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Not sure what they would put it in unless some of the experimental heavy tanks T-28 and T-29 series? The T-29 got the Ford V-12.
Why didn't German army vehicles use aeroplane-derived engines?
. It would seem the British, Italians and Japanese all had the expedient of adapting a bus or truck engine for their tanks. The British moved on to the Merlin derived Meteor since they started to build tanks that were exceptionally heavy (like Churchill) or meant to be exceptionally fast. British tanks have a tradition of emphasising exceptional ground and object crossing capability, good track protection, good armour. I think this can be seen in Matilda, Churchill, Chieftain and Challenger so they tended to focus a little less on power. To an extent they sacrifice top speed but they often had very good acceleration within their speed range. Furthermore does top speed matter when your tank can't cross certain kinds of difficult terrain or its tracks are damaged?I find it interesting that the Italians used diesels in their tanks instead of designing something off of their aircraft engines. With a limited industrial base, Italy seems a good candidate for consolidation of designs across services.
Best engine in a "British" tank was probably the GM diesel in the Canadian-made Valentine.. It would seem the British, Italians and Japanese all had the expedient of adapting a bus or truck engine for their tanks. The British moved on to the Merlin derived Meteor since they started to build tanks that were exceptionally heavy (like Churchill) or meant to be exceptionally fast. British tanks have a tradition of emphasising exceptional ground and object crossing capability, good track protection, good armour. I think this can be seen in Matilda, Churchill, Chieftain and Challenger so they tended to focus a little less on power. To an extent they sacrifice top speed but they often had very good acceleration within their speed range. Furthermore does top speed matter when your tank can't cross certain kinds of difficult terrain or its tracks are damaged?
Well they did TRY to....Panzer VIII Maus.
However broadly I cant imagine a worse tank engine than an aero engine.
1) Aero engines are hideously expensive because they have to be very high output AND very low weight and very small size. At least 1 and probably 2 of those
dont matter for a tank.
SNIP.
Getting back to the original question
The Germans didn't really need anything that large until they got to the Tiger tank.
Maybach, for whatever reason, (political?) had the lock on engines for tracked vehicles made in Germany. Unfortunately for the Germans the weights of the tanks tended to rise without
It may have been heavy and unsophisticated but it worked. It freed up Continental to make engines for aircraft.
SNIP
You also need to match the engine to the transmission, Sticking an 800hp engine on a transmission designed for 500hp means a lot of broken parts. Getting a tank up to speed means a lot of full throttle time between each shift.
Guiberson R-1020and Packard R-980 were both aircraft engineswas a US aircraft diesel adapted to use in tanks, and used in quantity.
There are probably vast numbers of reasons why Germany didn't use aero-derivative engines in their tanks, starting with lavish pre-war spending on tank development and continuing with a supply system that didn't try to consolidate multiple streams of government procurement until fairly late in the war.
SNIP
When the tanks weighed 7-14 tons the use of bus/truck engines was a useful expedient.It would seem the British, Italians and Japanese all had the expedient of adapting a bus or truck engine for their tanks
Furthermore does top speed matter when your tank can't cross certain kinds of difficult terrain or its tracks are damaged
While diesel engines can help tanks achieve much better range than gasoline engines some of the other advantages are not quite as clear cut. Diesel tanks will still burn, and in fact more tanks are destroyed by ammunition fires than by fuel fires.
Most armies used very few diesel powered trucks or other vehicles in the early part of the war meaning that having diesel tanks often complicated the fuel supply situation.
In the 1950s NATO pushed for a "multi fuel" situation in which not only tanks and SP guns ran on diesel but so did light armor and most trucks, at least the ones in the tactical catagory. But gasoline was supposed to able to be used if needed,
Ideally the driver was supposed to be able to adjust the engine for best performance by turning a dial or knob on his control panel to suit the the type of fuel. This lead to a bunch of very expensive prototype engines and some limited production ones but eventually the whole thing was forgotten nad most vehicles just used Diesel fuel.
The Germans in the advance across France are reputed to have refueled at French petrol stations on occasion. In NA the capture of enemy fuel and supply depots often meant the continuation of an advance or not. Or at least eased the supply situation for a few days. Using Diesels when your opponents use gasoline tends to diminish the value of captured supply dumps.
Having Maybach and Praga focus primarily on AFVs helped to keep the much-needed aircraft engines going to aircraft.
By the way, Daimler's MB500 series marine diesels were based on the DB600 engine.
I believe the British with the Chieftains Horizontally Opposed Leyland L60 engine was the only one of the NATO MBT that complied with the multifuel requirement until decades latter when the AGT1500 gas turbine was introduced on the M1 Abrams. The early L60 reliability problems are by some blamed on this requirement. Its hard to see how it caused leaking cylinder liners though it probably caused the initial P/W ratio issue of the 585hp L60. The engine latter achieved a respectable 860hp.
Well they did TRY to....Panzer VIII Maus.
However broadly I cant imagine a worse tank engine than an aero engine.
1) Aero engines are hideously expensive because they have to be very high output AND very low weight and very small size. At least 1 and probably 2 of those
dont matter for a tank.
SNIP.
Getting back to the original question
The Germans didn't really need anything that large until they got to the Tiger tank.
.
Using gasoline as the fuel for tanks was a deliberate choice of the western allies. To quote noted tank authority Richard Ogorkiewicz from one of his many books and articles, in particular:
Tanks: 100 Years of Evolution
"By comparison, other armies dissipated their resources by successively developing different types of engines. One reason for the was changes in policy concerning the availability of fuels. In particular, the US National Petroleum Board decode during the Second World War that military vehicles should use spark ignition petrol engines because petrol was considered to be more readily available than diesel fuel. Similar views were held after the war within NATO. As result, engines developed for tanks towards the end of the war and in its aftermath were all petrol engines, and production of petrol-engined tanks such as the US M48 and the British Centurion, did not cease until 1959."
The comparison referred to is with the Soviets Unions standardization on a single diesel engine to power all its medium and heavy armored vehicles. Interestingly, the Japanese were the first to go all diesel for their tanks beginning in 1932.
Ogorkiewicz also states:
"All this was overshadowed by the development of a diesel engine for tanks in the Soviet Union. It began in 1931 and was originally intended to power aircraft as well as tanks, as the M17 petrol engine had done. The idea of using it in aircraft was gradually abandoned, but it retained to its advantage the characteristics of an aero engine and in particular its light weight."
Aero engines and tank engines have a very strong connection.
Agreed, It's easy to forget that the decisions over engine type are sometimes driven at a higher level over logistics issues rather than technical.
The US had the best petroleum refining technology in the world and was well capable of supplying this. There are probably many reasons for this including pull factors such as the mass production of automobiles for increasingly well of American consumers, the type of crude oil that came out of US Oil wells. One of the most interesting ones is post WW1 prohibition that came out of giving women the vote (prominet suffragets were tea totters) and anti German sentiment (Most prominent US brewers were of German heritage). The whisky distillers (Not Moon shiners) found employment in the oil industry and their skills and knowledge increased output of gasoline fractions by 20%. (Petroleum refining in non technical language)
The Japanese learned how to make synthetic diesel from coal by the Fischer Tropsch route from the Germans but their Synthetic gasoline plants by the Bergius Hydrogenation route were a failure due to them bypassing the pilot plant stage, they relied on coal pyrolysis which at most gives 5% liquids and school children collecting pine tree cones (pineol has a RON of over 100), so the Japanese Army had diesel.
i immagine the nature of the crude comming out of Soviet controlled wells were particularly suitable for diesel. Soviet oil refining and fuels technology was nowhere as good as British or American.
Note: British oil refining was also excellent due to them fostering well finance and organised global oil corporations capable of securing oil for the Admiralty and so they made many technical advances such as acid alkylation).
Interesting side-bar remark: In the immediate post-war period the British re-initiated manufacture of the German Tiger tank in limited numbers for evaluation trials in Germany.Are you referring to post war? After the war, all German armament industry was demolished. There was no ability to produce these engines. The post war Heer was not established until 1955. 10 years after the war. It would have been too expensive to restart and retool up the assembly lines. Plus the equipment and plans probably no longer existed, at least not in Germany.
Interesting side-bar remark: In the immediate post-war period the British re-initiated manufacture of the German Tiger tank in limited numbers for evaluation trials in Germany.