M3 and M4 tanks. At least in early versions.

 

[z42]

They sort of; kind of, did that in the late 50s with the engine used in the Chieftain. Did not turn out well.

Germans might have been able to stuff a Jumo 205 into a Panther or Tiger but how well it would have worked is a real question.
They seemed to work OK in maritime patrol planes. They worked OK in Lufthansa airliners. They didn't work well in Ju 86 bombers before 1939. Supposedly they didn't like the changes in rpm/power settings that the bombers used.
Now put them in tanks driving around in the dirt and with a manual transmission using 5-6 gears and constantly changing rpm?
Compact yes, easy to manufacture?
And what would be the power of the Jumo 205 when down-rated for tank use?

Jumo 205 did pretty well for several decades after the war, in the evolved format of the Napier Deltic. Napier Deltic Opposed-Piston Diesel Engine