Title: Portugal just entered WW3 and made a HUGE mistake, Putin knows it | Redacted Source:
[None] URL Source:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41u6rgwjj5s Published:Feb 1, 2023 Author:Redacted Post Date:2023-02-01 09:25:45 by Horse Keywords:None Views:360 Comments:9
Poster Comment:
Scott Ritter interviewed. Abrams tanks require 3 hours of maintenance for every hour of combat. So if these tanks got to Poland, they would need to go across Ukraine to the Donbass, survive 10 hours of combat, then be sent to Poland for repair and then returned to the Donbass.
The Abrams tank has a modified jet turbine engine. Few people know how to repair it. It is a turbine and sucks in a lot of air which is fine for a jet 15,000 feet in the air. But it requires a lot of maintenance because it is sucking in air at ground level.
It takes 22 weeks to train a tank crew member. They will require NATO personnel to run them and fix them.
Abrams tanks require 3 hours of maintenance for every hour of combat.
That's very surprising to me, but maybe it shouldn't be. Our defense industry loves making super sophisticated war machines as they are more expensive and profitable, but I think they forget, or more likely, do not care that actual combat conditions makes such maintenance difficult or unaccessible. There is something to be said for keeping military vehicles of whatever sort all of: low cost -- so far more units can be purchased -- low maintenance and less sophisticated so it can continue to operate in harsh combat conditions.
This F-35, the B-2 and new Spirit bomber are so incredibly expensive and sophisticated that there will only ever be a few dozen made and in a full scale war, will not be able to be operated much of the time. Our military has become so accustomed to fighting wars where we have safe spaces to keep the planes and do this kind of maintenance, but in a full scale war with Russia, those places won't exist.
Ditto for HIMARS and the M777. Also the F-22 Raptor. They all require lots of maintenance. Unfortunately, it is a 900 mile round trip from the Donbass to Poland and back.
The Abrams tank sucks in a lot of air and hence particulates.
I'm not sure I understand why turbine engines would be so sensitive to dust. Commercial airline jet engines are designed to continue operating even if a bird goes through it. Turbine engines do not have the whole piston and crankshaft assembly that makes ordinary piston engines so extremely sensitive to dust. The air they ingest is largely untouched by the engine.
I'm far from knowledgable on the details of turbine engines though.
I'm not sure I understand why turbine engines would be so sensitive to dust.
I was looking at the turbo impeller on a buddy's Cat 3406E semi engine. Even with filters installed they spin so fast that even sub micron dust that gets past the filters erodes away the impeller blades.
I'd suspect turbine blades have the same problem, but I'm not sure they can be filtered very effectively given the volume of air and being used in dirty ground conditions.
Snowblowers don't bother with air filters because there's no dust around, likewise, aircraft aren't subject to dirty conditions while aloft.
In 1979 I went to school with a young guy from Saudi Arabia. One of our professors asked him in class if sand was a problem for automobiles over there? Did they have to use special filters, or change the filters really often, etc.?
The guy got really offended, upset, and animated for a minute, because he thought the prof was mocking him! The "Iran hostage crisis" was going on, and there was a lot of anti-Middle Eastern sentiment and epithets (e.g., "sand nigger!") about campus. And, as I recall, back then few Americans appreciated any difference between Persians and Arabs.
We were pretty good friends, that crazy Arab and I.
I was pretty surprised when I saw the erosion on that turbo impeller. His longhorn Pete has two giant canister filters on each side about a foot in diameter and a couple feet long.
I guess it's just a slo-motion sandblast with a super fine media.
That reminds me of the time I was considering getting my girls a little rock tumbler. A friend of mine had gotten his kids one years before. I asked him how do they work? He explained that you start off with a rough grit and then after several weeks go a smaller size grit for several weeks and then smaller still, and so on until fine fine grit to finish the cycle.
"How many complete polishing cycles do you think my girls would get through before they lose interest?"