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- #21
Radial engines favored for powering the tanks & AFVs, 1935-45 (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter tomo pauk
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A version of the Australian Sentinel tank, the AC III Scorpion, was to have a radial engine. The Scorpion was a standard AC I, but modified to mount the desired Pratt and Whitney Wasp radial engine. For tank use the Wasp was to be down rated to 400 horsepower and re-designated 'Scorpion' with tanks using the engine carrying the same name. However, experimental testing with the Scorpion engine revealed undesirable traits, such as poor torque output at low RPM and a high RPM ceiling required to reach maximum power output.
SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
BMW made blinkers?Some interesting tidbits wrt. the BMW-engined Panther: link
I'm not sure whether BMW was also supplying the blinkers...
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- #24
I was surprised as you are.
Shortround6
Major General
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- #26
Looking a bit on the Char B, it looks like about 55% of the hull length was devoted to the engine+trasmision section (cutaway1, cut2). Lenght of the inline six engine certainly was not a good feature to have there, since any lengthening of a tank means that weight goes up badly. A radial engine - being much shorter - would've netted the benefits there.
Elan Vital
Airman
- 31
- Aug 24, 2024
Or a Vee engine with only 3 or 4 cylinder lengths or smaller bore. However, it is mainly with the transmission that they saved length, first 222mm on B1 Ter (unchanged engine compartment length to use the space for other purposes), then another 200mm on B40 (to enlarge the fighting compartment).
Shortround6
Major General
But if you use a radial engine that fits across the tank you can't have a nice passage way down the side of the engine giving you access to the engine, the floor emergency exit, the rear upper hatch and access to a fair amount of the 75mm ammo. Your loader is going to get fat without getting in his hundreds (thousands?) of exercise steps lugging the ammo from the bins in the engine compartment up to the gun.
The drawings do answer the question the Chieftain had in his video about where the ammo was supposed to stored. Apparently much of it was not in the 'fighting' compartment
Again tanks are a conflicting bunch of compromises. French (and British) were obsessed with trench crossing some tanks and then totally forget about it with other tanks. Char B was supposed to cross WW I style trenches. You need a long hull, track run.
Meanwhile the accompanying light tanks, The Renault R35 tanks were lucky they could cross a medium sized pot hole. It typical French fashion they tried to solve this on the cheap.
Didn't do a lot for entering a trench.
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- #29
But if you use a radial engine that fits across the tank you can't have a nice passage way down the side of the engine giving you access to the engine, the floor emergency exit, the rear upper hatch and access to a fair amount of the 75mm ammo. Your loader is going to get fat without getting in his hundreds (thousands?) of exercise steps lugging the ammo from the bins in the engine compartment up to the gun.
The drawings do answer the question the Chieftain had in his video about where the ammo was supposed to stored. Apparently much of it was not in the 'fighting' compartment
Keeping the tank length constant gives you a longer fighting compartment in case the (much) shorter engine is used. The floor emergency exit can still easily be done.
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
While not a radial engine, the Lycoming O-435 aircraft engine was used in the U.S. M22 Locust ligjt tank.
